ABSTRACT
In 1900, after only a few years of study, the Boer War necessitated a recall back into active military service. Charles Edward Spearman was made Deputy Assistant Adjutant General and sent to Guernsey. More critically, whilst studying at the officer college in Camberley, Spearman began to learn about an experimental approach to psychology that was emerging in Germany. Whilst at Leipzig in 1897 Spearman immersed himself in the experimental tradition, not only by working with Wundt but also with Felix Krueger and Wilhelm Wirth. In 1904, Spearman returned briefly to Berkshire, and published his first and possibly most influential papers in the American Journal of Psychology; ‘The Proof and Measurement of Association Between Two Things’ and ‘General Intelligence Objectively Determined’. The study of Factor Analysis by Louis Leon Thurstone would ultimately eclipse Spearman’s work by arguing that Spearman’s g was merely a hypothetical construct. Spearman will always be associated with success in operationalising methods for correlational and then factor analysis.
