William James was an American philosopher, historian, and psychologist. He was born on January 11, 1842, and died on August 26, 1910. He was the first teacher in the United States to teach a psychology course. James and Charles Sanders Peirce started the philosophical school called pragmatism, and James is also considered one of the founders of functional psychology. James studied medicine, physiology, and biology, and he started teaching in those fields. However, he was drawn to the scientific study of the human mind at a time when psychology was becoming a science. James's knowledge of the work of people like Hermann Helmholtz in Germany and Pierre Janet in France helped him get scientific psychology classes started at Harvard University. In the 1875-1876 school year, he taught his first experimental psychology class at Harvard.