Ontogeny Recapitulates Savagery: The Evolution of G. Stanley Hall's Adolescent

Abstract

In 1904 G. Stanley Hall published his seminal work Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education. The dissertation has two primary concerns: first, it seeks to reexamine the scientific arguments found in Adolescence, locating their sources and demonstrating that the foundation of Hall's arguments were deeply embedded in nineteenth-century thought; second, the dissertation suggests that Hall's science, while faulty, offers a useful critique of pedagogical reform in the Progressive Era. Chapters 1-3 investigate the scientific arguments of Adolescence, exploring Hall's debt to a wide range of nineteenth-century disciplines, including biology, anthropometry, sociology, anthropology, criminology, psychology, and psychiatry. The focus throughout is on Hall's use of the theories of recapitulation and evolution to ally adolescence with other groups thought to inhabit "lower" levels on the evolutionary scale: "primitives" and "savage," as well as criminals, lunatics, and sexual deviants. Chapters 4-5 look at the influence that Hall's ideas had on educational institutions, notably the child study movement and on the junior high school. In both cases, Hall's ideas were influential, but to varying degrees. It is ironic that the first institution designed to educate adolescents largely forgot about the man who helped make their efforts possible. If Adolescence had only limited impact on junior high school reform, then it is important for historians to examine the rift between ideas about adolescents and the implementation of practical reforms that sought to educate them. That is the primary concern in the dissertation's conclusion.