Evening star., 1933-10-30
"PLEASURE" HELD
D|SPLAC|NG PAIN"
Mental Hygiene Group Told
World Is Passing Through
Crisis.

In the present worldwide economic
crisis, human society may be passing
through the greatest revolution In his
tory from an economy Of pain to an
economy Of pleasure" DR.. Ernest
Groves, professor of sociology at the
bers Of the washington Institute OF
Mental Hygiene at its annual dinner
Saturday night.
Pain and pleasure, DR. Groves said,
constitute fundamental motivating ele-
ments Of human behavior. Through
the past centuries. pain has been dom1-
nant in the social set-up. The most
highly esteemed virtues. such as self
sacrifice and courage, have been pain
virtues"
The world may be ready, he said, for
q sort of society in which these things
will not be virtues at all and when
everything will be keyed to the pleasure
principle. Then the dominant virtue
Will be the ability to diScriminate-to
make wise choices from an abundance
Of everything.
Up to Social Workers.
1t is almost universally agreed, he
said, that an important cause OF the
economic situation Is the ability Of man
to create, with the aid Of the machine,
more than he has the means OF dis
tributing. Paradoxicary enough, he is
30 poor because he has b come mate
rally so rich Upon the social hygiene
movement with its psychiatrlstS; SO,
ciologists and others, he said, VIII 1all
a large part of the burden OF guiding
this new social set-up.
Nothing fundamental in the life OF
the past" he said, "can have any SUD-
stantial place in the new era When
poverty will be impossible or patholog-
ical For thousands of years man mas
learned to suffer. The need OF thls
knowledge will be no more"
In framing the new structure OF
society. Dr. Groves said, humanitarian
ism and science must 60 hand in hand.
The advances of science, he insisted,
never can replace the ancient fellow
ship of the kindly" without which So
ciety would be so terrible that human
nature couldn't endure 1t"
Science Is adequate"
On the other hand, he characterized
the application of scientific principles
to social problems as 1.-The only ade-
ouate way man can think" In the
past, he said, while the science that
deals with materials has been essen
tially unhampered and has made Won
derful progress, the branches OF science
that deal with human beings have not
been free, but have been forced to ad-
Just themselves to the OutWOrn pSycnol'
ogy of pain.
said, will be the care and education Of
the child to fit into the scheme OF
things. This, he said, will be one OF
the great tasks of the mental hygiene
movement, which now is in its infancy
"a rational society" he said. never
would tolerate the program OF the pres
ent in respect to the child. Society
would be remade tomorrow If it would
be brought to realize that the only
profitable investment is investment In
children"
Dr. William A. White, superintendent
of ST. Elzabeth's Hospital, presided at
the meeting. The other speaker was
Dr. George Stevenson of New York
City, who described various activities
being taken up by the mental hygiene
groups throughout the country.
DR.. Paul J. Ewerhardt, director OF the
Washington Institute of Mental Hy-
OF the children brought before the
Child Guidance Clinic. he said, 70 per
cent are boys and 80 per cent girls
while approximately 80 per cent came
from homes broken up by divorce, de-
sertion or death.
The majority OF the children, accord
ing to DR. Ewerhardt. fall into one Of
two groups-the aggressive or the sub
missive. With the former are associated
such behavior problems as stealing, dis
obedience, temper displays, lying, tru-
ancy. running away, fighting. incorri-
gibility, profanity, bullying, keeping late
hours, destructiveness and incendiarism.
Children of the second group are
brought to the clinic for such faults as
SensitivenesS, restleSSness, nervousness,
timidity, jealousy. lack OF confidence,
laziness, fears, crying, night terrors,
sullenness, detection, phantasying, sleep
walking and malingering.
Not only must each group be dealt
with in different way, it was pointed
out, but each child represents an indi-
vidual problem which the Child Guid-
ance Clinic, for the first time, offers an
adequate means of handling.
More than a fourth of the adults
which have sought help at the Life Ad-
justment Center during the past year
have been college graduates, it was re-
ported Most of them were Government
workers whose difficulties were due. in
many cases, to fear of losing their jobs
or to pay cuts which necessitated radi-
cal changes in their ways Of living.