. . . By the 1960s, the progressive education philosophy of Teachers' College permeated the American public schools and there was a shift in emphasis from the cognitive (academic basics) to the affective (social relationships and feelings) domain. This marked the beginning of rampant grade inflation and social promotions which, it was believed, would reduce students' "stress." Also, it would be easier to exercise social control (manipulate) over people conditioned to emphasize "feelings" over "thinking."

After the shift to "feelings" had occurred, the journal MENTAL HYGIENE (which changed its name to M.H. in the early 1970s) had a new aim. According to Walter Bromberg in FROM SHAMAN TO PSYCHOTHERAPIST, this new aim was "to involve the 'growing number of citizens faced with major policy decisions' in public situations that affect mental health. These can be population control, abortions, ecology, civil rights, pollution, and social planning of many descriptions."

In the next decade, the president of the History of Education Society, Sol Cohen, delivered a speech in 1982 revealing the influence which the mental hygiene movement had on education. The speech was titled, "The Mental Hygiene Movement, the Development of Personality and the School: The Medicalization of American Education" (HISTORY OF EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Summer 1983), and in it, Cohen related that "few intellectual and social movements of this century have had so deep and pervasive an influence on the theory and practice of American education as the mental hygiene movement." . . .
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
February 22, 2005
http://www.newswithviews.com/Cuddy/dennis24.htm