G. Stanley Hall, answered from the texts and cited to the page.
Child study is, at its root, an attempt to build what I have sometimes called an embryology of the soul.1 The child is not a small adult; he is a being whose nature carries within it the long history of the race, unfolding stage by stage on its own schedule, and the task of the investigator is to read that unfolding with the same patience and precision that the embryologist brings to the developing body.
The method I devised and made central to the movement is the questionnaire — a systematic canvassing of children's minds, and of adults' memories of childhood, on some particular topic: anger, fear, dolls, crying and laughing, the early sense of self, the feeling for nature, the first stirrings of the religious instinct.2 From 1894 onward we issued these syllabi from Clark in rapid succession; by 1915 we had produced at least 194 of them on nearly as many distinct topics.3
The range was deliberate — I chose it not for unity but to suggest how wide the field of the child's inner life actually is.4 The first great result of this work was, in a sense, a science of ignorance. When Mrs. Quincy Shaw allowed four of her best kindergarten teachers to question children entering school on roughly a hundred points — their conceptions of nature, of number, of their own bodies, of religion — the findings showed how enormous the chasm is between the infantile and the adult mind, and how constantly the teacher's instruction miscarries because she presupposes what the child simply does not yet possess.5
I have been called the father of child study, a title I resist.6 The questionnaire method itself originated with Professor Lazarus, who in 1872 studied the contents of children's minds on entering the Berlin schools, and it was from that study that I derived the idea of making a similar inventory in Boston, published in 1883.7 What I did was to extend, systematize, and organize — to give the movement its institutional home at Clark and its characteristic range of topics.
The deeper principle behind all of it is this: the child is what he becomes, and the first care of teacher and parent alike is to get out of Nature's way, to follow the genetic order rather than impose an adult order prematurely upon it.8 Every subject in the curriculum, every method of instruction, is to be judged by one criterion — how much it helps orthogenic development, how much it brings the individual to the fullest maturity of which his nature is capable.9 Child study is, in the end, the science that makes that judgment possible.
From this general movement toward an embryology of the soul has sprung up a new interest in the original or primal nature of man, the chief traits of which are developed in the earliest stages of life.Aspects of Child Life and Education
we began at Clark University, more than three decades ago, to apply the questionnaire method, already in various forms so serviceable to anthropology, to the study of special aspects of child life, utilizing childish memories of adults and direct observations of children, whether made at first hand or from literature.Aspects of Child Life and Education
in October, 1894, I printed the first questionnaire from Clark on Anger, which in subsequent years was followed by many more, so that up to 1915, at least 194 on nearly as many different topics had been issued.Life and Confessions of a Psychologist
The following papers have been selected from the above long list, not with a view to unity but rather to suggest as wide and diversified a range of topics as possible.Aspects of Child Life and Education
trying to find out what conceptions of nature they had, including animals, plants, celestial phenomena, their own bodies, ideas of number, stories, games, things they could do, had seen about them, and their ideas in the field of religion. The results seemed almost to suggest a new science of ignorance and were extremely important for teachers as to what they could presuppose and how often all their instructions miscarried because of the width and depth of the chasm which yawned between the infantile and the adult mind.Life and Confessions of a Psychologist
I have often been dubbed the father of child study. Both are false, especially the latter.Life and Confessions of a Psychologist
Even the questionnaire method in the study of children, of which I have made great use since, originated with Prof. Lazarus, who in 1872 studied the contents of the minds of children on entering the Berlin schools. It was from this study that I derived the idea of making a similar inventory of the contents of children's minds on entering school in Boston, published in 1883.Life and Confessions of a Psychologist
the first care of teachers and parents should be to get out of Nature's way and allow her free scope, and avoid excessive checks and inhibitions.Aspects of Child Life and Education
the real value of every subject in the curriculum and every method is whether and how much it helps orthogenic development, and the value of not only the school but every institution is how much it contributes to bring individuality to the fullest and most mature development of which it is capable.Aspects of Child Life and Education