INTRODUCTORY NOTE

For several decades, George W. Hahn's 1955 classic account of "The History and Philosophy of the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia" has been essential reading for every new or prospective or reflective member of the Angle Society. It is here reproduced in its original form, as published privately by the Society in 1956, with only minor typographical improvements. Wendell Wylie's salient preface for the original essay is retained in this electronic edition, as are the references to our Society under its former name, the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia.

Enjoy this inspiring historical portrait of the Angle Society. It is a proud heritage.

Sheldon Peck
Secretary
The Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists
The E. H. Angle Education and Research Foundation
August 2001

When Dr. Hahn prepared this paper it was with the understanding that it would be presented orally at the Twenty-Fifth Reunion Meeting of the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia and that the matter would end there. To have planned otherwise would have been to defeat the original purpose of getting a frank and revealing account of the Society's growth. Dr. Hahn would have doubtless prepared a good paper had publication been a part of the original bargain, but it would not have been this paper.

Read as it was at a breakfast meeting on the first day, it set an inspired level for the entire meeting which was sustained until adjournment three days later. Those of us who heard the paper of course sought to learn whether or not it would be published. While we had to concede the wisdom of the original bargain, we avidly sought an honorable way of abrogating it.

Using the good offices of The Angle Orthodontist to print this paper for distribution only to members of the Society is a happy solution. It avoids the abridgment which routine publication would require, and it preserves the candor which makes this contribution a classic in the archives of the Angle Society.

Dr. Hahn graduated from the Angle School in Pasadena in 1922 and has been in the exclusive practice of orthodontia ever since. In 1925 he joined the faculty of the University of California where he had previously received his dental training, and he has maintained continuously this connection as an orthodontic teacher.

In 1938 it became desirable to relieve the Secretary of the Angle Society of the responsibilities of being Treasurer as well, and so Dr. Hahn became the first Treasurer of the Angle Society. He retained this office until 1953, at which time he became Secretary. This account of Dr. Hahn's contributions to the profession could be extended indefinitely, but for our present purpose it is perhaps enough to point out his thirty years as a teacher of young men and his continuing service to the Angle Society from the very day in which he helped to bring it into being.

Wendell L. Wylie
University of California College of Dentistry
San Francisco, California
[1956]

by GEORGE W. HAHN, DDS, Berkeley, California

Read at the Twenty-fifth-Anniversary Biennial Meeting of the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists, Chicago, November 6, 1955.

When your program chairman invited me to open the Twenty-fifth Anniversary Meeting with an address on the history and philosophy of the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia, I was happy to accept for several reasons. As a former student of Dr. Angle and as a charter member of the Society, who had the rare privilege of knowing Dr. Angle for the ten years preceding his death, the subject appealed to me. It also seemed a most appropriate occasion to put in writing a short history of our society for the benefit of the younger men who were not so fortunate as to have enjoyed that association.

The present Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia was brought into this world not as a newborn infant but rather as the result of the reorganization of the society of like name which preceded it. This rebirth took place at the Lake Shore Club here in Chicago on November l7, 1930, a quarter of a century ago. We are meeting here today in commemoration of that occasion.

One cannot, one should not recount the history of the Angle Society without some reference to the man after whom the society was named, a man whose influence on orthodontic practice and teaching is greater today than it was at any time during his life. He was a man of intelligence, sensitivity and perseverance whose goal was perfection and with which there could be no compromise.

Dr. Angle was born on a farm in Pennsylvania in 1855, just one hundred years ago, the fifth of seven children. In that family money was scarce and self-reliance and frugality were among the virtues he learned early. Although never an outstanding student in "book-learnin" as he called it, he showed a marked ability to improve and
* The Society officially changed its name to the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists in 1967.

Being at heart an inventor, the field of general dentistry offered little at that time for one interested in original mechanical investigation. Although the dental curriculum permitted only two lectures in orthodontia, Angle became keenly interested in the subject and even then had visions that some day he might be able to devote his time exclusively to it. In 1880 he invented his "first real appliance" the jack and traction screw which marked the beginning of his life work.

