IN DOCTOR GESELL, PH.D. and M.D., psychology and pediatrics were
blended in a strong and attractive personality who became a
distinguished leader in the scientific investigation of the growth
potentials and patterns of the human infant. He founded The
Clinic of Child Development at Yale in 1911 and was its director
until 1948, when he became professor emeritus. This clinic functioned
primarily as a research center by operating as a service
organization. It thus won the confidence of many parents and
achieved fame in the greater New Haven area. Many parents
gladly brought or sought to bring their young at scheduled periods
for the Gesell tests and measurements that would result in the
scientifically established norms for infant development. This lively
research unit was associated with the Department of Pediatrics of
the Yale School of Medicine and under the creative leadership of
President James R. Angell later became a division of the Institute
of Human Relations in 1929. Ten years later Dr. Gesell and his
staff were annually producing a score of publications while conducting
follow-up examinations on about 175 cases, with referrals
from different agencies and persons of 600 to 700, mostly of preschool
age, and 1,000 or more guidance and observational contacts
centering on nursery children. The effort to study objectively human
infant growth had thus taken on man-size proportions and
was exerting nationwide influence.