Introduction to Psychology

Editor sI ntroduction The present volume is an excellent and ingenious abridgment of the new fourth, or 1961, edition of the authors internationally famous Psychology: The Fundamentals of Hitman A djustment. Good and wddely used university and college textbooks are one of the energizing and guiding forces in the development of any modem academic field. Dr. Munn slarger and very complete book in its various editions has done much to form the basic structure of thought about the nature of psychology for many members of the new generation of psychologists who have taken up the study of this subject during the last fifteen years. Dr. Munn is an experienced and gifted college teacher. In his own class work, he has increasingly realized that for some courses his large Psychology is simply too long for use in a short course. The present smaller, but academically sound book necessarily omits topics treated in the more comprehensive volume, but it has been produced to meet a specific and important pedagogical need. When an American psychologist considers the history of textbooks in liis field, he inevitably thinks first of William James sgreat book. The Principles of Psychology, published in 1890. This work has 1,383 pages. There can be little doubt that part of the amazing and enduring influence ofT heP rinciples is due to the fact that James himself issued an abridgment of his monumental work in 1892. In his preface to this smaller volume of 478 pages, he begins with the sentence, In preparing the following abridgment of my larger work, the Principles of Psychology, my chief aim has been to make it more directly available for class-room use. James sB riefer Course, as his condensed book came to be known, has had a lasting effect on American psychology and it also has contributed in no small way to the influence of James sthought on establishing the boundaries of wh(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)