Granville Stanley Hall Research Paper

1. Hall’s Early Life, Career, And Intellectual Pursuits Until 1880

Born in Ashfield, Massachusetts on February 1, 1844 to Granville Bascom Hall and Abigail Beals Hall, Stanley was the oldest of nine siblings. His upbringing on the family farm offered his inquisitive mind opportunities to observe nature intimately, which would so powerfully shape his future intellectual outlook. Eschewing agrarian life, Hall completed college preparatory studies at Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts in 1862 and entered Williams College in the following year. There he studied under two famous American educators and philosophers, Mark Hopkins and John Bascom. Their influences shaped his interest in philosophy and theology, respectively. Finishing his bachelor’s degree in 1867, Hall next decided to study for the ministry and entered Union Theological Seminary in New York. Yet, two years of study, some pastoral experience, and a frank discussion about his intellectual interests with the imposing American theologian Henry Ward Beecher resulted in Hall’s first trip to Germany to study philosophy at the University of Berlin in 1869. In Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg’s seminary, he became an avowed Hegelian and contemplated becoming a philosopher. With the outbreak of the Frank-Prussian war, Hall returned to New York and finished his bachelor’s degree in divinity in 1871. Yet, his intellectual and philosophy study there led him to embrace the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer (Hall 1923).

Forsaking the ministry then, Hall sought the academic life. He became a professor at Antioch College in Ohio, where he taught English, French, and German from 1872 to 1876. Becoming increasingly disenchanted with Hegel intellectually during this time, Hall openly became an enthusiast for Darwin, Spencer, and Huxley and positivistic science (Hall 1923, p. 199, Ross 1972, pp. 58–9). The turning point in his intellectual life occurred with his reading of Wilhelm Wundt’s (1873) first volume of Physiological Psychology, after which he decided to specialize in psychology. Leaving Antioch, Hall completed a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1878 under William James; it was the first doctorate in psychology awarded in the USA. His dissertation explored the physiological relationships between muscles, nerves, and consciousness from a genetic perspective (Ross 1972, pp. 70–5, Wilson 1914, p. 64). Hall’s research showed his fascination with experimental psychology and its links to Darwinian and Spencerian evolutionary thought. To bolster his research in the study of psychology, and because he could not obtain a suitable professorial appointment at a major university, Hall again went to Germany to study under Hermann von Helmholtz and William Wundt at the universities of Berlin and Leipzig, respectively (Goodchild 1996, pp. 72–3).

2. Hall’s Faculty Appointments At Johns Hopkins University From 1882 To 1887

After returning to the USA in 1880, Hall lectured at Harvard at the invitation of President Charles W. Eliot and then at Hopkins by courtesy of President Daniel Coit Gilman. Later the Hopkins president appointed him a lecturer in 1882 and then Professor of Psychology and Pedagogics in 1884. From these positions, Hall furthered the study of education and psychology through a series of major articles exploring their relationships to human development. First, he surveyed pedagogical study in the USA and then explored the moral and religious training of both children and adolescents in one of his first discussions of child development. In analyzing the needs of education later, the professor stated boldly that ‘we must study and follow the child’s nature as it actually is’ (Hall 1883a, p. 286). Hall further proclaimed his new concept of ‘natural’ methods of education where education and psychology may both be utilized to understand the relationship between intelligence and human development in his important article, New Departures in Education (Hall 1885a, pp. 147–8). Finally, he and one of his doctoral students outlined the entire field of education in their 1886 book, Bibliography: of Education (Hall and Mansfield 1886).

Second, in psychology, Hall quickly created one of the first experimental psychological laboratories in America at Hopkins and authored many of its early articles in experimental psychology (Boring 1950, Hawkins 1960, pp. 202–3). One of his important contributions was the publication of ‘The new psychology’ (1885b) which outlined this developing field. In 1887, he created a new research journal, the American Journal of Psychology, to publish psycho-logical research. It was pivotal in establishing this new discipline. Third, his pedagogical and psychological ideas had already coalesced a few years earlier in his first major empirical studies using questionnaires on child development. ‘The contents of children’s minds’ (1883b) and The Study of Children (1883c) described ‘the real nature’ of children, used the reports of actual teachers’ observations from the questionnaires, and suggested appropriate pedagogical techniques. They played a major role in launching Hall’s national reputation and his central position as the founder of the child study movement in the USA (White 1990). Some of his doctoral students followed him as his career evolved; others, particularly John Dewey and James McKeen Cattell, were not favored and moved onto their own significant accomplishments (Ross 1972, pp. 144–7). Thus Hall’s work at Hopkins set the stage for the remainder of his scholarly career and publications as he pursued research in education, psychology, and their mutual implications for understanding human development.

