Instructor in Psychology, Harvard University.
EDITOR'S NOTE.--The illustrations of this article are from
photographs, specially taken for the Harvard University Exhibit at
the World's Fair.
What do they do there?
What do they expect to come out of it?
The notion of a mental laboratory is still a mystery to most persons.
They ask themselves the above questions, and many feel as they do so
an uncanny shiver. They cannot realize that the study of the mind is
already an established natural science, here, at sober Harvard, in all
the leading universities, and free of spooks and mediums.
Yet a psychological laboratory looks much like any other modern
laboratory. Around the rooms run glass-cases filled with fine
instruments. Shelves line up, row after row, of specimen-jars and
bottles. Charts cover the remainder of the walls. The tables and
floors are crowded with working apparatus. Two large rooms and one
small one are now occupied at Harvard. Four more rooms will be added
to these this summer.
Also, the spirit that reigns in these rooms is the same that is found
in other laboratories of exact science. This is the important thing.
The minds of these workers are not wandering in dialectics and vagrant
hypotheses. Reverence has opened her eyes. Hypotheses they have, and
must have. Often they hold conflicting opinions. But the referee is
always present--Nature herself. To experiment, to show the fact, is
always the method of debate. This is the great advantage of the modern
way of studying psychology over the old.
The American public is so practical that I feel I can alone satisfy
its "whats and wherefores" by explicitly describing some of the
investigations being carried on here.