Editors: EDWARDS A. PARK, M.D..
FOUR pediatricians, all members of the Academy, are deans of important medical schools: Dr. Vernon W. Lippard, Dean of the University of Louisiana School of Medicine; Dr. Wilburt C. Davison, Dean of Duke University School of Medicine; Dr. John McK. Mitchell, Dean of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine; and Dr. Francis Scott Smyth, Dean of the University of California School of Medicine. I thought it would be interesting to obtain the answers of these four important administrators to the question of the acceptance of federal funds for the advancement and extension of pediatric education.
The letters from these pediatricians are complemented by one from Dr. George S. Stevenson, who is medical director for the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc., and so is in a strategic position to have observed the operation of Federal grants-in-aid to educational institutions under the National Mental Health Act. His observation that in the administration of this program the U.S. Public Health Service has tended to bend over backwards to avoid unnecessary supervision is worthy of record.