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Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals
This Elibron Classics book is a reprint of a 1899 edition by Longmans, Green & Company, London, New York, Bombay.
153 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1958
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About the author
William James
344 books1,349 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist who was also trained as a physician. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, James was one of the leading thinkers of the late nineteenth century and is believed by many to be one of the most influential philosophers the United States has ever produced, while others have labelled him the "Father of American psychology". Along with Charles Sanders Peirce and John Dewey, he is considered to be one of the greatest figures associated with the philosophical school known as pragmatism, and is also cited as one of the founders of the functional psychology. He also developed the philosophical perspective known as radical empiricism. James' work has influenced intellectuals such as Émile Durkheim, W. E. B. Du Bois, Edmund Husserl, Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Hilary Putnam, and Richard Rorty.
Born into a wealthy family, James was the son of the Swedenborgian theologian Henry James Sr and the brother of both the prominent novelist Henry James, and the diarist Alice James. James wrote widely on many topics, including epistemology, education, metaphysics, psychology, religion, and mysticism. Among his most influential books are Principles of Psychology, which was a groundbreaking text in the field of psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism, an important text in philosophy, and The Varieties of Religious Experience, which investigated different forms of religious experience.
William James was born at the Astor House in New York City. He was the son of Henry James Sr., a noted and independently wealthy Swedenborgian theologian well acquainted with the literary and intellectual elites of his day. The intellectual brilliance of the James family milieu and the remarkable epistolary talents of several of its members have made them a subject of continuing interest to historians, biographers, and critics.
James interacted with a wide array of writers and scholars throughout his life, including his godfather Ralph Waldo Emerson, his godson William James Sidis, as well as Charles Sanders Peirce, Bertrand Russell, Josiah Royce, Ernst Mach, John Dewey, Macedonio Fernández, Walter Lippmann, Mark Twain, Horatio Alger, Jr., Henri Bergson and Sigmund Freud.
William James received an eclectic trans-Atlantic education, developing fluency in both German and French. Education in the James household encouraged cosmopolitanism. The family made two trips to Europe while William James was still a child, setting a pattern that resulted in thirteen more European journeys during his life. His early artistic bent led to an apprenticeship in the studio of William Morris Hunt in Newport, Rhode Island, but he switched in 1861 to scientific studies at the Lawrence Scientific School of Harvard University.
In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf. He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end. Two younger brothers, Garth Wilkinson (Wilky) and Robertson (Bob), fought in the Civil War. The other three siblings (William, Henry, and Alice James) all suffered from periods of invalidism.
He took up medical studies at Harvard Medical School in 1864. He took a break in the spring of 1865 to join naturalist Louis Agassiz on a scientific expedition up the Amazon River, but aborted his trip after eight months, as he suffered bouts of severe seasickness and mild smallpox. His studies were interrupted once again due to illness in April 1867. He traveled to Germany in search of a cure and remained there until November 1868; at that time he was 26 years old. During this period, he
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 26, 2025
William James Speaks To Teachers And Students
Beginning in 1891, William James gave frequent lectures to teachers in which he explained the psychology he had developed in his "Principles of Psychology" and offered suggestions on applying the science of psychology to the art of education. Similarly, beginning in 1895, James delivered a series of lectures to college students -- generally at schools for women -- on education and its purposes. In 1899, James gathered both sets of lectures together and published them as "Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals." The book was read widely and became financially successful for James.
In his illuminating recent biography of James, "William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism", Robert Richardson describes the "Talks" as a whole as "written in what we may call William James's third style." He explains: "The third style is his plainest, clearest, most public style. It is at once vivid, personal, comprehensible, and without a shred of condescension. It is best exemplified in 'Talks to Teachers'. The longer James worked over a subject, the simpler and shorter and more direct he made it".
The two sets of lectures are complementary with the first set explaining to teachers how psychology could be of use in the educational process while the second set explains to the students the value of the educational opportunities presented to them. The "Talks to Teachers" begins with what many people at the time saw as a mechanistic psychology rooted in physiology and developed in light of Darwin's theory of evolution. In many places, James encourages teachers to see a pupil in part as "a subtle little piece of machinery." An effective means of education endeavors to work with rather than against the nervous system. In successive short chapters, James discusses his fundamental theory of the "stream of consciousness" and applies it to learned behavior through exploration of reactions, habits, association, attention and memory. The lectures are lucid and clear and show both flexibility and wisdom in considering the process of education.
