656 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 933 



The practical interdependence of body 

 and mind is evident enough whether we 

 chose evidence from: the facts (1) of com- 

 mon experience, (2) of pathology or from 

 (3) the psychological laboratory. But in 

 the past many, and in the present not a 

 few, educational leaders seem to neglect 

 this significant fact. They have busied 

 themselves with the subtleties of meta- 

 physical speculation to explain the ulti- 

 mate nature of this mind-body relation, or 

 failed altogether to profit by the oppor- 

 tunity for, and the results of, research, re- 

 gardless of the ultimate nature of reality. 

 Whether as physician one is interested 

 predominately with the physical aspect of 

 the human organism, or whether as teacher 

 predominately with the mental aspect, 

 neither skilled teacher nor physician to- 

 day can ignore the physical or the mental 

 to the neglect of the other. So far as both 

 teacher and physician are men and hu- 

 manitarians, each is willing to supplement 

 the other where cooperation facilitates the 

 progress of the race. Notwithstanding the 

 endless differences of opinion about the 

 details of educational theory, and the 

 rumor that in their respective councils 

 both doctors and pedagogues disagree, 

 nevertheless one sure point of agreement 

 in education is the necessity for adequate 

 provisions for health, both in school and 

 in industry. The health movement in edu- 

 cation is one of the most hopeful signs of 

 the times: it is based upon the logical re- 

 sults of experience and of systematic ob- 

 servation and has more far-reaching re- 

 sults than the results merely within the 

 school room. It is a beneficent influence 

 that is modifying architecture, sewerage 

 systems, food supply, methods of control 

 and prevention of disease, and is modify- 

 ing our art, our ethics and our religion, 

 man's three great remedies for the evils 

 of human knowledge. Opposed we find 



the horde of the ' ' curists, ' ' whether simply 

 ignorant or neurotic or criminal. 



The cooperation of trained workers in 

 the medico-pedagogical field has gained 

 headway against difficulties. Inertia of 

 public opinion, administrative difficulties 

 and organized opposition from combina- 

 tions of quacks, enthusiasts and patent- 

 medicine interests opposed to state control 

 of health measures, are difficulties encoun- 

 tered in many states. One of the most 

 vicious combinations of heterogeneous 

 frauds is the American Association for 

 Medical Freedom, which through paid 

 representatives has been perniciously ac- 

 tive in efforts with legislative assemblies, 

 as, for example, recently in Tennessee. 



Difficulties of another kind are: (1) in- 

 competent and unintelligent physicians in 

 the public-school services; (2) incompetent 

 and unintelligent teachers; (3) the result- 

 ing failure to obtain the desired coopera- 

 tion of a scientific pedagogy and of scien- 

 tific medicine in behalf of the school 

 child. The incompetency of the school 

 physician, if we take for granted his moral 

 worth, may be with regard to training 

 either in medicine or in pedagogy. The 

 Flexner and other reports are proofs re- 

 garding the low condition of medical edu- 

 cation in America. It is difficult through- 

 out the country to secure highly skilled 

 physicians to do the unremunerative work 

 of school inspection. This notorious diffi- 

 culty increases the want of respect that the 

 teacher and citizen have for some medical 

 inspectors, school physicians and sani- 

 tarians. The deficiency of the average 

 physician in pedagogy, or in the science 

 and art of education, is not unexpected, 

 but his frequent lack of appreciation of the 

 inherent complexity of the problems of the 

 school or of knowledge of any one large 

 part of modern pedagogy, be it educational 

 psychology, experimental pedagogy, the 



