426"' 



NATURE 



[September 3, 1903 



pathologieal, experimental, historical or philosophical. 

 By this means the student comes into relation with most 

 of the teaching staff of the department in which he is 

 interested. Later, more advanced courses are open to him 

 in analytical psychology, educational psychology, the 

 philosophy of mind, genetic psychology, and so on. At 

 Pennsylvania the student spends two years at psychology, 

 devoting the first half-year to analytical psychology, the 

 second hailf-year to physiological psychology, the third half- 

 year to synthetic psychology, and the fourth half-year to 

 experimental "psychology. Each of these half-courses com- 

 prises lectures and practical work, of an hour and two 

 hours' duration respectively per week. 



It would be wearisome to follow out at further length 

 the various lines of undergraduate study pursued in 

 psychology at the several universities visited by me. You 

 will, however, hear with interest that men are offered at 

 Yale a course of recent German psychology in their fourth 

 or senior year, the class reading extracts from the works 

 of Brentano, Wundt, Stumpf, Kiilpe, and others, while the 

 dilTcrent attitudes of these psychologists are explained by 

 th-: instructor. At Harvard a half-year's course on the 

 mental life of animals is offered, accompanied by lectures 

 and demonstrations. At Cornell a course on the history of 

 the psychophysical work of Weber, Fechner, and others is 

 given. 



This brings me to the more detailed ' consideration of 

 experimental work in the United States. The laboratory 

 in Harvard University has eleven rooms, in Yale it has 

 seven, in Columbia nineteen, in Princeton five, in Cornell 

 ten, and in Clark ten ; these numbers generally include all 

 public and private rooms of the department. Cornell has 

 undoubtedly the best equipped laboratory, so far as human 

 psychology is concerned. Two rooms here are devoted to 

 vision, one to acoustics, one to touch, one to taste and 

 smell, one to chronometric apparatus, one is a special 

 research room, and there is a lecture room and a work- 

 shop. Both Clark and Harvard have rooms devoted to 

 experiments on animals. Partly for this reason the 

 Harvard laboratory suffers from lack of space ; a new one 

 will be built in the near future. Most laboratories have 

 a departmental library, or at least a seminary, in which 

 me siuuents can reau or meet for discussion. Practically 

 all the laboratories have a workshop, and employ a trained 

 mechanician, who is able to turn out even complicated and 

 expensive apparatus. 



The methods of conducting the experimental work 

 naturally differ in the various laboratories. At Harvard 

 and Columbia lectures are given in connection with the 

 experiments, but at many other universities lectures and 

 practical work are wholly independent. At Yale, Harvard, 

 Princeton and Cornell, students work together in pairs, 

 each member of a pair serving alternately as subject and 

 as experimenter. At Pennsylvania students work together 

 in groups of three, the third recording the results obtained 

 by the two others. Stress is laid in most laboratories on 

 the careful keeping of note-books. Many of those in 

 Cornell are models of neatness and diligence ; there they 

 are inspected, marked and initialled monthly by the 

 as'feistants. At Princeton, the times are so arranged that 

 only a single pair of students is working in the laboratory 

 at any one hour ; they thus secure the undivided attention 

 of the instructor. At Harvard and Pennsylvania the entire 

 class is engaged upon the same kind of experiment simul- 

 taneously ; the Pennslyvania students are each provided 

 with lockers containing the simpler apparatus thev are 

 likely to use. At Yale and Cornell, on the other 'hand, 

 students are simultaneously engaged at different experi- 

 ments ; one pair, for instance, is working on colour-vision, 

 another on reaction-times, another on tactile sensibility, 

 and so on. Save at Cornell, the students are each taken 

 through all the laboratory experiments commonly described 

 in the text-books. But at Cornell it is held sufficient for 

 the student to devote himself to the investigation of a 

 single sense, working over perhaps fifteen experiments 

 therein, and then to proceed to one or two experi- 

 ments on the expression of the affective states, thence to 

 some of the experiments in attention and reaction, and so 

 on. whereby he acquires a practical experience, less 

 extensive, but probably more thorough than that usually 



NO. 1766, VOL. 68] 



obtained. He works four and a half months in qualitative, 

 and four and a half months in quantitative, experimental 

 work during his third year. His fourth year is devoted 

 to some special problem, and he writes an essay on his 

 results. 



