Smyrna Times

Trip to Center
The Senior Class, in connection with their studies of personality development, made a field trip to the Governor Bacon Health Center at Delaware City on March 15 to observe the remedial work being done, particularly with reference to inadequate children.
Mr. Walter L. Kabis, director of education and recreation at the Center, personally conducted the two-hour tour of buildings and facilities and explained thoroughly the purpose of the Center and the methods used to aid those who need help in developing social competence. The Center, he explained, is particularly interested in giving psychiatric and physical aid to those who can be improved; the ideal goal in each case is to return the patient to society able to get along with others and to live independently of institutional care.
Mr. Kabis indicated that large sums of money would be saved in the future through present expenditures at the Center. Not only will the financial burden on the state be lessened, but there will be a correspondingly great increase in human happiness and human well-being.
More exactly stated, the purpose of the Center is to provide an environment conducive to human growth; essentials of this environment are given as being tolerance and flexibility within a framework of order and support from which are derived the basic authority and sanctions, the security and affection which provide status with the group and incentives to conformity on the part of every person being treated for varying degrees of inadequacy.
Every member of the student group and their chaperones, Mrs. Margaret O'Neill, Mrs. Preston Burris and Mr. Glenn King were impressed by the general air of normality achieved in all activities and groups observed, the friendliness and competence of the adults in charge, and the extent of the modern facilities for diagnosis and treatment. In short, the Center is setting a high standard as the only institution of its kind in the United States and merits in full the wide attention and study it is receiving.