The Inaugural Lecture as Edward Lee Thorndike Professor of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Lois Bloom summarizes the major theoretical principles that have informed an intellectual lifetime of research in early language acquisition, and shares her delight in discovering that many of these principles echo ideas expressed by Edward Lee Thorndike, one of the early founders of American Psychology. For example, "Meanings are in persons' minds, not in words, and when we say that a word has or possesses such and such meanings, we are really saying that it has evoked, or caused, those meanings. Until it gets into a mind, a word is only puffs of air or streaks of ink".