In 1885 at the age of thirty Dr. Angle was appointed to the chair of orthodontia at the University of Minnesota where he began the attempt to bring order out of orthodontic chaos. After ten or twelve years in this and other schools he proved to his own satisfaction what he believed all of his life to be a scientific truth, viz: "That Nature through her own power strives to build the human denture in accordance with a well-defined pattern which we call the normal pattern and varies only as each human being varies from every other human-and that the establishment of normal occlusion of the teeth should be the highest aim of the orthodontist." In 1892 he gave up general practice and became the first man to specialize in the teaching and practice of orthodontia. For years he tried to teach orthodontia in the dental schools as part of the dental curriculum but found that it was a waste of both his and the students' time. In 1900 he opened his first private school for the teaching of orthodontia. This was in St. Louis and among his early students were Dewey, Pullen, Mershon, McCoy, Oppenheim, Weinberger, Fred Noyes and a host of others whose names have been familiar in orthodontia for the last half-century. In 1907 Dr. Angle moved the school to New York and in 1908 to New London, Connecticut, where it held regular sessions until 1911. It was here that he gave up the practice of orthodontia and devoted himself to study, teaching, and the development of better and more refined orthodontic appliances.

In 1916 Dr. and Mrs. Angle decided to make their permanent home in California where they could avoid the hardships of the Eastern winters. He felt that he had given enough of his life to teaching in addition to which his physician had told him that his life expectancy was not great. He planned to spend the remainder of his life in the revision of Malocclusion of the Teeth and in the development of newer and more efficient orthodontic mechanisms.

About a year after they were settled in their new home in Pasadena, a young man by the name of James Angle [no relation] called upon them. The young man had recently completed one of Dewey's courses in San Francisco and wished to meet the man whose name he bore and who was known as the father of his chosen profession. He stayed a year, and finally he too made his home in California. This was the beginning of the Edward H. Angle College of Orthodontia in California.

The first classes in the new school were small, limited to three students, which was the capacity of the room in the Angle home set aside as a combined laboratory and study. This room is reproduced in detail in the department of orthodontics at the University of Illinois.* From this little room came men whose names are familiar to all of you, Atkinson, Stallard, Linn, Wilkinson from Australia, and others, some of whom are no longer with us. Feeling that the opportunity so freely given them should be made available to a greater number, the men who had completed the course approached Dr. Angle with a plan to build a school building on the lot he owned adjoining his property. No funds were solicited but each student assumed the responsibility of donating the fee for his twentieth case toward the building fund. The first class entered the new school in 1922. To help in the teaching, those who had previously completed the course spent a portion of their time at the school. The last class was accepted in 1925; when this class graduated Dr. Angle felt the strain of teaching was too great to continue further and the school was closed. The building is still there, in outward appearance the same, but after Dr. Angle's death the interior was remodeled as a home for Mother Angle.

There is no figure in history whose memory could have lived had it rested only on the personal relationships with others of the same generation. We do not remember Martin Luther or Abraham Lincoln in the true physical sense. What makes us akin to them lies in the bond we feel through the principles and ideals they taught and stood for.

We are not here today as students of a man; we are perpetuating this organization as a group that believes in the idealism which Angle held and taught and lived. This ideal was perfection, perfection not only in the basic mechanics which enter into an orthodontist's daily work, but perfection in everything a man thinks and lives and
* Dr. Angle's Pasadena workroom is now a permanent exhibit in the History of Medicine Division at the Smithsonian Museum of Science and Technology, Washington, D.C.

It is interesting to note that wherever Angle conducted a school those who had completed the course more or less spontaneously organized themselves into what today would be called continuation study groups. These eventually became official societies with officers, bylaws and the rest of the organizational details that every society feels is essential to its progress and permanence. The graduates of Dr. Angle's first school in St. Louis, in 1900, organized the world's first orthodontic society, the official name being "The Society of Orthodontists". In 1902 the word "American" was added and it became "The American Society of Orthodontists". This society of eleven men was the embryo which has developed into the present American Association of Orthodontists, now a representative group of some fifteen hundred members. It is interesting to us that this first orthodontic society established a quarterly magazine known as "The American Orthodontist". It was financed by a contribution of one hundred dollars from each member of the organization-a considerable amount in those days.

In 1909 the graduates of the New York and New London schools formed a society and named it the Eastern Association of Graduates of the Angle School of Orthodontia. There were sixteen charter members. This society conducted regular meetings for thirty years. In 1939, feeling that their mission had been accomplished they voted to adjourn "sine die." During the course of its existence this society had as many as sixty-six members.

In 1913 Dr. Angle was invited by a group of his former students practicing on the Pacific Coast to give a two-day clinic on what was then his latest appliance, the Pin and Tube, or as he liked to call it, a "Bone Growing Appliance." This was the first official gathering of Angle graduates west of the Mississippi and after the completion of the course they decided to form a permanent organization which they named "The Pacific Coast Society of Graduates of the Angle School". In 1917 the eligibility requirements for membership were broadened and the name of the society was changed to the Pacific Coast Society of Orthodontists, and as such it has become a component of the American Association of Orthodontists.

