Stanley Porteus

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:More citations needed Template:Infobox scientist Stanley David Porteus (April 24, 1883 – October 21, 1972)<ref name=ADB>Template:Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography</ref> was an Australian psychologist and author.

Early life

Porteus was born at Box Hill, Victoria, Australia, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. His father was a Methodist minister, and the family moved frequently.<ref name=ADB /> He attended the Melbourne Education Institute on a three-year scholarship and completed his studies in 1899.<ref name=ADB /> He began teaching, and in 1909 he married Frances Mainwaring Evans. They eventually had two sons together.<ref name=ADB />

Career

Teaching in Australia

After graduating from the Melbourne Education Institute in 1899 Porteus became an apprentice teacher and taught at small country schools in Gippsland.<ref name=ADB /><ref name=FSU /> In 1913 he became the initial head teacher at Victoria's first Education Department sponsored school for feeble-minded children.<ref name="shum" /><ref name=FSU /> Having the task of selecting students for his small school, Porteus devised a new intelligence test of his own, the Porteus Maze Test, a non-verbal intelligence test. The test was originally used to identify children in need of special education, though it is still in use today for other purposes.<ref name=shum>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 1916, Porteus began research on brain size and intelligence at the University of Melbourne, where he also lectured on experimental education.<ref name=ADB />

Vineland Training School

In 1919 Porteus was invited to join the Vineland Training School in New Jersey, United States,<ref name=ADB /> moving there to replace H. H. Goddard as Director of Research.<ref name=FSU /><ref name=ADB /> This invitation came at a good time, as his full-time employment as a head teacher with the Victorian Education Department was souring and although he had no university degree, the new job launched him into a lifelong academic career.Template:Citation needed He remained at the Vineland school until 1922 and published additional work on brain size and intelligence, the success of his maze test, and the supposed connectedness of intelligence and deviant social behavior.<ref name=FSU />

University of Hawaiʻi

In 1922 he moved to Hawaii where he founded the Psychological and Psychopathic Clinic at the University of Hawaiʻi, eventually becoming professor of clinical psychology and its director and Dean of the Psychology Department in 1925. He remained Directory of the Psychological and Psychopathic Clinic until 1948.<ref name=ADB />

The author of many papers and books, Porteus also created a racial hierarchy of intelligence using his maze device which he believed was "a valid, culture-free measure of general intelligence--despite the fact that among his South African samples one group that already knew a 'labyrinth game' outscored all neighboring groups that did not know the game".<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> His theories about the superior intelligence of white races has led to recent controversy, including protests by students at the University of Hawaiʻi. Porteus was an early contributor to Mankind Quarterly, helped William Shockley organize the Foundation for Education on Eugenics and Dysgenics,<ref>David E. Stannard, "Honoring Racism: The Professional Life and Reputation of Stanley D. Porteus," https://www2.hawaii.edu/~aoude/ES350/SPIH_vol39/11Stannard.pdf (visited, July 12, 2023). </ref> and served on the executive committee of the International Association for the Advancement of Ethnology and Eugenics.

He died in 1972 at Honolulu. His ashes are scattered at sea.<ref name=ADB />

Porteus Hall

The University of Hawaiʻi social sciences building, Porteus Hall, was named after him in 1974.<ref name=FSU>Template:Cite webTemplate:Webarchive</ref> Less than two months later, however, a group of university students and faculty called the Coalition to Rename Porteus Hall mounted a full-scale campaign in opposition to the name. Both the original decision to name the building after him and the opposition to the name centered on his 1926 book Temperament and Race which the university called, "a classic in its field" but which the Coalition denounced as "a flagrantly racist attack on all non-white peoples" and "particularly insulting to the indigenous and non-white immigrant groups who, then as now, make up the overwhelming majority of the population of Hawaiʻi."<ref name=FSU /> The university affirmed the name in 1975, but throughout the next two decades it was common for students to refer to the building as "Racism Hall".<ref name=FSU /> In 1997 the Associated Students voted unanimously to urge that the building be renamed. In response the President of the university appointed a committee to make recommendations regarding renaming the building.<ref name=FSU /> It was renamed Saunders Hall in 2001.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Selected publications

• Temperament and Race (1926)
• Calabashes and Kings (1945)
• The Restless Voyage (1948)
• Providence Ponds: A Novel of Early Australia (1951)

See also

• Race and intelligence controversy
• The Blonde Captive - Film made using footage obtained during Porteus' psychological and psychophysical studies of Aboriginal Australians.

External links

• Institute for the Study of Academic Racism report on the renaming controversy at the University of Hawaiʻi. Contains detailed biography and bibliography.Template:Webarchive
• The professional life and work of Stanley D. Porteus: A report on the proposed renaming of Porteus Hall Template:Webarchive