G. Stanley Hall

1844-1924 · American · Genetic and Developmental Psychology

Adolescence is a new birth, for the higher and more completely human traits are now born.

G. Stanley Hall was the great organizer and impresario of American psychology, and the founder of its genetic — that is, developmental — tradition. He took the first American doctorate in psychology under William James, studied physiological psychology in Germany with Wundt, established one of the first psychological laboratories in America at Johns Hopkins, became the first president of Clark University, founded the American Journal of Psychology and several others, organized and was first president of the American Psychological Association, and in 1909 brought Freud and Jung to America for…

Topics G. Stanley Hall addresses

• recapitulation theory
• the genetic method in psychology
• adolescence
• storm and stress (Sturm und Drang)
• the second birth
• child study
• the questionnaire (topical syllabus) method
• ontogeny and phylogeny
• the psychology of religious conversion
• genetic psychology
• the childhood of the race
• senescence and the psychology of old age
• the education of adolescents
• developmental stages
• the psychology of fear
• play and its evolutionary meaning
• the education of women
• periodicity and the female nature
• pedagogy and the child-centered school
• the founding of American psychology
• bringing Freud to America
• the psychology of Jesus
• youth and its regimen
• the recapitulation of racial history in the child

Questions to put to G. Stanley Hall

Recapitulation and the Genetic Method

• What do you mean by the claim that the child recapitulates the history of the race?
• How do you see the connection between a child's fears and the experiences of our ancestors?
• Why do you think children's play and cruelty are vestiges of earlier stages of human evolution?
• How did you apply the genetic method to study children's minds?
• What's the evidence that mental development follows the same recapitulation pattern as bodily development?

Adolescence and the Second Birth

• Why do you call adolescence a second birth?
• Is the storm and stress of the teenage years really a biological necessity?
• How do you explain the connection between adolescence and religious conversion?
• What makes adolescence the most dangerous and creative period of life?
• How should parents and educators work with rather than against adolescent turbulence?
• Why do the sexual nature and moral idealism awaken at the same time?

Child Study and Educational Reform

• How did you use questionnaires to study thousands of children?
• What did your research reveal about the contents of children's minds?
• Why do you think nature and heredity matter more than environment in development?
• How should education be adapted to the different stages of childhood?
• What's wrong with forcing children to learn before they're developmentally ready?

Sex Differences and Women's Education

• How do you see the fundamental differences between men and women?
• Why do you think identical education for boys and girls works against nature?
• What dangers do you see in subjecting girls to the same academic strain as boys?
• How would you educate women in accordance with their nature and destiny?
• What's the connection between women's periodicity and their fitness for motherhood?

Race, Development, and the Childhood of Humanity

• How do you apply recapitulation theory to understand different races?
• What do you mean when you say some peoples represent earlier stages of development?
• How should the more advanced races relate to those at earlier stages?
• Why do you think this view is scientific rather than a value judgment?
• What does the study of primitive peoples teach us about our own children?

The Psychology of Religion and Old Age

• Why does religious conversion happen overwhelmingly during adolescence?
• How can religious experience be studied as a natural phenomenon of development?
• What did you find when you studied Jesus from a psychological perspective?
• Why did you turn to the study of old age late in your career?
• How does senescence fit into your genetic understanding of the whole lifespan?

Converse with G. Stanley Hall on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in G. Stanley Hall's own writing, cited to the page.