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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIX, No. 1263 



ment of the theory and practise of social 

 welfare. A fascinating vista opens before 

 men and women of trained intelligence, 

 controlled imagination, and social loyalty. 



There are problems 'with respect to which 

 the new school ^vill be expected to furnish 

 light and leading! One of these is the 

 definition of the functions and the train- 

 ing of the public health nurse. Is she ex- 

 pected to be able to practise medicine or 

 is she merely the long arm of the physi- 

 cian? Should she be a graduate nurse of 

 a regular hospital training school with ad- 

 ditional education and experience in sociol- 

 ogy and field work? Or should she be a 

 new kind of social worker, a "health vis- 

 itor" without hospital training? Can a 

 new course be arranged to include a special 

 form of hospital experience, courses in pre- 

 ventive medicine, statistics, sociology, ad- 

 ministrative law and practical field work 

 under supervision? If so, how many years 

 should be set aside, what sort of prelim- 

 inary training should be required and how 

 can existing agencies be induced to co- 

 operate in providing a new curriculum? 

 Questions like these are pressing for an- 

 swer. Attempts are being made to reach 

 a consensus. Several groups of institu- 

 tions are anxious to miake the experiment. 

 Here is an opportunity to take the lead in 

 estaiblishing a normal school for public 

 health nursing which could help to supply 

 teachers and superintendents for the 

 nurses' training centers which seem likely 

 to develop in various parts of the country. 



You may not have forgotten that the 

 university of New Atalantis engaged di- 

 rectly in extension and publicity work. It 

 went to the popular circuit with practical 

 information. What is the duty of the 

 modern university in this regard? The 

 academic and the advertising minds are 

 not congenial. The former by scrupulously 

 logical means- slowly reaches tentative con- 



clusions: the latter dogmatioaUy "puts 

 things across" and "sells an idea" to the 

 public. Thus patriotic advertising men 

 during the war rallied to the aid of the 

 government: they "sold" the war, liberty 

 bonds, the Red Cross, Thrift Stamps to the 

 American people. That is, by infectious 

 slogans, adhesive shibboleths, vivid posters, 

 and ' ' four-minute ' ' hypnosis, certain motor 

 ideas were fixed and held in millions of 

 minds until action was secured. All this 

 is apt to fill the sensitive soul of the scien- 

 tifically-minded man -ndth a kind of pro- 

 testing dismay. He sees ready-made con- 

 clusions dramatically impressed upon a 

 whole nation. The fact that he agrees for 

 the most part in the conclusions and wel- 

 comes the outcome, does not reconcile him 

 to the method. He is quite sure that it 

 would be impossible for a university to do 

 this sort of tiling. 



One can understand tliis feeling and yet 

 realize that the progress of public health in 

 a democracy depends directly upon "sell- 

 ing the idea" to the public. The experi- 

 ence of various state boards and voluntary 

 societies in this couiitiy; the public health 

 campaigns of the Red Cross and the Inter- 

 national Health Board in France have 

 proved that vivid _and picturesque pub- 

 licity, verbal and visual, acconiplishes val- 

 uable results. Shall work of this sort be 

 left to independent advertising experts and 

 popularizers, or shall universities recognize 

 the art of applied mass-psychology, and 

 consciously train men and women to or- 

 ganize and administer campaigns of popu- 

 lar eduction in preventive medicine? One 

 can imagine complete collections of posters 

 and otlier materials, prize competitions for 

 new devices and propagandist literature, 

 training in extempore speaking on various 

 phases of public health — all conducted un- 

 der the auspices of a school of public 

 health. I merely raise the question. I am 



