Progress in these vocations does not then imply, in fact almost never does imply, merely increasing the quantity or quality of the work at which one starts. The promotion of a teacher is often from teaching and disciplining classes satisfactorily, to clerical assistance in the principal's office, the principalship, general school superintendence, administrative counselling and public lecturing, or the college or national presidency. The case of the teacher of biology who becomes the principal of a commercial high school is not at all unprecedented. For occupations of this character and for this main group of average individuals it is indeed hopeless to seek for vocational psychographs. It is here if anywhere that the general principle holds that one who does anything well could have done almost anything else well if he had cared to try. But the degree to which one _cares_ is not measured by reaction time or cancellation tests. The question of the degree to which ability of one sort implies ability of other sorts is one of the several matters to be considered in a later chapter.
This fivefold division of the vocations is based on the degree to which the tasks involved require complete and normal psychological equipment. The foregoing consideration of these five main occupational groups may be said to constitute a brief summary of the present outstanding results of vocational psychology. The mentally incompetent can easily be discovered at an early age by the use of the graded intelligence scales. Their subsequent direction into forms of useful work appropriate to their degree of defect is not a psychological enterprise, but, rather, a civic obligation and industrial economy. The apparently small group of individuals who are by original nature fitted for the pursuit of work involving special or unit characters will, whether otherwise incompetent or generally capable, commonly demonstrate their unique abilities without the application of psychological technique. The much larger group of unspecialized workers, requiring rather higher degrees of mental competence, may be chosen without difficulty with the aid of the standard mental scales and norms, their academic records, and the judgments of their associates. These may be guided into such tasks as involve mainly a moderate degree of intellectual capacity and make no notable demand for the exercise of the social and moral virtues. The vocational psychology of the future will find its chief problems in dealing with the numerous and permanent tasks requiring workers who, in addition to their varying degrees of strictly intellectual proficiency, possess particular or complete instinctive, emotional and volitional equipment, and who are amenable to those social and educational agencies which seek to impress upon them the moral virtues of their community and age.