The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1927-05-11
WEDNESDAY, MAY IL, 1927.
COMMUNITY NEEDS AND HEALTH DEVEL-
OPMENT OF CHILD.
(By w. A. Brand, M. D.


(By w. A. Brand, M. D.
IT. HE GREATEST asset of any community
is its incoming generation of citizens. Or
4 the youth of today depends the achieve
ment of tomorrow They must be the builders
of the family, the brains in our state houses, the
leaders of our armies, the captains of industry.
In every walk Of life they must take the place of
their elders in maintaining the ideals of our
civilization
But they will also recruit the menacing
ranks of another class-the class that fills our
prisons and jails, the houses of correction; the
derelicts who live at large and demand the hand
of charity, and those who fill our poor houses
and orphan homes and insane asylums.
Millions of dollars are spent annually in the
care of the unfit, which puts a burden on the
normal family, forcing it, in some degree, to a
lower standard of living.
1t is this latter which wish to discuss at
this time. The physical health of the child is
taken care of through many agencies but the
mental health is to great extent neglected.
Psychology is merely word to most people, but
on it's proper guidance in the child depends the
survival of the race
Crime delinquency and dependency are on
the increase, and Minnesota is paying $4,000 a
day caring for it's socially unfit. In the nation
it is $500,000,O00 annually and each year this
amount will increase unless serious and organ
lied steps TAKEN first, to prevent propagation
of unfit; second, to prevent contamination of
children of otherwise normal psyche by separat-
ing from them those of degenerative tendencies;
third, to guide the normal child during the i'm
questionable age.
IT HE FIRST proposition of preventing pro-
pagation is entirely legislative one, and
can only be accomplished by passing eugen-
ic laws regulating such procedure.
Government statisticans inform that at
the present rate of increase our population will
reach its high tide by 1860, and will then have
all the people we can feed. .----.-
The opinion Of biologists is that if our civil
ization goes as others have gone its chief cause
will be from the rapid increase of the socially
unfit which is taking place and the inevitable
lowering of average mentality therefrom
We no more build and stabilize civilization
with mentally defective people than we can
build good house with rotten lumber.
Already 70 per cent of the adult popula-
ton of this nation have a mental age, reckoned
by psychologists, Of but thirteen years. and this
country actually stands the worst of all civilized
nations when measured by crimes Of violence.
One person in 10000 is murdered in this
thirty-five times more murders here than there.
No breeder of domestic stock would think
of propogating inferior strains of cattle, for OBJ
vious reasons but the human race in sentimental
tush, as "land of the Free" is allowed to propo-
gate in kind not only to its detrment, but to its
final downfall.
Each community should interest itself in the
eugenic problem and study the eugenic laws, and
urge that legislators take some action.
T HIS brings US to the second proposition
to prevent contamination of the child of
normal psyche.
Environmental causes come naturally under
this head and this has led to the development OF
a mental hygiene movement through the whole
country. In the majority of the histories OF
cases of mental disorders, it is found that the
causes that led to their development trac
able to childhood. A large accumulation of evi
dence pointing in this direction has given rise
to new trend of mental hygiene, namely, trend
toward the special study of these causes, an6
toward their elimination.
few children of Moron tendencies can de-
much to disturb the psychic balance of whole
school room. The teacher should have suffici
ent knowledge of child psychology to recognize
the disturbing factor and refer it to the Psycholo
gic Clinic. Such clinic should be established il
every school the size of our school,
Teachers in general are aware of the rapid!
accommodating knowledge concerning educationa
problems and the basic needs of childhood
knowledge concerning the relation of physica
health to mental growth has placed the physi
clan and nurse in the school; knowledge of tn
great diversity of mental capacity has led to re
organization of the school program in accordanc
with the findings of mental and educationa
tests.
1t is probably true that many child problems
are adjusted daily or prevented from becoming
more acute by the knowledge of disturbing fac