In Memory of Wilhelm Wundt

Feb 17, 2025

Wilhelm Wundt’s name is synonymous with the birth of modern experimental psychology. A towering figure in the field, he transformed psychology from a branch of philosophy into an empirical science, establishing the world’s first dedicated psychological laboratory at the University of Leipzig in 1879. His influence shaped generations of researchers, laying the foundation for the systematic study of the human mind and behavior.

Following Wundt’s death, this edited article, originally published in 1921, served as a collective tribute from Wundt’s former students—many of whom went on to become leading figures in psychology themselves. Through their reminiscences, we gain a rare glimpse into Wundt’s personality, his teaching methods, and the immense impact he had on shaping the discipline. From founding psychology laboratories across the world to pioneering studies in perception, consciousness, and cultural psychology, Wundt’s legacy remains deeply embedded in the fabric of psychological science today.

For psychology enthusiasts, students, and researchers, this historical piece offers a fascinating look at the man behind the science—his intellect, his dedication, and the scholarly rigor that defined his work. However, as with all historical documents, it is important to acknowledge that this article reflects the language and perspectives of its time. Some references may not align with modern views on diversity and equality.

📖 Read on to explore this remarkable tribute.

At a meeting of the University of Iowa Philosophical Club held on October 19, 1920, a symposium on the philosophical and psychological contributions of Professor Wundt furnished the program. Reports on Wundt's philosophical and ethical studies were given by Professor G. T. W. Patrick, a former student, and Professor Edwin Starbuck. Dean C. E. Seashore, who also knew Wundt personally, discussed his psychology, Dr. Lorle I. Stecher outlined his publications, and the writer, who is president of the club, supplemented his own reminiscences of the psychology work at Leipzig in 1906 with a series of letters from a number of Wundt's distinguished students in psychology.

At the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association in Chicago, December 1920, a commemorative exercise in honor of Wilhelm Wundt followed the president's address on the evening of the 29th. Reminiscences of Wundt were given by Professors J. McKeen Cattell, C. H. Judd, W. D. Scott, and R. Pintner.

The following includes the letters read at the Iowa meeting, together with the more extended contributions of Cattell and Judd read in Chicago, and reminiscences from other students of Wundt furnished at the suggestion of the Psychological Review.

A great teacher is known best by the type of trained students who leave his laboratories and carry further his principles to finer determinations and more subtle and more useful applications. No teacher in psychology has had more distinguished students from many countries than Professor Wundt; and in America, where experimental psychology has made the greatest advances during the last three decades, many of the great leaders were students at Leipzig for short or long periods during Wundt's creative directorship.

The first two young men to work at Leipzig and later to found psychological laboratories in this country were President G. Stanley Hall and Professor J. McKeen Cattell, the former being a student in 1879–80 and the latter in 1880–82 and 1883–86. Dr. Hall founded the laboratory at Johns Hopkins in 1883 and Professor Cattell the laboratory at Pennsylvania in 1887. Many of Wundt's other American students either founded laboratories on their return from Germany or played a leading part in the development of experimental laboratories in America.

The following contributions are arranged chronologically according to the date at which the writers were connected with the Leipzig laboratory. The keynote of the symposium is Wundt's personality. No attempt is made to appraise the value of his scientific work; that remains for the future to determine.

G. Stanley Hall

I think I was the first American student to work in Wundt's laboratory. It was in its early days—I think about 1878 or 1879—and I only served as a subject, for I gave all my time during the two years I was there to work in physiology with Ludwig. There was then an impression that Wundt was not very scientific, and there were rumors that Helmholtz had found him too inexact as his assistant. One group, I remember, thought Horwicz should have been elected to Wundt's chair. Wundt was very rarely seen in his laboratory and impressed me as rather inept in the use of his hands. Most of his time was spent preparing his amazingly clear and popular lectures, which were always crowded. I attended his seminar, the method of which, in my time, was to have every member read and carefully epitomize books, articles, etc., assigned by Wundt—he himself, as I remember, taking notes incessantly. I felt that our business as members of the seminar was chiefly to read for him, and I think this contributed much to the impression of the great erudition that characterizes his works.

Save for his doctrine of apperception, it does not seem to me that he made any epoch-making contributions to psychology, although he will always fill a large place as the first to establish this science on an experimental basis. He was a wonderful compiler and digester, and I have always felt that his Völkerpsychologie (folk psychology) was really quite as important and involved quite as much commendable labor on his part as did the Physiologische Psychologie (physiological psychology).

He was a very able and effective controversialist, but it always seemed to me that he was short-sighted and partisan in antagonizing the new introspective movement started by his own pupils, just as Freud has been in antagonizing Adler and the Zurich school. Both tried to devour their own children. This antagonism seemed to me an illustration, in the scholastic field, of the spirit of the old German feudal overlord. I have always felt, too, that if Wundt had been half as much of a biologist as he was a physiologist, he would have given our science a broader basis, and also that he was too prone to ignore the contributions of psychiatry.

Nevertheless, he did remarkable and epoch-making work, and I, for one, feel no less debt of gratitude to him as a psychologist, even though he bitterly denounced the Allies in a narrow and almost bigoted way and was one of the ninety-odd signers of the notorious Manifesto.

J. McKeen Cattell

Forty years ago, I studied in Göttingen and in Leipzig, attending the lectures given by Lotze and by Wundt. It seems odd, as I look back on it, that I made no effort to become acquainted with either of these great men. They seemed elevated far above the twenty-year-old student, who at their lectures wrote "als diktiert euch der Heilige Geist" ("as dictated to you by the Holy Spirit").

My first personal meeting with Wilhelm Wundt was in his conversation room in the autumn of 1883. A notice had been posted appointing a conference with those who wished to join his seminar for research, and there appeared six or seven of us, representing almost as many nationalities. Stanley Hall had been there a year or two before, but worked mainly with Ludwig and served only as Versuchstier ("test subject") in the newly established laboratory of psychology. We were followed by other Americans in large numbers; eighteen of the fifty psychologists selected in my study of 1905 had worked at Leipzig, and there were many more; now our students and our students' students, even to the third and fourth generations, trace their descent from the Leipzig laboratory.

In one of his recently published letters, William James wrote to Karl Stumpf of Wundt: "Was there ever since Christian Wolff's time such a model of the German professor?" This more formal and official side was shown in our first conference, for he had in his hand a memorandum containing a list of subjects for research and, taking us in the order in which we stood—there was no question of our being seated—assigned the topics and hours to us by a one-to-one correspondence. As a large part of the work of the laboratory was then on reaction-time experiments, it is not surprising that such a subject fell to my lot, and it was fortunate, for I had already in America begun experimental work on the time of sensorimotor processes.

Wundt, however, was mainly interested in experiments for the aid they gave to introspection, and the subject assigned to me was to react as soon as I saw a light and, in a second series, to react as soon as I recognized its color, with a view to analyzing the factors of apperception. This I could not do, and in my second interview with Wundt, I presented an outline of the work I wanted to undertake, which was the objective measurement of the time of reactions with special reference to individual differences. Wundt said that it was "ganz Amerikanisch" ("completely American"), and that only psychologists could be the subjects in psychological experiments. I later bought and made the apparatus needed and did the work in my own room, without, however, any interruption in relations that were then becoming friendly.

