Photo courtesy of WKU University Archives

Academic Degrees

• Ph.D., Clark University, 1902 - Psychology. Thesis: "Mental Life of Two Macacus Rhesus Monkeys in Captivity."²
• MA. , Indiana University, 1901 - Psychology. Thesis: "A Comparison of Judgments of Weights Lifted by the Hand and Foot."
• B.A., Indiana University, 1900.
• Dr. of Ped., 1894, New York University School of Pedagogy. Thesis: "The History of Independent Normal Schools in the United States."
• Graduate of Central Normal College, Danville, IN, 1885

Academic Positions

• 1922-1925: Head, "Department"³ of Psychology, Western Kentucky State Normal School
• 1906-1922: Dean⁴, Western Kentucky State Normal School
• 1903-1906: President, Central Normal College, Danville, IN
• 1903: Vice-President (in charge of the Department of Pedagogy), State Normal College, Stroudsburg, PA
• 1894-1899: Department of Pedagogy, Central Normal College, Danville, IN
• 1885-1892: Teacher, Central Normal College, Danville, IN

Biography

          Andrew J. Kinnaman was the first head of the Department of Psychology at Western, serving in that capacity from November, 1922 through December, 1925. Kinnaman trained as an experimental psychologist and received his Ph.D. in 1902 from Clark University, at that time one of the premier institutions for study in the nacent field of psychology.⁵ His Ph.D. dissertation, entitled "Mental Life of Two Macacus Rhesus Monkeys in Captivity," was well received by the small community of pioneers in the study of animal behavior. C. Lloyd Morgan, for example, discussed it at some length in Chapter 16: Do Animals Reason? of his 1903 book An Introduction to Comparative Psychology. Of Kinnaman's research, Morgan wrote:⁶

Mr A. J. Kinnaman has made valuable and interesting observations on the "Mental Life of two Macacus rhesus Monkeys in Captivity." Some of these had for their object to test how far the monkeys could discriminate between the forms of vessels and establish associations between form and food contained or not contained therein. In his summary of the results of these observations he says that "the monkeys are able to discriminate these forms and to associate food with them consecutively. The associations are not formed by a single trial, but come about more or less gradually through much repetition. It is easier to form an association de novo than to break an established one and form a new one. The necessity of forming a new association induces a revival of former associations of the same general kind. The learning process, upon the whole, is still that of trial, happy accident, recollection of the fortunate movements, and an elimination of the useless ones." Experimenting with his monkeys in a maze, similar to that used by Dr Willard Small in his observations on rats, Mr Kinnaman says that the results offer no new problem above that of working a combination lock or associating food with one of a series of glasses by number, form, or colour. . . . In the learning process we have here again a more or less definitely directed effort spurred by the food stimulus, fortunate accidents, memory of them, and the elimination of useless efforts."

Mr Kinnaman says that his monkeys did not reason in the higher sense of the term. But he thinks that they may proceed on a method of reasoning by analogy. "The ruling out of reasoning by analogy with all lower animals, he remarks, "is often due to a failure to differentiate sufficiently the psychological process of analogical reasoning, resulting in practical activity, from a subsequent logical analysis, accounting for the intelligent act. Of course the animals cannot do the latter. In part their reasoning is like that of the human being. Yesterday a man saw a vine and handled it without evil results. Today he sees another quite like it, handles it, and is poisoned. He does not say, ' Lo, now, here is this and this likeness, therefore it is safe to handle this vine.' He was just dimly conscious of a resemblance. He may not possibly be able to name a single likeness if put to the test. So far in his process he and the monkey have gone along together." And he prefaces these remarks by saying that however true it may be of chicks, cats, and dogs that they cannot reason by analogy, I very much doubt whether it is true of rhesus monkeys." But when a chick, having had experience of bees, avoids the mimicking Eristalis or drone-fly, might we not on similar grounds say that it too reasoned by analogy? That animals are able to sense resemblance as a matter of practical experience is unquestionable. Their behaviour is largely based on their doing so. But there is much difference between sensed resemblance and perceived similarity of relations. And it is to procedure based on. this higher process to which I should restrict the phrase reasoning by analogy. Of this Mr Kinnaman does not furnish conclusive evidence. But his treatment of the subject is eminently fair and careful. And he says: whether these animals have 'free ideas' and general notions beyond the mere -'recept' [or generic image], and are capable of real analogical reasoning, cannot be positively determined. If they do, the processes certainly do not rise to the level of full reflective consciousness."

