Harry Kirke Wolfe

Harry Kirke Wolfe (November 10, 1858 – 1918) was a prominent early American psychologist.

Harry Kirke Wolfe was born on November 10, 1858 to Jacob Vance Wolfe and Eliza Ellen Batterhorn in Bloomington, Illinois. Both of his parents were teachers. Before her marriage, Ellen Batterhorn taught in public schools and was eventually elected the chair of mathematics at Glendale Woman’s College in Glendale, Ohio. After their marriage Jacob Wolfe taught for many years in Illinois and in Gosport, Indiana. Harry was the oldest of their nine children, two of whom died before the age of two. When Harry was thirteen his family moved to a farm near Lincoln, Nebraska. As the eldest son Harry was responsible for working on the farm. He had a deep love of books and often read while walking behind the plow.

Wolfe was in one of the first students to enter the then fledgling University of Nebraska. He arrived in a time of much controversy for the University, when people were unsure if the state could afford to support a university. There was much controversy within the university regarding the curriculum, which had expanded to include medicine, agriculture, and engineering as well as the establishment of mandatory chapel, military drill, and religious instruction. For an unknown reason Wolfe was excused for two of his four years of compulsory military drills. Wolfe studied a diverse range of topics during his schooling and after a rough start, he was a very successful student in his junior and senior years, earning nine A's and 3 B's. As a senior Wolfe took a course that would eventually have ties to his later career: a year-long mandatory class for all seniors on mental and moral philosophy. Wolfe earned his undergraduate degree from the university in 1880.

Though he could have continued his education at one of many American graduate programs, Wolfe decided instead to travel to the University of Berlin, well-known at the time for its innovative curriculum. Upon arrival in Berlin, Wolfe began to pursue a degree in the classics with the intention of returning to the United States as a college or university professor. Very little is known about Wolfe’s three-year stay in Germany, though it is known that he took a course in psychology and a noter entitled “Fundamentals of Experimental Psychology” in his second semester. Both classes were taught by Hermann Ebbinghaus.

In the fall of 1884 Wolfe ended his time in Berlin, for unknown reasons, and traveled to Leipzig to study with Wilhelm Wundt. A possible explanation for this is that Ebbinghaus did not have professorial rank and was unable to supervise Wolfe’s doctoral thesis, which he would write in psychology, no longer pursuing a degree in classics. Wolfe was only the second American student to earn a degree under Wundt (the first being James McKeen Cattell).

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