By 1922 there were sufficient graduates of the Pasadena School to form a working organization and the Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia was born, with a membership of eleven graduates of that school supplemented by a few graduates of the schools in St. Louis and New London. Among the latter were Dr. Strang of Bridgeport, Drs. Wilson and Smith of Pasadena, Dr. Frank Gough of Brooklyn, and Dr. Frederick B. Noyes of Chicago. This society met regularly, its membership being supplemented by graduates of the annual classes in Pasadena. At the time of Dr. Angle's death in 1930 there were forty-six members. This society was unique in many ways; there were no officers, save a secretary, and there were no bylaws. Like the school, the society was run by Angle and woe to him who dared voice a contrary opinion. The meeting of this society held in New London, Connecticut in June of 1928 was the last meeting that Dr. Angle ever attended. With his passing the society as such ceased to exist.

On Monday, November 17, 1930, twenty-two of the members of the former Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontia met at the Lake Shore Athletic Club in Chicago. The purpose of the meeting as expressed by the chairman was, "to find some way to carry forward Dr. Angle's ideals of Orthodontia." It was decided to reorganize the society which was functioning at the time of Dr. Angle's passing. A central organization was set up with four component societies, the Eastern, Midwestern, Northern California and Southern California. The Northwest component was accepted as such in March 1947.

It was at this meeting in 1930 that The Angle Orthodontist was born. Mrs. Angle was named Editor-in-Chief, and Dr. Frank Gough of Brooklyn was appointed Business Manager. The first official address before this society was given by Charles Tweed, his subject, "The History and Revision of the Arizona Law." The first scientific paper was presented by Allan Brodie, his subject, "The New Mechanism." Since its organization there have been ten meetings of the Central Body: 1930-Chicago, 1932-Pasadena, 1936-Del Monte, California, 1938- New York; 1939 - Chicago, 1947 - Santa Barbara, 1949 -French Lick, Indiana, 1951-Sky Top, Pennsylvania, 1953-Victoria, B.C. Due to the interference of World War II no meetings were held between 1939 and 1947. There were forty-six charter members including Dr. and Mrs. Angle, and Professor Wuerpel. Twenty-one of the practicing members were graduates of Dr. Angle's schools prior to the formation of the college in Pasadena and twenty-three were graduates of the College in Pasadena. Of the forty-six charter members only twenty-nine are on the rolls of the society today.

Now what have we as a society accomplished these past twenty-five years to justify our existence? What has been our contribution to orthodontia? In Education? In Research? In Clinical Practice?

EDUCATION

With the closing of the college in Pasadena there was little opportunity open to those who were seeking a thorough orthodontic training. Foreseeing this need and realizing that there would be such a demand, Dr. Frederick B. Noyes, one of Dr. Angle's earlier students and then Dean of the dental school of the University of Illinois, persuaded Allan Brodie to accept the challenge and appointed him chairman of the department, giving him free rein in the organization of a graduate division of orthodontics. Dr. Brodie was a member of the last class in the Pasadena school and I am happy to have this opportunity to read to you from Mother Angle's story of the California school: "The last class was the one which included a man whose name in orthodontia will never die. You all know him, you all honor him, and I am sure that you will all agree with me that if it had not been for Dr. Brodie's sacrificial taking up of the torch where Dr. Angle laid it down, orthodontia would-well where would the science have been today?"

At the University of Illinois the discipline, the vision and the idealism of Dr. Angle have been maintained as nowhere else in the world. As of this writing there are twenty-eight graduates of this school teaching in thirteen dental colleges in the United States and seven in six foreign countries. Thus as these teachers train others in their own schools and as future generations of teachers succeed them the influence of Angle goes on. Although the personal touch may wear

Of the more than two hundred and fifty members of this society, both regular and affiliate, seventy hold teaching appointments. Two are Deans of dental schools in State universities, nine hold administrative appointments such as chairmen of departments, chiefs of staff, or directors of graduate courses, and fifty-nine hold teaching positions ranking from full professorships down to the lowest rung of the academic ladder. In addition to those who are associated with regularly established dental schools we must recognize the influence of men who have acted as preceptors as well as others who have been responsible for short intensive courses in specialized subjects; they have helped many men to a better understanding of the requirements of modern orthodontia. There are many among our members who have engaged in such activities but the one who has contributed the most in time and energy over the years is Bob Strang.

