Apparently the only safe conclusion at present is that the entrance examinations are fairly useful in predicting the early college work, their prognostic value becoming less and less as the interval between the two measures is increased. This result is of course to be expected. In another section of this book occasion is taken to show that preliminary trials are of little value in indicating the relative abilities of individuals when they have reached or approximated their limit of practice.
II. Are the school subjects in which one is most interested in any way an indication of the interests and values of later life? What, in general, are the facts concerning the permanence of interests and the relation between interest and ability? These questions are of immediate interest to parents, teachers and vocational counsellors.
Here again we must turn to the work of Thorndike for almost the only available information, and even this is only preliminary and tentative, the results being subject to various sources of error. This investigator studied the interests and abilities in mathematics, history, literature, science, music, drawing and manual work. The original records are the judgments of one hundred individuals concerning the order of their own interests and abilities in these subjects at each of three periods in their school career, elementary school, high school and college. These various judgments having been made as conscientiously as possible, correlations were determined between interests at different times, interests and abilities, etc.
Individual relative interests at different times, according to these records, do not vary according to mere caprice. "A correlation of .60 or .70 seems to be approximately the true degree of resemblance between the relative degree of an interest in a child of from ten to fourteen and the same person at twenty-one." The resemblance between ability in elementary years and ability in college is found to be .65. The correlation between interest in the last three years of elementary school and capacity in the college period is computed to be about .60. This would mean that the early interest would serve as a useful indicator of adult capacity. "The correlation between an individual's order of subjects for interest and his order for ability is one of the closest of any that are known (about .90)." "A person's relative interests are an extraordinarily accurate symptom of his relative capacities."
In concluding his report Thorndike writes, "Interests are shown to be [not only permanent but also] symptomatic, to a very great extent, of present and future capacity or ability. Either because one likes what he can do well, or because one gives zeal and effort to what he likes, or because interest and ability are both symptoms of some fundamental feature of the individual's original nature, or because of the combined action of all three of these factors, interest and ability are bound very close together. The bond is so close that either may be used as a symptom for the other almost as well as for itself. The importance of these facts for the whole field of practice with respect to early diagnosis, vocational guidance, the work of social secretaries, deans, advisers, and others who direct students' choices of schools, studies, and careers is obvious. They should be taken account of in such practice until they are verified or modified by data obtained by a better method; and such data should soon be collected. The better method is, of course, to get the measurements of relative interest and of relative ability, not from memory, but at the time, and not from individuals' reports alone, but by objective tests."
III. Is there any relation between general or particular academic aptitude or inclination and general or particular proficiency in the later domestic, industrial, commercial, professional or civic activities? This question is of importance not only to the individual and his guide but also to employers, agencies and society at large.
An interesting and significant study bearing on this question has been reported by Nicholson, who investigated the relation between academic success and prominence in later life. The men graduating from Wesleyan University during the years 1833 to 1899, 1,667 in number, were arranged in three groups. In the first group were the 140 "honor" men, who were valedictorians or salutatorians of their classes. In the second group were placed all the men elected to Phi Beta Kappa, on the basis of high scholarship. Of these there were 461. In the third group were placed the remaining 1,206 men. It was then determined how many of these men were found in the current edition of Who's Who, or were judged, by faculty or fellow students, as having been or about to be of sufficient distinction to be included in such a directory. The results are given in the following tabulation.