| These volumes are witness to the vigor and comprehensiveness
of the tradition of psychology in North America before it became a laboratory discipline,
and while it was making the transition from philosophy to {aspiring} science.
Prescientific psychology was, like the psychology that replaced it, diverse and the
collection policy reflects this. The policy was also influenced by priorities in the
provenance and the content of books considered for inclusion. The specifics of these
priorities were derived from the received history of psychology, the
content of the collections as it presently stands-reflecting choices made by a number of psychologists-and such standard
sources as Fay (1939) American Psychology Before William James and Evans (1984),
"The Origins of American Academic Psychology".
- The collection emphasizes items published in English in North America, but also includes
English translations of European volumes as well as European authored and published works
that have had a demonstrable influence in North America. Since the proto-psychologists had
these works in their libraries they are represented in the Special Collection.
Examples:
- Helmholtz, H. (1877) Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage
fur die Theorie der Musik. Braunschweig: Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn. (2 copies)
- Lotze, H. (1855). Outlines of psychology. (C.L. Herrick, Trans.) Minneapolis:
S. M. Williams.
- Preference is given to original editions and modern reprints are retained only until
they are replaced by of-the-period editions. All editions and printings of a title is the
ideal.
Examples:
We have:
- Thorndike, E.L. (1913). An introduction to the theory of mental and social
measurements. (2nd ed rev and enlarged) New York: Teachers College,
Columbia University.
We want:
- Thorndike, E.L. (1904). Introduction to the theory of mental and social measurements.
New York: Teachers College, Columbia University.
- The time period of interest for pre-scientific and scientific psychology should be
articulated in this statement of policy in order to endow it with a comforting
specificity. Is the separation at the year 1890, James' The Principles of Psychology?
Is it the winter of 1879-80, Max Friedrich's dissertation? Is it October 22, 1850 with
Fechner still in bed? The historians adopt these definite dates with tongue planted firmly
in cheek knowing that each of them does not really divide earlier events from later
events. The date is only a convenience, not an actually functional separation. The history
of psychology, as most things, is not truly linear.
Instead of a specific, falsely precise date, this statement of policy recommends the use
of examples to indicate the many and various kinds of works which are of interest. It is
better to be loosely over-inclusive rather than rigidly exclusive and limiting. Roughly,
we are talking about the middle to the end of the 18th century to the opening years of the
20th.
The content and substance of pre-scientific psychology was diverse, and the Special
Collection reflects this but it is possible to suggest some priorities, without intending
to exclude.
- The focus of the collection will be on academic psychology. That is, subject matter
presented in textbooks intended for undergraduate and graduate instruction, or, in
writings intended for audiences educated in academic psychology. This is philosophical
psychology as it was before the 1880's and 1890's, and the move toward science. Although
the word "psychology" may be in the title of these works we also find that
protopsychology included an interest in logic, ethics, anthropology, the mind and mental
acts, and the will, among other topics.
Examples:
Hickok, L.P. (1869). Empirical psychology; or, The human mind as
given in consciousness. New York: Ivision, Phinney, Blakeman.
Lacey, W.B. (1837). A system of moral philosophy; or, Christian ethics. (2nd ed.)
Pittsburgh: Patterson, Forrester.
Rauch, F.A. (1840). Psychology; or, A view of the human soul: Including anthropology.
New York: M.W. Dodd.
Upham, T.C. (1861). Elements of moral philosophy. New York: Harper and Brothers.
- The works of philosophical psychology usually assume a universal mind
with common, shared structures and functions but protopsychology was also concerned with
the atypical, the unusual, and even the pathological. A phrase, with apparently common
currency at the time, was "morbid psychology". These volumes are concerned with
"madness", suicide, witchcraft, spiritism, hysteria, faith healing, altered
states of consciousness, religious phenomena, and so on.
The major focus here will be on clinical material, but it may well be supplemented by the
institutional history of psychiatry and by the opposition to psychiatric practices.
Examples:
Calef, R. (1861). Salem witchcraft. Salem, MA:G.M. Whipple
& A.S. Smith.
