Januaev 26, 190O.] 



SCIENCE. 



133 



dent of psychology due to the nature of the 

 subject matter, the difference between ob- 

 servation and interpretation, and his ques- 

 tioning of inferred facts owing to the indi- 

 rect method of arriving at them. The 

 speaker argued that the difficulty is best 

 avoided by first studying the indirect modes 

 of treating subjective experience, that is, 

 by a study of the physical and physiological 

 conditions of mental life, always keeping in 

 view its relation to the final treatment of 

 mental experience toward which it is aim- 

 ing. The discussion was continued inform- 

 ally by a number of the members from the 

 floor. 



The general program was long and va- 

 ried. On Wednesday morning Professor 

 E. F. Buchner spoke on ' Volition as a 

 scientific doctrine,' and Professor G. S. 

 Fullerton on ' The criterion of sensation ' 

 continuing a discussion developed in a paper 

 on ' The psychological standpoint,' read 

 before a former meeting of the Association, 

 which endeavored to show what is implied 

 in the recognition of psychology as a nat- 

 ural science. This was followed by what 

 proved to be one of the most interesting 

 papers of the session, viz., ' A new arithmet- 

 ical prodigy with demonstration ' by Pro- 

 fessors E. H. Lindsay and W. L. Bryan. 

 'The subject is a boj',.nineteen years old, the 

 son of a stone mason, who has attended 

 school seven years, made a fair record in 

 all his studies and is of good general intel- 

 ligence. Since the age of three he has 

 shown a passion for numbers and has de- 

 veloped extraordinary powers in calcula- 

 tion. Since November, 1899, he has been 

 under investigation at Indiana University. 

 This investigation has been general and 

 thorough and is still being carried on. The 

 principal results thus far are as follows : 

 In scope and tenacity of memory and in 

 rapidity he ranks among the best re- 

 corded cases. He is unique in the large 

 number of methods which he has worked 



out, and in the fact that he explains how 

 and when he arrived at these. His rapidity 

 is found to depend upon the great number 

 of number relations committed to memory 

 and upon the reduction in the number of 

 operations through short-cut methods. The 

 boy was present and gave demonstrations 

 of his powers on both Wednesday and 

 Thursday mornings, which were followed 

 with great interest. 



Professor W. S. Monroe closed the first 

 session with a paper on ' Moral perceptions 

 of school children,' describing an experi- 

 mental investigation. 



On Thursday morning the Association di- 

 vided into sections, one for experimental 

 reports and one for papers of more purely 

 philosophical scope. Owing to the length 

 of the program this sectional division was 

 continued up to the end of the meeting. 

 The experimental section on Thursday was 

 opened by Professor E. A. Kirkpatrick on 

 ' Individual tests of school children.' 



Dr. T. L. Bolton spoke on ' The Reliabil- 

 ity of certain methods for measuring the 

 degree of fatigue in school children,' criti- 

 cising the method of Griesbach with the 

 aesthesiometer and the application of the 

 ergograph to determine the fatigue value of 

 subjects of the school curriculum. The 

 speaker described experiments of his own, 

 and reached conclusions unfavorable to the 

 methods named. Professor E. F. Buchner 

 described in detail 'A new number form,' 

 and Dr. Robert MacDougall followed with 

 a paper on ' The time values of accented 

 and unaccented elements in rhythm.' Pro- 

 fessor Ohas. H. Judd described ' A method 

 of securing enlarged records of voice vibra- 

 tions ' on smoked paper by means of an ar- 

 rangement of two diaphragms. Records 

 made were exhibited, and a detailed anal- 

 ysis of a four-syllable word was reported. 

 Dr. E. W. Scripture reported on ' Re- 

 searches in experimental phonetics. Dr. 

 Max Meyer spoke on ' Elements of a psy- 



