Psychology

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1. rramadassJun 2026
   Also relevant:

   Talks to Teachers on Psychology: And to Students on some of Life's Ideals by William James - https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16287/16287-h/16287-h.htm

   What William James Still Teaches Us About Teaching: A Reflective Look at "Talks to Teachers" in Ed Psych Today - https://www.nzlamb.org/blog/what-william-james-still-teaches...

   This 19th-Century Book Is Still Timely for Teachers - https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-this-19th-c...

   William James’s pragmatism in education, from experiential learning to global application - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2331186X.2026.2...

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2. dkarlOct 2012
   James prepared a popular abridged version of Principles which may be just as useful. (Disclaimer: I've only read the abridged version, so I don't know what's missing from the full two-volume version.) It's a very practical and introspective approach to psychology, somewhere between pop science and intellectual self-help. I think HNers would enjoy it.

   Here it is on Amazon for $0.99: http://www.amazon.com/William-James-Psychology/dp/B000W2GH4E

   Here's an online version: http://archive.org/details/psychologybriefe00willuoft

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3. j_lou888Aug 2012
   Time seems to speed up as we get older because life gets less memorable and less surprising. When you're growing up, life is filled with novel and surprising experiences that are used to anchor our memory because of those aforementioned qualities. Psychological time is directly related to the formation of new memories. As we grow up, everything gets into a routine that we barely notice at all. Just think of how much you remember of your daily 9 to 5 for example.

   This phenomenon has been studied several times. In 1890, William James wrote the following in his 'Principle of Psychology': "In youth, we may have an absolutely new experience, subjective or objective, every hour of the day. Apprehension is vivid, retentiveness strong, and our recollections of that time, like those of a time spent in rapid and interesting travel, are of something intricate, multitudinous and long-drawn out…But each passage year converts some of this experience into automatic routine which we hardly note at all, the days and the weeks smooth themselves out in recollection to contentless units, and the years grow hollow and collapse."

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