Studies of Childhood

It might be thought that writings on psychological topics produced by British thinkers between 1840 and 1914 are today only of interest as intellectual antiques; amusing but no longer relevant. Such a view is quickly dissolved if one reads these works in full. They make the transition from folk psychology, theological views on human nature and metaphysical speculation to an empirical and scientific study of the human mind both boldly and effectively. However, they do much more than this - they contain observations and theoretical insights which are pertinent, some of which may have been overlooked through the intensive specialisation of the present age.
Such men as Henry Maudsly, the psychiatrist, William Kingdon Clifford, mathematician or James Sully, the philosopher who introduced experimental psychology to London University with apparatus imported from Germany in 1897, remain informative and stimulating for the psychologist today who troubles to study them. For the general historian of the Victorian Age, these writers are also valuable sources for understanding the conflicts amongst the writers of those times.