Benjamin B. Bourdon

Benjamin B. Bourdon (1860–1943) was a French psychologist born in Normandy on August 5th, 1860. He is often referred to as a pioneer of experimental psychology in France. Bourdon founded the first university established Experimental Psychology and Linguistics laboratory at the University of Rennes in 1896 and integrated the first experimental psychology course in a provincial university in 1891. His life is known by means of his (1932) autobiography in Carl Murchison`s compilation of autobiographies (1932) and biographies by Nicolas, S. (1998), Beuchet (1961), and Piéron (1961). The accounts of Bourdon`s life describe him as one of the few French advocates of the new scientific psychology.

Bourdon was born in Normandy, France on August 5, 1860. His village was composed of five or six educated men such as the priest, doctors and notaries. Bourdon spent his childhood and part of his adolescence in the class of farmers, sailors and quarry workers. Bourdon’s father was a farmer and his mother was from humble origins, daughter of a farmer and described by Bourdon (1932) as being unassuming, superior in mental ability but lacking the ambition and favourable conditions to reach a higher social level.

At the age of twelve, he entered the boarding school Lycée de Coutances, graduating with the bachelier es letter es sciences at nineteen. After hesitating between a teaching career and a career in law, he decided to study law in Paris but lost interest in the subject after a year, turning to the preparation for a teaching career in philosophy at the Sorbonne. Among t his teachers were Elme-Marie Caro (1826-1887), Ludovic Carrau (1842-1889), and Paul Janet (1823-1899), the most eminent French representatives of philosophy at the time. Nevertheless, Bourdon gave little credit to the teaching of philosophy for his intellectual development, but ascribed his biggest influences came from reading Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, Bain, Spencer, James and Theodule Ribot (1839-1916), the latter was also Bourdon`s teacher.

In 1886, after having obtained the highest level of teaching diploma available in France, Bourdon received a scholarship to go to Germany for a year where he got the opportunity to learn from Wundt in Leipzig in his laboratory of experimental psychology. This experience gave Bourdon the ambition to bring France up to date with the progress and development of the study of psychology.

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