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Edward Ranson Johnstone was born on December 27, 1870 in Galt, Ontario, Canada, the fifth of six sons and the eleventh of twelve children of William Johnston, who had emigrated from England and owned and operated a tailoring factory in Hamilton, Ontario, and Jane (Ransom) Johnston, the daughter of a Montreal banker. Both parents were fond of music and were active members of the Presbyterian church.
During Edward's boyhood the family moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where he finished his elementary education and in 1885 graduated from Woodward High School. During these years he developed an interest in poetry and dramatics and took part in local church activities. He graduated from the Woodward Academy in 1889.
After graduating from the Woodward Academy in 1889, he worked briefly in the Cincinnati House of Refuge and Juvenile Reformatory, taught for a year in the high school at North Bend, a Cincinnati suburb, and served two years as principal of a school in Hamilton County. He taught literature in a Cincinnati high school in 1892, the year he became a naturalized citizen.
In 1893 at the invitation of his brother-in-law Alexander Johnson, who had just been made superintendent of the Indiana State School for the Feeble-Minded, Edward in 1893 moved to Fort Wayne as principal of the school's education department. To avoid confusion because of the similarity between their surnames, Edward added a final "e" to his name and for the remainder of his life used the form "Johnstone. "
In 1898 Johnstone was appointed vice-principal of the privately established Vineland New Jersey Home for the Education and Care of Feeble-Minded Children. Following the death of the school's founder, S. Olin Garrison, Johnstone was appointed principal in 1901.
In 1903 he was designated superintendent, the post he retained until 1921, when he was appointed executive director; he remained in that office until his retirement in 1944.
In 1901, upon returning from a professional meeting, Johnstone initiated the Feeble-Minded Club, which brought together educators and administrators from the Philadelphia-New York area and served as a forum for many ideas of the time in the treatment of the mentally retarded.
At Vineland, he continued his crusade to provide better training for the feebleminded and in 1903 instituted a six-week summer course for public school teachers on special educational methods for the mentally retarded.
In 1906 he established a separate department of research in the psychology of the feebleminded, the first such laboratory in the country. Directed by the psychologist Henry H. Goddard, the group, which included Elizabeth Kite, made pioneer studies in the psychology of the mentally handicapped, studied the role of heredity, and introduced to the United States the use of the Binet-Simon intelligence tests.
In 1906 Johnstone also began issuing a monthly publication The Training School, later renamed The Training School Bulletin, to which he contributed many articles.
In 1921 he was instrumental in founding Woodbine, a custodial colony run by the state for low-grade defective males. Johnstone took an active part in other aspects of the state's welfare work and in penal reform. He served as president of the American Association on Mental Deficiency in 1902 and 1927.
He wrote Some Songs From Juniper (1938), a collection of reminiscenses of Juniper, the hunting and fishing club in Astor, Fla. , of which he was a member. An earlier book, Dear Robinson: Some Letters on Getting Along With Folks (1923), contained letters written by Johnstone to an imaginary young man who was starting his career as director of an institution for feebleminded children.
Innumerable articles by Johnstone appear in issues of The Training School Bulletin; his poem "The Institution, " which appeared in the February 1944 issue, shows his sensitive understanding of children with mental handicaps. Collections of his papers are at Rutgers University Library, New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Johnstone died of an intestinal obstruction at the age of seventy-six and was buried in Siloam Cemetery, Vineland.
Edward Ransom Johnstone's life is marked by his remarkable achievements as a world-renowned advocate for the developmentally disabled. Johnstone's efforts were directed toward supporting his belief that the feebleminded should be sequestered and provided with humane care. Under his guidance they were taught to engage in physical exercise such as marching, dancing, and singing; to act small parts in dramatic productions written especially for them; to play games; and to participate in church services, all of which he felt aided the learning process. He also instituted a system of garden cultivation, in which each child was given his own plot to tend, and he assisted in establishing a summer camp for the more advanced children. The other remarkable achievement was in the establishment of a separate department of research in the psychology of the feebleminded in 1906, which became the first such laboratory in the country. During the same year, he aslo organized a monthly publication of The Training School Bulletin, to which he contributed many articles. Another Johnstone's achievement was in promotion of the passage of the 1911 New Jersey law providing special classes for children who had fallen three years behind their normal grade in school; organized a workshop to familiarize physicians with the problems faced by mentally defective children and their families; and set up an extension division headed by Alexander Johnson, whose lectures carried knowledge of the laboratory's work to thirty-three states. Johnstone also organized colonies of older boys, who were taught to clear tracts of New Jersey forest and wasteland to ready them for cultivation. This latter work led to the opening of other colonies: Menantico, a center for the school's demonstration farming activities, and New Lisbon, which was eventually taken over by the state. He was instrumental in founding Woodbine in 1921, which was a custodial colony run by the state for low-grade defective males. Johnstone took an active part in other aspects of the state's welfare work and in penal reform. He helped reorganize the classification and parole services of the state Department of Charities and Corrections (1918), was a member of the board of managers of the New Jersey State Prison (1918 - 1946), and was president of the New Jersey Prison and Parole Board (1927). Another Johnstone's achievement was in his appointment as president of the American Association on Mental Deficiency, in which capacity he served from 1902 to 1927. For his work in devising a system for the care of destitute children in Serbia after World War I he was awarded the Order of St. Sava in 1920.
Edward Johnstone grew up in the Presbyterian family, so he was affiliated with this denomination through a big part of his life. However, after his marriage in 1898, Johnstone became a member of the Baptist church.
Under the influence of his brother-in-law, who worked as a superintendent of the Indiana State School for the Feeble-Minded, Johnstone developed a deep concern for the feebleminded. Distinguished by imagination, energy and practical wisdom, he became convinced that many of the pupils could learn and that they could achieve satisfaction from the successful performance of even small tasks. He also opposed sexual sterilization of the feebleminded, believing that it would encourage vice, and opposed the marriage of feebleminded individuals.
Arguing that schools should provide more than rudimentary custodial care, Johnstone felt they should also investigate the causes and possible prevention of mental retardation.
Johnstone was a member of the Feeble-Minded Club. He was also a member of the American Association on Mental Deficiency.
On June 17, 1898, Johnstone married Olive Lehman of Waterloo, Indiana. Their children were Carol, Edward Lehman (who also became a worker for the feebleminded), Earl Ransom, and Douglas Davidson.
She made pioneer studies in the psychology of the mentally handicapped.
He was a prominent American psychologist and eugenicist during the early 20th century.
