VIENNESE URGES PSYCHOLOGICAL TEST OF PUPILS
Need of Health Training in College Stressed.
The use of phychology in determining the possibilities of all students entering college, and also as an aid to their adjustment to society was suggested yesterday by Dr. Alfred Adler of Vienna to health directors attending the meeting of the American Student Health association. Dr. Adler is in this country as visiting physician at Long Island Medical school. He came to Chicago to deliver a series of lectures before the Chicago Society for Individual Psychology.
At the Student Health association meeting, which opened in the Stevens hotel and at the conference of the College Physical Education association, also meeting at the Stevens, health leaders and educators considered health problems now confronting the American college. They pointed to the lack of health precautions during the college years as responsible for an increasing frequency of breakdowns in early middle life. Some criticism was directed against the medical profession for its failure, in many instances, to coöperate with college health programs.
Questions for Students.
Dr. Adler gave typical questions to be put to a student entering college.
"You should find out his particular personality," Dr. Adler said. "Ask the student: 'What is your first recollection?' This is an important question because you can see into his life. It is important to learn something of the student's social interest. No student should be permitted to leave school before the university years if he has not adapted himself to social life. Ask him if he was tidy or untidy as a child to find if he can order his life; ask if he can easily make friends; if not, you can be sure he loves himself."
Criticism of Medical Men.
Dr. D. F. Smiley of Cornell university pointed out that some members of the medical profession criticize efforts of colleges and universities to meet health responsibilities through student health service. Dr. Smiley revealed that 26 million public school children are in the field of the general practitioner to be served in their homes while a million more in the higher schools come from great distances and must rely on the health facilities of the college.
"If the medical profession already were doing a good piece of health work among the 26 million public school children and were casting about for new worlds to conquer, criticism of the college health service among the one million students on the ground that it took away private practice might be justified. But such is obviously not the case, since less than 10 per cent of the 26 million receive adequate health service at the hands of general practitioners."
At the meeting of the College Physical Education association, President William Mather Lewis of Lafayette college, Easton, Pa., declared that the stoop shouldered and anemic graduates are evidence that breakdowns are coming with increasing speed among the educated classes in early middle life. Dr. Lewis said physical education and health should be more closely connected with academic courses.
Fuente: "Viennese Urges Psychological Test of Pupils. Need of Health Training in College Stressed.", Chicago Daily Tribune, Chicago, Friday, 29 December 1933, p. 8, col. 4; unsigned. Transcribed in full from the page image at fultonhistory.com (Chicago IL Daily Tribune 1933-12-29_92_313_8), rendered at 300 dpi; the headline, illegible in the OCR, and the closing paragraphs (Smiley, Lewis), which the OCR mixed with advertisements, are read from the image. The misprint "phychology" and the spelling "coöperate" are kept. Neighbouring items on the page omitted.