And yet his observations and researches might become
economically the most important factor. Similar expectations might be
justified for the large department stores and especially for the big
transportation companies. In smaller dimensions the same real needs
exist in the ordinary workshop and store. It is obvious that the
professional consulting psychologist would satisfy these needs most
directly, and if such a new group of engineers were to enter into
industrial life, very soon a further specialization might be expected.
Some of these psychological engineers would devote themselves to the
problems of vocational selection and appointment; others would
specialize on questions of advertisement and display and propaganda; a
third group on problems of fatigue, efficiency, and recreation; a
fourth on the psychological demands for the arrangement of the
machines; and every day would give rise to new divisions. Such a
well-schooled specialist, if he spent a few hours in a workshop or a
few days in a factory, could submit propositions which might refer
exclusively to the psychological factors and yet which might be more
important for the earning and the profit of the establishment than the
mere buying of new machines or the mere increase in the number of
laborers.
No one can deny that such a transition must be burdened with difficult
complications and even with dangers; and still less will any one doubt
that it may be caricatured.
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