The entry of the United States into World War I aroused in Scott an impelling urge to undertake another unprecedented venture—a move that was to prove greater in scope and import than any Scott had ever undertaken.

It was Scott's work on the theory of advertising that led to his analysis of the psychology of advertising.  That in turn led to his initial experiments in the selection of salesmen.  The findings harvested from a year of investigation and experiments led him to perceive the possibilities of personnel classification in a broader area.

As soon as the United States entered the war and it became apparent that a vast American army of citizen soldiers would be drafted, Scott saw a new opportunity
to serve his country.  He envisioned the possibility of greatly facilitating the organization of the army and its over-all effectiveness by classifying its personnel in accordance with a system evolving in his mind as a result of his experiments in the selection of salesmen.

Four days after the United States had declared war, on April 6, 1917, Scott and Bingham were at the Carnegie Tech Bureau of Salesmanship Research discussing the new turn of events.  The discussion lasted about an hour, and both became aroused about the service psychologists might render America in time of war.  Accordingly they decided that each would write a letter to Prof. Robert M.Yerkes, then president of the American Psychological Association, suggesting that appropriate action be initiated.

Yerkes called a meeting of the association's council in Philadelphia on April 20.  Six members attended: Roswell Parker Angier, Walter Van Dyke Bingham, Knight Dunlap, Walter Dill Scott, Robert M. Yerkes, and Herbert S. Langfeld.

As the meeting proceeded it became clear to Scott and Bingham that Yerkes and the others were interested primarily in going into the army in order to acquire new psychological knowledge.  They seemed to be more concerned with what the army could do for them than with what they could do for the army.  Angry, Scott and Bingham walked out in a huff.

They decided to see what they could do on their own toward interesting the War Department in the idea of instituting a personnel and classification program.  By May 4, 1917,  Scott and his associates in the Bureau of Salesmanship Research had devised a draft of the first fourth of their rating scale for the selection of army officers.  It applied the principle of comparing the applicant's qualifications with those deemed essential for the job.

To get the idea going the preliminary form of the Rating Scale for Selecting Captains was printed.  Copies were sent, as Scott says, "to various people who were thought likely to be able to suggest improvements, and who might also be in a position to bring it to the attention of military authorities." See Rating Scale on page 194.

"One was sent to Paul S. Achilles at Plattsburg, N.Y. He submitted it, through military channels, to the commanding ofiicer at the Plattsburg officers' training camp.  That was in June.  Toward the close of the same month it was returned with the notation: ‘The Commanding Officer will not be able to use this.' "

By that time Frederick P. Keppel, a Columbia University professor, had been appointed assistant to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker.  Having taught summer courses at Columbia, Scott knew Keppel well.  However, he had a closer acquaintance with another and better known member of the Columbia faculty, Edward L. Thorndike, who in tum was a friend of Keppel and on familiar terms with other men of influence in military circles.

Scott reached Keppel through Thorndike.  As a matter of fact, Thorndike, having learned early in May about Scott's ideas for grading and classifying army personnel, had written on May 7,1917:

  Dr. Hollis Codfrey,
  Council of National Defense,
  Washington, D. C.
 
 

  Dear Dr. Codfrey:

  Prof.  Walter Dill Scott, who has been engaged during the past year in research for a group of large employers of high class labor such as the National City Bank, the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Equitable Life, and so on, has devised a very convenient and sound form of utilizing the opinions of superior officers for the selection and promotion of employes.

  I enclose copies of the fundamental blanks pertaining to this.  This scheme actually works in operation and it seems likely, in Dr. Scott's opinion, and I may add in my own also, that the adoption of a blank similar in form but varying, of course, in the actual content would facilitate the wise selection of enlisted men for appointment as officers.

  If you think it worth while to see Prof. Scott in relation to this, he is entirely ready to come to either Philadelphia or Washington at any time.  His present address is Prof.  Walter Dill Scott, the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburgh, Pa.

  He is also ready, as I understand, to do all the work of framing a blank such as will meet the approval of army experts and at the same time utilize the very wide experience he has had with judgments of men made by superior officers.

