John Malcolm MacEachran was a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 philosopher and psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

, whose most notable credentials involved the development of the Psychology and Philosophy Department at the University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

. He was a co-founder of the Canadian Psychological Association

Canadian Psychological Association

The Canadian Psychological Association is the primary organization representing psychologists throughout Canada. It was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950.Its objectives are:...

 and the appointed Chairman of the Alberta Eugenics Board

Alberta Eugenics Board

In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1928, a four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created. ...

 which was responsible for approving sterilization of thousands of Alberta

Alberta

Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...

ns.

Early years (1877-1909)

John Malcolm MacEachran was born in Glencoe, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 to David and Christina MacEachran. After finishing his primary education in the public school system of Glencoe, he was admitted to Queen's University

Queen's University

Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...

 in Ontario. There, MacEachran obtained an MA in Mental and Moral Philosophy (1902), became the appointed assistant to Professor John Watson

John Watson (philosopher)

-Life:John Watson was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1847. He attended the Free Church School in Kilmarnock, then enrolled at the University of Edinburgh. Within a month, however, he was drawn to the University of Glasgow by the reputations of the brothers John Caird, professor of divinity, and...

, and obtained his first PhD

Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...

 in 1906. Following his apprenticeship, MacEachran traveled to Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, where he worked with the well-known scholars Friedrich Paulsen

Friedrich Paulsen

Friedrich Paulsen was a German philosopher and educator.-Biography:He was born at Langenhorn and educated at Erlangen, Bonn and Berlin, where he became extraordinary professor of philosophy and pedagogy in 1878...

 and Carl Stumpf

Carl Stumpf

Carl Stumpf was a German philosopher and psychologist.Born in Wiesentheid, he studied with Franz Brentano and Hermann Lotze...

, further increasing his knowledge of modern psychology, ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, and the philosophy of education

Education

Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

. MacEachran then officially commenced schooling in Germany where he became a student of the psychologist/philosopher Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Wundt

Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt was a German physician, psychologist, physiologist, philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founding figures of modern psychology. He is widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology"...

 at the Leipzig University (1907). Here he wrote his doctoral thesis Der Pragmatismus (1909) earning him his second PhD. MacEachran then traveled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 where he studied sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 under Émile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist. He formally established the academic discipline and, with Karl Marx and Max Weber, is commonly cited as the principal architect of modern social science and father of sociology.Much of Durkheim's work was concerned with how societies could maintain...

 and took a class under Alfred Binet

Alfred Binet

Alfred Binet was a French psychologist who was the inventor of the first usable intelligence test, known at that time as the Binet test and today referred to as the IQ test. His principal goal was to identify students who needed special help in coping with the school curriculum...

, who had recently developed the IQ

Intelligence quotient

An intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests designed to assess intelligence. When modern IQ tests are constructed, the mean score within an age group is set to 100 and the standard deviation to 15...

 test (1908). MacEachran's academic relationship with Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

 spurred his interest in combining the disciplines of philosophy and biological science. Dr. MacEachran accepted an offer from the then newly founded University of Alberta

University of Alberta

The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...

 to head its Department of Philosophy and Psychology in 1909.

University of Alberta years (1909-1945)

In 1909, J.M. MacEachran was appointed head of the Department of Psychology and Philosophy at the University of Alberta. As the head of a new department, MacEachran fabricated the curriculum from scratch and in his first year at the U of A, MacEachran offered introductory courses in experimental

Experimental psychology

Experimental psychology is a methodological approach, rather than a subject, and encompasses varied fields within psychology. Experimental psychologists have traditionally conducted research, published articles, and taught classes on neuroscience, developmental psychology, sensation, perception,...

 and modern psychology

Psychology

Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

. As the program developed, MacEachran made junior and senior level courses available and in 1911, he made it possible to graduate with a M.A

Master of Arts (postgraduate)

A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 and B.A

Bachelor of Arts

A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in the field of psychology. Other classes that were added to the curriculum included: psychology and logic

Logic

In philosophy, Logic is the formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science...

, comparative psychology

Comparative psychology

Comparative psychology generally refers to the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals. However, scientists from different disciplines do not always agree on this definition...

 (animal evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, child psychology

Developmental psychology

Developmental psychology, also known as human development, is the scientific study of systematic psychological changes, emotional changes, and perception changes that occur in human beings over the course of their life span. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to...

 and racial psychology), physiological psychology

Physiological psychology

Physiological psychology is a subdivision of behavioral neuroscience that studies the neural mechanisms of perception and behavior through direct manipulation of the brains of nonhuman animal subjects in controlled experiments...