My last interview as a student with Wundt was at my doctorate examination when the sympathy and kindness that great men usually have, but are often too shy to show, were much in evidence. In accordance with the pernicious method copied into our universities, the candidate was examined in three subjects, psychology being then only a part of philosophy. I had some knowledge of mathematics, physics, physiology, and zoology as related to my own work, but not much beyond that. I began to attend Klein's lectures on mathematics but found them hopeless. Finally, I selected physics and zoology, and Wundt was most anxious that I should get through. He explained that Hankel was mainly interested in the refraction of light by crystals and Leuckart in parasites, and that I should read their papers on these subjects and lead up to them if I could.

In the examination before the faculty, Wundt asked me things that I was sure to know and then, to make it plausible, a couple of questions that no one but a German professor of philosophy could possibly know. During the rest of the examination, he was even more nervous than the candidate.

Personal reminiscences are wanted, so I may relate two or three incidents that are more or less characteristic. Wundt was asked for an introduction to Stumpf, next to him the leading German psychologist, then at Halle only twenty miles from Leipzig. He said that he was sorry that he could not give it; he was not personally acquainted with Stumpf. "It is better so," he said, "for there might be scientific subjects on which we would differ, and then each could speak more freely." This did happen later, and each did tell the truth as he saw it without violating the courtesy that personal acquaintance might, from their point of view, have required.

Similarly, with characteristic kindness—perhaps to me as well as to her—he admitted an unusually intelligent American girl to his lectures on psychology at a time when this was a rare privilege in a German university. There were two or three hundred German students in attendance, probably the least capable ones in the university, for they were mostly theology students, for whom the course was compulsory. Wundt, a little later, said: "I am sorry that I admitted Miss X to the lectures; it quite troubles me. I feel always that I ought to speak in a way that a woman can understand." This, I submit, while reminiscent of the Kaiser's three K’s (Kinder, Küche, Kirche—"children, kitchen, church"), betrayed true knightliness in the old style.

In one respect, Wundt was modern and American. He had injured his eyesight by experiments on vision and was much interested in a typewriter that I took with me to Germany when such a thing was almost unknown there. So I got one for him, and thereafter he did all his composition on it. I am told that Avenarius said it was an evil gift, for with it, Wundt wrote twice as many books as would otherwise have been possible.

Apart from the typewriter, Wundt lived remote from the rough ways of democracy. The idea of visiting the United States, when I urged it, or even of going to England, rather frightened him. But while there was a certain narrowness in the life of the German university professor of fifty years ago, the provincialism was that of a true intellectual and social aristocracy. Among them, family life was nearly always simple and fine; it was surely so in the apartment at Leipzig, to which it was my privilege to be admitted—formally at first, and then more intimately, as on leisurely walks on Sunday afternoons and at Christmas Eve ceremonies, when only Mrs. Wundt, a woman of rare charm, and the two little children were there.

Wundt was somewhat disturbed that I became acquainted at Leipzig with Wilhelm Liebknecht, the leader of German socialism, but with characteristic consideration, he wrote to me some years later that I should be interested to hear that in the gymnasium, his son Max and Liebknecht's son Karl were inseparable friends. Max Wundt became a professor of classical archaeology, while Karl Liebknecht, almost alone in the Reichstag, opposed the war in 1914, as his father did in 1870. Then, at the hour of mingled defeat and victory, he laid his life on the altar of the god whom he served.

Wilhelm Wundt, too, is dead. The London Times and other journals have impertinently remarked that he would have been more honored if he had died before signing the Manifesto of the Ninety-Three—that rather absurd but truly pathetic and noble appeal to the goodwill of the world. The civilization for which those men stood ranks in its fine distinction with the best periods of Greece, Italy, France, and England. It is now submerged in blood and ashes, sunk under the weight of its virtues and its sins, of the specious idealism and crude materialism of its overlords, its allies, and its enemies.

Let us hope that the brute arbitrament of force may once more yield to the generous rivalry of science and diverse civilizations—and not hope only, but do our part to repay the debt that we owe to the dead.

Edward A. Pace

It was in the autumn of 1889 that I entered the University of Leipzig and became acquainted with Professor Wundt. My knowledge of German was meager, and I had serious misgivings as to my first interview with the Herr Geheimrat ("Privy Councilor"). He reassured me at once, however, by saying that though he spoke no English, he understood it and would be glad to have me use my own language.

Upon learning that I had been a student in Rome, he remarked, "Why then, you are familiar with the philosophy of St. Thomas," and in the course of the conversation, he showed that he was thoroughly informed regarding the neo-Scholastic movement inaugurated by Pope Leo XIII. At this meeting also, noticing that I had a copy of the Verzeichnis der Vorlesungen ("Directory of Lectures"), he suggested that the list of courses was attractive and that, like other students, I would probably be tempted to register for a large number of subjects. "Do not attempt too much," he said. "This is the best advice I can give you."

Wundt impressed me as a man who sought earnestly for the truth. With a wide range of knowledge, he combined an accuracy— even a severity—of thought, the result of his scientific training. While he adopted the latest methods of research and in one field at least did the work of a pioneer, he appreciated the achievements of the past and gave full credit to his contemporaries, even those who often took a different point of view.

His lecture hall, with seating for some three hundred students, was always well filled. It was a cosmopolitan audience that reminded me, in some respects, of the Urban College in Rome. Punctuality was one of the professor's virtues, and it had the desired effect upon his audience. Whatever the subject—and he covered the whole ground of the philosophical and psychological sciences—his hearers were sure of an interesting lecture. It was delivered with earnestness and fluency. Wundt always laid a notebook upon the rostrum—and then forgot that it was there. Some students knew that his vision was defective, and for that reason, they formed a higher estimate of the man’s energy and erudition.

The psychological laboratory, in that day, was primitive enough. It occupied half a dozen rooms in the old building, which has since disappeared. There was no great show of apparatus, but what little there was, was in daily use. Most of the additions to it were of Wundt’s own devising. Of the men who worked there, at least two-thirds were Americans. Some have become leaders in psychology and have made known the principles and methods of the Leipzig school to students in various universities across our country.

Usually, the professor met the research students in the laboratory after his lecture. These were moments of free and easy interaction. They provided an opportunity to get advice concerning problems under investigation, to discuss new publications, or to secure an expression regarding the statements which came from various quarters with reference to the findings of the Leipzig laboratory.

For the acrimonious, Wundt had little use. He could take part in a discussion quite vigorously, but he preferred to conduct it on a high level. If, in his lectures, he referred to those who differed from him, there was no trace of narrowness in his criticism. On the contrary, I recall that he deprecated the tone of an ardent writer who, in coming to the defense of the Leipzig Institute, had been rather severe upon the author of an attack.