  I may add that Prof.  Scott is our foremost business psychologist, and is as competent in dealing with men and opinions and in putting schemes through efficiently as he is in devising them.
 Very truly yours,
   E.L.Thorndike
 
 

Early in June, Thorndike spoke to Keppel about the same matter, On the 12th of that month, Keppel wrote:
 WAR DEPARTMENT
 Washington
 
         June 12, 1917

 
 Prof.  E. L. Thorndike,
 Montrose, N. Y.
 Dear Ed:
   Could you give me a memorandum, as brief and simple as possible, of the plan for grading men, about which you spoke on Sunday?  It happens that they are now working out plans for rating the men in the training camps, and it may be just the right moment to bring the plan to the attention of the right people,
 Faithfully yours,
 F. P. Keppel

Thorndike passed this request on to Scott at once, and Scott, in turn, lost no time in writing Keppel:

   June 15, 1917

  Dr.  F. P. Keppel
  Assistant to Secretary of War
  Washington, D. C.

  My dear Dr. Keppel:

  Your letter of June 12 addressed to Prof.  E. L. Thorndike has been referred by Thorndike to me for an answer.
  The Rating Scale and the Rating Sheet are devices for making promotions and seem to us to have the following advantages:
  They reduce the time of deciding between eligibles.  They call attention to the essential characteristics.  They utilize independent judgments of experts.
  They provide a concrete standard for rating.
   They provide a record of the ground of selecting or promoting.
  They increase the accuracy of judgment.
   Analogous forms are giving satisfaction in business organizations.
  They have been approved by army officers.
  They are in harmony with present army practices.
  The Rating Scale and the Rating Sheet as used in business organizations have proved themselves to be of great value.  The Rating Scale and the Rating Sheet for Selecting Captains are of course merely suggestive blanks and contain the qualities which we have assumed to be the essential ones to be considered in promoting first lieutenants to captains. The same principle can be carried out for promotion to any rank, I am enclosing the blanks for selecting captains and would be more than pleased to work on blanks for any of the positions in the war department.

  Prof. Thorndike and I have been working on tests for selecting the most fit among eligibles, and we believe that such tests could be worked out to advantage in making selections for important positions in the army.

  I shall not discuss these tests by letter but stand ready at any moment to come to Washington to discuss the matter with you.  I am sure that Prof. Thorndike would also be glad to join me on such a mission at your convenience.  If you desire further information concerning the enclosed blanks, please wire me and I will be glad to come to Washington at once.
   Yours truly,
   Walter Dill Scott
 
 

In reply Keppel wrote:

   WAR DEPARTMENT
     Washington
          June 18, 1917
 
 

 Dear Dr. Scott,

  I am very glad to have your letter of the 15th, with its accompanying rating scales and rating sheets, and shall take them up personally with the Adjutant General, in order that the Secretary of War may have his judgment upon the proposal.  It looks to me like a plan which is scientific enough to be accurate and simple enough to be workable.
   Faithfully yours,
   F. P. Keppel

 Dr. Walter Dill Scott
 Carnegie Institute of Technology,
 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

On June 30, Keppel followed this up with a brief formal letter, and on July 2 he wrote Scott again:

  My dear Sir:

  Your letter of June 15th with inclosed rating scale and rating sheet received.  If promotion by selection is adopted for the National Army, the War Department contemplates using this method of rating officers.

  Your assistance is much appreciated.
   Faithfully yours,
   F. P. Keppel
   Assistant to Secretary of War

   WAR DEPARTMENT
   Washington
   July 2, 1917
  Dear Prof. Scott:

  I am sending through official channels a formal letter dated June 30th, and I want to write to you personally to suggest at your convenience after its receipt, if you can spare the time, that you come down and see the folks in the Adjutant General's office as to your plan for rating candidates for promotion.  If you will come to my office, I can see that you meet the right folks.
   Faithfully yours,
   F. P. Keppel

Scott acted upon this suggestion at once.  He sped to Washington, met Keppel, and was taken to the office of Adjutant General H. P. McCain.  There he was told to see Maj.  Grenville Clark, one of McCain's aides.  Clark said he was swamped with work, and asked Scott to return in a day or so.  When he came back to see Clark a second time, he showed him the Rating Scale and Rating Sheet.  Clark liked them but suggested some changes, which Scott made.

Clark then proposed that Scott go to Fort Myer, in Washington, at a time the commanding officer would be away, and show his forms to two subordinate officers, who Clark felt would be more receptive to the idea.

Scott went to Fort Myer and showed his forms to the two aides.  They liked the procedure outlined by Scott and his associates and sent a report to that effect to the Adjutant General's office.  But they also assured Scott they could not test the new rating techniques without higher authority.  Scott returned to the Adjutant General's office and was given formal permission to try out his rating procedure at Fort Myer, provided he obtained permission from the colonel in command of the Post.

