The Science of Human Nature | Page 5

must find out how our thoughts, feelings,
sensations, and ideas are dependent upon a physical body and its organs.
A study of human actions shows that some actions are unlearned while
others are learned or acquired. The unlearned acts are known as
instincts and the acquired acts are known as habits. Our psychology
must, therefore, treat of instincts and habits.
How man gets experience, and retains and organizes this experience
must be our problem in the chapters on sensations, ideas, memory, and
thinking. Individual differences in human capacity make necessary a
treatment of the different types and grades of intelligence, and the
compilation of tests for determining these differences. We must also
treat of the application of psychology to those fields where a
knowledge of human nature is necessary.
=Applied Psychology.= At the beginning of a subject it is legitimate to
inquire concerning the possibility of applying the principles studied to
practical uses, and it is very proper to make this inquiry concerning
psychology. Psychology, being the science of human nature, ought to
be of use in all fields where one needs to know the causes of human
action. And psychology is applicable in these fields to the extent that
the psychologist is able to work out the laws and principles of human
action.
In education, for example, we wish to influence children, and we must
go to psychology to learn about the nature of children and to find out
how we can influence them. Psychology is therefore the basis of the
science of education.
Since different kinds of work demand, in some cases, different kinds of
ability, the psychology of individual differences can be of service in
selecting people for special kinds of work. That is to say, we must have
sometime, if we do not now, a psychology of professions and vocations.
Psychological investigations of the reliability of human evidence make
the science of service in the court room. The study of the laws of
attention and interest give us the psychology of advertising. The study
of suggestion and abnormal states make psychology of use in medicine.
It may be said, therefore, that psychology, once abstract and unrelated

to any practical interests, will become the most useful of all sciences, as
it works out its problems and finds the laws of human behavior.
At present, the greatest service of psychology is to education. So true is
this that a department has grown up called "educational psychology,"
which constitutes at the present time the most important subdivision of
psychology. While in this book we treat briefly of the various
applications of psychology, we shall have in mind chiefly its
application to education.
=The Science of Education.= Owing to the importance which
psychology has in the science of education, it will be well for us to
make some inquiry into the nature of education. If the growth,
development, and learning of children are all controlled and determined
by definite causal factors, then a systematic statement of all these
factors would constitute the science of education. In order to see clearly
whether there is such a science, or whether there can be, let us inquire
more definitely as to the kind of problems a science of education would
be expected to solve.
There are four main questions which the science of education must
solve: (1) What is the aim of education? (2) What is the nature of
education? (3) What is the nature of the child? (4) What are the most
economical methods of changing the child from what it is into what it
ought to be?
The first question is a sociological question, and it is not difficult to
find the answer. We have but to inquire what the people wish their
children to become. There is a pretty general agreement, at least in the
same community, that children should be trained in a way that will
make them socially efficient. Parents generally wish their children to
become honest, truthful, sympathetic, and industrious. It should be the
aim of education to accomplish this social ideal. It should be the aim of
the home and the school to subject children to such influences as will
enable them to make a living when grown and to do their proper share
of work for the community and state, working always for better things,
and having a sympathetic attitude toward neighbors. Education should
also do what it can to make people able to enjoy the world and life to

the fullest and highest extent. Some such aim of education as this is
held by all our people.
The second question is also answered. Psychological analysis reveals
the fact that education is a process of becoming adjusted to the world. It
is the process of acquiring the habits, knowledge, and ideals suited to
the life we are