There was a certain intensity about Professor Wundt, due no doubt to the fact that he saw wider and wider horizons continually opening before him. It seemed at one time as though his absorption in speculative problems had drawn him too far from scientific interests. Probably, he thought that his System der Philosophie ("System of Philosophy") was the necessary culmination of his scientific labors. In point of fact, however, his enthusiasm for psychology had not cooled, as is evident from his later publications.

Wundt’s habits were of the simplest kind. There was no ostentation about him. I think that he was gratified to have students from all parts of the world coming to his lectures and still more to see his disciples filling chairs both in Germany and beyond its borders. But his success did not make him less approachable. He went on his accustomed way, patient and laborious, and always ready to help others out of the fullness of his own knowledge.

To see him, half an hour before his lecture, passing along the Promenade, no one would have suspected that he was among the foremost thinkers of his day. Few, even of the students, recognized him. He was not followed by a "shadow of Providence"; and yet, as he went along, one thought, quite naturally, of a street in Königsberg.

E. B. Titchener

The paragraphs printed below are from a letter written in 1890, immediately after my first hearing of a lecture by Wundt. The impression of triangularity to which I refer is excellently brought out in the portrait by Dora Arnd-Raschid (published by the Berlin Photographische Gesellschaft); it is less obvious in the Perscheid photograph of 1904.

"The famulus swung the door open, and Wundt came in. All in black, of course, from boots to necktie; a spare, narrow-shouldered figure, stooping a little from the hips. He gave the impression of height, though I doubt if, in fact, he stands more than 5'9"."

"He clattered—there is no other word for it—up the side aisle and up the steps of the platform: slam bang, slam bang, as if his soles were made of wood. There was something positively undignified to me about this stamping clatter, but nobody seemed to notice it."

"He came to the platform, and I could get a good view of him. Hair iron-gray, and a fair amount of it, except on the top of the head, which was carefully covered by long wisps drawn up from the side. Forehead not high, but very broad and swelling at the temples. Eyes dark behind rather small-glassed spectacles—very good: honest, friendly, alert; but there is something sadly wrong with the muscles of the right. Nose, as the passports say, ordinary; depressed at the bridge, but rising below to a serviceably sized organ. Mouth covered by a heavy, drooping mustache, and chin by a shortish square-cut beard, iron-gray like the hair. The general impression, in spite of the bluntish beard, was of an inverted triangle: the head must be tremendously broad at the temples, for there is no hint of any weak pointing of the chin."

"The platform has a long desk, I suppose for demonstrations, and on that an adjustable book-rest. Wundt made a couple of mannered movements—snatched his forefinger across his forehead, arranged his chalk—and then faced his audience with both elbows set on this rest. A curious attitude, which favors the impression of height. He began his lecture in a high-pitched, weak, almost apologetic voice; but after a sentence or two, during which the room settled down to silence, his full lecturing voice came out and was maintained to the end of the hour. It is an easy and abundant bass, somewhat toneless, at times a little barking; but it carries well, and there is a certain persuasiveness, a sort of fervor, in the delivery that holds your interest and prevents any feeling of monotony. A good sort of voice, I should think, for a lecturer whom one has to listen to month in and month out."

"He stopped punctually at the stroke of the clock and clattered out, stooping a little, as he had clattered in. If it wasn't for this absurd clatter, I should have nothing but admiration for the whole proceeding."

Frank Angell

I had come back to Leipzig in the fall of '91 and got my first glimpse of Wundt as he was going up the stairs to his lecture room in the new university building. The sight was anything but reassuring to one who had been moved to return to his alma mater through a feeling of academic piety focused mainly around the person of the "chief." Wundt was toiling feebly and slowly up the ascent, to all appearances hardly able to cope with the weight of a huge overcoat which hung loosely around him. It was with the misgiving that I was destined to hear merely fragments of a lecture delivered by a broken old man that I entered the lecture room.

But all misgivings vanished when I "apperceived" the hall: it was the largest lecture room in the university and crowded to the limit of its capacity. During the lecture, my neighbor volunteered the information that there was no lecture room in the university large enough to hold the audience that "subscribed" to the lectures on psychology. Assuredly, the setting betokened no lack of power in the lectures, and assuredly, there was no trace of senility in the lecturer. It was the same Wundt of 1890—the clear enunciation, the well-rounded sentences, the dignified utterance, the occasional gesture with the loosely clenched hand—hardly a fist—the respectful reference to his charts. It only needed the bi-syllabic pronunciation of "Jon" Locke's surname to make one feel that no change had taken place in Wundt since the previous decade.

I cannot say that the social side of one’s interaction with Wundt, as expressed in the bounteous dinners he gave from time to time to the Fortgeschrittene ("advanced students") and laboratory assistants, very much furthered a "man to man" acquaintanceship between teacher and students. This was perhaps less through Wundt’s attitude than through that of the German contingent among the guests, whose approach seemed to be one of questioning an oracle. When the oracular answer came, questioning or discussion ceased. It must be said, however, that in this situation, the oracle was rarely dumb or ambiguous. Nevertheless, when some untamed transatlantic neophyte blurted out an objection to an oracular response or applied some hardy paradox to it, I had the impression that Wundt actually welcomed what the pious considered an interruption—manifesting his receptiveness with a smile that had in it nothing superior or condescending.

To the much-bandied reproach of Wundt’s intolerance toward views that did not agree with his own, my three years’ experience in the Leipzig Institute gives not the slightest support. However, this does not mean that it was easy to convince him of defects in some course of laboratory practice that had been fathered by him but found wanting in the ordeal of a new investigation. In my Arbeit ("work"), I had run counter to some of the Wundtian doctrines and, in particular, had challenged his law of relativity as an explanation of Weber’s Law. To this, he made no demurrer nor discussed the point, but simply asked me what my main objection to the Gesetz der Relativität ("law of relativity") was and then passed on to a new topic.

Parenthetically, it may be said that when I started to discuss my Arbeit with Wundt, I felt that I knew more about the limited domain I had been exploring than anyone else, including Wundt—a state of mind probably not infrequent among burgeoning doctoral candidates. However, before the interview was over, I felt that Wundt knew more about the subject both in itself and in its relations than was either right or proper for any one person to know. The interview was, for me, revelatory.

The popular belief that a great philosophical mind is more at home when dealing with abstractions than with concrete ideas finds documentary support in one of the tables in an early edition of the Physiologische Psychologie ("Physiological Psychology"). There, one may see that while it took Wundt appreciably longer to react logically to words denoting concrete objects than was the case with his co-workers, when it came to reactions to far-reaching abstractions, his record was almost absurdly short.

But Wundt’s immersion in the depths of philosophical thought had not washed out of him a capacity for warm and deep emotions. Misuse of laboratory apparatus was sure to arouse his indignation, which was not slow to find vent in fliegende Worte ("winged words"). I have seen him white and trembling with anger when some of his Zuhörer ("listeners"), bent on hearing a Wagnerian overture, slipped out of a lecture on philosophy shortly before its close.