Luckily, the colonel welcomed Scott, when he went out to Fort Myer a second time, and quickly endorsed the experiment.  Twenty-five officers were given copies of the Rating Scale and Rating Sheet for use in the selection of new officers among candidates just due to come up for final consideration.  It was agreed also to use the same forms in the rating of men then in the early stages of training.

Adj. Gen. McCain still had some misgivings, however.  He thought the new procedures should be tried out at the officers training camp in Plattsburg, N. Y., and asked Scott if he would be willing to go there.  Scott said he would.  McCain pulled out his watch, and said, "The train for Plattsburg leaves in two hours."
 "I'll take it," said Scott.

After he had left Washington, Col.  W. T. Johnson and Maj.  Clark, both of the Adjutant General's office, decided that the commanding officers at Madison Barracks and at Fort Niagara be notified to send representatives to Plattsburg to confer with Scott.

Scott had not told the authorities in Washington that the Rating Scale had already been considered and rejected at Plattsburg.  The situation was tense and depressing to Scott.  He was well aware that further consideration of the Rating Scale depended upon whether the officers at Plattsburg would reverse their judgment.

After arriving at Plattsburg early on a Sunday morning — July 15 — he ate breakfast, and waited eagerly for nine o'clock to roll around.  Then he telephoned Col.  Paul A. Wolf, commandant of Plattsburg Barracks.  He reached the colonel at his home and informed him merely that he had been sent from Washington to see him.  The colonel said he would be glad to see Scott at ten o'clock in his camp office.

Upon Scott's arrival he was greeted by the camp adjutant, Capt.  J. A. Baer.  Scott showed him a letter from Col. Johnson, instructing commanding officers of officers training camps to permit Scott to explain his mission.  Capt.  Baer insisted on knowing what the visit was all about, and when Scott showed him the Rating Scale, Capt.  Baer said: "Oh, yes, we know all about that, we had considered it and decided that it would not be of value to us."

Scott remarked that he still would like to see Col. Wolf and was told to come around the next morning.  In the intervening 24 hours, Scott paced the floor and tried to figure out how he might get the Plattsburg officers to reverse their decision.  When he arrived at the adjutant's office Monday morning, he was greeted coldly by Capt.  Baer who asked him to have a seat.  Baer did not even bother to inform Col.  Wolf that Scott had arrived.

A minute or two later, Maj.  Claude B. Sweezey and Maj.  William R. Smedberg of Madison Barracks arrived and were ushered into Col.  Wolf's office.  They asked to see Scott.  Col.  Wolf stalked out of his private office and demanded to know where Mr. Scott was.  Capt.  Baer pointed toward Scott, who then got up and presented the letter from Col. Johnson to Col.  Wolf.  After reading it and talking with Scott a few moments, Wolf decided to send for Maj.  E. T. Collins and Maj.  Merch B. Stewart, the senior instructors at the two Plattsburg camps.

A short while later Scott was called into conference with these two majors and the two from Madison Barracks.  Col.  Wolf stood up and in a very formal manner read the Johnson letter.  Then he said, "Now, Mr. Scott, what is it?"

As Scott arose he realized he was facing a crucial moment.  If he failed to convince the five officers of the usefulness of the scale, it would not be adopted by the army.  If he succeeded, the scale would become standard.

 "After I had talked for over an hour," said Scott, "I suspected that the men were not convinced, and that if I stopped, they would simply say that they were very busy and did not have time to consider it further.  I did not dare stop !
 "I assured them that the scale was the mere embodiment of the principle, that it was in a crude form, and that I had come on to Plattsburg in order that I might secure their opinions in creating a scale that would be worthwhile for use in the second series of officers' training camps. And I called upon them to join with me in creating the scale for the army, not for their use, but for use in the succeeding camp."

So far as Scott could judge, none of the men believed in the scale.  When he called for suggested changes they turned loose on the scale and ripped it to tatters.' In the process of the long and heated discussion, however, they came to understand the scale and to believe in it.

When this stage had been reached, Col.  Wolf arose and said, "Well, gentlemen, it doesn't seem to me that we are getting anywhere.  I can't see that we have made any improvement."

