| Summary: | "It is scarcely necessary to elaborate on the need for collateral experimental work in elementary science classes. Materials presented by the lecture and textbook are desirable and enable the student to obtain a clearly stated and efficiently digested account of the subject-matter. Good scholarship implies a healthy respect for authority and a willingness to examine the works of others. However, when the elementary student must depend solely on the word of teachers and textbook writers, there seems to be a possibility that subject-matter becomes pure dogma, and learning becomes a form of ancestor worship. In no other natural science than psychology is it so easily possible to confuse the boundary between facts and pure theory, between rigidly controlled observations and carelessly remembered everyday experiences. The intense popular interest in this subject has been not accompanied by the exact investigatory attitude of the research worker. The material brought together here has been selected in order to adapt the book to the situations present in a large group of colleges throughout the country. It is presented with the idea of giving every elementary student in the beginning course some exposure to laboratory facts. In this respect psychology may approach the scientific positions already achieved by the other biological sciences, botany, zoology, and the physical sciences, chemistry and physics. A minimum amount of exposure to laboratory facts should be considered a requirement for every beginning student in the science. I have, therefore, selected material which can be used in large classes, keeping in mind the fact that courses in psychology are among the heaviest attended in the colleges and universities. Most of the experiments are adaptations of classical investigations in general psychology, and only a few of the experiments may be definitely classed as 'applied psychology.' It seems that it is important to give an elementary student the general foundations of a science, first, and we may trust that, later, his applied science will be all the better because of a more thorough understanding of the general science. The experiments, here presented, were largely tried in the three-hour elementary psychology course in the University of Michigan. The lecturer and usually one assistant conducted the experiment, though in some experiments an extra assistant was used. Where special subjects were needed, volunteers were taken from the class. The experiments in applied psychology, in the last chapter, were used in classes in applied psychology only. In our experience it has not been necessary to show immediate practical application of an experiment in order to keep a large class interested in the work. The average college student possesses enough scientific curiosity to follow through the results of a general experiment without demanding ulterior values. Practically all of the experiments in general psychology have been used for a duration of one year. Some of the experiments have been used for four years"--Preface. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved).
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