Physiognomist

When John Doe peers at his face in the mirror, he notes that he needs a shave, has a queer blotch on his nose, or is losing his hair. If old "Dr." Holmes Whittier Merton of Manhattan should look at Mr. Doe's face, he would see more than that: 108 bumps and bulges, every little bump and bulge with a meaning all its own. It would cost Mr. Doe $25 to be looked at like that. For $25, Vocation Counselor Merton will tell Mr. Doe all about himself and what kind of job he ought to have.

"Dr." Merton (he studied at a now defunct diploma mill) is the last great practitioner of the pseudo-science of "physiognomy," which some 50 years ago was almost as popular in the U. S. as phrenology. This week his students gave a dinner to celebrate his 81st birthday. Said the aged physiognomist: "We are here to fill the hours with revelry; to see each other with glances of Mertonian eyes."

The faces of successful men have been Dr. Merton's lifelong study. He has made composite graphs of the features of leaders in 1,500 vocations. To find a client's ideal vocation, he matches his features to a typical graph. Airplane pilots, for example, must have "observation" a thrust forward of the nose from where the nostrils join the face." Actors must have a prominent "area of display"#151;heavy ridges on the upper lip. Chefs must be "thick between the ears." Dr. Merton himself has a prominent nose, a sign of inventive genius.

The searching glance of a skilled Mertonian can, he says, instantly spot the difference between a good baseball player and a football coach, but a more thorough analysis requires complicated charts and graphs, takes two hours.

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