Future progress in orthodontia will be due to improvement in thinking rather than in mechanics. The requirements for thinking are brains, education and desire, therefore the members of this society should, whenever and wherever possible, take advantage of the opportunities that are offered today to associate themselves with schools interested in graduate instruction. I am sure you will find a warm welcome. The resolution recently adopted by the American Association of Orthodontists, raising the requirements for membership to a minimum of fifteen hundred hours of graduate or post-graduate study or its equivalent, will force many of the dental schools to reorganize their departments. The opportunity will be there if we are only willing to make the sacrifice. You can rest assured that the reward will be worth the effort.

RESEARCH

From the the time of Chapin A. Harris, to the formation of this society, a matter of some ninety-odd years, research in orthodontia was largely a matter of improvement in orthodontic appliances and methods of moving teeth. Although there were numerous investigators and investigations in the field of facial and cranial development, etiology of malocclusion and other subjects that had a bearing on orthodontic procedures, these were in large measure a matter of expounding certain preconceived theories based upon personal opinion rather than upon scientific data as we recognize it today.

The introduction of the cephalometer by Broadbent in 1931 has placed orthodontic research on a sound scientific basis, and has for the first time made possible the accurate study of the growing child. This extraordinarily fruitful contribution has in the few short years of its life amply demonstrated its value to orthodontia. First introduced as a research instrument, it has now become a valuable supplement to plaster models and intraoral roentgenograms in clinical practice. The value of serial headfilms was quickly realized by the better thinkers in the profession and this society can be proud of the contribution of its members. Broadbent's original work on the "Face of the Normal Child" and Brodie's classic "On the Growth Pattern of the Human Head from the 3rd Month to the 8th Year of Life" were among the earliest contributions. These were followed by Down's "Variations in Facial Relationships," Thompson's work on the "Functional Analysis of Occlusion," Wylie's "Assessment of Anteroposterior Dysplasia," and Margolis' "Basic Facial Pattern and its Application in Clinical Orthodontics." Later came Alton Moore, Bob Ricketts, Tom Graber, and many others until at the present time orthodontic research can be truthfully said to be on a par with that of any of the allied healing sciences. Continuing progress in orthodontic research will come from the younger men and they must be the kind of men described by Angle in the announcement of the Pasadena School: "What we want, what orthodontia sorely needs, are earnest, honest, studious young men of energy, ambition and initiative, and possessed (above all else) of the ability to reason."

CLINICAL PRACTICE

As with research and teaching, the improvements in the quality of clinical practice in the last twenty-five years far surpass the efforts of all of the previous years since the regulating of teeth was first attempted. We of the older generation, who were in practice before 1930, shudder when we go through our earlier records and examine some of the cases we presented with pride. As I scan the roster of the Angle Society, I see the names of the finest clinical orthodontists the world has ever known, men whose excellence of clinical performance is surpassed by none. What has made them worthy of such a statement? Surely not the mere placing of appliances and the development of a charming personality. Men with such limited qualifications can be found in any city or hamlet in the country. It is the desire of "well-trained intelligent minds and well-disciplined fingers" to produce nothing short of the best. It is the result of improved teaching and the application of modern research to clinical practice.

It is an amazing commentary on the competence of our members that one may refer a patient to an orthodontist in a distant city

Space and time do not permit naming all those who have contributed to the teaching and progress in clinical orthodontics, however, I cannot refrain from mentioning one whose effort we all recognize. There is no one in this society or in the field of orthodontics who has contributed more in "sweat and tears" to maintain and advance the Angle standards of clinical teaching and practice than has Charles Tweed. I am sure some of you do not subscribe to his theories of treatment but there are hundreds of men in the profession today who have become better men and more competent orthodontists because of his example and his teachings. There are a host of others who have contributed to a lesser extent, each according to his potential and his ability; Hayes Nance, the Terwilliger brothers, Robert Murray, Reed Holdaway, Emory Fraser, Roscoe Keedy, to name but a few.

There are no doubt some outside this organization who feel that the men in the Angle Society are over-rated as clinical orthodontists. To these I suggest a visit to the display room of the American Board of Orthodontics, which is part of the annual meeting of the American Association of Orthodontists and in which is exhibited by invitation each year, the best of the previous year's cases. You will be proud of the work of our younger members. In passing I might add that the American Board of Orthodontics is to be commended for its efforts to advance the standards of orthodontic practice and promote original research. It is fully deserving of our unqualified support. An American Board diploma should hang in the office of every eligible member of this Society and we could in the future well consider this as one of the aims of the Angle Society.

