416 School Psychology
Child Study Movement
Another potent factor in the origin of school psychological
services was the child study movement. Influenced primarily
by G. Stanley Hall, this movement served to sensitize parents
and teachers to the importance of childhood and to the
knowledge gained about children from research through
observational and questionnaire methods. Hall was interested
primarily in the normative aspects of the development of nor-
mal children and youth. By the beginning of the twentieth
century, he had supervised or conducted dozens of normative
research studies that helped to define the typical or normal
child. The child study movement had chapters in several
states, and conventions were held on child study topics.
Hall founded several professional journals and is credited
with founding the American Psychological Association
(APA) in 1892 (Ross, 1972).
Educational Psychology
Hall’s efforts and those of other psychologists of the period
(e.g., E. L. Thorndike) fostered the emergence of educational
psychology as a major field of psychological application.
Educational psychology built upon the normative notions of
child study and sought to provide educators broader under-
standing of how children learn, how curricula could be more
efficiently arranged, and how schools could be better orga-
nized. Educational psychology also served to sensitize edu-
cators and parents to the contributions that psychology could
make in the mass education movement (see e.g., Cubberly,
1909; Thorndike, 1912).
Clinical Psychology
Another highly potent factor was the emergence of clinical
psychology. Although related to the child study movement,
the emergence of clinical psychology is credited to Lightner
Witmer, and its orientation was primarily idiographic. Witmer
is considered to be the father of clinical psychology, having
founded the first psychological clinic in this country at the
University of Pennsylvania in 1896 (McReynolds, 1997).
Where Hall was concerned about the typical development of
schoolchildren, Witmer was most concerned with diagnosing
and intervening on behalf of children who did not thrive in the
regular educational environment of the mass education exper-
iment. Witmer’s efforts brought to the attention of educators
and parents the importance of studying and designing inter-
ventions for individual children with one or more atypical
characteristics. He worked in school settings on occasion and
received numerous referrals from parents and educators. By
the early twentieth century, he was training persons to pro-
vide these services on a limited basis to schoolchildren.
Though perhaps the first person to practice school psychol-
ogy, Witmer never held that title, nor did he originate the
term. Rather, the term “school psychologist” appears to
have its origins in the German literature, first translated into
English in 1911 (Stern, 1911).Summary of Potent FactorsIn summary, among the most potent factors creating the con-
ditions for school psychological services were the changing
status of children, the emphasis on the importance of child-
hood to saving adult society, and the central role of public
schooling in that process. Indeed, almost every perceived
failure or problem in society throughout the twentieth cen-
tury led to curricular and other adjustments in our schools.
These include food services for the poor, special reading pro-
grams, pupil personnel services, alcohol, drug, and tobacco
prevention programs, special programs for teen pregnancy,
delinquency and dropout prevention, and special education.
Even curricula in home economics and driver education can
be seen as reflecting societal needs.
In addition, the importance of children as emotional, as
opposed to mainly financial, assets (see e.g., Zelizer, 1985)
and the fact that they were housed for much of their childhood
and youth in school buildings helped to create a new culture of
childhood and adolescence that pervaded the twentieth cen-
tury. The emergence of adolescence as a formal developmental
stage and recognition of the significance of peer groups are, in
part, a function of the mass education movement. Formal entry
into adulthood for most children became delayed until the late
teen years or longer, and it was educational facilities that
served as warehouses for children and youth until such entry.
Needless to say, the growth of elementary enrollments would
lead to growth in secondary enrollments, then growth in the
postsecondary colleges and universities, technical schools,
and other forms of education. With this formal structure in
place, the post–World War II baby boom would accelerate
these developments. Applied psychologists would follow this
trend, and by the late twentieth century, school psychologists
were employed in preschool, elementary, secondary, and
postsecondary educational settings.
The emergence of child study and clinical and educational
psychology in the period 1890–1920 were symbiotic develop-
ments with the emergence of mass education. They were in-
strumental in advancing the organization of schools and their
curricula and in drawing attention to the needs of atypical
children through special educational programs. The disciples
of pioneers like Hall and Witmer would bring together the