PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR CHILD HYGIENE 289 



PROFESSIONAL TRAINING FOR CHILD HYGIENE 



By lewis M. TERMAN 

 assistant professor of education, stanford university 



"VTO one acquainted with the problems of professional education can 

 -i-^ read Mr. Abraham Flexner's expose of the status of medical 

 education in the United States and Canada without a feeling of pro- 

 found gratitude. His description of conditions is so masterly and 

 variegated as to give the impression of utter completeness. It would 

 seem that nothing had been forgotten. On further consideration, how- 

 ever, this appears far from being the case. Mr. Flexner has confined 

 himself to an exposition of the shortcomings of medical education with 

 exclusive reference to the ideals, purposes and standards of the best 

 present-day medical schools. The social sufficiency of these ideals and 

 purposes he seems to take for granted. For him, as for the practising 

 physician, the main business of medical education is to train men in the 

 scientific diagnosis and therapy of existent disease. The yet more 

 important duty of the medical school to train men for scientific work 

 in the several prophylactic fields of child hygiene is not even suggested. 

 Let us glance briefly at this neglected aspect of preventive medicine. 



Civilization has necessitated a tremendous readjustment of life 

 habits. The factors which controlled and directed the evolution of the 

 human organism have in large part become inoperative. Our modes of 

 sedentary life tend less and less to bring into play the physical traits 

 which were of most teleological value in the primitive struggle for exist- 

 ence. Instead, excessive burdens are laid upon functions and organs 

 never intended by nature to endure them. If only the intentions of 

 nature were respected during the period of growth and development the 

 problem would by no means be so serious. The youth who had been 

 brought into possession of his full psycho-physical inheritance would be 

 in a position to conserve this inheritance in the face of great odds. 

 This we do not permit. The introduction of universal education has 

 changed the whole life of the child from one of active to one of 

 sedentary occupation. As stated by Gulick, " so extensive a readjust- 

 ment of the life habits of the young of a species has never before been 

 attempted." Nor is it reasonable to suppose that man presents any 

 exception to the biological law that the ultimate survival of an organism 

 is threatened whenever it is subjected to conditions of environment 

 widely different from those which directed its evolution. We have 

 taken the child out of its natural habitat, of open air, freedom and 

 sunshine and for half his waking hours we are subjecting him to an 



VOL. LXXX. — 20. 