James's focus throughout is on education as an activity fitting the student for the conduct of life in a wide variety of situations rather than as means of learning intellectual abstractions. James stresses the importance of the body and of physical activity in the learning process. His psychology begins with science and mechanism but it does not end there.
I would like to point out two of what I found to be among the insightful observations of the "Talks to Teachers." First, in the chapter on "Memory", James points out that the psychological abilities of the mind must be taken together in an individual and that a person need not be "cast down" by deficiencies in any single element. James stresses passion and desire as critical in overcoming any mechanical difficulties. He writes: "You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In almost any subject your passion for the subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result you will almost certainly attain it."
The other passage in the "Talks to Teachers" I wish to single out is in the concluding chapter on "The Will". Here James allows Spinoza to have the last word. James points out that there are two ways in which people can make choices: by saying "no" to something or by saying "yes" to its contrary. James opts for the latter approach. James writes: "Spinoza long ago wrote in his Ethics that anything that a man can avoid under the notion that it is bad he may also avoid under the notion that something else is good. He who habitually acts sub specie mali, under the negative notion, the notion of the bad, is called a slave by Spinoza. To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman. See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good". This is wise advice, from both Spinoza and William James.
The second part of the book consists of three wonderful addresses to students: "The Gospel of Relaxation", the seminal essay "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" and its companion essay "What Makes a Life Significant." The first essay is a still timely corrective to the tendency of many Americans to stress and to wrongly-directed effort. But second and third of these essays are critical to James's work in its entirety. The "blindness" to which James refers is the difficulty every person has in knowing the mind of another and in properly and sympathetically valuing what the other person finds important and significant in life. As James states in his Preface to "Talks to Teachers": "The facts and worths of life need many cognizers to take them in. There is no point of view absolutely public and universal." James develops this theme through the use of literary examples drawn from Robert Louis Stevenson, Whitman, Tolstoy, and many other writers.
In the Preface to the "Talks to Teachers and Students" James also underscores the importance of the essay "On a Certain Blindness". This essay is James's most direct statement of the value of pluralism, individualism, and democracy. He writes: "The practical consequence of such a philosophy is the well-known democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality -- is, at any rate, the outward tolerance of whatever is not itself intolerant. ... Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess."
This short and beautifully written collection of essays is an excellent non-technical introduction to the thought of William James.
Robin Friedman
Beginning in 1891, William James gave frequent lectures to teachers in which he explained the psychology he had developed in his "Principles of Psychology" and offered suggestions on applying the science of psychology to the art of education. Similarly, beginning in 1895, James delivered a series of lectures to college students -- generally at schools for women -- on education and its purposes. In 1899, James gathered both sets of lectures together and published them as "Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals." The book was read widely and became financially successful for James.
In his illuminating recent biography of James, "William James in the Maelstrom of American Modernism", Robert Richardson describes the "Talks" as a whole as "written in what we may call William James's third style." He explains: "The third style is his plainest, clearest, most public style. It is at once vivid, personal, comprehensible, and without a shred of condescension. It is best exemplified in 'Talks to Teachers'. The longer James worked over a subject, the simpler and shorter and more direct he made it".
The two sets of lectures are complementary with the first set explaining to teachers how psychology could be of use in the educational process while the second set explains to the students the value of the educational opportunities presented to them. The "Talks to Teachers" begins with what many people at the time saw as a mechanistic psychology rooted in physiology and developed in light of Darwin's theory of evolution. In many places, James encourages teachers to see a pupil in part as "a subtle little piece of machinery." An effective means of education endeavors to work with rather than against the nervous system. In successive short chapters, James discusses his fundamental theory of the "stream of consciousness" and applies it to learned behavior through exploration of reactions, habits, association, attention and memory. The lectures are lucid and clear and show both flexibility and wisdom in considering the process of education.
James's focus throughout is on education as an activity fitting the student for the conduct of life in a wide variety of situations rather than as means of learning intellectual abstractions. James stresses the importance of the body and of physical activity in the learning process. His psychology begins with science and mechanism but it does not end there.
