The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-10-07

Hall, Of MarbIeh6ad, MaSSs 11TSr used the term work cure" to designate the systematic prescription of work as an essential part of the treatment of functional nervous disorders. The term was epoch-malking. It marked 1 the end of the era in which 8. rest cure was relied upon to rehabili- tate the nervous prostrate who is born tired and gets more tired the more you rest him.
 Work cure is g. practical applica- 1 ton of the newly reorganized truth that nervousness, neurasthenia, and the other phyconeuroses can be sue cesful1y attacked not with medicine. baths and resting. but from the men tai side by phychotheraphys and es- peeia1ly by making the sufferer use such limited powers as he already possesses, that by their use he may develop them. This means work. Deeper still it means discovering a motive for work.
 The Call of the Job.
 pr. Hall found that work for arts sake or for works sake, work given merely to keep the patient busy, doesn't interest the patient and so does not benefit him. The patient must feel the s.caI of the joib'' if it is to cure him. Why should he work when he doesn' feel like 1t and sees no use in it?
 
 in 1895, at Marb1ehead, a work shop where patients, supervised and taught by experts are now making articles that are saIable and getting wages for their product. Weaving, cement work, dyeing and pottery have been the most successful trades. JeWelry and metal work have proved too try ing nor the untrained and unhappy patients to carry through and sell profitabIy. But in the other occupa- lions about $7.000 worth Of merchant rise has been made and sold each year although the workshop has new CT contained more than thirty-eight workers at a time, many of whom worked only a few hours a day. Their efforts supply an actual need in the Community and the patients are con- vinced Of this fact (and so of their own vaIue)by the receipt of actual wages.
 Some Of the patients do not need the ] money. But their souls nee1 it--need. its message. For money Is symbol of value. It proves to the patient that some one needs him, that he has a place in the world and can create something worth while. Thus money and markets seonnect the solitary in irrespective neurasthenis with the real world outside him. He gets a motive, a. reason for forgetting himself, q fu- | ture to look forward to, a ground for Iself-respect He is back in the work ing world. along with the rest of us. 1 The Sub-Standard Worker
 When pr. Hall Joined his squad of neurasthenfcs to the ranks of the industrial army he added his contri- i button not only to therapeutics but to 1 sociology. He attacked the problems of the sl1b-standard worker--handf- l capped in the race of industry but l.not necessarily excluded from that inspiring company He attacked the problem which faces all who deal with the consumptive, the crippled. the alcoholic, the chronic Insane. the cranky but not mean insane, and in i fact all chronic invalids, no matter what their disease. Rich or poor, they all need work. for without 1t they degenerate mentally and moral ly.
 The sick type of sub-standard work l CT differs only in minor details from the other typ pes-the feeble minded, the criminal in prison, and above all, l the slow worker who will be thrown out of work when the minimum wager gets beyond, the stage of talk and in 1 duiry, and begins to work.
 The su'b-stan dard workers are in l the same position fndustrially as the neurasthenics and the cripp1es. They are getting squeezed out Of the ranks of tn standard or average-capacity workers.
 Need of Special Work Shops. l That the slow, the chronic inva- l lids and the chronic insane are part of the same group of sub-standard workers is not yet so generally real ized as to lead uss in this country, to l any satisfactory organization of work l shops for the handicapped, occupa- 1 tions for the insane, or industries for 1 the slow and inefficient but healthy adult.
 It is for this reason that work like 1 pr. Halls is of interest to social work
 CTS, as well as to physicians He has l shown that the sub standard worker should not be excluded elilze the beg, 1 gar and the idle rich) from tte ina
 dustriaI system. Like the body, he l would live in response to stimuli and invitations from the world outside 1 him. Where possible, he should be l paid in money. He must. always be
 paid in some way that gives him sat 1 isfaction-else he degentrates-
 The sltb-standard worker needs a l little more encouragement than the l average worker. This has long been
 recognized in relation to the feeble l minded, who can be made to do ex-
 cellent and valuable. work under sup | ervision, but fall into vacancy into
 wandering or mischief, is left free.
 This involves necessarily a new
 kind of boss, one very different from l the average foreman. very much more
 aware of the psychology of sub-stand-
 ard workers, more possessed by the | enthusiasm, the wide vision, and the l durable patience of the social worker
 '"The success of handicapped labor
 depends says Dr. Hall. upon the l preparation of the work before it gets to the worker. Here design and ex-
 pert craftsmanship must unite with | medical exp erience. The field of han I dfcapped labor is a tremendously inn l portant one-sone day we shall sec I it organized and systematfzed, witt
 astonishing results. The work of han
 dfcapped people must never be sold l ~ .