“The method of personal estimate is much better than the method of external signs (phrenology), but to be reliable it must be supplemented by a method which is _objective_, that is, a method which is not influenced by the personal bias of the judge or by such irrelevant factors as the appearance, speech, or bearing of the one to be rated. Such is the method of intelligence tests.” It would, of course, as Professor Terman points out, be absurd to contend that it is impossible to arrive at a rough estimate of an individual’s capacities and character by observation, as it is absurd to pretend that accurate measurements of an individual’s capacities can be made by the same method. There are men who have by long experience learned to judge on very brief contacts the possibilities of applicants for positions. Actually, what such employers do is to apply, though crudely and unscientifically, a limited number of tests which might fairly be classed as psychological. Out of a long experience they have accumulated an accurate knowledge of the work to be done and of the general type of individual who has been found best qualified to perform that work. This sort of ability, however, is acquired solely through long experience, and even then it can only be acquired by men or women who themselves possess certain mental qualities, which might easily be gauged and classified, the possession of which enables them to accumulate and utilize experience in this manner. This sort of ability can by no means be transferred from one individual to another by description or by mere training. It is precisely like the ability which an experienced automobile repair man possesses, that enables him to tell by a quick inspection and after only a few minutes of observation what are the principal things the matter with a car and what service it is probably able to perform. But a repair man cannot tell anybody else how to size up an automobile at a glance, because the only way any one can learn to do it is by going through the same process of taking automobiles apart and putting them together again for a period of years. And as everyone who has ever had occasion to deal with automobile repairs is aware, the most experienced repair men are seldom positive that they know just what is wrong and all that is wrong without applying precise measurements and painstaking tests.