HUGO MUENSTERBERG LED LIFE OF GREAT INDUSTRY

The following minute on the life and services of Professor Hugo Muenster-berg was placed upon the records of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at its last meeting:

Hugo Muensterberg, Professor of Psychology, died in Cambridge on the 16th of December, 1916. He was born in Danzig, West Prussia, June 1, 1863. After leaving the gymnasium in his native city, he studied philosophy in Leipzig under Wundt, among others, taking the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1885, and went on with physiological studies in Heidelberg (M.D., 1887).

In 1887 he habilitated at Freiburg, in Baden, and in 1891 was made professor extraordinary there. An acquaintance with William James, whom he met at a psychological congress in Paris in 1889, led to a call to a professorship of experimental psychology in this University, and he began teaching here in the fall of 1892. The academic years 1895-96 and 1896-97 were spent in Freiburg again, on leave of absence, and on his return to Cambridge in 1897 he was appointed Professor of Psychology. Professor Muensterberg received the honorary degree of A.M. from Harvard in 1901, LL.D. from Washington University, St. Louis, in 1904, and Litt.D. from Lafayette College in 1907. He was president of the American Psychological Association in 1898 and of the American Philosophical Association in 1908, and was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the Washington Academy of Sciences. He had a leading part in forming and carrying out the plans for the International Congress of Arts and Sciences at the St. Louis Exposition in 1904 and in the subsequent publication of its proceedings. In 1910-11 he was the Harvard Exchange Professor at the University of Berlin.

Muensterberg's fertility and enormous industry were conspicuous from the beginning. While still at Freiburg he published four parts of a theoretical and experimental work entitled "Beitrage zur experimentellen Psychologie," and four other volumes on psychological subjects.

His first years in Cambridge were mainly spent, beside the daily tasks of instruction, in developing the psychological laboratory and fostering research. To the students who resorted to him for training in the new methods of experimental psychology he gave freely of time and interest, and his fertile invention supplied many and varied problems for investigation. The production of the laboratory steadily increased in volume and significance, and in 1903 a medium of publication was established under Muensterberg's direction in the "Harvard Psychological Studies." The well-planned and equipped laboratory in Emerson Hall, opened in 1905, was chiefly due to his efforts.

His first American book appeared in 1889, a collection of essays entitled "Psychology and Life." It was followed by more than 20 volumes besides a prodigious number of articles in periodicals. Of his more strictly scientific writings during this period the most important are "Grundzuge der Psychologie" (1900) the first volume of a largely planned work which was never completed,--"Science and Idealims" (1906), "The Eternal Values" (1909), "Grundzuge der Psychotechnik" (1914). In the latter years of his life his interest turned more and more to the applications of psychology, the practical bearings of the science on education, law, medicine and industry. To this series belong, "Psychotherapy" (1909), "Psychology and the Teacher" (1910), "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency" (1913), with many occasional publications. Muensterberg had a deep interest also in educational, social and political problems, and wrote much upon them, from "American Traits" (1901) and "Die Amerikaner" (1904), translated (1905) "The Americans," to his recent books on "The War and America," "The Peace and America," and "Tomorrow" (1916).

With this great productivity, he was a notable teacher not only of advanced students in the seminary or laboratory but of large classes of undergraduates whom from year to year he introduced to the elements of psychology.

A man of strong and self-confident opinions and positive expression, he was a kindly spirit, hospitable, generous, appreciative of others. His mental energy seemed limitless, his industry tireless, his optimism unquenchable. He exemplified his own ideal of productive scholarship, and carried to the grave with him plans for more books than most of us would think of achieving in a lifetime