Measure Your Mind: The Mentimeter and How to Use It — Marion Rex Trabue
R. Trabue and Frank Parker Stockbridge You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org . If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title : Measure Your Mind: The Mentimeter and How to Use It Author : Marion Rex Trabue Frank Parker Stockbridge Release date : February 8, 2020 [eBook #61341] Most recently updated: October 17, 2024 Language : English Other information and formats : www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61341 Credits : Produced by Richard Tonsing, MFR, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF MEASURE YOUR MIND The Mentimeter and How to Use It BY M. R. TRABUE, Ph. D. AND FRANK PARKER STOCKBRIDGE WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT GARDEN CITY, NEW YORK, TORONTO DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 1922 COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y. R. Trabue and Frank Parker Stockbridge PREFACE The publishers offer this book primarily as a popular treatise on the measurement of intelligence by scientific methods. Every effort has been made to conform to the soundest scientific principles, both in the preparation of the Mentimeter tests, around which the volume is largely written, and in the introductory and explanatory chapters, in which the principles of applied psychology, as they bear upon mental tests, are stated in popular language. The Mentimeters are based upon Doctor Trabue’s experience (1) as Assistant in Educational Psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University, (2) as psychological investigator of the intellectual status of inmates of charitable institutions and of pupils in the public schools, (3) as author of various intellectual and educational scales, widely used by psychologists and educators, (4) as Chief Psychological Examiner in two of the largest Army camps, directing the intellectual examination of more than a hundred thousand soldiers, (5) as Captain in the Adjutant General’s Department, U. S. Army, measuring the intellectual abilities of men in the Aviation Service, and (6) as Assistant Professor in Columbia University, giving instruction in the theory and practice of intellectual measurements and directing the application of such measurements to tens of thousands of school pupils. Frank Parker Stockbridge, Doctor Trabue’s collaborator, is an author and journalist of a high order. As managing editor of Popular Mechanics and contributor to the World’s Work , Harper’s , Popular Science Monthly , etc., he has been thrown into contact with important affairs in the world of science so that he is especially equipped to work with Doctor Trabue in presenting this interesting subject. As director of the publicity campaign of the American Library Association War Fund his contact with the Army and the results of the biggest experiment in the way of psychological tests that the world has ever seen was invaluable to him in this work. The publishers feel that the collaboration is a particularly happy one. The success of the scientific method of testing intelligence among both officers and men in the Army has directed widespread attention to the general subject. The Mentimeter is the first comprehensive system of tests, applicable to the whole range of educational and industrial requirements, to be offered for general use. To employers and those in charge of the selection, grading, and promotion of workers of every class, in factories, offices, and stores; to teachers of all grades, from kindergarten to university; to parents who are interested in ascertaining, and watching the growth of their children’s mental development and to young men and young women striving for self-improvement and advancement and desirous of learning something of their own mental capacities and limitations as a guide to the intelligent choice of vocations or professions, the publishers offer this book in the confident belief that it will be found of real service. R. Trabue and Frank Parker Stockbridge CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I Science Versus Guesswork 3 II The Applications of Psychological Tests 16 III What These Tests Measure 23 IV Standards for Mental Tests 33 V Different Types of Mental Tests 44 VI Mental Tests in the Army 53 VII Psychological Tests in Education 63 VIII Mental Tests in Industry 76 IX How to Use the Mentimeter Tests 88 X The Mentimeter Tests 109 XI Trade Tests or Tests of Skill 274 Appendices 287 R. Trabue and Frank Parker Stockbridge MEASURE YOUR MIND CHAPTER I SCIENCE VERSUS GUESSWORK There are two ways, and only two, in which we can find out what a machine is capable of doing. One of these is to try it out, to “put it through its paces” by using it for every sort of work which it is expected to perform and observing whether or not it does what we want it to do. The other way is to measure it (or to take the measurements of it as supplied by its responsible manufacturer) and compare these with the measurements of the essential parts of machines with the performance of which we are already familiar. Unless it is a brand-new type of machine, designed to do something that has never before been done by machinery, or to do it by a different mechanical method, there is obviously a great saving of time and money in buying a machine from specifications that insure the correct performance of its expected duty over the other plan of first buying the machine and then trying it out in practice to see whether it will do what we want done. The manufacturer or business man who would purchase machinery of any sort without first making certain that its dimensions, speeds, weight, power-consumption, controls, and the materials us