3. Hall’s Presidency Of Clark University From 1888 To 1920

In Worcester, Massachusetts, wealthy industrialist Jonas Clark founded an institution of higher learning with a $1 million gift in 1887. He intended it to have a research mission for older male students and be a ‘useful’ college for local boys (Koelsch 1987, pp. 9–12). Hall was named its first president in April 1888. He was determined to create a new graduate research university comparable to Hopkins, following the German ideal. The first three years saw considerable fulfillment of his vision. However, conflict with the founder over the college and loss of many faculty members to the new University of Chicago severely constrained the president. The struggling and much smaller institution still embraced the primacy of research as the reform ideal for the mission of all American universities (Goodchild 1996, Goodchild and Miller 1997). Eventually, Hall allowed an undergraduate college to be created when funds from the founder’s estate became available. The president remained highly productive in his research and continued to oversee the institution until his retirement in 1920.

4. Hall’s Prolific Scholarly Achievements During His Presidency

The president’s accomplishments in psychology, education, and their implications for a new genetic interpretation of human development established the American prominence of these new scientific fields of study. In psychology, Hall founded the American Psychological Association in 1892, became its first president, and anchored his American Journal of Psychology to the organization. It remained the pre-eminent national association for this growing academic discipline. In 1904, Hall’s most famous psychological study, Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, appeared. This definitive two-volume work on adolescence comprised many of his earlier ideas on the child’s next stage of development, established this stage as a scientific concept, related this developmental period to various human behaviors, and discussed its meaning for other emerging academic fields, especially education. Hall’s interest in the sexual development of youth in this work was ground breaking. It led him to invite Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and many other leading psychologists to the famous 1909 twentieth Anniversary Conference of the founding of Clark University (Koelsch 1987, pp. 246–7). As if to secure his role in this developing discipline, Hall published the valuable book, Founders of Modern Psychology, in 1912. After World War I, the scholarly president turned to his lifelong interest in religion and its psychological meaning. He authored a major reinterpretation of Christianity’s founder in his Jesus the Christ, in the Light of Psychology (1917) and its application in the advocacy of a new life ethic in his Morale: The Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct (1920a) in which Hall espoused a holistic understanding of health and well-being as the rule for human conduct. With retirement from Clark’s presidency in 1920, Hall reflected on his accomplishments in his Recreations of a Psychologist (1920b), and Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (1923). Hall achieved another scholarly triumph by completing his work on the last stage of human development with the publication of Senescence: The Last Half of Life (1922). In all this pioneering work, he made some significant missteps, especially claiming child development recapitulates human evolution (White 1990, p. 31) and a too pervasive Darwinian and Spencerian ‘evolutionism’ (Ross 1972, p. 92). On the other hand, he awarded the first doctorate in psychology to an African-American and encouraged Asian students to study psychology at Clark (Goodchild 1996).

By his death on April 24, 1924, Hall had established psychology as an American discipline and study, almost entirely graduated the next generation of psychologists (Goodchild and Miller 1997), and secured the role of behavioral and genetic psychology as being an integral part. To insure the continuation of his work, Hall’s estate established at Clark an endowment for a genetic psychology professorship and for his educational journal that was redirected and renamed The Journal of Genetic Psychology.

Similarly, his work in education commanded national attention. Hall believed that education was applied psychology. He followed identical approaches in establishing the importance of education as a field of study, as he had done in psychology. Hall offered a series of university lectures on kindergarten, elementary, secondary, and higher education (Goodchild 1991). He next founded a research journal, The Pedagogical Seminary: An International Record of Educational Literature, Institutions, and Progress, in 1891. It provided a new research outlet from studies intended to reform education from American and international perspectives. Further, he extracted his pedagogical ideas from his books on adolescence and released them as Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene (1906) to serve educators and teachers who were implementing his ideas in the classroom. Five years later, Hall presented his definitive study on education with another extensive two-volume work, Educational Problems (1911). He claimed to have fomented an American educational revolution where ‘now the school, including its buildings, all its matter and method, revolve about the child’ (p. 1: vi). This ‘natural’ education was to be individualized to the student’s developmental stage, sex, and race. Thus pedagogy was to assist in the intellectual development of every person, although higher education was intended for the most able. At Clark, Hall had been instrumental in creating the study of education— particularly in conducting empirical research on children to develop better pedagogy, offering the first courses in higher education, and espousing genetic psychology as the basis for educational practice. His extensive publications in higher education focused on the mission of the new research university and its faculty (Goodchild 1996). Similarly, missteps occurred in education as Hall advocated separate education for women, decried ‘identical’ coeducation, and espoused elitism in higher education (Ross 1972, pp. 311–12). Nevertheless, the president greatly assisted in the arrival of education as an academic field of study (Cremin 1961).

