(Pages 12 It is the reproduction of the old book published...)
Pages 12 It is the reproduction of the old book published long back(1908) We try our level best to give you perfect book but some time, due to old books some imperfections like missing or damaged Pages left in the book. These are due to the original artefact or left at the time of scanning. We found this book important for current readers who want to know about our old treasure so we brought them back to the shelves for you. We hope you will encourage us by accepting them in this reformed condition. We do not change the contents of the book just make it more readable by removing its yellow background. A coloured Dust cover with glossy Lamination is wrapped on the book. Print on Demand
(Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating bac...)
Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.
Christine Ladd-Franklin was an American psychologist, logician and mathematician. She was a lecturer in psychology from 1914 to 1927.
Background
Christine Ladd-Franklin was born in Windsor, Connecticut, a descendant of Daniel Ladd who emigrated to New England in 1634. Her father, Eliphalet Ladd, was a nephew of William Ladd, the founder of the American Peace Society, and her mother, Augusta (Niles) Ladd, was a niece of John Milton Niles, postmaster-general under Van Buren. Christine Ladd's childhood was passed largely in her native village, but partly in New York City and partly (after the death of her mother) in Portsmouth, N. H. Her playmates were her brother and a neighbor boy, and she later attributed her long-continued physical vigor to "playing with the boys. "
Education
She attended school at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Last two years as a schoolgirl were spent at Wilbraham Academy, where she was permitted to study Greek and mathematics with the pupils who were preparing for Harvard, and from which she was graduated as valedictorian of her class. She had already set her heart upon going to Vassar College, and through the kindness of her aunt, Juliet Niles, she was enabled to realize her dream. In the fall of 1866 Ladd enrolled in Vassar College and in 1869, she was graduated. Her most inspiring teacher at college was the astronomer, Maria Mitchell, though her own preference was for a career in physics.
In 1878, Ladd was accepted into Johns Hopkins University. Though women were not admitted, it so happened that the English mathematician, J. J. Sylvester, then at Johns Hopkins, had noted some of her published work. He persuaded the University to admit her on a special status, and even to grant her a fellowship which she held for three years, or till 1882. By that time she had qualified for the degree of Ph. D. , but the University did not grant her the degree until 1926.
Career
After graduating from Vassar College, Ladd taught science and mathematics at secondary level in Washington, Pennsylvania. During this time, Ladd contributed seventy-seven mathematical problems and solutions to the Educational Times of London. She also published six items in The Analyst: A Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics and three in the American Journal of Mathematics.
While engaged in mathematical study at Johns Hopkins she became specially interested in symbolic logic as taught by the eminent C. S. Pierce, and she published in his volume, Studies in Logic by Members of the Johns Hopkins University (1883), an original method for reducing all syllogisms to a single formula, which she called the "antilogism" or the "inconsistent triad" of propositions.
She continued to live in Baltimore till 1909, being herself lecturer in psychology and logic at Johns Hopkins for the last four years of this period. Thereafter, her husband becoming associate editor of the New York Evening Post, she resided in New York and lectured on logic and psychology at Columbia University, holding the title of lecturer in psychology from 1914 until 1927. Comparable in importance to her work on logic was that on vision, in which her publications began to appear in 1887. Her interest in the subject was intensified in 1891-92 by a year of study in Germany, where she succeeded, though the rules excluded women from the universities, in receiving instruction from the psychologist G. E. Müller and in working in Helmholtz' laboratory in Berlin. Müller was a supporter of Hering's well-known theory of color vision, while Helmholtz had his own still more famous theory.
Mrs. Ladd-Franklin, poring over these opposed theories, saw merits but also defects in each of them, and was able to formulate a theory of her own which was consistent with all the facts and had the additional merit of indicating how the complete human color sense might have evolved from the rudimentary brightness sense of certain lower animals, and how human color-blindness could be understood as an incomplete development. Helmholtz had been compelled by the exigencies of his theory to regard yellow as a blend of red and green; and Hering, while doing justice to yellow as a unitary color sensation, had been forced to regard the primary red and green as exactly complementary colors. The Ladd-Franklin theory avoids both of these defects by regarding the red sense and the green sense as developed out of the more primitive yellow sense, and as coalescing into the yellow sense when aroused together.
Color theories have been hotly debated for many years, and the Ladd-Franklin theory, entering the arena in 1892, became a center of controversy, in which its author, always eager for argumentative logic, continued to the end of her life to take an active part. She was always seeking converts to her theory and never gave a wavering sinner a chance to escape while conviction appeared at all possible.
Late in her career, when nearly eighty years old, she rediscovered a curious visual phenomenon known as the "blue arcs, " which had in fact been discovered and forgotten some eight times during the preceding hundred years, but of which she made much more use than her predecessors. She used it as evidence for the emission of faint light by active nerve fibers. Till her death she was actively engaged in developing this new idea and debating it with the doubters.
She also published in 1929 a collection of her principal writings on Colour and Colour Theories. Aside from her two specialties, Mrs. Ladd-Franklin had other important interests and published many articles on philosophical and general subjects. She was interested in opening to women such academic opportunities as fellowships and university professorships from which women were being kept, as she once expressed it, merely by "prejudice on the part of the unfair sex. " She was interested also in the campaign for woman's suffrage. She had a wide circle of friends and was remarkable to an advanced age for her activity and alertness.
On August 24, 1882, Miss Ladd was married to Fabian Franklin, then a young professor of mathematics at Johns Hopkins, later prominent as an editor and publicist.