For Walter the new century marked a tangible as well as a symbolic beginning.  His student years were over.  He was now an instructor at Northwestern and director of its psychological laboratory.  His boyhood dream had become a reality, and the resolve he had made on his 19th birthday was in the process of fulfillment.

He was now 31 and married.  His simplicity, his earthy naturalness were still as much a part of him as ever, but no longer was he just another farm boy from the Middle West.

He had absorbed a vast store of book  knowledge.  He had read Greek and Latin classics in the original and had studied the Bible critically.  He was versed in world history and had become familiar with the basic ideas of philosophy and of world literature.  Though still a young man, he could chalk up personal contacts with a wide variety of people, studies and visits abroad, and the mastery of at least one living foreign language, German.

To say that Scott, with all his background, could foresee all that the first half of the 20th century would bring would be an exaggeration.  But he did sense that science, and particularly applied science, would become a dominant factor in the era just unfolding.  He sensed also that these changes would bring tremendous expansion in industry and business; that science and technology would overshadow art and philosophy, and would bring new approaches and interpretations even in religion. All this he did not perceive at once nor in sharp clarity, but envision it he did, first in fragments, then in sharp outline.

This brought him satisfaction, and, at the same time, a feeling of uneasiness.  Of the men he admired and from whom he had learned a great deal, only one, George A. Coe, perceived what was ahead in the way of technological advance and welcomed its anticipated contribution to the well-being of man.  The slowly growing awareness that he was moving toward fundamental disagreement with the others was secretly disturbing to Scott.

At the very beginning of his university career, Scott did not plan deliberately to introduce drastic departures in approach and objectives.  Indeed, he started out conventionally enough.  His teaching technique was, at the beginning, quite formal.

Evanston in 1900 was a delightful community in which to live and grow.  Fringe-topped surries, gardens, stately elms, and monumental oaks gave the city of 20,000 an atmosphere of graciousness, and concerts and lectures, occasional plays, and outdoor sports lent variety to the university routine.

Scott enjoyed his work as a teacher and was successful in it.  In five years he advanced from instructor to a full professorship in charge of the psychology department in the College of Liberal Arts.  As an instructor he leaned toward formality, chiefly because of the influence of Wundt at Leipzig and of Titchener at Cornell.  But as he got into his stride, he loosened up and proceeded in the direct, informal, pragmatic manner that was to become so much a part of him.

He continued to advance rapidly and to broaden his field of operations.  He wrote books and magazine articles based on his classroom experiments and on his own original thinking in applied psychology.  Large business concerns hired him as a consultant on advertising and personnel.  In 1909 he was appointed professor of advertising in Northwestern's School of Commerce, and, three years later, professor of psychology in the same school.  He retained the latter post until 1916, while continuing to serve as head of the psychology department in the College of Liberal Arts.

His skill in bringing out the best in students by understanding, and by patience, soon won him widespread attention, and he was called to conduct summer courses at Columbia and at the University of Chicago.
 "Scott proved to be a superb teacher," Prof.  Coe recalled nearly 50 years later.  "He was systematic, made careful preparation for every exercise, and adapted everything to the capacities of his students-not merely to the average capacity, but to the capacity of each individual.  This care for the individual characterized his whole career.  When he was promoted to the presidency, it was entirely natural for him to say, as he did, that he regarded helping students as the first and foremost job of a president.
 "What Scott had to do was almost equivalent to creating something out of nothing; that is to say, he had to teach laboratory psychology without a laboratory.  Many of his demonstrations were homemade and exceedingly clever.  Some of them were dramatic; but the teaching value of the experiment never was sacrificed to the dramatic effect.  Gradually a real laboratory was built tip.  In this entire process of building a department he exhibited excellent judgment.  I cannot recall any occasion upon which I suspected him of having made a blunder."

A typical instance of how he combined his teaching with his work as a psychological and advertising consultant involved the Hart, Schaffner & Marx Co. "You make clothes for men," Scott told Joseph Schaffner, Sr., after he had l)een hired as an advertising consultant in 1909.  "You want to appeal to their sense of daring, of rugged yet refined manliness.  Why not show a man on horseback in your ads?"

The idea was less than electrifying to Mr. Schaffner, but he agreed to try it out in Chicago's evening papers.

When the ad appeared, it was dominated by a herald astride a horse.  To his afternoon class that day Scott brought an ample supply of newspapers carrying the ad. As the students filed into the classroom, he banded each one of them a copy and then left the room for 15 or 20 minutes.