If, having taken his B.A. degree, the graduate deter-' 

 mines to pursue his studies further, he enters the post- 

 graduate school in order to proceed to his doctor's degree. 

 After two or three years' post-graduate study, he may pre- 

 sent himself for examination in a chosen division, e.g. 

 philosophy, and within the division he must name some 

 special field of study, e.g. psychology, in which he is liable 

 to minute examination and must offer a thesis, showing 

 evidence of independent research. In psychology, as in 

 all subjects, advanced lectures are delivered to suit his 

 requirements. At Cornell during his first year of_ post- 

 graduate study, the student does not start any special re- 

 search work ; he reads and roams about the laboratory, 

 observing what his senior fellow-students are doing. ^ A 

 very large proportion of post-graduate students at Yale 

 and Harvard consists of graduates from smaller universi- 

 ties. At Harvard I found no less than sixteen students 

 engaged in the psychological laboratory at original work 

 for their Ph.D. degree. They attended there at fixed 

 times in the mornings only, working in pairs alternately 

 as subject and as experimenter. Weekly seminary meet- 

 ings are held at Harvard, Yale, and Clark for post- 

 graduate students. At Harvard three papers are read at 

 each evening meeting by the students, and are discussed 

 by themselves and their professors. At the Yale semin- 

 aries, a post-graduate student presents a paper weekly, deal- 

 ing with the system of some well-known mental philosopher. 

 At Clark, the' students meet each week at the professor's 

 house to narrate and criticise their progress in research 

 work. 



A very large proportion of theses, written for the Ph.D. 

 degree in psychology, sees light in the pages of American 

 psychological' journals. In many instances this must turn 

 out to be the one piece of original work such men have 

 performed in their life. They drift away in various direc- 

 tions. The best are chosen by their professors to be 

 laboratory instructors for a year or more. Thence they go 

 to becom'e assistant professors in other universities, or de- 

 part earlier to teach educational psychology in the State 

 normal schools or in other teachers' training colleges. 

 Mainly through lack of leisure, the majority put forth 

 little in the way of further and mature research. There 

 is a strong tendency, too, for psychologists in America to 

 turn to editorial or literary work, to become busy with 

 the organisation of science, or to deal with purely philo- 

 sophical, ethical, or religious problems. 



But apart from such drawbacks, which are the result 

 rather of American ways of life and character than of 

 deficient interest or training, I have said enough, I hope, 

 to show what a living subject of education psychology is 

 in the United States. It is becoming recognised there that 

 a man of culture should know something, not only of the 

 works, but also of the working, of the human mind. 

 Psychology in the United States is not a subject of the 

 philosophical few, as it is in our country. If it pays the 

 penalty for, it also reaps the advantage of, its position. 

 Numbers of undergraduate students acquire a notion, how- 

 ever dim and imperfect, of the range and importance of 

 psychology, so that, if ever they become successful busi- 

 ness men,' as many of them do, they are prepared to lend 

 it financial assistance in later life. Future medical students 

 take up psychology during their academic career, and turn 

 their knowledge of it to account when they come to deal 

 with the problems of insanity. Zoologists pass from their 

 museums to study it, and return to work out the psychology 

 of animal life. 'Teachers obtain a useful smattering of 

 it, suflficient to interest and improve them in their arduous 

 career. At Pennsylvania, for example, they have the 

 opportunity of attending a " pedagogical clinic," at which 

 children with various mental disorders are brought before 

 their notice, so that they may recognise them hereafter. 



From these facts it "will be seen that America provides 

 us with a lesson in the organised teaching of a subject 

 the success of which we have so much at heart, and with 

 an example which we should do well to follow. 



