The prominence of sport in American secondary school curriculum owes much to 19th-century child development theories, the most prominent of which, Von Baer's Law, held that youth passed through the same developmental gradations ontogenetically that the human race passed through phylogenetically; youth repeated in their development approximately…

Broken free of any semblance of family control or community restraints, thousands of American youth roamed entirely at will throughout the cities of 19th-century America and supported themselves alternately from the legitimate street trades and from outright thievery. The invention of modern adolescence was partially a response to this neglected…

Offers a brief overview of the historical development of the middle school, looking at traditional school organization of the 19th century, junior high schools, as part of the effort to meet the developmental needs of young adolescents. (SR)

As an undergraduate at Williams College, G. Stanley Hall learned a theistic developmental psychology from Mark Hopkins. As president of Clark University, Hall initiated a program of questionnaires that contributed to a scientific vision of childhood and adolescence. Hall treated this vision as a moral philosophy. (BC)

This presentation is an attempt to produce a framework out of the knowledge of the growth and development of children and youth for use in determining the school program. This is necessary at a time when education has accepted the objective of secondary education. Educators are in agreement with parents and citizens generally that all youth…

Interlaken School (Indiana) was an elite boys' preparatory boarding school that combined Hall's definitive theory of adolescence and Spencer's theory of social evolution into both a philosophy and a pedagogy. Interlaken was portrayed as an isolated mythologized community that combined manual with mental development and believed that adolescent…

This bulletin on intellectual growth and development during the adolescent period is a cumulation of (1) a study of the results on certain aptitude tests used in the War Department adapted for secondary schools (2) an analysis of the research studies on the subject of intellectual abilities at the secondary school level. It is published with the…

Presents a historical overview of the development of junior high schools for young adolescents, focusing on the unique physical, emotional, and social needs of that population. The article examines the views of James Conant, the Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development, and a junior high school teacher. (SM)

It should now be recognized that every child has at least five parallel ages: A "chronological" age, in years, months, and days: a "physiological" age, indicative of physical growth and maturity; a "mental" age, significant of intellectual capacity and ability; a "school standing," or "pedagogical"…

In recent years, numerous questions have been raised in correspondence and in conferences about the education of children in grades seven and eight. In response to the interest expressed, the Elementary Schools Section of the Office of Education invited a group of educators representing administrators, supervisors, teachers, and teacher-educators…