On the site where Old Main has stood for almost a century will be
erected a new building for research in mental illness. And out of its
ruins, we all hope and believe, will spring the phoenix of a new and
modern program for prevention, early treatment and eventual elimina-
tion of disabling mental illness. The Old Main Building, as I have stated,
has been identified with chronic hospitalization and despair. Within the
walls of the research building which will replace it will dwell the
atmosphere of hope.

With respect to mental hygiene, we are living in an era of transition.
Some months ago, Dr. Robert H. Felix, Director of the National Institute
of Mental Health, made a speech in College Park before the Maryland
Association for Mental Health. In his discourse, he expressed confidence
that within a very few years mental illness will be understood and
brought under control. Let me offer you this quotation from his remarks:

"I can truthfully say, " said Dr. Felix, "that in my more than 30 years
of psychiatry I have never before been so enthusiastic or so heartened
as I am today, for we stand at the threshold of the solution to problems
that have plagued mankind for centuries.

"I have no doubt, " he continued, "that if communities assume the role
that they, and only they, can play in building strong mental health
programs, mental hospitals as we know them today will have ceased to
exist within 25 years.

"In the history of mental illness, " he went on to say, "this will be
recorded as an accomplishment matching that of Pinel when he broke
the chains in a Paris asylum. "

Dr. Felix was talking about the transition from patient care that was
primarily custodial to a new concept of comprehensive treatment, with
community based treatment programs. I know that all of us share the
hope with Dr. Felix that we have reached a point in the history of the
prevention and treatment of mental illnesses that we can with reason-

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