3. Discuss in detail the relative merits of the several theories of the moral nature of the child.

4. What would constitute an ideal school according to Stanley Hall? Do you agree with him?

5. Do the results of educational and intelligence tests indicate that the differences between adolescence and childhood are more in degree, or in kind?

6. Explain the merits of the studies being made on children at the University of Iowa by Baldwin and his colleagues.

7. Does the junior high-school idea seem well founded psychologically? Why?

8. How does Hall's view of adolescence differ from that of Whipple?

9. What difference should a knowledge of the psychology of adolescence make in your work with children?

10. Study some child that you know in the light of the knowledge you have gained of the subject.

REFERENCES

BAGLEY, W. C., The Educative Process (New York, Macmillan Co., 1905).

BALDWIN, B. T., and STECHER, L. I., The Psychology of the Preschool Child (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1924).

CHRISMAN, Oscar, The Historical Child (Boston, R. G. Badger, 1920).

FREEMAN, F. N., How Children Learn (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917), Chap. xii.

GESELL, Arnold L., The Pre-School Child (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1923).

GRUENBERG, B. C., Outlines of Child Study (New York, Macmillan Co., 1922).

HALL, G. S., Adolescence (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1907), Vols. I, II.

Youth (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1911).

JUDD, C. H., Introduction to the Scientific Study of Education (Boston, Ginn & Co., 1918), Chap. xiii.

KING, Irving, High School Age (Indianapolis, Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1914).

KIRKPATRICK, E. A., Fundamentals of Child Study (New York, Macmillan Co., 1903).

KOFFKA, Kurt, Growth of the Mind (New York, Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1924).

NORSWORTHY, Naomi, and WHITLEY, Mary T., Psychology of Childhood (New York, Macmillan Co., 1923).

PECHSTEIN, L. A., and MCGREGOR, Laura, Psychology of the Junior High School Pupil (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924). RICHMOND, Winifred, The Adolescent Girl (New York, Macmillan Co., 1925).

TANNER, Amy, The Child (Chicago, Rand McNally Co., 1915). TRACY, Frederick, Psychology of Adolescence (New York, Macmillan Co., 1920).

WADDLE, C. W., Introduction to Child Psychology (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1918).

WEIGLE, Luther, The Pupil (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1925).

CHAPTER XXII

MENTAL HYGIENE

The mental hygiene movement has resulted in the production of several good books and many worth-while articles. On the other hand many pseudo-scientists and so-called mental hygienists have flooded our papers and lecture halls with their propaganda. The selections given herewith have been taken from writings of well-known authorities. Dr. Burnham's book, The Normal Mind: An Introduction to Mental Hygiene and the Hygiene of School Instruction, from which we have quoted twice (1,12) has for its keynote the integration of personality, at whatever level of intelligence. The manifestation of this integration is best seen in two mental processes-concentrated attention and orderly association.

The conditional reflex may be regarded as another keynote of the book. A task, a plan, and freedom are the means whereby personality can be kept integrated and happiness insured.

The reading on the conditioned reflex suggests what can be done toward the solutions of problems of human psychic development by skillful application of the conditioned reflex concepts (1).

The cause and treatment of fears and worry are given in the selections (2,3,4,5). Relaxation as a prophylactic is advocated by Patrick (7), and James (8). Some very good suggestions pointing toward a cure for sleeplessness are contained in the selection from Sidis (9). The essentials for mental health, and the training in mental hygiene are discussed by Burnham Burnham and Kirkpatrick

(10,11,12).

1. The Conditioned Reflex

[BURNHAM, William H., The Normal Mind: An Introduction to Mental Hygiene and the Hygiene of School Instruction, pp. 14-15. D. Appleton & Co., 1924.]

The most important contribution of psychology to mental hygiene, providing a method of unlimited application, is probably the modern study of the conditioned reflex by the Russian school of Pavlov and his followers.

A conditioned reflex is a response to a stimulus which has become associated with a biologically adequate stimulus and hence produces the same physiological response. Such reflexes conditioned by associated stimuli may be looked upon as the elements in habit, and a habit may be regarded as a system of conditioned reflexes.

Pavlov has developed an elaborate technique for the study of this subject and has shown that the sensation from any receptor organ-sight, hearing, the dermal senses, etc.-may be made a conditioned stimulus by repeated association with a biologically adequate stimulus. Krasnogorski in Russia, Mateer at Clark University, and Watson at Johns Hopkins have shown that conditioned reflexes can be developed in children, and that the ability to form such reflexes is correlated with the development of the mind and brain.

All of this is of great importance to education and hygiene, for it furnishes an objective method for studying the development of the brain cortex, the organ of association, on the one hand, and the growth of habit in the individual child on the other. All training in animals and children consists largely in the acquisition of conditioned reflexes. . . .

We know relatively little about the conditioned reflexes developed by our ordinary school and home environment, but the studies made show the vast number of them acquired by a child during the period of school life and the importance of them for the mental health of the individual.

2. Health and Knowledge

[HALL, G. Stanley, "Health and Knowledge: an Editorial," Pedagogical Seminary, 1892, Vol. 2, pp. 7-8.]

A ton of knowledge bought at the cost of an ounce of health, which is the most ancient and precious form of wealth and worth, costs more than its value. Better Tolstoi's kind of liberty, or the old knightly contempt of pen and book work

as the knack of craven, thin-blooded clerks, better idyllic ignorance of even the invention of Cadmus if the worst that the modern school now causes must be taken in order to get the best it has to give. Sooner or later everything pertaining to education, from the site of the building to the contents of every text book, and the methods of each branch of study, must be scrutinized with all the care and detail at the command of scientific pedagogy and judged from the standpoint of health. What shall a child give in exchange for his health, or what shall it profit a child if he gain the whole world of knowledge and lose his own health?

3. Fear

Adults often make the common mistake of assuming that children are carefree and happy. The truth is that they often suffer from great emotional excitement such as fear and worry and grief. These fears and griefs are not uncommon. In fact, they are quite the rule. Some of these fears may be such as fear of pain, ridicule, humiliation, the supernatural, death and everlasting punishment, or the powers of nature. Regardless of their cause, their results are detrimental to both mind and body. It has long been recognized that pleasurable feelings and emotions tend to quicken the processes that are of advantage to the organism, while long continued distressing ones seriously interfere with bodily and mental processes. Furthermore, long continued and violent emotions in the young are very likely to disturb bodily and mental growth. Much of the introversion, neuræsthenia, hypochondriasis, and hysteria which is observable in adults may be traced to emotional experiences of early life.

In

Worry is very common among both children and adults. Very often there is little foundation for such worries. deed, the child seems to get some satisfaction from them. It has been inferred by some authorities that certain qualities of worry suggest the hypothesis that the fear or cause of the worry is but a cloak for unacknowledged desire. It is observed, however, that such a hypothesis cannot be applied generally. We could not say a student worries about his examination and, therefore, desires to fail. Neither can we