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Excerpt from Syllabus of Psychology for Use in Normal Schools and Colleges, Vol. 1
While this Syllabus is printed for use in the author's own classes, where in the conduct of the class exercises its philosophical presuppositions may be ignored or only incidentally stated as the exigencies of the discussions appear to demand, respect for the critical general reader, into whose hands it may by chance come, necessitates a brief fore-word of explanation.
The author regards Psychology as a "natural science," concerned with the description and explanation of a characteristic body of phenomena. He accepts the spirit and method of the "New Psychology," without disparaging the results of observation and constructive thinking in the past. While in his philosophical attitude he would probably find his place with the monistic idealists, as a teacher of elementary General Psychology his standpoint is that of a naive dualism, accepting unquestioned for the purposes of scientific study the existence of an external world that may be sensed through the body mechanism and known in the conscious individual life. It is thought that each modern science may rightfully transform reality for its own purposes, leaving to the meta-physician the justification of all of its ontological and epistemological assumptions and postulates. Consequently, no question is raised as to the substantial nature of the human soul, either to insist that it is "nothing but a stream of mental processes" or a static entity with capacities, or "faculties," for various forms of functioning. Introspective analysis, as the immediate critical study of personal experiences during their continuance, is accepted as the ultimate source of all scientific knowledge of psychic life. Consciousness is so defined that the "subject-object problem", the Banquo's ghost of psychological study, is not permitted to vitiate the examination of mental facts as such. Psychological experiments are viewed as introspective observations under artificially controlled conditions; and an effort is made to distinguish between biological and psychological stud of the living human organism.
The details of matter and method in this synoptic outline have been determined largely by two important considerations; first, the intellectual status and needs of the students for whose use it has been specifically prepared; and second, a well-defined theory as to the purpose of all instruction in elementary General Psychology, especially for students in State Normal Schools. In the State Normal School at Kirksville this course is open to students of the grade of the Freshman and Sophomore years of college study, and presupposes a fair knowledge of the elements of the physical and biological sciences with some acquaintance with modern laboratory work.
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