Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-07-15
TESTING MENTALITY

IT WAS during the war that we
l first heard of mentality tests"
or a scientific analysis of the quail
tiles of the human mind applied in
practical way. The idea was not
new. 1t had been carried out in
the psychology courses of some
of our leading colleges. Perhaps
It had also been used in some bust
ness selections. The government
used some Of these scientific tests
of mental qualities in the selection
of candidates for the air service,
we believe. We never heard of
any great success following this
method Of selecting men for a par
ticular service. Some executives
have displayed almost uncanny
powers in picking out men with the
right type of mind for particular
service. Andrew Carnegie had that
talent highly organized. John Hop
kins we are told hardly ever made
a mistake in picking out men de-
serving of credit. He sold his in
dorsement of commercial paper for
a commission of five per cent, and
while he signed notes for many
persons who had NJ credit at the
bank, it is asserted that in prac-
tically every case the men whose
paper he Endorsed paid the debt.
But these men who demonstrated
by their c in judging the men,
tai and moral characteristics of 9TH
er men that they possessed extra
ordinary powers of insight into
the minds Of men used no scientific
methods. They depended either on
their judgment based on past ex-
perience or on intuition.
We would not say that modern
scientific methods Of measuring
the moral and mental characteris-
tics of men are altogether worth
less, but we would say that the
value of these methods have not
been fully demonstrated and that
many mistakes are made by those
mental experts who use these meth
DDS. The mental qualities of a man
are often dormant or hidden, and
only appear when some crisis in
his life calls for the use of them.
A rather interesting incident in IL
lustration Of the results" obtained
by these scientific tests of mental
traits occurred the other day in
Michigan, and the Topeka Capital
tells about 1t as follows:
"A Commission Of experts in
v~estigates the inmates of the Ionia
reformatory, Michigan. 1t applies
the army psychology test and pla-
cidly that the percentage
of average mentality is greater than
that of drafted men who served in
the American army during the
World war.
This probably strikes you as
ridiculous. 1t is.
1T takes a report like this Ionia
finding to show up the bunk of
the average intelligence test.
you have seen such tests. They
u like this: If black is white,
place a cross here-but if a COW
has three horns underscore horns
and then state yes or no whether
a circle is square etc.
while the above is a burlesque
on the average mentality test, it is
fully as sane and sensible as the
real thing.
THE trouble with the mentality
tests is that they grade intellect
according to mental agility and Gun.
ming.
Outside Of geniuses, the highest
grade Of brain is slow thinking. If
you have ever consulted a white
bearded philosopher, you know that
the oracle hears your case, ponders
it with deliberation, views it from
all angles, then in a terse sentence
utters the decision of wisdom.
"The fast thinker arrives at
wrong conclusions oftener than the
slow thinker"