Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1893-1894 [PAGE 69]

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COLLEGE OF SCIENCE.

65

culture. It is a constant aim to emphasize the meaning and interest of Philosophy and the relations of the problems to the life of man. The subjects are taught by lectures, recitations, and the seminary method.

PSYCHOLOGY.

The aim of the work in this department is to furnish the student, largely by means of inductive study, a knowledge of the nature of mind, its modes of behavior, the forms under which it manifests itself, the laws according to which it unfolds and develops, and the influence of environment upon this development. In the various courses the laboratory method of instruction is brought into prominent use. By means of appropriate apparatus the sensations are studied experimentally and the conditions under which the various sensations arise are accurately determined. Apparatus is also employed to demonstrate to the class the reciprocal relation that obtains between body and mind and to test and measure memory, attention, association, and other higher psychical forces. All along throughout the courses an effort is made to put Psychology upon an exact basis as a natural science. The elementary forces of mentality as exhibited in infant life are carefully studied with a view to determine some of the components of the adult mind. A comparative study of the mental life of animals, the lower as well as the higher forms, is undertaken with a view to throw some light upon the morphology of mind. The mental life of defectives as well as pathological states of mind are discussed in their relation to the normal type. The advanced laboratory work is of a nature to develop a spirit of independent research on the part of the student. The relation of Psychology to the physical biological sciences is kept conspicuously in view, so that the student may be assisted in his endeavor to bring the manifestations of mind and matter into a related whole.