, abnormal psychology

Abnormal psychology

Abnormal psychology is the branch of psychology that studies unusual patterns of behavior, emotion and thought, which may or may not be understood as precipitating a mental disorder...

 and psychology of religion

Psychology of religion

Psychology of religion consists of the application of psychological methods and interpretive frameworks to religious traditions, as well as to both religious and irreligious individuals. The science attempts to accurately describe the details, origins, and uses of religious beliefs and behaviours...

. At this point in time, MacEachran had fabricated and supported the whole of the undergraduate philosophy and psychology programs and supervised at least one Masters level student. Along with these duties, MacEachran also began administrative duties for the university in 1911, and officially accepted the position as the University of Alberta's first Provost

Provost (education)

A provost is the senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada and Australia, the equivalent of a pro-vice-chancellor at some institutions in the United Kingdom and Ireland....

 in 1912. All of these responsibilities earned him a salary of $4,900.

During the First World War

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

 (1916-1918), J.M. MacEachran was enlisted as captain of the 196th Western Universities Battalion on March 15, 1916. He also served with the 19th Reserve Battalion, the C.E.F. Young Soldiers' Battalion, and the 13th Brigade C.F. in France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

.

After MacEachran's return to the University of Alberta after World War I (1918), a central focus was developing applied psychology. Courses such as applied psychology, educational psychology

Educational psychology

Educational psychology is the study of how humans learn in educational settings, the effectiveness of educational interventions, the psychology of teaching, and the social psychology of schools as organizations. Educational psychology is concerned with how students learn and develop, often focusing...

, industrial psychology, legal psychology

Legal psychology

Legal psychology involves empirical, psychological research of the law, legal institutions, and people who come into contact with the law. Legal psychologists typically take basic social and cognitive principles and apply them to issues in the legal system such as eyewitness memory, jury...

 and psychology and economic problems were introduced into the curriculum. While studying at Leipzig University, Wilhelm Wundt lectured to MacEachran that experimental psychology would have to be meticulously studied for two or three centuries before it was to be applied – MacEachran installed applied psychology at the University of Alberta only one decade later.

In 1938 MacEachran co-founded the Canadian Psychological Association

Canadian Psychological Association

The Canadian Psychological Association is the primary organization representing psychologists throughout Canada. It was organized in 1939 and incorporated under the Canada Corporations Act, Part II, in May 1950.Its objectives are:...

 and became the first honorary President in 1939.

As additional members were added to the Department's roster, the number and topic of classes broadened. In the late 1930s and early 1940s, laboratory psychology was crafted. In August 1945, after shaping the Department of Philosophy and Psychology, and much of the Universities' administrative routine, MacEachran retired as Emeritus

Emeritus

Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 Professor of Philosophy. MacEachran's successor was John MacDonald

John Macdonald

John Macdonald may refer to:*John S. MacDonald, co-founder of MacDonald Dettwiler*John Macdonald , New Zealand forensic psychiatrist who coined the MacDonald triad of sociopathy- Government :...

. In 1963 the Department of Philosophy and Psychology split into independent departments, the University of Alberta was the last western university to complete the transitions.

Alberta Eugenics Board (1928-1965)

J.M. MacEachran was appointed Head of Alberta Eugenics Board

Alberta Eugenics Board

In 1928, the Province of Alberta, Canada, passed legislation that enabled the government to perform involuntary sterilizations on individuals classified as mentally deficient. In order to implement the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta in 1928, a four-person Alberta Eugenics Board was created. ...

 in 1928, immediately after the Alberta government enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta

Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta

In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to offspring.At that time, eugenicists argued that...

. MacEachran was appointed Chairman for the purpose of developing a philosophical justification for the eugenics

Eugenics

Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...

 movement. He was an ideal candidate for the position because of his extensive background in philosophy and psychology. The purpose of the Alberta Eugenics board is outlined in section 4(1) of the Sexual Sterilization Act:

Section 4(1) of the Sexual Sterilization Act empowered the medical superintendent of a mental hospital to cause a patient of the mental hospital whom it proposed to discharge to be examined by or in the presence of the eugenics board, with a view to sterilization. Section 5 of the Act established two grounds for sterilization: that procreation by the person under consideration would result in the transmission of any mental disability or deficiency to his or her progeny or involved the risk of mental injury either to such a person or his or her progeny.

J.M MacEachran of Edmonton

Edmonton

Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...

 (U of A, Chairman), E.L. Pope of Edmonton (U of A, Professor of Medicine

Medicine

Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

), E.G. Mason of Calgary

Calgary

Calgary is a city in the Province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in an area of foothills and prairie, approximately east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies...

, and Mrs J.H Field of Spurfield (Secretary) were the original four members of the board whose job was to approve or reject patients for sterilization with respect to the guidelines of the Sexual Sterilization Act.

