Page:Mary Whiton Calkins - Experimental Psychology at Wellesley College (The American Journal of Psychology, 1892-11-01).pdf/5

468 little more than an illustration of method and an approximate verification of the more important results in reactions to sound and in more complicated reactions, involving association, discrimination and choice. Averages of simple reaction-times, with and then without signal, showing a general increase in the time of the latter, were made by several students and included in essays on attention. Students were required to read Jastrow’s “Time-Relations of Mental Phenomena.”

The study of volition led to several days’ discussion of the problems of determinism and indeterminism. This was undertaken with the express remark that the subject is metaphysical and not psychological. The favorable result of this study confirms my opinion of the value of an occasional consideration of so-called metaphysical problems in a general course of psychology, with students who are neither studying philosophy nor specializing in psychology. To repress the philosophical questions, suggested by a study of psychological phenomena, is difficult; to consider them is harmful, only if the distinction between metaphysics and psychology is not sharply made; to discuss them may be of great pedagogical value. One may agree with Dr. James that “metaphysics fragmentary, irresponsible, and half-awake, and unconscious that she is metaphysical, spoils two good things when she injects herself into a natural science,” but one may still believe that a course which properly is called psychology, because of the immense preponderance of psychological discussion and investigation, may yet make an occasional metaphysical digression. Such a plan at least avoids the difficulty which may be raised in the cases in which the course is a required one in the philosophical department—the objection that psychology, as a mere science among sciences, does not merit this pre-eminence.

In place of a final examination, a psychological essay was required. The subjects assigned were very general and were intended as subjects for study rather than as definite essay-headings. The immediate topic of the paper was to be decided after the study and not before. Such subjects as “Association,” “Attention,” “Memory,” “Imagination,” “The Psychology of Language,” “The Psychology of Childhood,” “The Psychology of Blindness,” “Aphasia,” “Animal Psychology,” were chosen in this way. Writers on the first two subjects worked up the statistics, to which allusion has already been made. The specialization of topics, within the broad field indicated, showed itself in various ways. One student studied the prevalence among imaginative people of a “continued story,” never written, seldom mentioned, but very significant, especially in the emotional life. Of fifty-four students who were questioned, nineteen have had such a story, whose characters grow, but retain a constant identity; whose situations change, but only in accordance with the plot, usually a simple one, of the story. With all the story began in childhood; with eight it still continues, but in all cases the interests of adult life have somewhat overshadowed it. A comparison was made with the experiences of thirty-six young men, students in Iowa College, with the result that only three testify to the possession, at any time, of a continued story.

The study of the psychology of blindness was accompanied by visits to the Perkins Institute. A student who writes on “The Imagination of the Blind,” bases her conclusions on a personal study of twenty-five blind children. She questioned the children, consulted with their teachers, and read their compositions. Those who write on the psychology of childhood have made personal observations on babies and little children. One writes on “The