Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals"In 1892 I was asked by the Harvard Corporation to give a few public lectures on psychology to the Cambridge teachers. The talks now printed form the substance of that course, which has since then been delivered at various places to various teacher-audiences. I have found by experience that what my hearers seem least to relish is analytical technicality, and what they most care for is concrete practical application. So I have gradually weeded out the former, and left the latter unreduced; and, now that I have at last written out the lectures, they contain a minimum of what is deemed 'scientific' in psychology, and are practical and popular in the extreme. My main desire has been to make teachers conceive, and if possible, reproduce sympathetically in their imagination, the mental life of their pupil as the sort of active unity which he/she feels it to be. Readers acquainted with my larger books on Psychology will meet much familiar phraseology. The talks to students, which conclude the volume, were written in response to invitations to deliver 'addresses' to students at women's colleges. The first one was to the graduating class of the Boston Normal School of Gymnastics. Properly, it continues the series of talks to teachers. The second and the third address belong together, and continue another line of thought"--Pref. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved). |
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abstract acquired action already appear association attention become begin better character child complete conceptions conduct connection consciousness course effect effort emotional entire example excited experience expression eyes fact faculty feel field follow give grow habits hand heart higher hour human ideal ideas imitation immediately important impression impulse inhibition inner instinct interest keep kind labor laws learning less lives look matter mean memory mental methods mind moral native nature never object once one's organism pass possible practical present psychology pupils reaction reason remain remember seems sense significance sort speak stand success sure taken talk teacher things thought tion true truth turn whole wish
Popular passages
Page 77 - Could the young but realize how soon they will become mere walking bundles of habits, they would give more heed to their conduct while in the plastic state. We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, and never to be undone.
Page 72 - I suppose, have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again, I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied would thus have been kept active through use.
Page 244 - To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower, Even the loose stones that cover the high-way, I gave a moral life : I saw them feel, Or linked them to some feeling : the great mass Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all That I beheld respired with inward meaning.
Page 77 - The drunken Rip Van Winkle, in Jefferson's play, excuses himself for every fresh dereliction by saying, "I won't count this time!" Well! he may not count it, and a kind Heaven may not count it; but it is being counted none the less. Down among his nerve cells and fibers the molecules are counting it, registering and storing it up to be used against him when the next temptation comes.
Page 250 - The scallop-edged waves in the twilight, the ladled cups, the frolicsome crests and glistening, The stretch afar growing dimmer and dimmer...
Page 245 - I had beheld — in front, The sea lay laughing at a distance; near, The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light; And in the meadows and the lower grounds Was all the sweetness of a common dawn — Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, And labourers going forth to till the fields.
Page 257 - Crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, under a clouded sky, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune, I have enjoyed a perfect exhilaration. I am glad to the brink of fear.
Page 67 - The great thing, then, in all education, is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy. It is to fund and capitalize our acquisitions, and live at ease upon the interest of the fund. For this we must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can, and guard against the growing into ways that are likely to be disadvantageous to us, as we should guard against the plague.
Page 249 - Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt, Just as any of you is one of a living crowd, I was one of a crowd...
Page 72 - The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on Some of Life's Ideals ATLA monograph preservation program |
| Author | William James |
| Edition | reprint |
| Publisher | H. Holt, 1899 |
| Original from | the University of California |
| Digitized | 8 Oct 2007 |
| ISBN | 1404734759, 9781404734753 |
| Length | 301 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |