Earl Barnes

Born in 1861 and active as an educator as well as an author, he became one of the early figures associated with child-study in the United States. Archival records from Stanford note that he earned an A.B. from Indiana University in 1889 and an M.S. from Cornell in 1891, and then joined the new Stanford faculty as Professor of Education when David Starr Jordan became president.

At Stanford, he helped build one of the university’s earliest education programs and set up a practice school for child study in 1892. Contemporary accounts describe him as a strong advocate for observing children closely and using those findings to improve teaching, and his work reached beyond the university through lectures across California, the United States, and England.

He also wrote and edited books and articles on education, childhood, and social questions. Among the works linked to him are Studies in Education, The Psychology of Childhood and Youth, Woman in Modern Society, and articles for Popular Science Monthly.