ABSTRACT
Lewis M. Terman often carries the moniker "father of gifted education". An appreciation and knowledge of Terman's early influences and his life course provides a window into his approach to gifted education, the identification of gifted children, and approach to their education. As a result of Terman's broad reading, he encountered the writings of R. J. Sternberg, Raymond B. Cattell, E. L. Thorndike, Sir Francis Galton, Joseph Jastrow, and Charles Spearman–researchers focused on individual differences, statistics, and experimental psychology. Thanks largely to the testing of Army recruits during World War I, the acceptance and importance of mental tests were secured. Terman's longitudinal study of approximately 1,500 intellectually able Californian youngsters stands as a foundational milestone in the study of gifted children. In 1927, 10% of California's school population was of Mexican ancestry and attended public schools in some southern Californian districts, yet the number of Mexican American children in Terman's study were negligible.