It was then suggested that the scale be restored to its original form, except that more emphasis be placed on previous military experience, as suggested by Maj.  Stewart.  As soon as this was done Maj. Stewart became enthusiastic over the scale and then was joined by Maj. Collins and the others.  Next it was decided to present the scale to the officers of both Plattsburg camps.
 "I presented the scale to the officers of one camp," said Scott, "and thereafter to the officers of the other camp.  In each case the officers voted that they believed in the scale and would like to use it as the method of ranking men at the end of the first series of the officers training camps."
 
Maj.  Stewart reported the results to Col. Wolf, who thereupon dictated a telegram for Capt.  Baer to send to Washington.  It included a reply to the query as to whether Wolf thought it worthwhile for Scott to go to Sheridan and Harrison camps:
   Western Union
   Plattsburg Barracks, N.Y.
   July 16, 1917
 
 

  Government Paid
  Urgent Day Message
       J. A. Baer
       Captain 2d Cavalry, Adjutant

            Adjutant General McCain
     Washington, D. C.

  Prof.  Scott's plan is useful and practicable.  It will be used here to assist in selection of officers at end of this camp period.  Recommend it be made universal for all future camps but not compulsory for this camp period.  Believe it would be of material assistance at Harrison and Sheridan camps.                                                           Wolf

Things now were on the move and gaining momentum.  A note Scott received from Maj.  Clark the last week in July helped clear the way for action:

   July 23, 1917
  Dear Prof.  Scott:-

  Your wire of July 22 just came on my desk.  Congratulate you on your patriotic services and success.  The telegraphic reports of your plan are uniformly favorable.

  I suggest unofficially that you come here for a day soon and tell Gen.  McCain about it and go over plans for the next series of camps with Capt.  Hayne and me.  A comprehensive system to be used from the start in all camps should be installed.  I am much interested personally in seeing this worked out well.
   Very truly yours,
   Grenville Clark

The same day that this note was written, Keppel, gratified by the hearty approval the Rating Scale and Rating Sheet had received in various camps, introduced Scott to Secretary of War Baker.
 "What's all this about?" asked Baker.  "Do you want to change our way of selecting officers?"
 "It amounts to this," replied Scott, "the psychologists of America have something which the army needs."

Baker then asked for a demonstration of the use of Scott's forms.  Baker was impressed.  He asked Scott: "Would you be willing to call on the chiefs of the different bureaus of the War Department?"
 "Certainly," was Scott's immediate reply.
 "When?" asked Baker.
 "Right now," said Scott.

Baker, after discussing the matter with Dr. Keppel and the adjutant general, formulated the following document and gave it to Dr. Scott:

   WAR DEPARTMENT
   Washington
   July 27, 1917
  To the Chiefs of the War Department Bureaus:

  The bearer, Prof.  Walter D. Scott, desires to suggest a mode of ascertaining the qualifications of candidates for commissions in the several staff corps which will eliminate to some extent the possibility of inefficiency due to inaccurate determination of qualifications.

  I would be very happy if you would accord him an opportunity to explain the principle upon which he thinks this service could be rendered and let me have your view of it as applied to your bureau.

  Prof.  Scott is an industrial psychologist and has applied the principles of this mode of selection in several large corporations effectively.

   Very truly yours,
   Newton D. Baker
   Secretary of War

The introduction from Baker opened the door of each bureau chief to Scott.  And between July 27 and 29 he held conferences with all of them.  Immediately thereafter every bureau sent a confidential report to Secretary Baker, each asking for the service and the guidance of the civilian psychologists.

Baker thereupon summoned Scott into his office, told him the news, and asked how many men he needed in the psychological service team.  Scott suggested a number acceptable to the Secretary of War.  Scott therefore went to Bingham, and between them they decided on whom to include in the group.

The list prepared, Secretary Baker, on August 5, 1917, formally brought into existence the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the army.  It was placed under the authority of Maj.  Gen.  H. P. McCain, who kept it under his direct personal supervision instead of incorporating it in one of the already existing divisions of his department.