A far deeper and more complex emotion than anger overcame him when the Festschrift ("commemorative volume") marking the end of the Philosophische Studien ("Philosophical Studies") was presented to him on his seventieth birthday. We had journeyed up to the little village in the Thuringian Forest where Wundt, as was his custom, was passing part of the summer holidays—Külpe, Kraepelin, Meumann, Lange, Kirschmann, and others whose names I do not now recall. When Wundt was brought in before this little gathering of men who had been his laboratory assistants, some of whom he had not seen for a decade and some not since the earliest days of the Studien, he broke down completely, and for some minutes, the ready speaker and accomplished orator was unable to utter a word. When the Festschrift was handed to him by Külpe, who spoke with great sweetness and reverential dignity, again the old man was hardly able to speak. That was the last time I saw Wundt, and I felt then, as I felt in my student days, that I had come into the presence of a great man.

For depth and range of learning, for capacity for generalization, for power of scientific imagination, he was the ablest man I ever met.

Howard C. Warren

The foremost service of Wilhelm Wundt to psychology was the foundation of laboratory investigation. Before his time, experimental research in psychology had been mainly individual. Weber and Fechner had experimented privately—apart from their university work. Wundt secured the recognition of his laboratory as a university institution, with rooms in one of the university buildings. He gathered around him an enthusiastic group of students and assistants, whom he trained in the methods of exact experimentation, and he selected their research problems in such a way as to cover every part of the field.

The tremendous interest in experimental psychology that suddenly developed—the spread of research in Europe and America during the '90s—is due in large part to the example of the Leipzig laboratory and the efforts of Wundt's pupils. As soon as the Leipzig laboratory was fairly launched in 1883, Wundt started a journal, the Philosophische Studien ("Philosophical Studies"), which was devoted to the publication of research papers. The earlier volumes contain many notable articles by men whose names have since become well known in the psychological world. Cattell, who founded the laboratories at Pennsylvania and Columbia, and Scripture, who started the laboratory at Yale, were among Wundt's earlier pupils. Stanley Hall, who opened laboratories at Johns Hopkins and Clark, was an observer of Wundt's work during his stay at Leipzig. These men belong to the '80s. In the early '90s, Frank Angell, Pace, Titchener, and Witmer were my fellow students there. These, along with others who have since fallen by the wayside, are responsible for the scores of laboratories that suddenly sprang into being in America and soon outstripped the German laboratories in productivity.

At the period I speak of, there were students from Russia, Norway, and Romania working under Wundt, who spread the movement in their own countries. Of the Germans, Kiesow was called to Italy, Meumann to Switzerland, and Kirschmann to Canada. Külpe and others carried the spirit of Wundt's laboratory to other German universities. I speak only of my own time, but the same influence continued until the outbreak of the war.

I would not in the least undervalue the personal contributions of other German investigators—men like G. E. Müller, Ebbinghaus, Münsterberg, and Stumpf. As individuals, they perhaps obtained more important original results. But Wundt, working through his pupils and directing their lines of research, far outstripped them all. An examination of his Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie ("Principles of Physiological Psychology"), that great compendium of psychological results, is sufficient to prove this.

Apart from specific additions to our psychological knowledge, the Leipzig laboratory was largely instrumental in imbuing psychological investigators with the spirit of exactness and thoroughness in research. It was also responsible for many of the standard pieces of apparatus with which our laboratories are equipped. All these are part of the same general development—the research laboratory for human psychology. Wundt's first claim to the homage of psychologists is that he is the father of laboratory psychology.

The value of Wundt's contributions to psychological principles may be challenged. Some of his most notable theories have already been discarded. His doctrines of innervations, feelings, apperception, chromatic and achromatic vision, and tonal relations have been superseded. But his conception of psychological experimentation prevails today as strongly as ever and seems likely to govern future work for many years to come.

Speaking of Wundt as a man, what impressed me most was his vast, encyclopedic knowledge. His lectures covered the entire field of psychology and philosophy. Animal psychology and folk psychology were among the courses he offered, as well as logic, ethics, and the history of philosophy. His Völkerpsychologie ("Folk Psychology") contains a wealth of material; one marvels at his ability to carry this work through to completion at the age of 70.

One of my pleasantest memories of Leipzig days is a lecture on English philosophy in which Wundt frequently referred to Schön Locker. It was some time before I identified this personage as John Locke.

In appearance, Wundt was impressive. He was tall, rather slender, and dignified in his movements and conversation. He invariably wore a black frock coat. On the street, his majestic bearing was somewhat marred by a most disreputable soft hat that he always wore. It was apparently a relic of his student days. I can only conjecture that it was retained in virtue of some solemn vow or sentiment.

In conversation, he was affable, though somewhat formal. One felt that he was the master. None of his students would have ventured a joke or an offhand remark in his presence. He dealt with his flock somewhat autocratically and prescribed the lines and methods of research rather too minutely. It was characteristic that he never attended congresses or meetings in which he would have met his colleagues on a footing of equality. Yet I never thought of him as objectionably dogmatic, like many other German professors. He was conscious of his leadership. That was all.

I worked in Wundt's laboratory in 1891-92. Fifteen years later, in 1907, I was passing through Leipzig and called on him at the fine laboratory that had supplanted the dingy rooms in the old Convict-Gebäude ("Convict building"). The janitor took my card, and Wundt received me immediately. To my surprise, he recalled without hesitation the year I had worked under him and mentioned by name the other Americans who were there at the same time. Remember that every year, he had a large number of students, that I had done no special research in his laboratory, and that he was over 75 at the time. Is it any wonder that I was dumbfounded by this remarkable exhibition of memory?

In closing, let me bear personal testimony to Wundt's influence on the scientific attitude of his students. The exact methods he insisted upon could not fail to impress those who worked under him and mold their own conception of research. Coming to him as I did from an atmosphere of philosophical speculation, the spirit of his laboratory was a godsend. I owe much to Wilhelm Wundt for the change he wrought in my life ideals. I am glad of this opportunity to pay tribute to him as a teacher and example.

James R. Angell

I fear I can make no significant contribution to your memorial meeting for Wundt, of whose death I had not heard. I suppose, in common with all others who know the facts, I have considered him, while not the founder, as nevertheless by far the most important prophet of experimental psychology. Not only in the establishment of the Institute but also in his own continued productivity and in the stimulation of others, he has no serious rival.

This is not the time to attempt a critical estimate of his work. Suffice it to say that I place a very different estimate upon its different portions and regard the work in experimental psychology as altogether the most significant, and as likely to have by far the most lasting value.

George M. Stratton

Wundt’s greatest contribution to psychology will, in my judgment, not be some particular doctrine or experimental discovery, but rather the impetus he gave to the entire experimental activity in our field. It is largely due to him that psychology is taking its place among the important sciences.

