NOVEMBEE 15, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



655 



cal schools, evinces this issue before the 

 medical college, an issue which concerns 

 both pedagogy and medicine. The unity of 

 mutual interests in the field of pedagogy 

 is pressing both upon the educator and 

 upon the physician. 



There is the increasing recognition by 

 our citizenship of the importance of the 

 physical aspects of life in the process of 

 education. This modern recognition of the 

 physical correlate of psychic life is evinced 

 by many signs. There are the concerted 

 efforts of legislators, reformers, physicians 

 and educators in behalf of better sanita- 

 tion of the schools. There are movements 

 for improved medical inspection of chil- 

 dren, teachers and premises, for accumu- 

 lative records concerning physical and 

 mental development and for study of, and 

 providing for, the detection and care of, 

 feeble-minded children. Organizations 

 such as medical associations, educational 

 associations and civic societies have united 

 in their efforts in behalf of the health of 

 the child, since the larger meaning of health 

 in its relation to formal education has be- 

 come better understood. It is significant, 

 for example, that we read of the coopera- 

 tive efforts of physicians and of educa- 

 tional specialists in the report of the Pub- 

 lic Health Educational Committee of the 

 American Medical Association as published 

 in the Proceedings of the National Edu- 

 cation Association. Equally significant as 

 a symptom is the report of the sub-com- 

 mittee of the Committee of One Hundred 

 of American Medical Association which 

 recommends for medical education, in be- 

 half of public sanitation, practical means 

 for actual cooperation of physicians, law- 

 yers, engineers, statisticians, professional 

 sanitarians and educators. With regard 

 to the last the recommendations embody 

 the following: "The medical point of view 

 should be given to the educationalists and 

 the medical man should add to his medical 



knowledge some practical working experi- 

 ence in the daily problemis which confront 

 the educator." 



The increasing literature both from 

 students of education and also of medi- 

 cine concerning the health of the school 

 child, and the discussions by both teachers 

 and by physicians at international and at 

 local congresses of school hygiene also are 

 evidences of the world-wide significance of 

 the theme. Researches upon specific ac- 

 tivities of school life as affecting the hu- 

 man organism, in both its physical and 

 psychical aspects, are further evidence of 

 the advent of the method of science into 

 the realm of pedagogy. Contrast, for ex- 

 ample, the obsolescent pedagogy of opinion 

 vs. fact, of metaphysics vs. statistical in- 

 vestigation, with such recent quantitative 

 investigations as those of Meumann, 

 Winch, Thorndike, Dearborn and Ayres. 

 If in the past educators have been addicted 

 to metaphysics and the didactic habit, 

 equally physicians have been alleged to 

 lack any "quantitative sense." The pres- 

 ent trend in literature toward exact obser- 

 vation is bringing both professions closer. 

 The remarkable growth of medical in- 

 spection of school children is due to the 

 wide recognition of the necessity of co- 

 operation between teacher and physician. 

 At the basis of this cooperation is the mod- 

 ern belief that health, wholeness of body 

 and mind, is the prerequisite of maximum 

 good for the individual and for society in 

 education. Most of us have reacted far 

 from the ideal of Stylites who considered 

 that superlative moral excellence was best 

 gained through indifference and even tor- 

 ture of the body : 



... I die here 

 To-day, and whole years long, a life of death, 

 Bear witness, if I could have found a way — 

 And heedfuUy I sifted all my thought — 

 More slowly painful to subdue this home. 

 Of sin, my flesh, which I despise and hate 

 I had not stinted practise, my God! 



