Stein's Stein

Among his oblique and eccentric entries into domain was a study of spiritualist practice of trance-induced automatic writing, much to dismay of his more rationalist colleagues. In this light, he initiated a series of psychological experiments in which subject was tested according to varying degrees of fatigue and distraction. One of his subjects was Miss Stein, whom he was to describe as the ideal student. She recounts her own experience: Strange fancies begin to crowd upon her, she feels that silent pen is writing on and on forever. Her record is there, she cannot escape it and group about her begin to assume shape of mocking friends gloating over her imprisoned misery. Bizarre as this might be, it was in any case better than those experiments conducted by one of her classmates, notably less than ideal, who complained to Professor James that consistent lack of response by one of students was falsifying results of his work. When asked who student was, he replied that it was Gertrude Stein. The Harvard professor, true to form, found her lack of response to be perfectly normal. Stein was greatly amused by this incident, remembering that after French Revolution, Saint-Just proposed that in lycees prize for eloquence be given for laconism. Of course, tightlipped New Englanders who were her classmates would certainly understand such a procedure; for her, coming from San Francisco, this was a quite novel approach to things. In any case, in his wisdom, James was much later to ?xplain to his prize student: Never reject anything. Nothing has been proved. Inspired by her mentor, Gertrude Stein was immediately to begin a series of supplementary experiments with her friend, Leon Solomons, results of which were published in Harvard Psychological Review of I896, entitled Normal Motor Automatism. This was Gertrude Stein's first publication. There were only two subjects, herself and Solomons. Her description: This is a very pretty experiment because it is quite easy and results are very satisfactory. The subject reads in a low voice, and preferably something comparatively uninteresting, while

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