Granville Stanley Hall on the Education of the Elementary School Child
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Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1994 Granville Stanley Hall on the Education of the Elementary School Child Carolyn Ann Williams-Roberson Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Williams-Roberson, Carolyn Ann, "Granville Stanley Hall on the Education of the Elementary School Child" (1994). Dissertations. 3429. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/3429 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1994 Carolyn Ann Williams-Roberson LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO GRANVILLE STANLEY HALL ON THE EDUCATION OF THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CHILD A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICY STUDIES BY CAROLYN ANN WILLIAMS-ROBERSON CHICAGO, ILLINOIS JANUARY, 1994 Copyright Carolyn Ann Williams-Roberson, 1994 All rights reserved. ii GRANVILLE STANLEY HALL PREFACE Granville Stanley Hall was a progressive. Hall was an inspired public speaker and an incomparable organizer. He took a naturalistic view of child rearing and pedagogy which attracted a wide and influential following. 1 The Progressive Era (1890-1920) created a climate of creativity within which writers, artists, politicians and thinkers functioned. At the beginning of the progressive period, the schools were stagnant, the teachers complacent and the academic work formal and mechanical. Pedagogy as a discipline was rejected in higher academic circles and child-study was a foreign idea which had not spread from Europe to the United States. It was a time when little recognition was given to psychology. The philosophy of education consisted chiefly of metaphysical dogmas which mystified far more than they enlightened. Those who sought to impart educational ideas from abroad were told that American schools must be kept American, and their voices were almost like that of one who 1 Robert M. Crunden, Ministers of Reform: The Proqressives' Achievement in America Civilization, 1889-1920 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982), ix, 1-15. iii cries in the wilderness. 2 Hall was one of those persons who received a great deal of his educational experiences from abroad, and knew first hand the resistive nature of the American educational system. Dr. William Torrey Harris was rapidly acquiring the authority which he later wielded among the leaders of American education, then considered the "old guard." Educational journals of the period were timed, provincial and unreadable. The National Education Association under the Bicknell regime was being rapidly pushed to its later prominence as a pedagogic sanhedrin. The term "pedagogy" appendaged to Hall's title as Professor of Psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1884 was regarded by nearly all as a handicap. Professional education was represented by experts who devoted their time to such areas as school hygiene, the history of education, industrial training, supervision of play and playgrounds, religious and moral education and art. The conception of education had broadened far beyond the confines of the school. The shared view of many professional educators was that education was as wide as life itself and that the highest standpoint from which any human institution can be judged is a pedagogic one. In the educational arena, child-study, Hall's own discipline, was taught by academic professors; articles 2Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educators (Paterson, New York: Pagent Books, Inc., 1935), 396. lV relating to child development appeared in many educational journals, such as The Kindergartner Magazine, The Forum, The North American Review and the Journal of Education. Hall felt that instead of the child being for the sake of the school, a pedagogical revolution was in progress. Now the school revolved around the child, whose nature and needs supply the educational norm. 3 Hall was popular among classroom teachers because his theories gave scientific sanctions to many of their ideas and practices. His vision of education reflected the hopes which were very common among the general population of America--faith in the individual and his power to get ahead, a belief that the best man can win. The creativity of the Progressive Era envisioned new improvements. Hall declared that there would be improvement in the professional standing of teachers; in their character, ability and training. Hall had many interests, one of which was psychology. Educational psychology was Hall's greatest contribution to American education. His work in establishing the early scientific laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and his continued work in the field of psychology were very important in the pioneer days. Hall's leadership was instrumental in the founding of the American Psychological Association for the advancement of psychology as a science. His efforts in this regard constituted a significant event v in the formal history of psychology. At one time, it seemed as if the majority of American psychologists had been associated with Hall either at Johns Hopkins University or at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts. Just before the wave of laboratory founding had reached its height in 1890, there were probably not more than ten psychological laboratories in America. At least four of these had begun under the direction of one of Hall's pupils or associates from John Hopkins University. Hall's legacy is very much apparent in that both experimental and educational psychology continue to be important sources of information for explaining behavior and learning. 4 He led a life of action. For thirty years he was a university president. He was a "founder" whose life. was punctuated with the foundation of laboratories, journals and institutions. Hall read English, French and German with equal ease and moved with agility and frequency from interest to interest. He wrote fourteen books and published three hundred fifty published papers. As a devout apostle of evolution, Hall was in close touch with the changing mood of his times, a mood with which he sympathized. As a pioneer social worker, he became familiar with police courts, houses of ill fame, orphan homes, tenement houses and slum life in general. Hall admitted that his 4 E.G. Boring, A History of Experimental Psychology, 2nd ed (New York: D. Appleton-Century-Crofts, Inc., 1929, 517-521. vi intellectual life might be viewed as a series of "crazes." Louis Wilson, one of Hall's associates, described him as follows: He was forever "founding" ideas, under the influence of a conviction, bringing together certain new ideas, that were not originally his own, adding to them a supporting mass of other ideas drawn from his reading and then driving the resultant mass home in a book, on the lecture platform, in his seminary and on every occasion that presented itself. For all his "founding", the journals, the other organization were but deposits of his restless mind. It seemed that he developed a new interest, carried it through the pioneer stage, and then, already caught by the next topic, tried to perpetuate the old by creating it a new professorship, a journal or an institution. 5 In later chapters of this dissertation, G. Stanley Hall's concepts of education for the elementary school child will be examined. The research will provide an introduction into ·Hall's life from his early years with his parents and relatives, to his formal education, travel, and his significant concepts and ideals. The uniqueness, the complex nature, and the needs of the child will be addressed through studying the child. Hall believed that each child held the key to his education. Equally important to the education of the child was the preparation of the teacher. In addition to professional training, Hall felt there were innate characteristics that attributed to successful teachers. Also, the teacher's relationship to the child, the community and his responsibility to himself was 5 Charles E. Strickland and Charles Burgess, Hall: Health, Growth, and Heredity (New York: Teacher College Press, 1965), VII-VIII. vii paramount. The writer will elaborate on some of the elements Hall suggested should be an intricate part of the elementary curriculum, such as nature education, play, and how the child's interest and needs should influence his or her educational development. The climate and management of the elementary school should provide an enthusiastic faculty and staff, a positive learning environment, provisions for proper nourishment, and those items which will further enhance learning instead of hindering the learning experience. The following questions will be answered: How did Hall's concept of the child shape his view of teaching at the elementary level? What kinds of classroom climate did Hall's writing suggest? And, what kind of school did Hall recommend? Hall's writings, lectures, and research on the child were a result of his deep convictions about what he thought should be the future education of the child. He worked tirelessly most .of his adult life, from his Baltimore lectures through his years at Clark University, to prove his theories concerning the child. The results of his findings, and those who shared many of his ideas and passions, were published in the Pedagogical Seminary, a journal he established especially to report those findings. The original documents and manuscript materials used to research this dissertation came from Clark University, where Hall's personal library materials are housed, which included Vlll unpublished articles, newspaper clippings, and magazine items. Other manuscripts, letters, and documents relating to Hall were found in institutions such as Cornell University, Johns Hopkins, Yale University, Harvard-Countway Library, Columbia University, and Loyola University.