Review of Festschrift for Gardner Murphy

Reviews the book, Festschrift for Gardner Murphy edited by John G. Peatman and Eugene L. Hartley (1960). The book is not intended for the reader seeking substantive information on any single topic but can serve for exposure to the interests of men influenced by a man whose own interests are limitless. More than anything, the book serves to reveal more of Gardner Murphy than we had available before and it demonstrates his potent influence in generating his own profound curiosity in others. Despite the rather large sample of behavior, there is throughout his public expressions a suggestion that we are being exposed to only a part of the man. The book testifies for the hypothesis. The book presents brief essays or research reports on diverse topics ranging from technical problems in experimental psychology to considerations of current social issues, from attitudes toward death to extrasensory perception, from clinical testing to a statement of contemporary Gestalt psychology and all these have some essence of Murphy. The articles are uniformly brief, frequently answering no questions but stating many. The editors contribute a profile of Murphy and a survey of the fate of psychology students. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)