Education: Sharp Sheepskins

For $500 any interested citizen could become a Doctor of Philosophy in psychology. For $800 the New York College of Psychiatry would put him through a course leading to a doctorate of science. Head of this low-cost educational project—an extension of both Los Angeles University’s College of Psychiatry and Golden State University of Los Angeles—was curly-haired, thoughtful-looking, 24-year-old, self-styled “Vice Dean” George William Manus. His sideburns and the drape of his chalk-stripe suit were sharp. So were his departments: practical and applied psychology, chemical psychotherapy, hypnotic childbirth, advanced esoterics and metaphysics, and reflex therapy (dandy for baldness). Students of “prenatal suggestion” were advised: “When a couple decides to have children, they should go to a mountain resort where they can romp in the grass and eat green vegetables.” The college claimed 4,000 alumni.

Last week a New York State Department of Education official paid a professional call on Vice Dean Manus. As a consulting specialist, he brought along one of Mayor Fiorello (“Butch”) LaGuardia’s plain-clothes men. “Dr.” Manus, whose scientific studies had not turned him against religion (his 4-D draft status is for ministers and divinity students), was held on $5,000 bail. The charges: 1) presiding over an unchartered college (whose West Coast mother institutions were non existent); 2) calling himself a medical doctor; 3) calling his high-gear sheepskin tannery a school of medicine.