The Emerging Concept of Mental Health in Education

Abstract

MENTAL health is by no means a new concept, nor is it new in education. In one form or another, as Jahoda (13) points out, it has occupied the minds of men for thousands of years. Recently Stevenson (33) has noted that one of the American pioneers in this field, William H. Burnham in his book, Great Teachers of Mental Health, compared leaders in education over two milleniums and found their principles identical with those of mental health. Certainly in American educational history the concept of mental health in education was recognized years ago. When Cyrus Peirce as head of the first normal school in New England in 1839 was seeking candidates for his school, he begged the local-school committees to send him persons possessed of good health, a vigorous and buoyant constitution, a fund of lively, cheerful spirits, and particularly a love of and sympathy with children. The modern movement for mental health in the United States is usually thought of as dating from the publication of Clifford Beers's book, The Mind That Found Itself, in 1908. Interest centered at first, quite naturally, in the improvement of institutions for the insane or mentally ill. It was not long, however, before interest in prevention of mental illness and in improvement of mental health became significant aims of the organizations and individuals active in mental hygiene work. At this point education entered into the picture. National educational commissions were especially active in the 1930's and 1940's, and they secured considerable foundation support for important research projects in education involving emotional development and human personality (29). Prior research activities in mental health and education are reported in issues of the REVIEW published in 1946 and 1949; the present issue deals in the main with developments from 1949 onward. This chapter represents an attempt to conceptualize mental health in education in terms of selected literature.