I would like to point out two of what I found to be among the insightful observations of the "Talks to Teachers." First, in the chapter on "Memory", James points out that the psychological abilities of the mind must be taken together in an individual and that a person need not be "cast down" by deficiencies in any single element. James stresses passion and desire as critical in overcoming any mechanical difficulties. He writes: "You can be an artist without visual images, a reader without eyes, a mass of erudition with a bad elementary memory. In almost any subject your passion for the subject will save you. If you only care enough for a result you will almost certainly attain it."
The other passage in the "Talks to Teachers" I wish to single out is in the concluding chapter on "The Will". Here James allows Spinoza to have the last word. James points out that there are two ways in which people can make choices: by saying "no" to something or by saying "yes" to its contrary. James opts for the latter approach. James writes: "Spinoza long ago wrote in his Ethics that anything that a man can avoid under the notion that it is bad he may also avoid under the notion that something else is good. He who habitually acts sub specie mali, under the negative notion, the notion of the bad, is called a slave by Spinoza. To him who acts habitually under the notion of good he gives the name of freeman. See to it now, I beg you, that you make freemen of your pupils by habituating them to act, whenever possible, under the notion of a good". This is wise advice, from both Spinoza and William James.
The second part of the book consists of three wonderful addresses to students: "The Gospel of Relaxation", the seminal essay "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings" and its companion essay "What Makes a Life Significant." The first essay is a still timely corrective to the tendency of many Americans to stress and to wrongly-directed effort. But second and third of these essays are critical to James's work in its entirety. The "blindness" to which James refers is the difficulty every person has in knowing the mind of another and in properly and sympathetically valuing what the other person finds important and significant in life. As James states in his Preface to "Talks to Teachers": "The facts and worths of life need many cognizers to take them in. There is no point of view absolutely public and universal." James develops this theme through the use of literary examples drawn from Robert Louis Stevenson, Whitman, Tolstoy, and many other writers.
In the Preface to the "Talks to Teachers and Students" James also underscores the importance of the essay "On a Certain Blindness". This essay is James's most direct statement of the value of pluralism, individualism, and democracy. He writes: "The practical consequence of such a philosophy is the well-known democratic respect for the sacredness of individuality -- is, at any rate, the outward tolerance of whatever is not itself intolerant. ... Religiously and philosophically, our ancient national doctrine of live and let live may prove to have a far deeper meaning than our people now seem to imagine it to possess."
This short and beautifully written collection of essays is an excellent non-technical introduction to the thought of William James.
Robin Friedman
June 11, 2022
James, lecturing in 1892, manages to sum up every useful bit of my 21st century teacher training. I love that he ends by preaching the “gospel of relaxation” and then meditating a bit on the meaning of life. Both concepts are sorely missing from American education as it exists today.
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October 5, 2008Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life's Ideals by William James (1958)
March 7, 2020
Hace mucho tiempo que vengo leyendo a varios autores que citan o refieren a William James, y me dije es hora de leerlo...!!!
Exploré un poco su bibiliografia, y, -aunque se que su libro Principios de Psicología- es el principal me llamó la atención este libro... y no me arrepiento, me encantó...!!!
Muchos conceptos de este libro me gustaron, porque son cuestiones que encuentro en mi práctica docente diaria...
Considerar cuales son los gustos y motivaciones de los estudiantes y a partir de ahí trabajar los conceptos que se quieren enseñar es una de mis prácticas favoritas...
...ademas también, estar atento al foco de su atención, trabajar sobre concreto en la construcción de cosas tangibles, centrarse en la acción de los estudiantes, sus actos, conductas y hábitos así como brindarles feedback continuo sobre el desarrollo del proceso de aprendizaje que están atravesando, son algunos de los conceptos sobre los cuales trata el libro y que uso permanentemente porque me dan un excelente resultado.
Recomendado, -y no exagero en decir obligatorio- para todos los que estén al frente de una clase....!!!
Exploré un poco su bibiliografia, y, -aunque se que su libro Principios de Psicología- es el principal me llamó la atención este libro... y no me arrepiento, me encantó...!!!
Muchos conceptos de este libro me gustaron, porque son cuestiones que encuentro en mi práctica docente diaria...
Considerar cuales son los gustos y motivaciones de los estudiantes y a partir de ahí trabajar los conceptos que se quieren enseñar es una de mis prácticas favoritas...
