The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1934-04-14
Liberal Viewpoint
by DIR. HARRY ELMER BARNES

THE statement of DR.. Emil Altman that 1900
out of New York's $4,000 school teachers are
unbalanced mentally has been subjected to all
sorts Of sensational and fanciful interpretations
Reactionaries, for example, have seen in
these figures confirmation Of their previous
charge that the city school system is honey
combed with e-brained radicals, the gratu-
itous assumption being made that the unbal-
anced teachers and the radical teachers are one
and the same.
It will be a pity if this widely publicized con-
dtion is not made to bear some important edu-
cational significance. There are social lessons
Of the highest significance to be drawn from
these facts.
In the first place, the type of unbalanced
mentality referred to by DR.. Altman does not
mean that any considerable number of these
teachers are the raging rnaniacs that we usually
associate with the term insanity" Indeed,
none Of these actively teaching could be SUCH
for their behavior would require immediate in
stitutional segregation.
In the second place, the burden of proof
would be upon any one who presumed to show
that the situation alleged is anything unique
Before the army mental tests we're administered
during the World war it was assumed that
there was an unusually large percentage of
feeble-minded among the criminals But the
army mental tests proved that just as large a
percentage of the general American population
suffered from mental defect.
NNE fact which this discussion should bear in
" upon readers is the astonishing extent Of
mental and nervous disease in the American
population. This is due, in part, to the greater
strains and stresses in urban industrial civil
Lzation and in part to the chronic worries in
duced by laborng conditions under capitalism.
The hospital census of 1923 revealed startling
+17Gf &c
325 in the United States is patient in a hos
pital or institution for mental and nervous
diseases The number is certainly far larger to-
day on account of the great increase in worries
produced by the depression.
The famous surgeon, DR.. Mayo, recently
called attention to the fact that one out of every
five patients in American hospital is suffering
from mental or nervous disease. There are
certainly more than 100000 such cases in the
country today, with about $4,000 new ones being
| treated every year. The cost of supporting these
nervous and mental cases runs to over $50 900 600
a year. We could build another Panama canal
out of the maintenance cost for four years.
| EVEN if there is a slightly greater percentage
II of mental unbalance among school teachers,
this is only what we would naturally expect.
They belong to an Intellectually superior group
in the population. William James once said
that most Of the important intellectual and
artistic work Of the world has always been done
by nervously unstable persons, and Dr. Trotter
some years later showed why this is true.
| In many cases, such nervous instability is
! highly advantageous to the teaching profession.
It carries with it no impairment of mentality,
but produces a far greater amount of energy
and enthusiasm for teaching duties.
have known in my time many teachers
who were almost fanatical in their devotion
to their studies and their students, and this
fanaticism was certainly born of a neuroSis. In
deed, I doubt if have ever known truly great
teacher who was not at least mildly neurotic.
A school teacher who is 100 per cent normal
mentally and nervously would, in most cases,
be very dull uninspired and listless person.
All we need to do is to eliminate those whose
nervous instability initiates against a social at
titude and pedagogical efficiency.