In his valedictory speech of 1932, he said the science of psychology should be used to relieve the burdens of human life.[1] He had a scholarship to Yale University, and received A.B. in 1937. In graduate work at Brown University, he studied "conditioned operate response" of white rats under various conditions as a part of his Ph.D. thesis. His first college teaching job was in 1940, at Connecticut College for Women.