...ademas también, estar atento al foco de su atención, trabajar sobre concreto en la construcción de cosas tangibles, centrarse en la acción de los estudiantes, sus actos, conductas y hábitos así como brindarles feedback continuo sobre el desarrollo del proceso de aprendizaje que están atravesando, son algunos de los conceptos sobre los cuales trata el libro y que uso permanentemente porque me dan un excelente resultado.
Recomendado, -y no exagero en decir obligatorio- para todos los que estén al frente de una clase....!!!
November 28, 2020
William James was one of the best professors Harvard has had. The namesake of Harvard’s psychology building, James joked that the first psychology lectures he ever heard was his own. This outstanding book is a 5 hour read is a “Cliff’s notes” condensation of the more than 1000 pages of James’s Psychology I&II. Published in 1899, "Talks to Teachers on Psychology and to Students on Some of Life’s Ideals" is surprisingly modern, and still speaks volumes to modern learners/teachers of psychology. For example, James foreshadows recommending Meditation more than 120 years ago, when his distinguished Cambridge visitors tell him, “it is an invariable part of our Hindoo(sic) life to retire for at least half an hour daily into silence, to relax our muscles, govern our breathing, and meditate on eternal things.” With clear, pragmatic writing and chapters with titles like “What Makes Life Significant,” this book is a must read.
December 12, 2021
James' book is wonderful -- it also makes one a bit skeptical that there have been any advances in educational theory in the past 130 years. The objections to rote learning, the sensitivity to developmentally correct content, the emphasis of "hands on" learning and acknowledgement of multiple intelligences, they're all here.
June 15, 2022
These lectures by William James to teachers and students are deep and charming (if the language is dated). Really, these talks would benefit anyone with a brain who wants insight to how it works. I’ll say it again: the more I read by and about William James, the more I think the rest of us are just catching up to him
March 9, 2023
The language can be antiquated and a little difficult to read, but on the other hand, many turns of phrase are delightful, and despite the language, much of these talks are relevant today. Overall, James seems to be making a case for compassion in teaching students and in dealing with others generally, even when we don't understand them fully.
July 29, 2018
This book abounds with insights into psychology, pedagogy, philosophy and human nature. James brings out facts that are not only fascinating in their own right, but eminently practical for teachers, or anyone who deals with human beings on a regular basis.
February 6, 2018
A good book for what it's for. Bland and wordy at times, but overall, informative and beneficial for teachers.
March 7, 2022
William James offering help in how to think about explaining psychology and life to teachers and students.
June 9, 2014
The style is Victorian convoluted, but the content is surprisingly contemporary. Asked to deliver a series of lectures to teachers in the Cambridge, Massachusetts school system, Harvard prof James (brother of Henry and co-star of Menand's magisterial The Metaphysical Club) clearly took the assignment seriously. Emphasizing the need to teach to the students at the developmental, intellectual and psychological stage they're in, James anticipates the insights of Piaget, Howard Gardner and others. He emphasizes that teaching is an art but that a working knowledge of psychology can help teachers avoid a certain number of mistakes. He's particularly good on the various things that motivate students to learn and on the necessity of catching students attention and dealing realistically with the fact that their attention will wander. He mixes in quotations from Whitman, Emerson, and Tolstoi in deft ways.
It's somewhat depressing to recognize that almost everything James says about good education runs absolutely counter to the guiding principles of contemporary American educational institutions: the reduction of students to numbers and the obsession with testing.
It's somewhat depressing to recognize that almost everything James says about good education runs absolutely counter to the guiding principles of contemporary American educational institutions: the reduction of students to numbers and the obsession with testing.
February 17, 2016
Too often these days "progressive education" is thought of as being "cutting edge." In fact, these sound principles of education have been around for over 100 years. While John Dewey is regarded (justifiably so!) as the chief progenitor of progressive ed, his writings can sometimes be a bit abstruse. This collection of lectures that William James presented to teachers is an excellent and very accessible discourse on the fundamental ideas of an effective learning environment, often referred to as "progressive education."
July 27, 2017
For the 2017 NEH Philosophers of Education seminar. It turns out that I really like William James! Way better than Henry. Not light reading, certainly, but not a slog.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews