Hall, G. Stanley (1844–1924)

G. Stanley Hall is known as the founder of the American Psychology Association (APA) as well as numerous journals in the discipline of psychology. His work in psychology and pedagogy established education as a worthy academic discipline within the world of empirical research. Having studied psychology under Wilhelm Wundt in Germany, Hall was strongly influenced by German research pertaining to child development. Therefore, his work in education included child studies, coeducation, and nature studies at a time when interests in research on the child were still not taken seriously by established institutions of higher education. Relatively new schools, however, took on the early research in pedagogy and child studies. These institutions included the University of Chicago, Cornell University, Columbia University, Stanford University, and Clark University. Hall was the first president of Clark University and established the Pedagogical Seminary there as an outlet for findings related to child studies.

Hall's research included recapitulation theory. This framework was applied in a Darwinian approach to human development; specifically, that humans progress from dependent infants to independent, thinking, reasoning adults, through a series of developmental stages. Hall focused much of his work on young children and adolescents. He believed that very young children should be allowed to develop without restraint until approximately 8 or 9 years of age, at which point real learning could begin to occur. Real learning included both academic and moral instruction. Adolescents, contrary [Page 423]to young children, required carefully designed boundaries, especially with regard to male and female interaction. To this end, coeducation was strongly discouraged.

Comparatively speaking, males and females were far from equal in Hall's view. Typical of his time, G. Stanley Hall took a conventional view of women as less capable academically than men, but more intuitive and nurturing than their male counterparts. Since the hope of future generations rested within the reproductive abilities of women, they were to be cared for and protected. A scholarly education was, according to Hall, potentially dangerous for females. This view was supported again by Darwinian logic, as Hall felt that the natural evolution of humanity was for men to be responsible for making progress in society, with women reproducing it. Therefore, to educate women in the same way as men was to upset the established process. College-educated women, claimed Hall, were unlikely to marry; and if they did marry, they were even less likely to have children. Hall's concern was not only for the potential harm to be done to individual females with regard to an academic education, but for the risk of diminishing the propagation of a society. Much of his educational interest was focused on female education reform.

While several biographies regarding G. Stanley Hall have been published, including some autobiographical works, perhaps the most candid and thorough piece is Dorothy Ross's book, G. Stanley Hall: The Psychologist as Prophet. Ross not only provides the typical account of the events, academic study, and accomplishments of Hall's life, but also addresses some of the controversies surrounding Hall, including his turbulent relationships with colleagues throughout much of his career.

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