Page:Mental Traits of Sex.djvu/17

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INTRODUCTION
3

dents of a coeducational university. For most of them the obtaining of an education has been the one serious business of life. They have had at least the similarity of training and surroundings incident to school life. Most of those in a western university have received their preparatory education in coeducational schools.

The individuals who furnished the basis for the present study were students of the University of Chicago. They were all juniors, seniors, or students in the first year of their graduate work. The original intention was to limit the ages to the period from twenty to twenty-five years. Owing to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient number of subjects within these limits, a few individuals of nineteen years, and a few over twenty-five were admitted (see Fig. 81). The subjects were obtained by requesting members of the classes in introductory psychology and ethics to serve. They were told nothing about the object of the tests except that they were for the purpose of determining psychological norms. The series of questions on age, health, and nationality, reported in chap, viii, shows that in all these respects the men and women tested were closely comparable.

Two methods may be followed in planning a series of tests designed to yield material for the comparison of groups or classes. It is possible either to make rapid and more or less superficial measurements on a large number of individuals, depending on numbers to counterbalance the errors of single tests, or to make careful and accurate observations of a smaller number of persons. The ideal procedure would unquestionably be to make careful measurements of a large number of individuals, but since the amount of time