Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-02-18
THE LooKERS.INTo.YoUR-SoUL
A WORD ABOUT JOBS AND SUCH
Some College Professors Who Want to
Revive the Vanishing Fad Of
"Personaljtv Plusv

| uERE is something new-and not inspir.
- ing-from the colleges. Professors OF
psychology from half a dozen faculties have
met and talked and done the inevitable
American thing. They have Incorporated
themselves. And they want to teach bust.
ness men how to test the mental capacities
and plumb the souls Of job. hunters.
Why these professional quick thinkers
didn't think more quickly. why they have
arrived late in a field of endeavor left almost
barren by shrewd gentlemen and ladies who
| had no college degrees TO help them, Is
difficult to understand. The amateurs made
the most-and that was a great deal-by
systematic exploitation of the wholly doubt.
full economic principle OF Personality Plus
| while tho fad lasted
| a psychologist is person VIII" starcs at
| you kecnly and blurts unexpected questions
| and tests your nerve rcflcxcs and looks. or
thinks he looks, to the very bottom OF your
subconscous mind. To make hit with the
| Personality Plusser, one had TO breeze
swiftly into his Office. fash hundred can
| die power smile Of confidence. administer the
! iron handclasp. talk in short, smart sen.
| tences. wear arrow. collar clothes and, above
all, maintain an aggressive manner in what
| was blithely advertised as Conflict Of Wills.
Natural modesty was inevitably fatal In
such contacts with folk who caused good
many business men to believe that the shape
| Of a mans head or the color of his eyes or
| some peculiar detail of his ancestral history
revealed such capacities as he had for selling,
let us say, hardware.
Had Henry Ford or the wistful youth
that was Thomas Edison applied for job
to Personality Plusser he probably would
have been turned away. For Tom and
Henry and men Of their sort knew enough.
even when they were very young, to know
that they didn't know it all.
The young men with Personality Plus
were for time the darlings of the busi-
ness efficiency experts. But their sun Is
setting now. They have been selling too
much wildcat stock They have been
figuring too conspicuously in that peculiar
group which lives in the belief that the one
important thing In life is to get the money.
Business men are pretty liberal minded.
They will try almost anything once. But
they have come to realize that the quail
ties of mind which a particular man may
bring to a particular job are of secondary
Importance in a final analysis.
What a man does with his talents is the
thing that matters. And no efficiency test
is adequate to determine the degree Of a
mans honesty or the nature of his secret
purposes in life.
2 1.-The scientific control Of conduct." oh.
serves Prof. J. McKeen Cattell, formerly
Of Columbia University and now president
Of the incorporated psychologists, may be.
come Of greater economic Importance than
the use Of electricity or steel"
That sounds tall. Let 1t pass. What
we should like to know is what Is to be-
come Of the supposedly divine right of human
beings to control their own impulses. What
dark and dismal state Of life are these
professional quick thinkers thinking Of?
Is existence to be formalzed beyond all
toleration or endurance?
It isn't. The drift now is the other way,
even If they have not been aware Of 1t in
some Of the universities. 1t was the late
DR.. Hugo Muensterburg who, as a member
of the Harvard faculty, sought first to apply
psychological principles to commerce and
invented Lie Detector that never detected
any lie and left behind him a memory Of
pure Germanism gone slightly mad.
Psychology has never mixed we'll with
business. And the reasons for its failure
ought to be clear to any psychologist worth
his salt. He, better than any one else
ought to know that man Is never quite
himself when he Is hunting a job He Is
not on even ground with the bland and we'll
fed expert in psychology who pops sharp
questions at him about the relatively of stars
or the color of his grandmother's hair and,
perhaps, straps queer devices Oh him to
test his blood pressure.
Under such circumstances any man with
normal sef-respect is likely TO be at
loss-even II he hasn't hunger complex
to make him hesitate and stammer.
The way to know whether man is fit
for job is to give him an opportunity to
work with a calm mind. Henry Ford was
wiser than any of these college professors
when he said that every man is good for
something and that the way to know what he
is good for Is to let him work and watch
him as he goes along.
A really good man hasn't got It in his
heart to bluff. His own personality Is
enough for him. He wouldn't have It
| plussed, even IL he could. by any system OF
claptrap devised by people who have been
making money by the commercialization Of
a principle of science which no one Is able
yet fully to understand.
II you believe DR.. Nicholas Murray But.
Ter, much Is fundamentally wrong with the
whole educational system In the United
States. The members Of the Psychology
Corporation will be lucky IL some business
man or other doesn't ask them why they
didn't try their efficiency system on tho
universities.
| SAME OLD BUNK