H

HALL, GRANVILLE STANLEY

(1844–1924)

Granville Stanley Hall, the first president of the
American Psychological Association, was born in Ash-
field, Massachusetts. Hall was enrolled in Williston
Seminary, and then went to Williams College, where
he graduated in 1867.

Around 1870 Hall traveled to Germany, where he
was influenced by Nature-philosophy, especially by its
genetic (i.e., developmental) approach. After obtain-
ing his doctorate at Harvard University under the
supervision of William James in 1878, he visited Ger-
many again to study experimental psychology (with
Wilhelm Wundt and others) and physiology. In 1883
he founded the first psychology laboratory in the
United States at Johns Hopkins University, and be-
came president of Clark University in 1889. There he
began to develop a systematic theory of child develop-
ment. By that time he had been involved in educa-
tional theory and practices that were based on
progressivism and ancestral recapitulation theory
proposed by German biologist Ernst Haeckel.

Hall believed that curricula should be attuned to
sequentially emerging children’s needs that reflect
the evolutional history of humankind. In addition, by
studying the natural, normative course of child devel-
opment, one could construct an evolutionary history
of human behavior, mind, and culture, which is the
chief concern of present-day evolutionary psycholo-
gy. Hall encouraged the collection of anecdotal de-
scriptions of individual children’s behavior by

psychologists as well as by educators and parents. He

also introduced a questionnaire method to under-

stand the content of children’s minds. These meth-

ods, which have been criticized as methodologically

weak, have been reappraised by contemporary psy-

chologists like Sheldon White. Hall’s most influential

work is Adolescence (1904). In it he explained psycho-

logical development up to adolescence mainly in

terms of the biological theory of recapitulation. Hall

believed in the perfectibility of humankind; thus ado-

lescents’ adaptability might provide the jumping-off

point for the fulfillment of human potential and evo-

lutionary advancement.

Hall’s influence as a developmentalist and pro-

moter of child study movement was seen in non-

Western countries like Japan, especially around the

1900s. That was the period when Japanese educators

and psychologists began their effort to collect child

development data in Japan as a necessary provision

for establishing education suited to the nation. Hall

also set a meeting ground for Freudian psychoanaly-

sis and American psychiatry and psychology in 1909,

leading to acceptance of psychoanalysis in the United

States and stimulating later studies. Toward the end

of his life Hall published a book, Senescence (1922),

which dealt with various aspects of changes and their

problems. Though the biological theories Hall adopt-

ed had long been discredited, the last decade of the

twentieth century witnessed a reappraisal of Hall’s

contribution to the developmental sciences.

See also: DEVELOPMENTAL NORMS; THEORIES OF

DEVELOPMENT

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