Section J 



MENTAL SCIENCE AND EDUCATION. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT: 



Rev. E. H. SUGDEN, M.A.. B.Sc, 



Master of Queen's College, Melbourne. 



MUSIC. 



Before I address myself to the topic to which I specially desire 

 to direct your attention, there are some matters on which 

 as President of this Section I think I ought to say a word or two 

 at the opening of our sessions. First I wish to express our sense 

 of the loss which psychology has recently sustained in the death 

 of Professor William James. If Socrates brought down philosophy 

 from heaven to earth, it may be truly said that Prof. James carried 

 the process still further and brought philosophy from the lecture 

 room into the market place. The freshness and unconventionality 

 of his treatment and the homeliness and everyday character of his 

 illustrations have induced a wider interest in psychology than it 

 has ever before enjoyed. As M. Jourdain found to his amazement 

 that he had been talking prose all his life without knowing it, so 

 have we learned that we have all been more or less psychologists and 

 philosophers though we had no suspicion of any such thing. He 

 has taught us the practical value of psychology to the teacher, and 

 has brought home its moral lessons with a new and striking force ; 

 and he has reclaimed for Science the hitherto almost neglected 

 field of religious experience, so that conversion and sanctitication 

 are no longer regarded as abnormal and hysterical phenomena, but 

 as normal experiences as worthy of serious scientific study as the 

 laws of association or the freedom of the will. His own personal 

 character was as attractive as his teaching ; and I venture to think 

 that time will only increase our sense of the value and originality 

 of his work. 



Then I desire to congratulate the Section on the growing 

 interest in education, which is one of the most hopeful features of 

 our day. The registration of secondary teachers and the improve- 

 ment of the social and financial status of the teaching profession, 

 which is beginning already to result from that most necessary and 