Hall’s most significant contribution may be the creation of developmental psychology and its relationship to education (White 1992). His research on child study, adolescence, and old age enabled him to argue for five stages of human development: (a) childhood; (b) adolescence; (c) middle life, from 25 to 45; (d) senescence, after 40; and (e) senectitude, approximately near the end of life (Hall 1922, p. vii). His psychological and educational ideas and practices were focused on what he believed, would further the human race. His Darwinian and Spencerian concepts of evolution pervaded his understanding of human genetic development. He consistently maintained these ideals, even in the face of demands for coeducation in schools, growing behaviorism in psychology, and expansive progressivism in education. Hall was a man of his times, his scientific worldview centered on the midto late nineteenth century ideas and their implications for professional practice.

Finally, Hall’s most important achievement when assessing the rise of the social and behavioral sciences was to engender the development of psychology and education from their philosophical progenitor. His patterns consisted of a critical assessment of the condition of the field first, next an assertion of a new position for the field, then a new research journal to publish these findings, and finally definitive works exploring the field of study. Hall thus played an essential role in the establishment of psychology and education as new academic fields of study in the USA. In 1992, the centenary meeting of the American Psychological Association pointed to his pivotal role in these founding moments (Goodchild 1992, White 1992).

Bibliography:

1. Boring E C 1950 A History of Experimental Psychology, 2nd edn. Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York
2. Cremin L A 1961 The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, 1876–1957. Vintage Books, New York
3. Goodchild L F 1991 Higher education as a field of study: Its origins, programs, and purposes, 1893–1960. In: Fife J D,
4. Goodchild L F (eds.) Administration as a Profession. New Directions for Higher Education, no. 76. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
5. Goodchild L F 1992 G. Stanley Hall’s Psychological Avocation: Founding the Study of Higher Education. Research paper given at the 100th American Psychological Association annual meeting in Washington, DC
6. Goodchild L F 1996 G. Stanley Hall and the study of higher education. The Review of Higher Education 20: 69–99
7. Goodchild L F, Miller M M 1997 The American doctorate and dissertation: Six developmental stages. In: Goodchild L F,
8. Green K E, Katz E L, Kluever R C (eds.) Rethinking the Dissertation Process: Tackling Personal and Institutional Obstacles. New Directions for Higher Education, no. 99. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
9. Hall G S 1883a Educational needs. North American Review 236: 284–90
10. Hall G S 1883b The content of children’s minds. Princeton Review 11: 249–72
11. Hall G S 1883c The Study of Children. Printed privately
12. Hall G S 1885a New departures in education. North American Review 140: 144–52
13. Hall G S 1885b The new psychology. Andover Review 3: 120–36, 239–48
14. Hall G S, Mansfield J M 1886 Hints Toward a Select and Descriptive Bibliography: of Education. Heath, Boston
15. Hall G S 1904 Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education, 2 Vols. Appleton, New York
16. Hall G S 1906 Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene. Appleton, New York
17. Hall G S 1911 Educational Problems, 2 Vols. Appleton, New York
18. Hall G S 1912 Founders of Modern Psychology. Appleton, New York
19. Hall G S 1917 Jesus, The Christ, in the Light of Psychology. Doubleday Page, New York
20. Hall G D 1920a Morale: The Supreme Standard of Life and Conduct. Appleton, New York
21. Hall G S 1920b Recreations of a Psychologist. Appleton, New York
22. Hall G S 1922 Senescence: The Last Half of Life. Appleton, New York
23. Hall G S 1923 Life and Confessions of a Psychologist. Appleton, New York
24. Hawkins H 1960 Pioneer: A History of Johns Hopkins University, 1874–1889. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY
25. Koelsch W A 1987 Clark University, 1887–1987: A Narrative History. Clark University Press, Worcester, MA
26. Lagemann E C 2000 An Elusive Science: The Troubling History of Educational Research. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
27. Mitchell T R, Haro A 1999 Poles apart: Reconciling the dichotomies in educational research. In: Lagemann E C, Shulmlan L S (eds.) Issues in Educational Research: Problems and Possibilities. Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
28. Ross D 1972 G. Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
29. Ross D 1979 The development of the social sciences. In: Oleson A, Voss J (eds.) The Organization of Knowledge in Modern America, 1860–1920. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD
30. White S H 1990 Child study at Clark University: 1894–1904. Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 26: 31–50
31. White S H 1992 G. Stanley Hall: From philosophy to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology 28: 25–34
32. Wilson L N 1914 G. Stanley Hall: A Sketch. Stechert, New York
33. Wundt W 1873 Principles of Physiological Psychology. Engelmann, Leipzig, Germany