234 



. SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. Will. J>o. 451. 



Anthropology, of the American Association 

 for the Advancement of Science have been 

 authoi-ized. We are now in active research 

 cooperation, through representatives on 

 joint committees, with the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Physical 

 Education, for gathering statistics and 

 measurements, and certain other societies 

 for preserving speech records. We have 

 our three committees on physical and men- 

 tal tests, vocabulary and bibliography. 

 Once the pride of the association has been 

 quickened into solicitude for the type of 

 representatives of American psychology 

 given standing in the international con- 

 gresses of psychology. And here we are, 

 one with numerous societies, bulked to- 

 gether in Convocation Week. 



In accepting the overtures of scientific 

 sociability our association has doubtless 

 aided greatly in bringing about a change in 

 that state of the public mind which once 

 regarded the psychologists as something 

 sui generisf who could not mingle in the 

 truly social precincts of science. During 

 the decennium there has appeared a de- 

 cided recognition of the psychologists, at 

 least, accredited through the affable hand 

 and voice of other departments of science. 

 Whether this scientific friendship extends 

 so far as to include the very genius of what 

 our science has to teach respecting both 

 nature and mind is a phase of our growth 

 which may well be reserved for more ma- 

 ture consideration. One might Avell say 

 that all other sciences should affiliate with 

 psychology, the true mother of science, in- 

 asmuch as she alone probes the sensory 

 foundations of all our knowledge of nature 

 and her processes. The present needs of 

 oiu- science make necessary a great deal of 

 missionary work to be done on our part, 

 and in affiliating our corporate interests, 

 let us become fully aware of the doiabling 



of the responsibility to our association and 

 its fundamental issues. 



TEN YEARS OUTSIDE THE ASSOCLVTION. 



It would be presuming too much in the 

 face of the most general and well-known 

 facts to imply that the chief features of 

 the last ten years of American psychology 

 are to be found within the histoiy of our 

 association. Having reviewed this in de- 

 tail, we must now turn to that larger area 

 of activity which lies without the organ- 

 ization, where we may, possibly, get a ti'uer 

 perspective of what the years have brought 

 forth among us. 



The laboratory represents, beyond all 

 question, the most interesting feature in 

 the recent development, and the largest 

 promise for the future of psychology. 

 Herein both the method of research and the 

 pedagogy of the subject find their true 

 abode. At the time of the fh'st annual 

 meeting of the American Association 

 there existed some fifteen laboratories in 

 America, fully equipped for research or 

 in possession of special facilities for demon- 

 stration. They possessed an equipment 

 which has been valued at about thirty thou- 

 sand dollars. The institutions maintain- 

 ing these laboratories were the universities 

 of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Indiana, 

 Clark, Nebraska, Harvard, Columbia, 

 Iowa, Cornell, Wellesley (college), Yale, 

 Brown, Michigan, Catholic University of 

 America and the McLean Asylum, which 

 began laboratory measurements in 1889. 

 In the next two years ten additional labo- 

 ratories were opened when the aggregate 

 valuation of the equipment approximated 

 sixty thousand dollars, and the annual ap- 

 propriations for maintenance amounted to 

 ten per cent, of the cost of equipment.* 



* According to DeUibarre, ' Les laboratoires de 

 psj'chologie en Amerique,' L'Annie psychologique, 

 1894, pp. 209-25.5. 



