Repository: UIHistories Project: Course Catalog - 1894-1895 [PAGE 88]

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COLLEGE O F SCIENCE. PHILOSOPHY.

The work in this department includes history of philosophy, metaphysics, ethics, and logic. The object of their courses is primarily threefold: 1. To meet the wants of those students who in junior and senior years, desire to specialize more or less in this department. 2. To give those who desire a more general knowledge of these subjects, some familiarity with the sphere of philosophical speculation and with the philosophical method as applied to the principles and pre-suppositions of the various sciences. 3. To show the relation of philosophy to practical life and the value of these studies as means of general culture. The subjects are t a u g h t 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, the laws according to which it 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 t h a t obtains between body and mind and to test and measure memor\\ attention, association, and other higher psychical forces. 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 t h a t the student may be assisted in his endeavor to bring the manifestations of mind and m a t t e r into a related whole.