The feministic enthusiasm turns passionately against those scandalous
places of women's humiliation; and yet its chief influence on female
education is the effort to give more freedom to the individual girl, and
that means to remove her from the authority and discipline of the
parental home, to open the door for her to the street, to leave her to
her craving for amusement, to smooth the path which leads to ruin. -from
"Sex Education" Whether or not you approve of the culture of mass
psychology that resulted from the work of Hugo Münsterberg, his
continuing impact on American society is inestimable. From the reliance
on standardized testing in public schools to the corporate perspective
on employees as "human resources," the practical applications of
psychology to industry, medicine, education, the arts, criminal
investigation, and the social order that he pioneered still exert a
dramatic influence on how we, a century later, continue to think about
the mind and how it shapes human behavior. In this seminal 1914 book,
Münsterberg explores the psychological implications of some of the most
vexing social problems of his time... and discusses some of the
scientifically defensible solutions as well. His approach to such topics
as the sexual education of women and the dangers of dancing may strike
us as quaint, but his outlook on the "social sins of advertising," "the
mind of the juryman," and "the mind of the investor" still offer
insightful kernals of truth. Also available from Cosimo Classics:
Münsterberg's The Eternal Life, The War and America, American Traits,
and Psychotherapy OF INTEREST TO: students of pyschology, readers of
social history German-American psychologist and philosopher HUGO
MÜNSTERBERG (1863-1916) was professor of psychology at Harvard
University from 1892 until his death. He was elected president of the
American Psychological Association in 1898.
