Psychology and Industrial Efficiency.

Abstract

But the earlier the attention of wider circles is directed to its beginnings and to the importance and bearings of its tasks, the quicker and the more sound will be the develop- ment of this young science.What is most needed to-day at the beginning of the new movement are ical industry, of medicine and hygiene, of agricul- APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY of the earlier age, in which the curious and the anecdotal attracted the view.The new science which was to seek the laws was to overcome such popular curiosity.In this sign experimental psy- chology has conquered.The fundamental laws of the ideas and of the attention, of the memory and of the will, of the feeling and of the emotions, have been elaborated.Yet it slowly became evi- dent that such one-sidedness, however necessary it may have been at the beginning, would make any practical application impossible.In practical life we never have to do with what is common to all human beings, even when we are to influence large masses; we have to deal with personalities whose mental life is characterized by particular traits of nationality, or race, or vocation, or sex, or age, or special interests, or other features by which they differ from the average mind which the theoretical psychologist may construct as a type.Still more frequently we have to act with reference to smaller groups or to single individ- uals whose mental physiognomy demands care- ful consideration.As long as experimental psy- chology remained essentially a science of the mental laws, common to all human beings, an ad- justment to the practical demands of daily life could hardly come in question.With such gen- eral laws we could never have mastered the con- n THE DEMANDS OF PRACTICAL LIFE WHILE in this way the progress of psy- chology itself and the development of the psychology of individual differences favored the growth of applied psychology, there arose at the same time an increasing demand in the midst of practical life.Especially the teachers and the physicians, later the lawyers as well, looked for help from exact psychology.The science of education and instruction had always had some contact with the science of the mind, as the peda- gogues could never forget that the mental development of the child has to stand in the centre of educational thought.For a long while peda- gogy was still leaning on a philosophical psycho- logy, after that old-fashioned study of the soul had been given up in psychological quarters.At last, in the days of progressive experimental psycho- logy, the time came when the teachers under the pressure of their new needs began to inquire how far the modern laboratory could aid them in the classroom.The pedagogical psychology of memory, of attention, of will, and of intellect was systematically worked up by men with practical Ill MEANS AND ENDS APPLIED psychology is evidently to be classed with the technical sciences.It may be considered as psychotechnics, since we must recognize any science as technical if it teaches us to apply theoretical knowledge for the further- ance of human purposes.Like all technical sciences, applied psychology tells us what we ought to do if we want to reach certain ends; but we ought to realize at the threshold where the limits of such a technical science lie, as they are easily overlooked, with resulting confusion.We must understand that every technical science says only: you must make use of this means, if you wish to reach this or that particular end.But no technical science can decide within its limits whether the end itself is really a desirable one.The technical specialist knows how he ought to build a bridge or how he ought to pierce a tunnel, presupposing that the bridge or the tunnel is de- sired.But whether they are desirable or not is a question which does not concern the technical scientist, but which must be considered from