been analyzed and classified. Man weighs, measures, tests, and in others
ways scrupulously determines the fitness of every bit of material that
goes into a machine before it is built. There are scientific ways of
selecting cattle, horses, and even hogs for particular purposes.
Purchasing departments of great commercial and industrial institutions
maintain laboratories for the determination, with mathematical exactitude,
of the qualifications and fitness to requirements of all kinds of
materials, tools and equipment. And yet, when it comes to the choice of
his own life work, the guidance of his children in their vocations, or the
selection of employees and co-workers, the average man decides the entire
matter by almost any other consideration than scientifically determined
fitness. He takes counsel with personal prejudices, with customs and
traditions, with pride, or with fear--or he leaves the decision to mere
guess-work, or even chance.

It is time, therefore, that man should learn about himself and others,
and especially about those things which are vital to even a moderate
enjoyment of the good things of life.

Two diametrically opposite states of mind have been responsible for this
lack of careful study of the aptitudes, characteristics, and
qualifications of man and the ways of determining them in advance of
actual performance. The first of these has been characterized by loose
thinking, unscientific methods, arbitrary and complicated systems--- such
as palmistry, astrology, physiognomy, phrenology, and others of the same
ilk. In these systems, some truth, patiently learned by sincere and able
workers, has been befogged and contaminated by hasty conclusions of the
incompetent and clever lies of charlatans. Thus the whole subject has
fallen into disrepute with intelligent people. Ever since the earliest
days of recorded history there have been attempts at character reading.