author
Oscar Chrisman
1855–1929
An early educator and writer, he is remembered for shaping the idea of “paidology,” a broad scientific study of childhood. His best-known book, The Historical Child (1920), explores how children were viewed and raised across different cultures and eras.
1 Audiobook
The Historical Child Paidology; The Science of the Child
by Oscar Chrisman
About the author
Oscar Chrisman was an American writer and university professor whose work centered on childhood, education, and psychology. Sources connected with his 1920 book describe him as a professor of paidology and psychology at Ohio University, and his name is closely linked with the early use of the term paidology, meaning the scientific study of the child.
His major published work, Paidology; the Science of the Child. The Historical Child, appeared in Boston in 1920. In it, he looked at the lives of children in different societies and historical periods, trying to build a wider, more organized way of studying childhood.
Although biographical details about his personal life are not easy to confirm from the sources I found, his writing shows an ambitious attempt to treat childhood as a serious field of study in its own right. That makes him an interesting figure for readers curious about the history of education, psychology, and ideas about children.