But in saying this, one may well appreciate the stimulus that has come from particular doctrines of his, such as his teaching that feelings change in three aspects or dimensions, even though the doctrine itself hardly seems destined to be regarded as true in the long run. One can also see that his influence has counted strongly—and with great benefit—to correct the disproportionate attention given to sensory and cognitive processes, by elevating into importance those processes directly involved in emotion and volition. Much weight, I feel, should be given to his doctrine regarding psychic causality.

Anyone who worked in his laboratory will remember the interest he took in his students, and the intellectual and scientific stimulus that came from the man. His daily round of the laboratory was looked forward to by his experimenters, and I know of those who were careful that their daily program should be arranged so that they could always have the benefit of this visit of his. His geniality at his home, and particularly the conversations after his Sunday dinners, are among the most valued of my recollections of him.

G. T. W. Patrick

I studied with Wundt during the spring and summer semester of the year 1894, taking lectures and doing some work in the laboratory. Wundt’s quarters were then in the old buildings on the Grimmaische Steinweg ("Grimmaic Road"), if I remember rightly. Külpe was there then, and I worked with Kiesow in the laboratory. Wundt was giving a general systematic course in psychology, which I attended.

When this symposium was proposed, I was interested in resuscitating my old notebook with its flexible black cover and its little blue-margined label saying, Wundt—Psychology. My notes contain diagrams of apparatus and figures that have since become so familiar—the rotating discs for mixing colors, the tuning forks and resonators, the tachistoscope, etc. Wundt had all this and lots of other apparatus on a long table on the platform in the lecture room and illustrated his lectures with it. This, of course, was his great innovation.

He was a very clear and interesting speaker, easy to understand and follow, even for a foreigner not too well acquainted with German. I seem to remember that he was very fond of the word wahrscheinlich ("probably"), which he drew out in a peculiar manner, and the phrase psychische Vorgänge ("psychic processes") is suggested to me whenever I visualize Wundt on the lecture platform. He was always talking of Vorgänge ("processes"), Ereignisse ("events"), Prozesse ("procedures"), and Geschehen ("happenings"), as applied to mental life, which, of course, indicates his point of view—new then, but now familiar.

"Vorstellungen sind Vorgänge und nicht Gegenstände. Sie sind Ereignisse." ("Ideas are processes and not objects. They are events.")

An idea, he said, can never come again; it is always a new one, just as a Bewegung ("movement") can never occur twice in the same way. So, as elements, Vorstellungen ("ideas") will not serve. These old errors, I suppose, were what he had in mind when he said in an early lecture, as reported in my notes, "Man muss vergessen alles, was er weiß, wenn man ein Psycholog werden will." ("One must forget everything one knows if one wants to become a psychologist.")

Socially, Wundt was very kind and friendly. My sister was then studying in Leipzig, and Wundt invited us to dinner at his home. After the dinner, we returned to the drawing room and stood around in a circle, saying "Mahlzeit" ("Enjoy your meal") and shaking hands.

I returned to Leipzig in 1897 and heard one lecture by Wundt in his fine lecture room in the new building. There was the usual large, attentive, and respectful audience.

In later years, my interest has been more in Wundt as a philosopher than as a psychologist. Whether he devoted himself to psychology, philosophy, logic, ethics, social psychology, the psychology of language, or even the philosophy of nature, the same masterly hand was shown. This was the wonder of the man. Whether it was the power of his memory or his patient application that wrought all this body of learning, I do not know, but his many books display a wonderful encyclopedic knowledge.

That Wundt never said anything foolish or brilliant must have been somebody’s witticism based on ignorance of his work, for he made many brilliant contributions to science and philosophy. To mention only a few: his theories of the increase of psychical energy, of creative synthesis, and his emphasis upon the value concept in general have had a development in recent years that must have given him great joy.

In this idea of creative synthesis, the twentieth century seems to be attaining a complete emancipation from the mechanical evolutionary philosophy of the nineteenth century. Even Wundt would perhaps have been amazed at the extent to which this notion has been carried in the realms of biology, psychology, philosophy, and ethics—by writers, for instance, like Professor Spaulding in his New Rationalism and his daring discovery of freedom at each successive level.

This is surely "the new freedom."

By creative synthesis, Höffding says Wundt meant the capacity to produce a qualitatively new content through a composition of given elements. The modern development of this principle to the position of freedom, or that "the limit is not a member of the series of which it is a limit," might have seemed rather mystical to Wundt.

In the history of psychology and philosophy, Wundt’s name will certainly retain a most prominent place. His physiological psychology, his doctrine of elements, his theory of apperception, his voluntarism, his psycho-physical parallelism, as well as his creative synthesis and his definition of philosophy as a general science whose function is to unite the results of the special sciences into a system satisfying our sentimental needs and intellectual impulses—all these and many other original or semi-original contributions assure his standing in the history of philosophy.

Significant also is his long term of service as a professor at Leipzig from 1874–1920—forty-six years—and interesting too is the immense body of his writings, embracing, according to Hall’s estimate, about 16,000 pages, not including the Philosophische Studien. Even Herbert Spencer wrote less than 12,000 pages, and Kant only 4,400.

Charles H. Judd

Wundt was a tall, sparely built man with a slight stoop, a large head, and a pleasant face. His features were strong and well-defined. He wore thick, dark glasses, which were outward signs of the condition that allowed him to contribute to the literature on retinal pathology based on his own introspective experience. He could use only part of one retina during the last half of his life. Despite this partial visual impairment, he completed an extraordinary amount of work, both in reading and composition.

He worked with systematic regularity. His mornings were spent at home, where he was protected from disturbances; there, he divided his hours between reading, writing, and editorial tasks. He used an American typewriter in the days when such a device was rare in Germany, and he was very appreciative of its efficiency, as well he might be.

During my first semester in Leipzig, I waited impatiently, as all newly arrived Americans do, for notices to be posted by individual lecturers announcing when their classes would begin. In October, Wundt’s notice appeared. I could not decipher the handwritten document to determine the start date. As I struggled to read it, a native arrived, and, with hat in hand, in my politest German, I asked for his help. I listened intently to ensure that my limited German comprehension did not fail me. It was with mixed satisfaction that I heard his guttural exclamation: “Mein Gott, das ist nicht zu lesen.” ("My God, this is unreadable.")

Every morning, Wundt wrote part of the vast body of material that remains his monument. Later, when his eyesight deteriorated further, his daughter assisted him in writing and collecting material.

Anyone who worked in the laboratory under Wundt will remember the meticulous care with which he reviewed theses. A portion of his morning was devoted to this task. He edited the Philosophische Studien personally, paying close attention to details, while at the same time becoming thoroughly familiar with the writings of his students.

In the afternoons, he took a walk, attended examinations, and visited the laboratory. On his arrival at the Institut, he went directly to his private room, where he held conferences. Occasionally, he would tour the working rooms. His lectures were usually held at four o’clock—well after dark in the winter months of that northern latitude.