Bingham's magazine article, "Psychology Applied," which appeared in The Scientific Monthly for February, 1923, casts helpful light on this and other developments related to it.  In the article he noted that the best elements of the group intelligence tests evolved at Carnegie Tech "were incorporated with similar materials of Otis, Terman, Yerkes, Wells and others to make up Army Alpha."
 "The interviewer's score sheets became the ‘Scott Rating Scale' for selecting and rating officers and officer candidates, he wrote.
 "The personal history record, greatly metamorphosed, became the C.C.P. Qualification Card, by aid of which three million men were classified for military purposes according to their occupational, educational, and personal traits.
 "Practically the entire staff of the Bureau of Salesmanship Research and several other members of our Division of Applied Psychology found their best opportunity for usefulness in military psychology or in army personnel work.  In the spring of 1917, Whipple and I served on the committee of seven which prepared the first psychological examination methods for army use.
 "A few weeks later Scott became director and I executive secretary of the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the army, and under Secretary Baker's direction assembled the group of psychologists and employment executives who devised and administered the army personnel system.  The first year of the bureau proved to have been an ideal preparation, a rehearsal for the enormous task of military classification and assignment."
 

The office of the committee was established in the State, War, and Navy building.  A colonel was assigned to sit in with the group and sign all papers officially.  A secretarial and clerical staff was provided.  The first task the committee undertook was the preparation of a four-page leaflet entitled, "Instruction for Use of Rating Scale," and designated as Form No. A 1. It was accepted and utilized by the army immediately.

Combatant and service branches of the army began to call on the committee, resulting in the expansion of committee personnel.  Indeed, a week or two before the end of the war even the Navy became interested in the committee's classification program.

Besides Scott and Bingham, the committee included E.L. Thorndike, James R. Angell, Raymond Dodge, Horace L. Gardner, Robert C. Clothier, John J. Cross, W. R. DeField, William Browne Hale, J. J. Swan, R. M. Yerkes, Winslow Russell, John F. Shepard, E. K. Strong, Philip J. Reilly, L. M. Terman, and J. B. Watson.

Others associated with the committee were M. H. S. Hayes, Beardsley Ruml, Stanley B. Mathewson, Louis B. Hopkins, Joseph W. Hayes, Clarence Yoakum, J. Walter Dietz, C. R. Dooley, M. M. Jones, W. S. MacArthur, R. H. Puffer, William A. Sawyer, Kendall Wisiger, Alvin E. Dodd, Joseph H. Willits, Donald G. Paterson, A. W. Kornhauser, H. J. Ryon, Harry Wellman, Joseph F. Page, Samuel J. Gummere, Delos Walker, Storm V. Boyd, and Grenville Clark.

The regular army officers outstandingly helpful to the committee were Gen.  H. P. McCain, Gen.  Robert C. Davis, Gen.  Henry Jervey, Gen.  Peter C. Harris, Gen.
R.I. Rees, Col.  A. M. Ferguson, and Col. Jens Bugge.  Directed by the committee, in co-operation with the office of the Surgeon General, an army organization of 7,000 officers and men interviewed and classified more than 3,000,000 soldiers.  As a result more than 1,200,000 of them were assigned to duties in which their special abilities could be used to a degree that would otherwise have been impossible.

As director of the committee, Scott personally visited every army training camp in the United States, except those west of the Rockies.  And in the fall of 1918, he went to France, carrying with him a letter of introduction signed by Secretary of War Baker and addressed to Gen.  John J. Pershing.

Keppel was a fellow passenger on the ship that took Scott to Europe and knew that Scott was about to be commissioned a colonel.  Scott was not eager to have the commission, so he slipped away to avoid receiving it, for he felt it might hamper him in his work as director of the Committee on Classification of Personnel.  Upon arriving in France, he proceeded to Pershing's headquarters and immediately after the Armistice went to the front.

He was eager to study the situation while the army still held its fighting positions.  The study, he figured, would be a big help in rating officers before they left France.

He had many talks with enlisted men and officers and made an informal survey of the magnitude and difficulties of transportation.  And he gave suggestions to the men who were carrying through the rating procedures devised by him and his associates.  The record of the rating conducted at the front immediately after cessation of hostilities would, it was felt, be valuable in the event of another war or some other emergency.

Called back to the United States unofficially by his associates shortly after the Armistice, Scott was given his commission as a colonel, which had been ordered three weeks before the end of the war.  He expected to work on a vocational placement program for discharged soldiers.  But this was not needed, since the men encountered less difficulty than expected in finding suitable jobs after their release from military service.  He performed one more task for the Army, however.  Bingham tells about it in his letter to the author.
 "During World War 1," Bingham wrote, "Scott personified, in the eyes of the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, and of the whole army, the entire enterprise of personnel classification and assignment.
 "He represented us, secured necessary authorization and funds, and from our busy hideaway in a top-floor room of the old State, War, and Navy Building, exercised a stimulating and unifying leadership that helped greatly to facilitate mobilization and training of our forces and which won him hosts of friends.
 "Characteristic of the trust placed in him by Secretary Baker was Scott's procurement of ratings of the generals of the army in the autumn of 1917 and again early in 1919.  Those ratings were helpful when the Secretary of War had to decide which generals were to be retained in command of their divisions or brigades, which ones should be relieved, and who should be given higher responsibilities.  They are today in the custody of the Adjutant General, in the Personnel Research Section of his office . . . ."