Having little to occupy them while the professor was away, the students glanced through the papers.  When Scott returned he asked each to indicate which ad he remembered.  The replies put the Hart, Schaffner & Marx ad far in the lead.

Though Schaffner was still skeptical, he agreed to give the ad further tests.  As a result, the herald on horseback was adopted as a trademark and became part of the history of American advertising and merchandising for them.

The leap from trademarks to psychotherapy might be regarded as a big one.  But there is a bridge between them—psychology—and Scott knew his way well across that bridge and experimented extensively in psychotherapy.

Prof.  Coe had for several years followed the practice of hypnotizing students to illustrate a striking phase of mental capacity and activity.  Soon, after Scott became an instructor in psychology, Coe induced him to carry through class demonstrations in hypnosis.  Scott was hesitant.  But he had seen Coe conduct such demonstrations and realized that all that was required was self-confidence and an understanding of the basic nature of the performance.  He tried it, and it worked.

In the course of a 50-minute class period he would hypnotize four students.  The premedics especially were impressed with the experiment.  Not infrequently they would induce hypnosis on a fellow student, and then find themselves unable to bring him out of it.  As a result, Scott often was aroused from his sleep to rush across the campus to bring a student out of his trance.

A letter from Prof. James C. Bonbright of Columbia University refers to this phase of Scott's classroom procedure.  It also recalls incidents that cast light on his personality and character.  He wrote: "While I knew him as a professor only after my freshman year in Liberal Arts (my graduation year was 1913), 1 knew both him and his brother, Prof.  John Scott, during my boyhood, since both of them were friends of my father (Prof.  Daniel Bonbright).
 "Early in the 1900s, while I was spending the summer with Prof.  George A. Coe, then head of the philosophy and psychology department at Northwestern, Prof.  Scott came to Prof.  Coe's camp at Lonely Lake, Ontario, for a week's visit.
 "The express train on which he undertook to reach the 'jumping-off place' for our camp, a little station called Echo Bay, was not scheduled to stop there; and the conductor told Dr. Scott that he would stop the train if Dr. Scott would sign a statement to the effect that he was a doctor of medicine making an emergency call.
 "It was characteristic of the man that he refused to sign the statement, preferring the discomfort and inconvenience of a much longer wagon ride to camp from a more distant railroad point.
 "My other chief recollection of that visit is that Dr. Scott, though a novice at fishing, brought in more bass than all the rest of us put together.
 "Because of Dr. Scott's rare and magnetic qualities as a teacher, I almost decided to become a professional psychologist after attending his general course.  On graduation, I asked his advice about places for postgraduate work in this field, fully expecting him to mention one or more German universities.  Much to my surprise he told me that, while a trip to Germany would be most interesting, I could get better graduate work in psychology by going to Columbia University.  There I went, although the New York atmosphere led me to shift my interest over to economics.
 "Of course you know that Dr. Scott became an expert hypnotist in the course of his career as a psychologist.  I surmise that he learned the technique, in part at least, from Prof.  Coe.  No doubt Dr. Scott could recall ... hazardous episodes in the student life at Northwestern in which he helped to rescue students from their folly in experimenting with hypnosis.  I well recall his warning to his class, with which he introduced all of his lectures and demonstrations in hypnotism, that for a novice to attempt hypnosis is as dangerous as if he were to experiment with ether anaesthesia.
 "As his subjects for his annual demonstration of hypnosis, Dr. Scott would select premedical students, believing that they would be most likely to benefit by first-hand experience.  The most striking phenomenon, from the point of view of his class in ihe big auditorium at Old College, was the responses of the various subjects to post-hypnotic suggestion.
 "After returning to their seats in the classroom, following their experience on the stage, they would proceed to do just what Dr. Scott had suggested to them-smooth their hair, open a window, walk down the aisle and back, etc.-without any apparent awareness of their motivation.  The laughter throughout the classroom puzzled and amazed them. . . "

It was probably the premedics, discussing Scott's experiments, who influenced physicians at the North Shore Health Resort to consult him in treating medical cases.  In his collaboration with physicians he placed as many as 40 patients under hypnosis and then helped bring about their recovery by psychological suggestions and re-education.

After his experiences at the health resort, Dr. Scott rounded out his contribution to the field in a paper he read before the Evanston branch of the Chicago Medical Society.  This paper, published in the Illinois Medical journal in May, 1909, and subsequently brought out in pamphlet form, shows conclusively Scott was a pioneer in psychosomatic medicine before that designation was ever coined.  Here is an excerpt from the booklet:

Mental perversions or exaggerations, which cause disease or hinder recovery, are not to be thought of as independent of bodily conditions.  The sick mind is usually found in a sick body.  The normal body is usually found with a normal mind, but such is not always the case.  Occasionally the mind seems peculiarly clear in sickness of the body, and occasionally the unsound mind is found in a well body.  In general we do well to assume a parallelism between the mind and the body at least as far as the nervous system is concerned.