Anyone who ever heard him lecture will remember the remarkable clarity of his enunciation and the sweep of his masterly summaries. He was always vivid and intense. I never ceased to marvel at the enthusiasm with which he demonstrated experimental techniques. He would introduce the reaction-time apparatus, explain the steps of the experiment, and display perfect familiarity with all of its technical intricacies. Here, he was the true experimentalist. Later, he would review the history of research in the reaction-time field, leaving his audience with the broad, general perspective that only a master could provide. In other courses, he guided us through the intricacies of logic, ethics, or the successive periods of philosophical thought.

He always spoke with deliberation and emphasis. I recall him telling, with great good humor, of the permission he once granted to an American girl who wished to attend his lectures solely because, as she candidly admitted, he pronounced his words so clearly. He used a few notes but spoke freely and always with the symmetry and completeness of style that characterize his writings.

In the old Institut lecture room, where he lectured during my time, he had many auditors, but later the number increased significantly. In the new Augusteum, he filled the great Aula ("auditorium"). I heard him in 1913, when, at eighty-three, his strong, clear voice still carried effortlessly to every corner of the university’s largest auditorium. Not a single seat was available. His famulus ("assistant") secured me a place as a special honor to an old student by displacing a regular Zuhörer ("listener").

In personal matters, Wundt was simple—even to the point of impressive modesty. He would sometimes invite those of us who worked in the laboratory to Sunday dinner. His wife was a stately matron, tall and slender like himself. I always thought of her as having a New England demeanor. At these dinners, Wundt reminisced about his American students and contemplated trips to America, which he ultimately felt he would never take due to the long ocean voyage. He often traveled to Switzerland in the summer and to Italy in the spring. While he thought it might be interesting to visit America, he ultimately deemed it too far.

I will never forget my Doktorprüfung ("doctoral examination"), not just because of its importance in my career, but also for the psychological insight it provided. I had followed proper custom, appearing at 2 p.m. in a dress suit and white gloves. The gloves ripped just as I entered the examination room—I suppose from nervousness.

I doubt I would have passed if it had not been for the keen psychological skill of my first examiner. He began by asking me what part of the United States I came from. Fortunately, I knew the answer to this question. He then inquired about my knowledge of the English school of psychology. Thanks to Armstrong’s training, I had read Berkeley’s Essay Toward a New Theory of Vision, and we were off—gloves or no gloves.

I recall two things from that examination: first, Wundt’s praise of Berkeley for grounding his conclusions in empirical material; and second, his overall approach, which made it clear that an examination should serve as an opportunity for a candidate to showcase their best work rather than as a pitfall set by a cunning adversary.

Long after my student days, Wundt invited me to his home for dinner. His wife had passed away by then, and his daughter presided in her place. It was a simple home, despite the fact that he was regarded as one of the world’s great men. My wife and I were seated on the sofa, and we talked about many things—old friends in America, the progress of psychology, and my own work, which he showed great interest in. Occasionally, the conversation would turn to his work, but he rarely dwelled on his own achievements.

It was a tradition in the laboratory that no one should speak to Wundt about his forthcoming books. When I heard whispers that the Grundriss ("Outline") was about to be published, I approached Meumann and expressed my interest in translating it. He discouraged me, saying that Wundt’s unfortunate experience with the French translation of Physiologische Psychologie ("Physiological Psychology") had made him firmly opposed to translations. The issue was that the French edition had not been updated, meaning that while the German editions had twice been revised, French scholars continued citing outdated material.

Nevertheless, I persisted and approached the publisher with my request, despite being advised against speaking to Wundt about it directly. To my surprise, permission was granted—on the condition that the translation would be completed under Wundt’s direct supervision and printed in Leipzig. Thus, I had half an hour with Wundt every Thursday during the spring of 1896. He reviewed all of my proofs and provided feedback. More than once, he found that I had misinterpreted key terms, and he made me justify my choices.

One particular discussion stands out in my memory. We debated my translation of Apperception and Perception. I convinced him that the English word Perception was not the best equivalent. That discussion must have stayed with him, because seventeen years later, when I dined with him at his home, he referred to it again.

I recall bringing him an American review of the Grundriss while we were working on the translation. The review was written by one of his former students. He looked it over, set it down, and remarked, “Some people read superficially, do they not? It would be difficult to misrepresent a book more completely in an equal number of words.”

Wundt was always strictly empirical and objective. I have read the controversial writings in which he took part and am aware of his criticisms of William James. I know that he felt deeply when some of his most notable students diverged from his theories. While it is difficult to reconcile some of his writings on the war with my personal impressions of him, I ultimately view him as a man devoted to scientific truth. His intellectual rigor and commitment to empiricism remain his lasting legacy.

Wilbur M. Urban

It is with regret—and some chagrin—that I realize my contribution to the Wundt memorial meeting is now too late. My only excuse is that the demands of settling into my new position at Dartmouth and arranging my new home temporarily pushed the matter from my mind.

Though I may not be in the best position to judge Wundt’s contributions to psychology fully, I would have had some personal reminiscences to share, as it would have been a pleasure to do so. My admiration for the grand old man was profound. Now that the opportunity has passed, I can only express my hope that your celebration was successful in every way and congratulate you on your efforts to restore the bonds of international scientific collaboration.

G. A. Tawney

One recalls Wundt well, even after twenty-five years—his strangely awkward movements, his rugged, farmer-like, fatherly presence, his keen but genial glance, and his head tilted slightly to one side, bringing one squarely into the focus of his one good eye. He gave the impression of being fairly tall, slightly stooped, and thin—perhaps an ascetic, yet vivid, eager, and human in ways ascetics seldom are.

He typically wore a dark grey suit. His thin, full beard was greying beneath his prominent cheekbones, and above his spectacles (one lens semi-opaque), he wore a soft black broad-brimmed hat. His quick, angular movements exuded an almost solemn dignity, yet he was always quick to see a joke, often smiling as he spoke. Indeed, his heart seemed younger than my own—it was the heart of a sensitive, happy boy. Geniality and fatherliness were the most evident qualities of his attitude toward us.

His handwriting was almost unbelievably difficult to read—awkward, yet not unpleasant. His hair was thin above his forehead. His voice was deep, though somewhat husky and nervous, as if controlling it required effort. Yet he always seemed the soul of gentleness and good humor in conversation. With one possible exception, I believe all his dedicated students were fond of him, as I was. He was quick to excuse the shortcomings of others.

Once, a colleague of his had been neglecting his classes. Rather than condemning him outright, Wundt said, “He is much worried about his son,” proceeding to explain the nature of the boy’s illness as though Wundt himself were the attending physician.

Thus, I was thoroughly surprised and mystified by his response when I asked, “Do you think France and Germany will ever be at war again?” This was after a Sunday dinner at his home. His voice was almost raucous with mirth as he replied, “Oh ja!” as though the prospect—or certainty—was something to be amused by. It seemed utterly at odds with my impression of him, as does his 1914 statement on the war.

There were rumors in his laboratory that he could be harsh toward anyone who challenged his published doctrines. When Külpe’s Einleitung appeared, Wundt promptly published Der psychophysische Materialismus in Philosophische Studien, labeling Külpe’s doctrine as a form of psychophysical materialism. Külpe had, until recently, been Wundt’s first assistant.

