SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS IN THE RECONSTRUCTION 



OF EDUCATION. 



GILBERT L. BROWN. 



As an introduction to this paper, I wisli to point out and emphasize tlie 

 desirability of psychologists recognizing as legitimate parts of their work the 

 many comparatively new fields which are demanding assistance from psychol- 

 ogy. Business men — especially salesmen and advertisers — are demanding to 

 know the psychology of successful business. Men interested in law or medi- 

 cine are talking freely of the psychology of the witness and the juror, or of 

 the patient. Sociologists are at present greatly interested in the psychology 

 of social action. And, what is more important than any of these, the educator 

 is demanding to know the psychology of his work. 



If we now turn to inquire what psychologists — I mean leading psycholo- 

 gists — are doing in response to these appeals, we find that they are not, gen- 

 erally speaking, giving them very sympathetic consideration. As one result of 

 this attitude, business men, attorneys, physicians, sociologists, and students of 

 education are attempting to set forth the psychological principles underlying 

 the work in which they are engaged. Most of these men know very little 

 psychology, and accordingly their attempts are not infrequently extremely 

 naive. But these writers are not wholly to blame for their superficial psychol- 

 ogy ; the fault lies rather with psychologists themselves who refuse to admit 

 the applications of psychology or the specific problems of business and profes- 

 sional men to the sanctity of their thought-world. I do not mean by these 

 remarks to disparage in any way the study and teaching of "pure" psychology, 

 but to point out the need for making psychology more comprehensive in scope. 



At the present time education is undergoing very radical changes. Much 

 of the old in content and method is proving ineffective and is being discarded ; 

 acordingly there must follow a period of reconstruction. In fact we are 

 already within such a period. Certain phases of this reconstruction involves 

 distinctly psychological problems, and must depend very largely upon the work 

 of psychologists for the solution of the problems. 



Education needs to know the nature of mental processes, as set forth in 

 general psychology ; but it has certain specific psychological problems which 

 must be .solved. 



One of the newer fields of education — and psj'choiogy — is the subject of 

 intelligence. In fact the study of intelligence is forcing a revolution in the 

 classification of pupils. We have for centuries guessed and speculated as to 



21st Mich. Acad. Sci. Rcpt., 1919. 



