The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners
The Science of Human Nature: A Psychology for Beginners
This is psychology as it was taught to American teenagers in the early twentieth century, when the science was young and every student was invited to become an amateur observer of the human mind. William Henry Pyle wrote this text for high school and normal school classrooms, but his real ambition was more personal: he wanted young readers to turn the same curious gaze inward that they'd been trained to point at biology and physics. The book rests on a premise that sounds radical even now: you cannot study human nature from a book. You must study yourself and your neighbors. Pyle urges readers to observe their own behaviors and those around them, to develop what he calls the 'psychological frame of mind,' and to understand how heredity and environment shape human action. The science here is dated, of course. But the spirit of inquiry, the insistence that students verify claims through their own experience rather than accept them on authority, gives this small textbook an unexpected freshness. It endures as a window into how psychology first entered the curriculum, and as a reminder that the desire to understand ourselves is older than any particular theory.
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“The teacher knows best what these helpful connections are and must help the pupil to make them.””
— William Henry Pyle
“Girls excel boys in practically all the aspects of memory. In rote memory, that is, memory for lists of unrelated words, there is not much difference; but the girls are somewhat better. However, in the ability to remember the ideas of a story, girls excel boys at every age. This superiority of girls over boys is not merely a matter of memory. A girl is superior to a boy of the same age in nearly every way. This is merely a fact of development. A girl develops faster than a boy, she reaches maturity more quickly, in mind as well as in body. Although a girl is lighter than a boy at birth, on the average she gains in weight faster and is heavier at twelve than a boy of the same age. She also gains faster in height, and for a few years in early adolescence is taller than a boy of the same age. Of course, boys catch up and finally become much taller and heavier than girls. Similarly, a girl’s mind develops faster than the mind of a boy, as shown in memory and other mental functions.””
— William Henry Pyle
“Education will not be fully scientific till we have definite knowledge to guide us at every step.””
— William Henry Pyle
