Septemeek 2, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



301 



Comparative psychology, which considers 

 the mental life of lower animals, no longer 

 retains its place on the skirmish line; sep- 

 arate instructors, rooms and. equipment 

 mark its permanent position in the univer- 

 sity. Twenty-two colleges now offer cur- 

 riculums with comparative psychology cited 

 as an independent course. In planning 

 for the new laboratory in Emerson Hall, 

 Harvard, a comparative psychologist went 

 to Europe expressly to study the German 

 'institutes,' so as to be ready to introduce 

 the most perfect arrangements for studying 

 the psychology of animals. Besides these 

 subtopics there are a score or more of others 

 treated in separate courses by officers of the 

 psychological departments. Intimately re- 

 lated subjects, like anthropology and sociol- 

 ogy, have become university departments. 

 The instructors in psychology, in addition 

 to the familiar courses in descriptive and 

 experimental psychology, are teaching such 

 phases of the science as physiological psy- 

 chology and abnormal psychology; genetic 

 psychology and child study; historical, 

 analytical and systematic psychology; the 

 psychology of the emotions and will, the 

 psychology of logic, of esthetics, of ethics 

 and of religion; the application of statis- 

 tical methods to psychology; experimental 

 phonetics and various other investigations 

 in special fields. There are at least 62 col- 

 leges where three or more courses with psy- 

 chological titles are announced in the cata- 

 logues; 38 give five or more courses. At 

 Columbia the department of psychology 

 alone offers 20 different courses. The pres- 

 ent differentiation in psychology is more 

 noticeable when compared with the condi- 

 tion ten years ago. Professor Delabarre, 

 writing at that time for L'Annee, outlined 

 the courses in the 26 American institu- 

 tions. Only 16 then offered as many as 

 five courses. 



Turning from the attitude of the facul- 



ties toward psychology to the opinion 

 among the students, the data which have 

 been furnished by the laboratory directors 

 are suggestive.* The student view is cer- 

 tainly of vital importance ; psychology must 

 depend largely on it for the future. The 

 records at hand approximate the registra- 

 tion in psychological courses among 34 uni- 

 versities, each of which has a laboratory 

 equipment worth $1,000 or more.f In 

 trying to estimate the importance of psy- 

 chology in the work of the student body, 

 the registration in this department may be 

 compared with the total enrolment of the 

 colleges in which psychology is offered. 

 These are only the graduate school and the 

 colleges of pure science, of literature and 

 of arts. The class rolls in psychology for 

 the group of universities studied include 

 this year from 10 to 50 per cent, of the 

 students to whom it is offered. | Clark 

 University, where the enrolment in psy- 

 chology reaches about three fourths of the 

 students, ought to be considered apart. Its 

 position in regard to graduate study in 

 psychology is unique on account of the 

 prominence of President G. Stanley Hall, 

 which has attracted a group of students 

 with psychological interests. By omitting 

 Clark our average becomes quite represen- 

 tative of conditions in the larger institu- 

 tions; we find that the attendance on psy- 

 chological courses is approximately 20 per 

 cent, of the total enrolment. It seems fair 

 to suppose that a third of the students in 

 these 34 institutions, even in the colleges 

 of science, literature and arts, can not 



* I wish to take this opportunity to thank some 

 fifty professors who have shown much considera- 

 tion in supplying information regarding attend- 

 ance on courses, laboratory equipment, etc. 



t For a list of the institutions considered, see 

 the discussion of laboratories, later in this paper. 



% It has not seemed advisable to try to exclude 

 double registrations in psychology, as they are 

 comparatively few, and as in some oases only the 

 approximate enrolment has been furnished. 



