Today I have decided to blog about James McKeen Cattell who was an American psychologist and the first professor of psychology in the USA at the University of Pennsylvania. Cattell was also a long time editor and publisher of different scientific journals and publications. It is believed that perhaps more then any of Cattell's contemporaries that he most help establish psychology as a legitimate science that should be studied at the highest academic levels. Cattell is also remembered for an opposition against American involvement in World War 1 and this view led to his dismissal from the position he had at Columbia University, which was a move that had an influence in many universities establishing tenure as a way to protect unpopular beliefs. Cattell did not come upon his calling until arriving in Germany for graduate studies where he met Wilhelm Wundt at the University of Leipzig. Cattell left Germany in 1882 to study at John Hopkins University but returned to Leipzig the following year as Wundt's assistant. Cattell and Wundt from there went on to establish the formal study of intelligence. While working under Wundt Cattell became the first American to publish a dissertation in the field of psychology called "Psychometric Investigation and this dissertation was accepted by the University of Leipzig in 1886. Upon completing his Ph.D. with Wundt in Germany in 1886 Cattell took up teaching at the University of Cambridge in England and became a 'Fellow Commoner' of St John's College, Cambridge. Cattell also made occasional visits to America and gave lectures at Bryn Mawr and the University of Pennsylvania. In 1889, Cattell returned to the United States and worked as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and in 1891 he moved to Columbia University to become Department Head of Psychology, Anthropology and Philosophy. Cattell also became the President of the American Psychological Association in 1895. So from the start of his career Cattell had worked hard to establish psychology as a field worthy of study as much as physics or chemistry was as well. Interestingly Cattell believed himself that further studies would show that intellect itself could be parsed into standard units of measurements. Cattell also brought the methods of Wilhelm Wundt and Francis Galton to the USA by establishing mental testing efforts in America. Also money he won from his tenure lawsuit was used to create The Psychological Corporation, which is one of the largest mental testing firms in America. Cattell is well known for his involvement in creating and editing scientific journals helping to create the journal Psychological Review in 1894 along with James Mark Baldwin, he also acquired the journal Science and even made it to the official publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1904, Cattell founded Popular Science Monthly, which later went on to become Popular Science and in 1915 he edited and founded Scientific Monthly. Cattell certainly was an interesting person one way or the other in my view and I think it is amazing to think about perhaps where the field of psychology and understanding intelligence would be without all of his many influential career efforts.