Goddard, Henry H.: Feeblemindedness and Delinquency

Saran Ghatak

Henry H. Goddard, a psychologist and pioneer in intelligence testing in the early-20th-century United States, was one of the most prominent proponents of eugenic theories of delinquent behavior. The term eugenics , literally well born , is etymologically derived from classical Greek. It was coined by Francis Galton, a scientist and a cousin of Charles Darwin. In the United States, the eugenic movement was at its apex in the first decades of the 20th century and won a number of admirers with its promise to solve the problems of crime, pauperism, vagrancy, and race suicide through scientific intervention. Eugenics strongly influenced contemporary behavioral sciences, and eugenic theories of crime found an enthusiastic audience among many contemporary jurists, criminologists, penologists, and others associated with the criminal justice system. Goddard received his Ph.D. in Psychology from Clark University in 1899. He joined the Training School for Feebleminded Boys and Girls in Vineland, ...

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