ADVtSORY COMMITTEE ON PSYCHOLOGY 215 



{^Dr. Gr.orge Trumbull Ladd, Professor of Philosophy, Vale University, 



to Mr. Baldwin r\ 



The purpose and opportunities of the Carnegie Institution are so 

 unique that there is little in the previous histor>' of education and 

 scientific research which can sen-e as a ver\' exact model or alto- 

 gether safe guide. I think, therefore, tl;at its first years should be 

 very largely experimental ; that the Institution should, so to say, 

 feel its way caiitiouslj'^ to its best and most eifectiv^e service for the 

 advancement of knowledge and the practical benefits of increased 

 knowledge, in this country' and throughout the world. Its efforts, 

 so far as concerns the aid it can render to psychology and to the 

 psychological sciences should, in my judgment, be arranged in the 

 following order of precedence : 



1. The unification and supplementing of the work of research 

 done by the universities and individuals best equipped for such 

 work. This branch, however, can not be defined in particular at 

 the beginning. But as instances of definite a.ssistance in the direc- 

 tion of unification I will mention the following : 



(a) The creation of some sort of a bureau of information, so that 

 the different persons engaged in psychological researches can know 

 what is being done, and what has been done, by others toward the 

 solution of the same problems. It has been vay experience that 

 much time and energy are often wasted through failure to obtain 

 such infonnation. 



(J>) Some arrangement by which friendly criticism and sugges- 

 tion can be had with a minimum risk from those jealousies, mis- 

 understandings, and even misrepresentations from which it is so 

 difficult to keep free even our best scientific work. 



(c) Perhaps, still further, more adequate provision tor the effi- 

 cient distribution of apparatus, books, pamphlets, etc., that are 

 either necessary or helpful to the investigator, but which he could 

 not obtain withctit the assistance of the Institution. 



Such ways of unifying as these are, of course, at the same time 

 ways of supplementing the work of particular universities and of 

 individuals. 



2. Some sort of a 'i^entral plant seems to me to be the next most 

 pressing need, I .sliould not, however, think it wise to sf>end im- 

 mediately a large sum in buildings or in the purchase of expensive 

 apparatus for experimental pyrposes. Indeed, a certain rather 

 limited amount of space allotted to the uses of a psychological labo- 