With his letter Bingham enclosed a copy of a memo headed: RATINGS OF GENERAL OFFICERS OF WORLD WAR 1. It reads as follows:

"In the autumn of 1917, Walter Dill Scott, then director of the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the army operating as a branch of the Office of the Adjutant General (H.  P. McCain), was asked by Newton D. Baker, the Secretary of War, to go to five major generals (O'Ryan, Morrison, Sibert, Wood, and Bailey), and secure their estimates of the qualifications of each of the general officers they knew personally.
 "Dr.  Scott helped each of these raters to make out his Officers' Rating Scale in the manner prescribed for use in reporting annual ratings on officers. (See attached W. D. Circular No. 7, February 18, 1918, which defines five traits: 1. Physical Qualities; II.  Intelligence; 111.  Military Leadership; IV.  Character; and V. General Value to the Service; with instructions for making out a man-to-man comparison footrule for each trait.)
 "The list of officers to be rated included two generals, 60 major generals, and 158 brigadier generals, a total of 220 officers.
 "The original data sheets reveal that the two generals were rated by two of the raters and one of them was rated by a third.  Most of the major generals and a majority of the regular army brigadier generals were rated by each of the five raters, but no ratings whatever are recorded for a number of the brigadier generals who had come into the federal service with the National Guard.
 "After the war, early in 1919, the same procedure was followed when four other raters, namely Maj.  Gens.  Brewster, Davis, Harbord, and McAndrew, were called on to record their estimates of the relative qualifications of 169 of the original 220 who still were general officers.  A large majority of these 169 officers were rated by all four of these generals."

The History of the Personnel System, published by the War Department in 1919, gives five men credit for the establishment of the Committee on Classification of Personnel in the Army. They are: Newton D. Baker, Maj. Gen. H. P. McCain, Maj.  Grenville Clark, Dr. Frederick P. Keppel, and Dr. Walter Dill Scott.  Scott is credited with "first having conceived the idea" and with a faith in it which, "coupled with his tremendous energy and devotion, enabled him to accomplish for the army a truly distinguished service."

In recognition of this, Scott was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal in 1919 and ten years later was commissioned a reserve colonel in the Adjutant General's department.

Now let us return for a moment to Carnegie Tech and to the Bureau of Salesmanship Research during the early postwar years.  Bingham remarked apropos of this, in his previously cited article in The Scientific Monthly for February, 1923: -

    "If peace had been a preparation for war, war no less prepared for peace.  The lessons of experience in dealing with all kinds of men in the army later proved valuable in the renewed task of applying scientific methods to problems of personnel in business and industry.
    "Selection, classification and development of clerical and executive personnel was demanded, as well as the study of salesmen.  The bureau had been piloted during the last year of the war by G. M. Whipple as acting director.
   "He had continued to gather data on salesmen and had initiated investigations of methods of training and supervision.  Scott returned from Washington in the spring of 1919, but he shortly relinquished to C. S. Yoakum the direction of the bureau which then took the new name, Bureau of Personnel Research, because its problems and activities had far outrun the original definition of scope. . . ." Incidentally, in 1919 Scott was elected president of the American Psychological Association for the 1919-20 term of office.

Others too made use of the knowledge acquired through "experience in dealing with all kinds of men in the army "as well as that garnered previously from the experiments conducted by the Bureau of Salesmanship Research.

They were five of Scott's associates in the Army Personnel Classification work — Robert C. Clothier, Louis B. Hopkins, Stanley B. Mathewson, Beardsley Ruml, and Joseph W. Hayes who immediately after the war organized the Scott Company of business consultants.

Though away in France at the time, Scott was chosen head of the firm, which in the following two years performed extensive and intensive research and counseling services for 45 well known industrial and commercial concerns,

Meanwhile, however, came an entirely new development that took Scott back to his Alma Mater under highly challenging circumstances.  He realized at the outset that acceptance of the challenge might lead to failure, or it might, on the other hand, enable him to perform a great service to his university and to higher education.