In practically all cases, if, indeed, not in all, we are safest in assuming that the individual is to be considered and not his body nor his mind alone.  As in health so in disease, the relationship of the mind and body is to be kept in view.  The classification of symptoms is simplified.

There is nothing peculiar or magical in the action of mind in producing or curing disease, but in sickness as well as in health the action of the mind is important.  We cannot classify, with certainty, cases in which psychotherapy is the only curative factor to be considered, nor cases in which psychotherapy has no place.  It is merely a matter of degree.  In many diseases it has a place, in exceptional cases it has practically the exclusive power, in other exceptional cases it has perhaps no place at all.

Cases are not, therefore, understood by classifying them into particular pigeon holes, but by comprehending the case in its relation to the normal action of which the present case is a perversion or exaggeration.  It can be understood, too, only when the relative importance of the bodily and the mental factors involved is appreciated.  This fact makes psychotherapy one of the most difficult, and perhaps the most difficult, of all forms of therapy.  Cases do not admit of mechanical classification and routine treatment.

In ordinary cases the usual forms of persuasion are sufficient.  A good, sensible talk, a sympathetic attitude, the appearance of confidence in handling the case, an apparent assumption that the case is well in hand-these and kindred forces are the most potent factors in psychotherapy.  You all use these, and the longer you live the greater importance you give to such treatments.  Success in medicine is dependent as much on the skillful use of these things as on scientific knowledge.  Without discussing these ordinary methods, we turn at once to the devices which are and must be resorted to because the simpler methods are inadequate.

In these extreme cases, the methods employed in psychotherapy are all directed to distracting the mind from its injurious habits, attitudes or ideas.  This distraction is then followed by suggestions which lead to healthful habits, attitudes or thoughts.  The distraction is secured in one of two ways: First, and mainly, by securing a somnolent condition in which the mind is less persistent in holding on to unhealthful conditions.  The second method is that of excitement, in which the mind is thrown into an unusual condition, and hence is more easily distracted than would be possible in the normal condition.  As stated, the drowsy somnolent condition is the favorite one for the working of psychotherapy.

In apparent contrast with the devices of relaxation stand the methods which by means of some excitement get the subject out of his ruts and compel him to give his attention to things other than his afflictions.  When his mind has been thus distracted, helpful suggestions may be given.  The working of excitement in banishing pain is very well recognized.  Soldiers receiving wounds in the heat of battle ordinarily do not feel the pain of wounds.  In athletic contests the participants are almost immune from pain.  When in college I was playing an exciting game of football.  After the game was over and the excitement had ceased I discovered that one of my fingers was either broken or badly dislocated.  During the excitement there was a complete inhibition of pain.

The excitement attendant upon entering the dentist's office is frequently sufficient to cause a tooth to cease aching. When you enter the sickroom, the excitement of the event is sometimes enough to stop the patient's suffering.  The paralytic gets up and flees from the burning house.  The chronic invalid arises in an emergency and continues to perform the normal daily tasks.  The defeated army becomes afflicted with diseases from which the victorious army is immune.

The fact that excitement may banish pain is taken advantage of in various forms of psychotherapy.  When the patient becomes thoroughly excited, he ceases to feel his pains, and hence is in a condition to receive the suggestion that he is completely cured.  The result may be permanent, or, when the excitement is ceased, the poor unfortunate may "lose his faith."

All devices in psychotherapy from Christian Science to placebos have the common function of causing the perverted mind to let slip its perversions.  Whether this is done by producing a state of drowsiness, or by an exciting distraction, the difference is immaterial.  In selecting devices I should have no hesitation in selecting the most effectual, even though it should prove to be a pink pill or a harmless surgical operation.  In extreme cases the ordinary placebos are inadequate, and more difficult devices have to be employed.

In treating the cases which you physicians of the vicinity have sent to me for treatment I have employed hypnosis, hypnoidization, relaxation, persuasion, excitement and a lengthy process of re-education.  I have employed hypnosis in a relatively large number of instances, because I assume they were cases which you had diagnosed as requiring hypnosis, and they were, therefore, exceptional cases and demanded exceptional treatment.