          Kinnaman was a major influence on another of psychology's pioneers, Central Normal College student Lewis M. Terman, credited with developing the concept of the intelligence quotient. Of Kinnaman's influence, Terman wrote:⁷

The courses in pedagogy, methods, and the history of education were taught by A. J. Kinnaman, who had imbibed Herbartian doctrines from the fountain at Jena . . . . With Kinnaman I studied Herbart (as expounded in Charles A. McMurry's The Elements of General Method and De Garmo's The Essentials of Method), Rousseau's Émile, Locke's and Spencer's essays on education, Quick's Educational Reformers, Painter's History of Education, Mahaffy's Old Greek Education, and Oscar Browning's Educational Theories. . . .  Up to the time I left Central Normal College in 1898 I barely knew of Galton, Wundt, and Hall, and, so far as I can recall, had never heard of Binet or Cattell.

It is perhaps fortunate that two of my favorite teachers, Rigdon and Kinnaman, held decidedly opposite views, Rigdon being an Hegelian and Kinnaman an Herbartian. Their clashing opinions, when one of them was quoted to the other in class, gave an atmosphere to the classroom that was tense and exciting. The more thoughtful of the students, of course, took sides. I became for the time being an enthusiastic Herbartian, perhaps because I thought I could understand Herbart and could see nothing but words in Hegel. The situation was, at any rate, more stimulating than it would have been if all my teachers had been steeped in the same philosophy. "

          Kinnaman taught the first psychology courses offered at Western during the 1907-1908 school year as part of the teacher education program. The State Normal Bulletin for 1907 describes five "regular courses of study" for the training of teachers that would likely be called programs today. Psychology is listed as a course to be taken during the third term of the One-Year Course, and Advanced Psychology was to be taken in both the fourth and fifth terms of the third year of the Four-Year Course.⁸  Enrollment in these classes under Kinnaman was 50 students.⁹  The February, 1908, issue of The State Normal Bulletin, under the heading "The Department of Psychology," contains the following request for equipment and supplies for psychology:

Dean A.J. Kinnaman has submitted a list of apparatus and supplies that are of immediate need in the Department of Psychology.  It will take three hundred twenty-nine dollars and fifty-five cents to purchase the apparatus. In submitting the list, Dean Kinnaman says: "The apparatus is selected for the purpose of making a few illustrative experiments while teaching the regular work in the texts used. In selecting I have kept the following points in view: First, an attempt to make such illustrative experiments as will throw the necessary light on the subjects taken up in the regular text. Second, a preparation of the student to do original observation in connection with the children in his charge while teaching. Third, to give a slight insight and introduction into the more extensive work that he may be able to find in first-class university laboratories. I have purposely avoided the expensive apparatus. In addition to this ordered, we shall be able to make many other pieces that will be quite useful and inexpensive. I feel that the list is as limited as it is practical to make it, if we attempt to do anything along the line of experimental psychology.¹⁰

          The August, 1908, State Normal Bulletin lists "Psychology and Logic" under Special Courses which included Psychology-Classroom Work (3 hours/week, 40 weeks), Physiological and Experimental Psychology-Lab Work (2-6 hours/week, 40 weeks), and Logic (5 hours/week, 8 weeks). This all appear to have been part of a single course. 

          For health reasons, Kinnaman resigned as head of the Department of Psychology in December, 1925. 
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Notes

¹Psychology was not an independent department at this time, but was part of the Department of Education. Nevertheless, Kinnaman is identified as the head of the Psychology Department in an obituary published in Teacher's College Heights, March, 1934; courtesy of WKU University Archives.
²Kinnaman, A.J. (1902). American Journal of Psychology, 13,  98-148, 173-218.
³Psychology was not an independent department at this time, but was part of the Department of Education.
⁴This position appears to have been comparable to today's positions of provost or vice-president for academic affairs.
⁵As noted on the Clark University web site, "From the 1890s to the 1920s, Clark was the international center for the study of Psychology, and most of the Psychology journals in the United States were once published by the Clark University Press. Noted Psychologist G. Stanley Hall, the University's first president, founded the American Psychological  Association at Clark in 1892."
⁶C. Lloyd Morgan. "Do Animals Reason". Chapter 16 in An Introduction to Comparative Psychology (New Edition, Revised). London: Walter Scott Publishing (1903): 288 - 308. [URL for Chapter 16]
⁷Autobiography of Lewis M. Terman. First published in Murchison, Carl. (Ed.) (1930). History of Psychology in Autobiography (Vol. 2, pp. 297-331). Clark University Press, Worcester, MA. [URL for Terman's autobiography]
⁸ The "One-Year Course" actually required a Foundation Course (Program) that could be completed in one or two terms and which did not lead to a degree. This was then followed by three additional terms of course work.  The Four-Year Course required an additional five terms in each of the second, third and fourth years.  Source: The State Normal Bulletin, 1907, pp. 16-22; courtesy of WKU University Archives.
⁹Teacher's College Heights, November, 1931; courtesy of WKU University Archives.
¹⁰The State Normal  Bulletin, February, 1908; courtesy of WKU University Archives.