Graduate Study at Chicago
In the summer of 1914 I started graduate study in psychology with Professor Angell at Chicago. I recall one of my first impressions of graduate students of psychology. When they were asked a question, they would start to talk fluently, even when they obviously knew nothing about the subject. I was sure that engineers had higher standards of intellectual honesty. One of my first courses was called advanced educational psychology and it was taught by Professor Judd. I used to wonder what the elementary course could be like if the course that I was taking was called "advanced." I soon became accustomed to the fact that prerequisites did not mean anything and that there was no real sequence of courses in psychology, even though they were listed by number and title to give the appearance of a sequence, in which one course was supposed to build on another. I never had an elementary course in psychology or in statistics. My first degree was M.E., and I was never flattered when it was interpreted at Chicago as a master's degree in Education!
One of my accomplishments during that year was to learn how to carry five soup plates over my head through the swinging doors at the University Commons where I worked as a waiter. The alumni waiters from the University Commons include a very large group of professional men.
One of the most interesting among the graduate students in psychology was Beardsley Ruml, who has earned more distinction than any of the rest of us. He left psychology to do it. Even as a graduate student he was very much interested in economic theory. I recall one evening at the Midway Gardens when the discussion turned to economics. Ruml, armed with a stein of beer, declared emphatically that we would be just as well off if we dumped all the gold in the ocean. It was prophetic of later times.
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