The Origin of Teaching Psychology
As mentioned in previous blogs, Dr. Modestino is an avid collector of antiquarian books, especially related to his interests in neuroscience, medicine, and psychology. This is one of Dr. Modestino's latest acquisitions. The focus of this book (Welch, 1889) is on teaching psychology, which Dr. Modestino has done since graduate school in 2003.
Let's provide you with a very brief background in the history of psychology to point out the importance of this volume and the context. The first psychology course was taught at Harvard University by William James in 1875. The field of psychology was first established as a science with a laboratory by Wilhelm Wundt in 1879 at the University of Leipzig in Germany. Thus, psychology and teaching about this were relatively new fields when this book was published in 1889.
The topics discussed in this small volume include knowledge, the mind, intellect, thinking, pleasure and pain, feelings, sensations, perceptions, animal behavior, memory, abstraction, concepts and classifications, judgment and reasoning, and learning. For someone who teaches about all these things within a psychology department at the post-secondary level in 2025, finding this volume gives new meaning and historical background to the occupation itself.
External Links:
William James' bio on the Department of Psychology website at Harvard University
Wilhelm Wundt's bio on the Oxford Biographies website
Welch, A. S. (1889). Talks on psychology: applied to teaching for teachers and normal institutes. New York: E.L. Kellogg & Co.
PDF link of this antiquarian book on Google Books
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