Aspects of Child Life & Education

by G. Stanley Hall

Excerpt from Aspects of Child And Education and Some of His PupilsThe Boston study was made possible by the generosity of Mrs. Pauline Agassiz Shaw, the founder of the kindergarten system of that city, and by the devoted labors of four of the best of her experts, headed by Miss S. E. Wiltse and Miss L. H. Symonds, who under my direction devoted months of careful and conscientious work to collecting the material. This paper has been republished several times in English, and translated in whole or in part into several foreign languages. As here presented, I have enlarged it by incorporating the results of all other similar tests of value that I know of up to date. As children's mental content differs much in different localities, it has often been suggested that some such survey of children just entering school should be undertaken in every community, in order that the teacher may know just what knowledge and ignorance can be assumed as a basis of teaching. This has sometimes been done in such a way as to secure these practical advantages to the teacher, but by methods not accurate enough to give scientific results. A recent official report shows that children who enter the schools of London late tend to surpass those who enter early, because the former, under the educational influences of the street, have acquired a number of facts and concepts which constitute apperception organs that enable them better to assimilate the material of instruction.ntentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Genres: Psychology, Adolescence, Sociology

326 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1907

About the author

Granville Stanley Hall was an American psychologist and educator. He was the first president of the American Psychological Association.

Reviews

[Kevin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really slugged through this one. G. Stanley Hall is not a bad writer, actually for a scientific treatment its written in an entertaining style and there are a few moments in the book that are genuinely interesting like his treatment on pedagogy or masturbation, but these parts are few and far between.
The remainder of the book treats other subjects like psychology and physiology but does so with an underlying theory of evolution that would be accepted by no one today. Such as the framing as each human developmental stage being an expression of some lost ancestor, racialism, or the framing as internal organs competing against one another, the critique of evolution being a projection of strife in the "survival of the fittest" onto the universe is taken to a ludicrous level and is latent throughout the entire work.

Personally I read this book because I have found multiple sources that refer to this work and G. Stanley Hall as the founder of the term, or concept, Of adolescence or teenage. I was hoping to find in the text, a reason why after thousands of years of civilization there was at that time a need to separate "man" and "boy" with the new category of Adolescence. I, Unfortunately found very little.

There is today a new category that is proposed by Jeffery Arnett, A man who is a professor at the same college that Stanley Hall taught at called, Emerging Adulthood. It describes a novel phenomena of young twenty somethings who are for a number of reasons, incapable of or unwilling to be a function independent adult. It is obvious to me, and likely to many why this is. College debt, mass migration and a higher competition for jobs, combined with the suppression of real wages and increased real estate cost leads to less young Adults that are able support themselves. To me it seems impossible that there was not some similar story about the coining of the term, or concept of Adolescence, but like I said I did not find any clues in the text.

[Melike Ilkay · Rating 5 out of 5]

a tribute to the founder:)