Functions of the Vocational Laboratory.

I do not suggest that, at first, all children should be put through this “mill.” It is, of course, not necessary to set up a machine which by its own weight would fall to the ground. For this reason its activities might at first be restricted to boys about to enter upon an apprenticeship. Even to-day, in some trades, boys are accepted only upon certain conditions, but strangely enough, these conditions are not what can be termed “capacity” conditions. That is to say, they are not such as would indicate to the employer an ability to undertake certain actions involving specific performance in a particular field. For instance, take the setting up of this article. The ability of the type-setter is not only dependent upon rapidity and dexterity, but more truly upon the capacity to retain in the memory a relatively large number of words. Experiments show that a typesetter with a good “immediate” memory will do twice as much work as the man with a poor memory. This is merely another way of saying that the time lost in referring to the original manuscript is not made up by rapidity nor dexterity on the keys

To pursue these researches further it should be a condition of employment that a potential typesetter much have a good memory as well as certain muscular control which will enable him to manipulate the keys with some degree of celerity— these are the elements of innate fitness for the job, and these are the bases upon which the employers ought, logically, to select their hands.

The School or Laboratory itself should be fully equipped. This does not mean that it should be a collection of finely adjusted machines each waiting a little subject upon which to work. Too often the idea of using experimental psychology has been restricted to the more superficial measurements— those mentioned earlier. But in conjunction with this should go what Burt, Psychologist page 46 to the L.C.C., has aptly termed a “sample” test. This is perhaps analogous to the rough and ready test which an employer not infrequently gives when he wants to “try out” two or three boys, e.g., to take out a balance from some simple set of figures, to take down from dictation a few sentences, or to perform some act which is similar to, but simpler than, the work which he will demand.