I once heard Wundt suggest that Germany should pass a law excluding all foreign students from its universities. His reasoning was that they acquired only a superficial knowledge of German—not enough to read Philosophische Studien with understanding.

He had a horror of being misunderstood and misrepresented, as many scholars do. However, he likely identified with his intellectual creations more intensely than most. He had a rare capacity for intellectual rigor and perseverance.

A Serbian student who worked as Wundt’s famulus once discussed with me what I claimed to be a characteristic of American young men—namely, their effort to live up to a self-chosen moral standard, regardless of whether societal customs required it. When Wundt entered the room, his assistant explained my argument to him. Wundt laughed gently at my expense and remarked, “Der amerikanische Idealismus.” ("American idealism.")

He distinguished between Sittlichkeit ("morality as determined by societal norms") and Sittsamkeit ("individual moral propriety") and applied the latter term to the phenomenon in question. This aligns with his Kantian doctrine that duty is formal in nature, with its content shaped by societal customs and circumstances.

No doubt, Wundt’s personality was not profoundly ethical in a traditional sense. His gentleness was paternalistic rather than fraternal. He was thoroughly partisan in many of his public views, which may explain why he seemed so fully alive in every fiber of his being—perhaps more so than most men.

Regarding the philanthropic endeavors of American industrialists, he once remarked, “Das wäre ein Reichtum!” ("That would be real wealth!") suggesting that wealthy Germans would not be inclined to donate as lavishly.

Even in his thinking, he strove to be logically consistent with his intellectual past. He revered facts in a distinctly empirical way.

I once conducted an experiment on the two-point illusion (Vexirfehler) in tactile perception. When I presented Wundt with my data, he glanced at my tables and declared, “Unmöglich!” ("Impossible!")

I boldly requested permission to conduct the experiment on him. To my surprise, he readily granted me fifteen minutes of his daily Sprechstunde ("consultation hours") in the laboratory. For three weeks, I conducted tests on him. At the end of this period, he asked, “Nun, Herr Tawney, was haben Sie gefunden?” ("Well, Mr. Tawney, what have you found?")

I explained that, for most of the tests, I had been touching his arm not with compass points, as he had assumed, but with cards of various lengths. He was impressed and asked me to write up my findings—despite having initially dismissed them as impossible.

In his lectures, Wundt spoke slowly from brief notes. The atmosphere in his hall had the serenity of a workshop. Although he spoke with a slight weariness in his voice, he never struggled to find the right words. All his classifications and definitions were perfectly structured. Indeed, I believe no greater genius for classification has ever lectured on psychology. His mastery of his subject matter was absolute—perhaps too absolute.

One lasting impression I have of Wundt is that of an academic master at the height of his craft. However, beyond setting an exemplary pattern for us to follow, he did not necessarily stimulate original thought. He thought for us. There were no lingering questions left for us to wrestle with. I suspect that Lotze must have had a very different effect on his students.

Nevertheless, Wundt was the most popular lecturer at Leipzig in my time. The breadth of his knowledge was extraordinary—his lectures covered not only psychology but also jurisprudence and the history of philosophy.

His vast intellectual range remains a rebuke to the modern tendency of American colleges and universities to over-specialize and departmentalize academic instruction. His legacy serves as a reminder that it is not impossible for a single individual to master the greater part of the scientific tradition of his time.

Yet, one of his favorite maxims was: “Beschränkung macht den Meister!” ("Limitation makes the master!")

EDWARD M. WEYER

The invitation to take part in your memorial meeting, received on my return from France and Italy, contained a note of deep regret for me, since it was the first word to reach me of the death of my old teacher and friend, Professor Wundt.

It sent my memory back a score of years to his study where he lived and worked. Thirteen tables and desks of all shapes and sizes I believe there were in that sanctum—high, narrow, bookkeeper's desks and low, squat ones, and a big, round center table and a new, very American stand with a typewriter on it.

The scene presented a perfect orderliness, but I happen to know there was an adjoining lumber-room where reigned a perfect chaos of dusty books and pamphlets, that always suggested to me the vasty reaches that lie, in the Kantian transcendentalism, beyond the limits of human experience. The last time I ever saw Professor Wundt was in this room, where he demonstrated to me his newly acquired proficiency on the typewriter, a one-finger exercise to be sure, but not without great gain over his laborious process of writing with an inch-long pencil under the permanent handicap of writer's cramp.

How he maintained such titanic productivity in his literary work was a mystery to us all in those days, but the wonder of it has constantly grown through the years. How with that muscular defect and his pathetically poor eyesight behind dark glasses, he ever carried on unaided the mass of his writing is truly beyond my comprehension, as a mere feat of quantitative production, apart from the quality of the output. When you ask me what I consider to be one of Wundt's greatest contributions to psychology, a great many of his achievements spring to mind. Of course, historians of psychology will emphasize his service in putting the science on an experimental basis and of establishing the first psychological laboratory. With all modesty and no claim to greatness, we psychologists in America, his followers, might say he contributed to us and our psychological laboratories.

Apart from these, however, if you want a personal opinion, I must say that the greatest single contribution of Professor Wundt's intellect to me consists in his work and his methods and conclusions in regard to the Human Feelings. More definitely than any of his predecessors, I think, he grasped the difficulties, logical and experimental, that one must meet in the investigation of the problems of the feelings. He recognized their position on the extreme borderline of possible scientific treatment.

Our Intellect, being our only instrument whereby scientific knowledge can be extended, appears ill-adapted to achieve a mastery of these phenomena. Wundt recognized the dangers in analyzing and classifying the feelings according to any of the familiar standards of scientific method, also he gave full credit to the feelings for their almost infinite variety, while he deplored the poverty of our language over against the necessity in the science of feeling of meeting the general scientific requirement as to accurate and full recording of results. Nor was he unmindful of the extreme difficulties to be overcome if really trustworthy experimentation is attempted in the region of the feelings and emotions.

But with full recognition of the difficulties and dangers, knowing well that the intellect is very apt, when the feelings are presented to it as subject-matter, to distort them, to convert feelings into ideas, which most assuredly the feelings are not, nevertheless he succeeded in advancing the problem more than any other single investigator and laid out a workable plan for guidance of future investigators in that province. His work was mainly in the analysis of the feelings, the objects which in all the world are probably the most refractory to logical analysis. He did much to establish Feeling in its proper relations to Intellect and Volition; and he did still more by his treatment of the Emotions. This appears to me to be the spear-point of all the Wundtian theory in the sphere of psychology, and that which is most likely in the future to advance our knowledge of the Life of the Spirit.

WALTER DILL SCOTT

My conception of Wilhelm Wundt is that of an inspiring teacher, a man of remarkable ability, and untiring industry and complete devotion to his work. Wundt was a man of very great width of vision, and made contributions in more fields than any other psychologist, I believe. When he began his work psychology was thought of as a branch of philosophy. His work changed it into an experimental science. This last service may well be regarded as his chief one.

