[1] Address of the President before the American
Psychological Association, New Haven, 1899.
In coming before you I had hoped to deal with the problem of the
relation of psychology to the social sciences--and through them to
social practice, to life itself. Naturally, in anticipation, I had
conceived a systematic exposition of fundamental principles covering the
whole ground, and giving every factor its due rating and position. That
discussion is not ready today. I am loath, however, completely to
withdraw from the subject, especially as there happens to be a certain
phase of it with which I have been more or less practically occupied
within the last few years. I have in mind the relation of psychology to
education. Since education is primarily a social affair, and since
educational science is first of all a social science, we have here a
section of the whole field. In some respects there may be an advantage
in approaching the more comprehensive question through the medium of one
of its special cases. The absence of elaborated and coherent view may be
made up for by a background of experience, which shall check the
projective power of reflective abstraction, and secure a translation of
large words and ideas into specific images. This special territory,
moreover, may be such as to afford both sign-posts and broad avenues to
the larger sphere--the place of psychology among the social sciences.
Because I anticipate such an outcome, and because I shall make a survey
of the broad field from the special standpoint taken, I make no apology
for presenting this discussion to an association of psychologists rather
than to a gathering of educators.
In dealing with this particular question, it is impossible not to have
in mind the brilliant and effective discourses recently published by my
predecessor in this chair. I shall accordingly make free to refer to
points, and at times to words, in his treatment of the matter. Yet, as
perhaps I hardly need say, it is a problem of the most fundamental
importance for both psychology and social theory that I wish to discuss,
not any particular book or article. Indeed, with much of what Dr.
Münsterberg says about the uselessness and the danger for the teacher of
miscellaneous scraps of child study, of unorganized information
regarding the nervous system, and of crude and uninterpreted results of
laboratory experiment, I am in full agreement. It is doubtless necessary
to protest against a hasty and violent bolting of psychological facts
and principles which, of necessity, destroys their scientific form. It
is necessary to point out the need of a preliminary working over of
psychological material, adapting it to the needs of education. But
these are minor points. The main point is whether the standpoint of
psychological science, as a study of _mechanism_, is indifferent and
opposed to the demands of education with its free interplay of
personalities in their vital attitudes and aims.