All methods or devices of psychotherapy have a common purpose and that is to get the patient out of his mental rut and then to present the helpful suggestions.  Whether the device is normal persuasion, relaxation or excitement, the distinctions are immaterial.  There is a striking similarity among all the devices, and the more we study them the more they appear alike, even though each is assumed by its advocates to be fully differentiated from all others.

Certain of the muscles of the body seem to be entirely beyond our control, but upon more careful examination we find that this is not true.  Some years ago I was working in a psychological laboratory and trying to find out how a subject's heart action was affected by pleasure and displeasure.  The subject always produced the results which he had reason to expect.  I then dropped out the pleasing and the displeasing stimuli and had him imagine an accelerated heart beat.  The acceleration followed immediately.  The corresponding results followed the imaginary retardation.

I was narrating this incident to a doctor friend.  The friend said that he had even greater control over the beating of his heart and that he could cause his to stop beating entirely for a considerable length of time.  I doubted his statement till he demonstrated it to me.

In psychotherapy the control of muscles is certainly not of greater importance than the secretion of glands.  It is often taken for granted that such secretions are wholly independent of our wills.  That such is not the case is evident to us all.  Secretion from the salivary glands is one of the essential factors for the proper digestion of food.  I do not know definitely just where the nervous current originates along which path it travels, or how it affects the gland or how the glands act.  I am as ignorant of all this as I am of the physics involved in the movement of my hands.

It is for me sufficient if I can cause the hand to move when needed and the salivary glands to act when occasion arises.  I know how I may cause these glands to act.  If I concentrate my mind on the beauty of a ripe peach, of its delicate coloring and its luscious taste and aroma, if I think of a gastronomic symphony in which this peach is the climax, I find that my salivary glands have been stimulated to activity.  I express it by saying that it makes my mouth water.

Recent experiments have shown that the secretion of gastric juice is also subject to mental control in similar ways.  I am not only able thus to stimulate the action of these glands, but I know that I must control my mental process wisely or under certain conditions a lack of secretion will result.  Thus if I am worried or anxious during the process of eating, the secretion of the glands is inhibited and I am likely to have trouble.  The digestion of food is, in part, determined by the mental attitude of the patient.  Skepticism and worry are followed by indigestion, but religious faith and optimism are favoring conditions for the proper assimilation of food.
A very momentous causal factor in health and sickness, in producing and curing disease, is the action of the involuntary muscles and of the glands of the body.  As typical examples of such we have considered the muscles connected with the circulation of the blood and two of the glands connected with digestion.  These are but typical examples.  In these examples it is clear that the mind of the patient is a grave factor, and if he gets into bad mental habits in these particulars he may produce disease; if he then is cured of his habits he will greatly increase his chances of recovery.

I am a profound believer in the power of the mind in causing and curing disease .... For the controlling of this mental force the physician should be best equipped.  The special necessity for the physician in all such instances is made obvious when we consider that the mental and the physical are not two distinct things, but two aspects of the unitary individual.  The layman who assumes to treat disease without the prescription of a physician is performing a dangerous act.  In certain instances it may turn out luckily, but it is not to be looked upon with approval even in such cases.  Where the physician's training and powers are in other lines, he may be justified in calling to his assistance persons who have given special attention to the processes of reeducating the patient out of the bad habits back into habits of mind which are productive of health.  In treatment such as this nothing peculiar, mysterious or weird is being accomplished.

To teach a patient to control his thinking at night and cure insomnia might be as difficult as to teach him the binomial theorem in mathematics.  Occasionally a man may be taught a thing in a moment, and perhaps there are instances in which patients may be healed instantaneously by psychotherapy.  The one case would he as wonderful as the other, and in each we would assume that the results were not very great or that the person had completed the preliminary stages and needed assistance merely in completing the process.  The results secured in psychotherapy are not different from other results and they are not secured by different methods.  We can only understand psychotherapy as we see its workings in the light of other and better known things.

Cases should be diagnosed by the aid of the science of psychology, and the prescription should be based upon a knowledge of the laws of education.  Cases are ordinarily not wholly mental cases.  The mind and the body are both likely to run a parallel course.  The diagnosis, therefore, needs the skill of a physician.  The treatment is usually not only educational, but other forms of therapy should be used simultaneously.  Psychotherapy is not a form of therapy apart, but is one of the subsidiary forms of therapy, all forms of which should be at the command of the physician.  Although psychotherapy may remain subsidiary, it is still today and always has been very important.  The future will possibly see no waning of its power, but we all trust that it will gradually pass out of the hands of the unworthy and become a recognized part of the service rendered by our physicians.

Such excursions into the field of psychology as applied to medicine were a characteristic pattern with Scott.  It took him into the field of advertising, salesmanship, personnel, management, and public speaking.