BIRD T. BALDWIN

During the year 1906 the writer spent a summer session in Leipzig and attended Wundt's large lecture class, consisting of probably 200 students, who filled every available space in the room, several finding it necessary to stand throughout the lecture. No roll was called, no questions asked, no attendance taken and no grades given aside from the signing of the report book at the end of the summer term, as was the usual method of procedure in German universities. In accordance with the German custom, all students assembled before the lecturer arrived and when he entered there was a pronounced shuffling of the feet on the part of the students and a courteous recognition on the part of the professor. The class always considered Wundt a dignified, autocratic type of professor who valued formalities, and frequently spoke of him as Herr Geheimrat Professor Doctor Wilhelm Wundt [Privy Councilor Professor Doctor Wilhelm Wundt]. Professor Münsterberg held a similar opinion, and perhaps the writer was prejudiced in advance of the visit to Leipzig. Wundt was much less formal in his own home and kindly signed the photograph of himself which accompanies this article.

At this time (1906) Wundt was very much stooped, with poor eyesight, being 75 years of age; he lectured with a whispering voice which was difficult to follow in the large lecture room. The writer was much impressed with the careful, detailed analysis that Wundt always made and the fact that he always illustrated his lecture by means of experimental demonstrations whenever possible. Our laboratory experimentation at this time was in charge of Professor Wirth. Wundt was a great philosophical psychologist who had made the approach through the sciences of physiology and physics. Wirth was a careful, technical, laboratory type of psychologist.

In regard to accrediting Wundt with establishing the first psychological laboratory in 1879, as so many authorities do, it should, of course, be recognized that Weber, Fechner, Helmholtz and Wundt, in earlier experiments in psychophysics, anticipated this date. In America James, who had never studied with Wundt, was giving in 1875 a course in psychology with experiments, in Lawrence Hall at Harvard. James also used experimental demonstrations in his lectures on the physiology of the senses at Johns Hopkins, 1877-78, where Hall and Royce were his students, Hall later attending Wundt's course in Leipzig in 1879-80.

GEORGE F. ARPS

Wundt was well above seventy years of age when the last group of Americans, of which I was one, received their assignments to places in the laboratory in which a long list of distinguished psychologists had received their inspiration and training. Although this was fourteen years before his death, I remember the general feeling of uneasiness which pervaded the laboratory group, a feeling of apprehension, that the aged philosopher would not survive our period of residence at the university.

The cosmopolitan character of Wundt's degree students is a fair indication of the extent to which the reputation of the old laboratory had traveled.

In 1906, at the age of seventy-four, he assigned personally twenty-three subjects of research to as many candidates for the degree. The candidates were assembled in one of the rooms of the laboratory and, after a few introductory remarks the subject of investigation for each candidate was announced, together with a brief exposition of the thesis. The clearness of Wundt's mind at the advanced age of seventy-four, his general vigor and direct attitude in the assignment of each of the doctorate dissertations, lingers in my memory as a classical illustration of the fallacy of age retirement.

Wundt not only assigned the various theses but personally directed their development and finally approved or disapproved them. In approval and disapproval Wundt exhibited the well-known German trait of guarding zealously the fundamental principles of his standpoint. About one third of my thesis failed to support the Wundtian doctrine of assimilation, and promptly received elimination. Whatever may be the merits of German scientific dogmatism, it is no myth and flourished in undisguised fashion in the laboratory at Leipzig.

The reputation of Wundt secured for him a peculiar kind of reverence, a species of deferential treatment, which the German and certain of the foreign students easily created but which the American student could not readily understand. It was altogether common to observe a small group of the 'intelligentia' often from remote corners of the earth, waiting for His Excellency to pass from the laboratory down the corridor to his lecture room. Disappointed ones were directed to take position at a certain place which he was known to pass daily with clock-like regularity. His signature was eagerly sought and was already merchantable in the hands of the professional collectors.

Wundt, in common with the rest of the German intellectuals, regarded with skepticism the English and American forms of social organization. His attitude and action during, and before, the World War are consistent with his belief in German Kultur [culture]. I prefer to pass this over and retain my picture of him as the modern Aristotle with respect to versatility if not with respect to originality. The wide sweep of his pen will endure in the records. His charming personality and kindliness of manner in surveying the progress of researches by foreigners, struggling with scientific German, must always remain an essential part of the memory of Wilhelm Wundt by those who were privileged to meet him in conference or share his hospitality.

RUDOLPH PINTNER

I was a student at Leipzig for two years, 1909-11, and during this time I took much work under Wundt. I regard Wundt's systematization of the field of psychology as his most important work. For the first time Wundt gave us a system of psychology, and even although many of us may not agree with the system at the present time, I feel that it has been a great contribution to psychology.

In addition to this I feel that Wundt is to be credited with the encouragement of experimental work in psychology. It is to his influence that we can trace back most of the experimental work of the last thirty or forty years.

Wundt's decided interest in philosophy and the philosophical applications of psychology seem to me to have diverted him from the growing field of applied psychology and he was always more or less indifferent to this field. He cannot have been said to be antagonistic but he certainly was not enthusiastic about it. This even applies to the field of experimental education and I remember in Leipzig a warm discussion upon that point. Wundt eventually came out in support of the new Pedagogical Laboratory, and there was great joy among the teachers when he did so.

When I was at Leipzig, Wundt was of course advanced in years and he himself was not doing very much, if any, actual experimental work. His lectures were always crowded and the cosmopolitan make-up of his audiences was striking. Indeed, it seemed to me that there were more foreigners than Germans in his classes. This certainly was true in the laboratory, during the two years that I was there. What struck an English student was the great respect and deference shown by students, professors and assistants to Wundt. To some of us this seemed to go to a ridiculous extent, but he himself took it all very much as a matter of course. As contrasted with this, was the fact that when we needed a laboratory key we had to see the Herr Geheimrat [Privy Councilor] himself and pay him our deposit of a mark or so. I mean it seemed so foolish for a dignified individual, such as he was, to trouble himself about such minor details. What impressed most of us was the ease with which he lectured and the clearness of his exposition in the classroom, which was such a great contrast to the involved manner of his books. He always held the attention and interest of his classes and seemed himself to come to his class well prepared and deeply interested. Wundt always struck me as very unemotional and as such he probably lacks the enthusiastic friendships of other great teachers. No student seemed to get very close to him. His cold intellectuality seemed to make them stand back. I translated his short Introduction to Psychology, but even in the necessary correspondence for that work I did not seem to approach any nearer to the man himself.

I was not at all surprised at the outbreak of the war to find Wundt lining up with the Pan-Germans. Although never expressed openly, it seemed to me in line with his attitude as to the greatness and excellence of German scholarship and, therefore, everything else German. I understand that this German attitude of his existed to the end. This narrowness of mind in a man who obtained distinction as a philosopher was a distinct blow to many of his students, and I am sure it led to a diminution of enthusiasm for the man himself, even although it could not diminish their respect for the psychologist.

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