Evans, W.F. (1885). The primitive mind-cure. Boston: H.H. Carter & Karrick.
Janet, D.P. (1909) Les nevroses. Paris: Flammarion. (With signature "G.
Stanley Hall" on cover.)
Sptizka, E.C. (1883). Insanity: Its classification, diagnosis, and treatment. New
York: Bermingham.
- An interest in the developmental sequence was a part of early American
psychology. Sometimes this was associated with teaching and parenting but there was also
an interest in the life history of individuals, since for some early psychologists the
study of ontogenetic development involved an alertness for evidence of displays of human
prehistoric and animal ancestor behavior.
The developmental literature should be supplemented by volumes concerned with advice to
parents and to young people, sex manuals, "adjustment" texts, and other
"self-help" or popular psychology.
Examples:
Denham, J. (1669). Cato major of old age. A Poem. London:
Henry Herringman.
Hopkins, L.P. (1886). Educational psychology: A treatise for parents and educators.
Boston: Lee and Shepard.
Preyer, W. (1884/1919). The Mind of the child part 1. The senses and the will.
(H.W. Brown, Trans.) New York: Appleton.
Shinn, M.W. (1893). Notes on the development of a child. (Vols. 1-2).
Berkely:University of California.
Sigourney, L.H. (Mrs.) (1840). Letters to mothers. New York: Harper &
Brothers.
- Topics that were mainstream in their own time, but which have since been
repudiated are represented. The most familiar is phrenology, and its status as a precursor
of personality measurements adds a note of legitimacy but there are other topics which
were not vindicated, but which must be included, such as physiognomy, anecdotal natural
history, and "racial" typologies.
Examples:
Bell, C. (1883). Expression: Its anatomy and philosophy.
New York: Fowler and Wells.
Kirby, W. (1852). On the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the
creation of animals. (Vols. 1-2). London: Henry G. Bohn.
Morris, F.O. (1873?) Anecdotes in natural history. New York: G. Routledge.
Walkington, T. (1631). The optic glasse of humors. Oxford: W. Turner.
- Early attempts at making psychology a laboratory discipline were
sufficiently different from laboratory psychology at the end of the 20th century that they
are included this collection. We carefully note however, that the founders knowledge of
the experimental method, cannot be faulted as "pre-scientific" or
"proto-scientific" with the possible polemical use of those terms. Instead, we
acknowledge the pioneers as representing "early-modern psychology (roughly
1850-1940)."
Examples:
Judd, C.H. (1906). Psychology: laboratory course. Vol. 2.
New York: Charles Scribner's sons.
Schulze, R. (1912/1909). Experimental psychology and pedagory; For teachers, normal
colleges, and universities. (R. Pintner, Trans.) London: George Allen.
Seashore, C.E. (1908). Elementary experiments in psychology. New York: Henry
Holt.
Whipple, G. M. (1914). Manual of mental and physical tests: Part I: simpler processes.
Baltimore: Warwick.
Whipple, G. M. (1921). Manual of mental and physical tests: Part II: complex processes.
Baltimore: Warwick.
- The new psychology of the end of the 19th century was dependent on the
content of science, technology, and the intellectual life of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Some of the great controversies, that still attract the attention of contemporary
psychologists, have their origins in the intellectual matrix before psychology arrived:
instinct, evolution, nature-nurture, for example. So the special collection will have
representation of work in physiology, biology, heredity, animal behavior, neurology,
physics and quantification.
Examples:
Head, H. (1920). Studies in neurology. (2 vols.) London:
Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press/Hodder & Stroughton.
Agassiz, A. (1894). A reconnoissance of the Bahamas and of the elevated reefs of Cuba
in the steam yacht "Wild Duck", January to April, 1893. Cambridge, MA:
Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College, Vol. 26, No. 1.
Johnson, A.B. (1856). The physiology of the senses. New York: Derby &
Jackson.
Tyndall, J. (1867/1915). Sound. New York: D. Appleton.
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