The American psychologist and educator Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949) was the originator of modern educational psychology and influenced 20th-century American education immeasurably.

Edward Lee Thorndike was born on Aug. 31, 1874, in Williamsburg, Mass., a minister's son. Before he entered Wesleyan University in 1891, his family had moved eight times within New England. Although this experience caused him to become self-reliant, it also left him reserved and shy; the lonely boy grew into a man happiest when alone with his work.

Thorndike was inspired by the psychological writings of William James, and after graduation from Wesleyan, Thorndike entered Harvard University to study under James. James let Thorndike perform learning experiments with animals in his own basement. Thorndike continued these experiments at Columbia University and published his results as Animal Intelligence (1898), his doctoral thesis. Thus, he reported the first carefully controlled experiments in comparative animal psychology. To study animal behavior scientifically, Thorndike...