UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 453 



superintendents or principals of schools. Dr. William R. New- 

 bold, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, is carrying on investiga- 

 tions in a field of natural science in which results are hard to 

 attain. An inquiry into the character and condition of states of 

 belief, undertaken some seven years ago, led him to the study of 

 the active side of mind in general, with special reference to the 

 origin and function of its more complex elements, such as states 

 of belief, practical intuitions, ethical conceptions, choice, and rea- 

 soning. Dr. Newbold is working upon these problems from such 

 points of vantage as may be offered by the study of the less highly 

 evolved forms of consciousness, as in the lower animals and in 

 children, and in those disintegrations of the more complex forms 

 found in hysteria, epilepsy, trance, and hypnotic states. The 

 greater part of Dr. Newbold's work, however, is not yet in shape 

 for public use, and is not likely to be for several years to come. 



In no department of the university has there been a greater 

 advance in improved methods than in psychology. With the 

 growing equipment of the university in laboratories, museums, 

 and library, it has become possible to put new methods into effi- 

 cient practice. By experimentation in laboratories the students 

 are brought into close personal contact with the subject-matter 

 of their studies. A student of psychology has open to him the 

 courses delivered in the medical school on anatomy and physiol- 

 ogy, and he has opportunities for dissection. He may attend 

 clinics at which nervous patients are treated, and he has courses 

 to choose from on mental pathology. There are opportunities to 

 become familiar with the types of mental diseases by actual inspec- 

 tion of cases, and within easy reach are asylums for the insane 

 and institutions for deaf-mutes and for the blind. The depart- 

 ment of Experimental Psychology at the university was organized 

 for the prosecution of original research, and for the teaching of 

 psychology to undergraduates and to graduate students. The 

 laboratory is the oldest in continuous existence of all American 

 laboratories of psychology in which regular courses for students 

 are offered. It was founded in 1887 by Profs. Cattell and Fuller- 

 ton. The former was a student of Wundt's in Leipsic, where he 

 was the first assistant in the Psychological Institute. He was the 

 first Professor of Experimental Psychology at the university, and 

 introduced the research and demonstration methods of the Ger- 

 man laboratory. Dr. Lightner Witmer, the successor of Dr. Cat- 

 tell, was a student of his, and also of Wundt. Thus the laboratory 

 of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania was one of the 

 earliest outgrowths of the great foundation of Prof. Wundt at 

 Leipsic. The German laboratory is more of an institution for 

 conducting and encouraging original research than for giving 

 instruction. The American laboratories tend to subordinate 