Characteristically, Scott will say little about his methods or success as a teacher.  Here, however, is an observation from Edwin G. Booz, one of Scott's most brilliant students and now head of Booz, Allen and Hamilton, nationally known management counselors.
 " ‘Prexy,' as we all call him, made the biggest contribution to my life of all the 100 teachers I encountered in my life.  Thank God for this great man who has contributed so much to all of his students and to the world.  What we need are more teachers like Walter Dill Scott.
 "He called students by their first names, took a personal interest in each student, and never held a student up to ridicule.  Speaking simply on difficult subjects, he drove his points home by concrete illustration and application."

In addition Booz stressed Scott's even temper, his remarkable ability to win confidence, the naturalness and simplicity with which he received all who came to him, his helpfulness in introducing students to businessmen, and his popularity as indicated by the fact that the students several times voted him the most popular professor on the campus.

Two other former students of Walter Dill Scott who supplied closeup impressions of him were the eminent anthropologist, Fay-Cooper Cole, and his wife, Mabel Cook Cole, a distinguished anthropologist and writer in her own right.
 "Both of us agree," Cole wrote in 1950 from Santa Barbara, Calif., "that as a teacher Prof.  Scott was 'different.' He was one of a very few members of the faculty of his time who tried to get his students away from rote learning.  He sought to stimulate independent research and thinking.  I believe he was the first in his field to put beginning students into laboratory work.  He was kindly, patient and always interested in the individual case."

Cole, who subsequently rose to the chairmanship of the anthropology department at the University of Chicago, relates this experience as a teacher at Northwestern in the early days of Scott's regime:
 "When I inaugurated anthropology at Northwestern I asked for a conference with him (Scott) and the dean.  At that time things were beginning to get hot between the fundamentalists and evolutionists and I didn't wish to embarrass the administration, yet I knew I must teach human evolution even in introducing anthropology.
 "When I explained the situation, Dr. Scott said in effect: 'Cole, we have full confidence in you.  We don't wish to control the content of your courses.  You must judge what is necessary and what should be presented.'
  "I left feeling assured that I would have his backing as long as I presented the facts as I saw them.  Of course, neither of us meant to use the classroom for propaganda."

Another of Dr. Scott's outstanding students was Harry L. Wells, who has served as vice-president and business manager of Northwestern ever since Scott persuaded him to accept that office in 1934.

Direct, simple, and friendly in approach, he is a great admirer of his old "boss" and friend, Walter Dill Scott, with whom he was associated for 30 years.

He speaks of Scott with deep affection, much as one would of his own father.  "Scott has the natural ability to win the respect of all manner of people," he said.
 "Even now whenever he appears on a public platform at Northwestern, he is the one who gets the big ovation.
 "Scott, during all the time he was president, never once, to my knowledge, failed to encourage a member of the faculty who came along with a creative idea.  And he was never too tired to attend student meetings.  Scott often attended as many as ten meetings a day.
 "As a teacher, Scott never held any student up to ridicule; he never made any fuss even if a student obviously had not studied or prepared an assignment.  Nevertheless, he found ways of making such a student realize that he had been remiss m his responsibility.  The next time the same student was called upon he generally did all right."
 From Edward H. Stromberg, the dynamic director of publicity and publications at Northwestern for the last 20 years, came this story:

It had been the practice for each school at Northwestern to issue its own catalogue.  Stromberg and his assistant, sharply aware that this was wasteful and impractical, strongly favored the issuance of an all-inclusive catalogue.  But the deans of the various schools seemed reluctant to give up their "separateness."

Stromberg took the matter up with Scott.  It was agreed to call a meeting at which the deans would present their arguments for separate catalogues, and Stromberg and his assistant would present the case in favor of the unified catalogue.  After the discussion both sides were made to understand, Scott would decide the procedure for the future.

With considerable feeling the deans presented their arguments.  Then Stromberg and his assistant spoke up for the unified catalogue.  Scott said nothing-until the clock in a nearby tower struck five.  Then he pulled out his watch, glanced at it, and remarked casually, "Gentlemen, I guess it's time to adjourn."

Next day, when they met on the campus, Scott said to Stromberg, "Well, you certainly put it over on them yesterday."

Stromberg, convinced that Scott was on his side and sure that the deans had built a bad case for themselves, issued a single catalogue for the entire university.  No one objected, but Stromberg is still puzzled by Scott's manner of handling the situation.

This story elicited a knowing smile from Wells.  "There are times when you may do harm by an unnecessary word," he observed, "and few people realize that as well as Scott."