ABSTRACT
B. F. (Burrhus Frederic) Skinner was born in 1904, in the midst of the founding of educational psychology (1890–1920), less than 50 years after the enactment of the first statewide compulsory school attendance law in Massachusetts in 1856. William James (1904), author of Talks to Teachers on Psychology (James, 1899), was asking “Does ‘Consciousness’ Exist?,” as he fashioned a functional concept of mind. G. Stanley Hall (1904), founder of developmental psychology in America, published Adolescence, much influenced by evolutionary biology. In France, a commission on the education of “subnormal children” was formed, for which Alfred Binet (1911) devised the first practical intelligence test, ensuring that psychology would be useful. Also that year, John Dewey moved from the University of Chicago to Columbia University, where he established himself further as the philosopher of Progressivism in America, especially in education (Dewey, 1916). Finally, Edward L. Thorndike (1904) published his Introduction to the Theory of Mental and Social Measurements, bringing methodological sophistication to educational testing, making educational psychology a science.
