Literary Origins of the Term "School Psychologist" Revisited

Abstract. Previous research on the literary origins of the term "school psychologist" is revisited, and conclusions are revised in light of new evidence. It appears that the origin of the term in the American literature occurred as early as 1898 in an article by Hugo Munsterberg, predating the usage by Wilhelm Stern in 1911. The early references to the school psychologist suggest different, but compatible, roles for psychologists functioning in school settings, and these roles continue to be reflected in the practice of school psychology. ********** In 1984, an article was published in this journal on the earliest usage of the term, "school psychologist" (Fagan & Delugach, 1984). The findings grew out of an extensive search of the literature of school psychology and related fields across the 20th century. The authors concluded that the earliest usage of the term "school psychologist" in the English language literature emanated from the work of Stern (1910) in Germany, which was translated and appeared later in English (Stern, 1911). The authors were comfortable that they had identified the earliest usage of the term in the English language literature and that earlier usages were unlikely. Never say never. Recently, while reviewing an article related to child study (Noon, 2004) in the APA Division 26 (Society for the History of Psychology) journal, History of Psychology, Fagan noticed what appeared to be an earlier usage of the term. The child study movement was a significant point of origin for early school psychological services. Although the content of Noon's article was of indirect importance to early school psychology services, Fagan accidentally stumbled upon a citation of a work by Hugo Munsterberg that used the term "school psychologist" in 1898. Reviewing the original 1898 publication, Fagan found the term in Munsterberg's discussion of the differences between child study and child psychology, and the relationship of what is currently considered as research into practice. Munsterberg uses the term in the following context: When in the quiet experimental working place of the psycho- educational scholar, through the steady co-operation of specialists, a real system of acknowledged facts is secured, then the practical attempts of the consulting school psychologist and of the leader of experimental classrooms have a safer basis, and their work will help again the theoretical scholar till the co-operation of all these agents produces a practical education which the teacher will accept without his own experimenting. (pp. 131-132) The term "school psychologist" is nowhere else described in the 1898 article, nor in other Munsterberg chapters on applied psychology (Munsterberg, 1914, 1920). Aspects of Munsterberg's usage are noteworthy. First, it clearly predates that of Stern. Second, the context places the school psychologist in a consulting role between research psychologists and teachers, a concept observed as well in Witmer's (1907) conceptualizations of a clinical psychologist connected to the school. Munsterberg was talking about a mediating role between research and practice that would better clarify the roles of child psychologists and educators, and distinguish the science of psychology from the softer methodologies of child study and the duties of the classroom teacher. A controversial psychologist at Harvard, Hugo Munsterberg (1863-1916) served as president of the American Psychological Association in 1898, and was a widely known contributor to the fields of applied psychology, especially industrial psychology (for brief biographies, see Hilgard, 1978, 1987). Writing shortly after Witmer had founded the first psychological clinic and before the founding of the Chicago Bureau of Child Study in 1899, it is doubtful that Munsterberg had a clear conceptualization of a school psychologist in the sense posited by Stern (1911) or Witmer (1907). …