Psychology for Individual Education: By Lois Barclay Murphy, Eugene Lerner, Jane Judge, Madeleine Grant. Edited by Esther Raushenbush. New York: Columbia University Press, 1942. 306 pp.

At last a group of college teachers analyze whom, what, when, and above all, why, they teach. True, they discuss only four exploratory courses in psychology for freshmen at Sarah Lawrence College, but this amounts to an able, self-conscious statement of what both the college teacher and the college student is up against.

Traditionally, we have acted as though a Ph.D., or at least good personal connections, plus a modicum of respectability, somehow foster a pedagogy fit for college students; a pedagogy beyond investigation. In an effort to develop ways to study methods and to investigate student differences in learning, Sarah Lawrence has broken through this tradition. It has also attempted to explore what is meant by 'student needs'.

'Educational research', as interpreted by this college group, with the support of their General Education Board, is based on masses of diversified records, a study of student response, a courageous review of teacher effort, and an aggressive policy of publication. Two related studies are now in book form; a third will soon follow.

In orthodox educational psychology, 'interest' is treated as something by itself. Teachers are advised to arouse 'interest', and somehow keep it floating while they pray for a project. Psychology for Individual Learning leaves such a viewpoint far behind in its complete assumption that all learning is deeply rooted in the emotions. Interest is an expression of an emotional resource available in different students at different times about different matters. It then becomes axiomatic that the feelings of the people taught must be a part of the teacher's professional awareness.

In class, in conference and in the laboratory the four teachers of psychology deliberately seek to know the interests, worries, delights and inhibitions of each student. They follow the modifications effected by the dynamics of current living. They attempt to view each girl not only as a freshman in a particular academic setting, but