BACK TO NORMALCY

On the assumption that mental and physical health are closely related, the Hygiene Department has in the past few years become increasingly interested in the study of a boy, not as a purely physical entity, but as an integrated personality. As cases poured into the psychiatric and medical departments, it became evident that they were getting a very one-sided picture of college life--were completely concerned with the outlook of the maladjusted boy full of miscellaneous terrors, real or imagined injustices, and evils of every sort. Thousands of others, well-adjusted to their environment, never were contacted; and to get their side of the picture, to have a better basis from which to analyze the misfit, Dr. Bock inaugurated the Grant Study last fall.

Its first year has now ended. Behind the walls of the much renovated Big Tree Swimming Pool are masses of facts and figures on almost every phase of life of some 80 normal boys. A thorough medical examination, registration of metabolism and fatigue tests, an anthropological examination,--all these were part of the survey of the physical side. On the mental side, investigations of the boy's genealogy and of his home, religious, sex, and academic life were correlated to produce a fairly accurate, if somewhat superficial, knowledge of his mental make-up. Results and conclusions of the survey will not be published for four more years, but the end of their first year deserves notice, not only for the work which the members of the staff have done, but also for the important trend of which it is representative.

Polls, surveys and public relations agencies all show that institutions are increasingly conscious of the individuals related to them. Every-day problems of every-day individuals are the essence of broader institutional problems, and in order to get to the bottom of a social situation, it must be reduced to its lowest common denominator,--the individual. On this point the Grant Study is truly in the spirit of the times.

Undoubtedly the Study's material will be invaluable to the staff of the Hygiene Department. But it must serve a broader purpose; it must be useful to the University as a whole. The problems faced by the 70 guinea pigs--problems of housing, of curriculum, of study habits--are representative of the entire student body. Nor are these the troubles of cantankerous "problem children," but rather of boys who are meeting their obligations with reasonable success. If the University recognizes the validity of the Study material, if it studies the every-day problems of every-day individuals, it may be able to lubricate those many points of friction constantly developing in administrative machinery.