Five years after the first meeting of the Alberta Eugenics Board in 1929, at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical Association

Canadian Medical Association

The Canadian Medical Association , with more than 70,000 members, is the largest association of doctors in Canada and works to represent their interests nationally. It formed in 1867, three months after Confederation...

 (CMA) in 1934, it was noted that 288 cases had been approved by the Eugenics Board for sterilization, and that 60% of these cases involved serious mental or nervous disease in the patients family record. Two classes of individuals were sterilized - those with low mental IQ's and those who had suffered serious mental breakdowns, and therefore could not be recommended for parenthood

Parenting

Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood...

 by any physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

. It was also noted that any operations to be completed on the patients first required personal consent, or consent from family. If no one was eligible to provide consent and the patient was not capable of signing personal consent do to physical or mental barriers, the Minister of Health could do so. In 1933, the Eugenics Board consented that the Chairman, Dr. MacEachran, would have the authority to dictate when an operation for sterilization would take place. Members of the CMA, agreed:

Evidence [had] shown overwhelmingly that sterilization [was] a sound, humane and effective procedure, and [was] one of the chief means of coping with the grave problem of the increasingly large number of mentally sick and mentally deficient persons that each province [was] being called upon to care for.

In 1937, the Social Credit

Social Credit

Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...

 government passed an amendment that strongly restricted the need for the Eugenics Board to obtain consent of the patients to be sterilized. This increased the efficiency of the sterilization process, as more patients could be approved for sterilization by the Eugenics board. In the 44 years that the board was empowered by the government of Alberta, 2822 sterilizations were processed. MacEachran resigned from Chairman of the Alberta Eugenics Board on June 30, 1965, serving for 38 consecutive years. During his term as Chairman, MacEachran signed over 3200 applications approving for sterilization of adults and children (~60% of approvals resulted in sterilizations). His successor was R.K. Thomson who was chairman until 1972 when the Sexual Sterilization Act was repealed.

University of Alberta ceases honors in MacEachran's name (1990s)

In 1975, the University of Alberta's Department of Psychology inaugurated an annual lecture series honoring MacEachran. Every year a distinguished scholar of psychology would be invited to give a lecture to students and faculty in MacEachran's honor. Awards and scholarships were also distributed in MacEachran's honor, first in 1958 and then 1972 with endowments from his estate. After 1972, the Faculty of Education and the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology awarded annual scholarships to students honoring MacEachran's accomplishments.

On September 3, 1997, a committee at the University of Alberta voted to rename the lecture series due to MacEachran's involvement in the unlawful sterilization of many Albertans. In 1998, a University of Alberta panel submitted a request to halt the distribution of awards in J.M. MacEachran's name. This request was based on data obtained from the Leilani Muir

Leilani Muir

Leilani Marietta Muir was the first person to file a successful law suit against the province of Alberta, Canada for wrongful sterilization under the Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta...

 versus the Province of Alberta trial, which showed that many of the sterilizations were unlawfully approved by the Alberta Eugenics Board. The board, headed by J.M. MacEachran, approved sterilizations without clear evidence that the patients deficiencies would be transmitted to their progeny. The board approved sterilizations of patients who did not fall into the category of "mental defective". A section of the Sterilization Act stated that upon sterilization, the patient would be discharged from the holding facility and in many instances, patients were sterilized even though discharge was not imminent.

The board also approved the sterilization of patients already known to be infertile (patients with Down Syndrome

Down syndrome

Down syndrome, or Down's syndrome, trisomy 21, is a chromosomal condition caused by the presence of all or part of an extra 21st chromosome. It is named after John Langdon Down, the British physician who described the syndrome in 1866. The condition was clinically described earlier in the 19th...

). Furthermore, castrations were approved in order to obtain testicular tissue for research purposes. The board approved sterilizations with the understanding that patient's sexual behavior would be altered, therefore eliminating sexual deviancy, and also with the goal of stopping menstruation

Menstruation

Menstruation is the shedding of the uterine lining . It occurs on a regular basis in sexually reproductive-age females of certain mammal species. This article focuses on human menstruation.-Overview:...

 in women. MacEachran had also signed application forms, approving sterilization before the patients had been interviewed by the board. With regards to the Leilani Muir vs. Alberta trial, Madame Justice Joanne B. Veit noted:

Dr. Thompson's [a former chair holder of the Alberta Eugenics Board] evidence demonstrates that the operations of the Board initiated on a purported scientific rationale, degenerated into unscientific practices. The decisions of the Board were not made according to the standards imposed on them by the legislation, but because the members of the Board... thought that it was socially appropriate to control reproduction of "these people".

Because of the previously stated reasons, in 1998, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta stopped giving out rewards honoring MacEachran's name. A single MacEachran award was given out in 2003 from the Department of Philosophy, and then no more thereafter. The University of Alberta's Department of Psychology has continued to distribute awards in MacEachran's honor.