A Proposed Method of Selecting Candidates for the Naval Academy
(See page 1679, December, 1942, Proceedings)
Lieutenant Franklin G. Percival, U. S. Navy (Retired).—Although Lieutenant Taussig’s plan should produce better results than the method now employed, his proposals have some defects. These, fortunately, could easily be remedied. In the first place he suggests that the highly important task of interviewing candidates be entrusted mainly to those who happened to be on duty at local recruiting stations, instead of to a hand-picked board at the Naval Academy, as was advocated in the original paper, “Naval Academy Entrance Requirements.” He is right, however, in pointing out that individual interviews by a single board might take too much time, even though only those candidates who had first qualified by existing standards would be authorized to appear before the proposed Personality Board. In that event the number of members could be increased to ten, or even to sixteen, without serious reduction in their qualifications. Interviews could then be conducted simultaneously by from three to five subcommittees of three men each, leaving the senior member free to supervise. These subcommittees meeting in the same place could obviously be co-ordinated more effectively than could boards scattered all over the country.
Although Lieutenant Taussig’s plan would, as he says, “compare the young men eligible for each appointment,” the Navy is interested not so much in the geographical distribution of successful candidates as in the skilled selection of the best material available, irrespective of states and districts. After all, the comparison of the candidates for each appointment is a function of the individual congressman; and he might not be willing to hand this prerogative over to the Navy. As for the objection regarding travel costs to Annapolis, any youngster who lacked the initiative and resourcefulness to get to that city would be poor officer material.
Lieutenant Taussig also discards the I. Q. and substitutes a mark in “intelligence.” This substitute is regrettably vague; for there are several kinds of intelligence, sometimes with little correlation between them. For example, we all know of the careers of mechanical geniuses or prominent industrialists who have displayed conspicuously poor judgment outside their own business. Similarly, the lives of great scientists or gifted artists have occasionally indicated an almost total lack of either social intelligence or financial intelligence, if not of both. An even more familiar example is that of the brilliant college professor or successful business man who is so lacking in mechanical intelligence that he can barely qualify for a driver’s license. The late Will Rogers once remarked that we are all of us ignorant, only in different ways. He might have added with equal truth that we are all of us stupid, only in different ways. One purpose of attaching an able psychiatrist to the proposed Personality Board was to develop scientific methods of measuring the different kinds of intelligence, so as to permit the selection of candidates with the highest degree of those kinds most essential to a naval officer. The I. Q. was employed in the original plan because it is specific rather than vague, because it represents one kind of intelligence which we already know how to measure, and because it offers a fairly accurate index of the candidate’s ability to complete the academic course. That ability is by no means the most important qualification, but it is undeniably essential.
Another reason for employing a psychiatrist is to work out methods for measuring responsiveness. Most of us can recall classmates who did not appear especially promising when they entered the Academy, but who responded so well to the advantages offered there that they were outstanding at the end of the 4-year course. This capacity for self-improvement is perhaps even more important than the other qualities which the candidate may possess. Any scientific method of selection should manifestly take this essential capacity into account.
There are four unfortunate omissions from Lieutenant Taussig’s plan. First he fails to widen the field of selection by increasing the number of appointments. Next he includes nothing to test, and to insure, sustained improvement in his method of selection. Then he disregards the tremendous strides which aviation medicine has made in the measuring of positive physical fitness. These measurements require elaborate equipment and uniform interpretation of results, both of which call for a single board, rather than many widely scattered boards. Finally, he ignores the basic contribution which psychiatrists might make to this all-important problem. Aside from the reasons just given for their employment, their ability to discover aptitudes has been clearly established, and their evaluation of character is of increasing accuracy. Any proposal which leaves out a psychiatrist is as far behind the times as a steel plant which has no use for a metallurgist. The employment of a psychiatrist would, moreover, involve no risk because he would work under the direction of experienced naval officers who would assign weight to his tests only after their validity had been proved beyond a doubt.
It may be excellent for morale to give the average Naval Academy graduate the idea that he is equipped to tackle any job, but it is an administrative error to assume that he can excel the specialist of established reputation within the limits of the given specialty. The development and employment of specialists and the willingness to accept demonstrated fact have resulted in the most rapid progress in other fields of human endeavor. Is there any reason to assume that they would not work equally well in the selection of midshipmen?