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The Village Of Happiness: The Story Of The Training School

Creator: Joseph P. Byers (author)
Date: 1934
Publisher: The Smith Printing House
Source: New Jersey State Library
Figures From This Artifact: Figure 2  Figure 3  Figure 4  Figure 5  Figure 6

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418  

Thus fortified, the suggestion was made to Professor Yerkes that the Committee on Provision would finance his committee up to eight hundred dollars for traveling expenses, clerk-hire, printing, and materials; that The Training School would take care of his committee of seven for such time as might be necessary for them to complete their work, giving them full use of its Research Laboratory and all other facilities that might be helpful. In view of the facts that members of the Psychological Committee were to serve without pay, that The Training School would provide for their maintenance and every provision for the prosecution of their work, and that the atmosphere of the School was one where the Committee could work undisturbed by the distracting influences of war-time preparation, the sum of eight hundred dollars was deemed sufficient and it so proved.

419  

This offer, after presentation by Professor Yerkes to the National Research Council, was approved and accepted and on May 21 the Committee on Provision was notified; also, that the seven members of the Psychological Committee had been summoned to convene at The Training School on May 28. Only two weeks elapsed between the original offer of the Committee on Provision and the beginning of work by the wide-spread Committee of Psychologists at The Village of Happiness.

420  

Within less than three months after the declaration of war the Psychological Committee had completed its work of devising those group-testing methods adopted by the Army and Navy. These methods, modified and improved by experience, have been used largely since the war in schools, universities, industries and public works.

421  

The Research Laboratory of the Vineland Training School first interpreted and developed in our own country the work of Binet-Simon on the "Measurement of Intelligence:" this in 1908 and subsequent years. It was again at The Training School, in its Laboratory with its Director of Research, Doctor H. H. Goddard, sitting as one of seven leading American psychologists, in 1917, that group-testing was developed and given immediate recognition as meeting a grave war-time emergency.

422  

Yerkes to Byers, August 13, 1917:

423  

Our methods have been applied in four different Army or Navy stations during the past month, to nearly 5,000 men. The results are, on the whole, gratifying, and we are all inclined to think that we can rapidly modify the methods so that they will be serviceable. The War Department has recently decided to introduce psychological methods into various bureaus. Within a fortnight we shall probably have forty or fifty psychologists at work, and if our methods prove valuable, there will doubtless be two, three, or even four times as many men engaged within two months.

424  

This development is beyond our expectations. I had hoped that within six months or a year we might accomplish as much, but I never dreamed of the extensive and varied demands coming upon us so soon.

425  

I have accepted commission as Major attached to the staff of the Surgeon-General of the Army and shall have general direction of the psychological examining of recruits. This will give abundant opportunity for the use of the methods which your committee enabled us to develop. * * * * *

426  

Please express to the members of your committee, for all of us who have been concerned with the development of psychological methods, most hearty appreciation. We feel that we owe to you, the initiation of our work.

427  

Yerkes to Byers, March 5, 1918: Relative to your interest you are informed that in certain camps low-grade men instead of being made a part of the mobile division are being left in the Depot Brigade and are therefore attached to the camp instead of to the division. This seems a very happy partial solution of the problem.

428  

Through 1918 and the early months of 1919 the Committee on Provision continued to "see it through."

429  

March, 1919, saw the beginning of the end of the Committee on Provision as a national body. Its financial support was being curtailed on account of more pressing war demands on those whose generosity had enabled it to perform for four years.

430  

It closed up its affairs and disbanded early in 1919. Since then, because the need remains urgent, the work has gone on under the Extension Department of The Training School, directed by Miss Helen F. Hill. Miss Hill served with the national committee as one of its field-staff.

431  

IT IS CHRISTMAS TIME as this little book comes from the printer, a time when we think more of spiritual than of material things. As we think of love and loyalty and fidelity, comes the thought that too often we take them "for granted."

432  

As I turn these pages I am conscious of the many whose names do not appear therein, and yet whose lives of kindliness and self-sacrifice shine through the Book for those who are discerning enough to see beyond the type.

433  

As you read, let your spirit look, and between the lines you may see these others who have also helped to make The Training School:

434  

Professor Nash, Miss Fallen, Mr. Hetzell, Miss Lapp, Mrs. Merithew and Miss Vernon; with whom I reverently place Miss Annie, Mr. Arnade and Mr. Veale who have "gone on before." Although unnamed within these pages, these have given their all for more than a score of years. Of the loyalty and service of each of these a chapter might be written.

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