Before leaving the subject of clinical orthodontics, I want to insert one word of caution. There is a developing tendency in orthodontia today to reduce the child to a common average. The abuse of cephalometric analysis and preconceived ideas of what constitutes a well-balanced face and the attempt to fit every face regardless of size, form or inherited characteristics to that pattern is in large measure responsible for this attitude. The child is an individual and should be evaluated as such rather than attempting to fit him to a common mold. This requires more from an orthodontist than the ability to compare photographs, make tracings, read angles, and use numbers as a basis for an orthodontic diagnosis or to fashion appliances for the movement of teeth.

THE ANGLE ORTHODONTIST

The Angle Orthodontist was established and brought into being by action of this society in 1930 as a living memorial to Dr. Angle. For seventeen years it was the only publication devoted exclusively to orthodontia. The present journal of the American Association of Orthodontists was originally known as the American Journal of Orthodontia and Oral Surgery and until 1948 was the official organ for both specialties. I would like to recall, and it may be of interest to our younger members to know that in 1937 discussions were held with the American Association of Orthodontists relative to The Angle Orthodontist becoming the official organ of that body. No mutual agreement could be reached and the matter was dropped.

As a scientific publication The Angle Orthodontist is preeminent, outstanding in its field. The quality of the material have made it a magazine sought after by students and research workers both here and abroad, where it commands the greatest respect. The fact that it has never had to resort to the acceptance of advertising in its pages has allowed a flexibility of policy by the editors and business manager enjoyed by few other publications. This has been possible only through sacrifice on the part of those who have acted in these capacities, as well as through the financial generosity of our members.

Since the Journal was established we have been blessed with the following editors:

1930- 1936 Robert Strang
1936-1949 Harold Noyes
1949-1953 Wendell Wylie
1953-1955 Arthur Lewis and Morse Newcomb, joint editors.

These men have given freely of their time, energy and ability to make of The Angle Orthodontist the successful publication that it is today and of which this society and all orthodontists may well be proud.

During this past quarter of a century we have had only two business managers: Frank Gough, who served from 1930 to 1937, and Si Kloehn, who has held the position for the past eighteen years. Dr. Gough organized the financing of the Journal on a sound basis. During the first few years, when the number of subscribers as well as the society membership was small, the going was at times rugged. When Dr. Kloehn took over, the Journal was financially in good shape. I want at this time to express to Dr. Kloehn and his wife, Irma, not only my personal appreciation but that of the entire society for the truly magnificent job he has done as business manager. There is no scientific publication today of which the business-side has been conducted in a more ethical manner, with greater consideration for the editors, subscribers, contributors and printers, than has The Angle Orthodontist under the direction of Si Kloehn. We cannot be too generous in our gratitude.

THE FUTURE OF THE ANGLE SOCIETY

What is the glue, the cementing substance, the bond that brings and holds the members of the society together? Several months ago, I wrote twelve members of this society and asked them two questions. First, why should there be an Angle Society? Second, what does the Angle Society mean to you? These men were selected from among our oldest as well as from our youngest members, from the East and from the West. I wish I could read their letters, but I promised them that their replies would not be made public. Some of them could not express their feelings in words. It was akin to asking a man what faith in God meant to him. I will try to give you a composite interpretation of the replies. "The Angle Society should continue to live because it means there is an ideal over and above the average that is worth living and striving to attain. There is in the society a fellowship, not as the word is commonly used, but a fellowship in which there is no selfishness, no jealousy, no deceit, but an honesty of purpose in which every man is held in that esteem which gives him a feeling of pride tempered by humility. It offers an opportunity for the full and open exchange of knowledge and ideas eagerly offered with nothing held back. It takes one out of the realm and routine of mediocrity which is so common today and into a standard of conduct which makes living and working a pleasure. There is an inspiration that comes from personal contact with men whose object is not self-glorification but a willingness to give freely of what they have learned with only the thought of helping others. It is the maintenance of the ideal of perfection which in our profession originated with Angle and which is rapidly disappearing in the philosophy of present day living and thinking. In the Angle Society there is a feeling of pride in the accomplishments of, or the honors bestowed on a fellow member which creates in each of us a desire to become better orthodontists ourselves."

There is an often used and much abused quotation from Emerson's essay on Self-Reliance, "An institution is the lengthened shadow of a single man." No truer words than these could be applied to the Angle Society, but this society cannot, must not expect to live on memory or tradition. Something more than these must be our inspiration. These can impose fetters that could bind us and keep us down, yet they also can act as a foundation and stimulation to progress in the future. The music of Bach and Mozart would have been dead forever were it not for the living artists who are perpetually reviving their melodies. Pasteur and Koch would have lived in vain but for the every day practitioners through whose activities their teachings are made effective.

The path leading toward the goal of perfection is not a four-lane highway; it is narrow and tortuous and those who have the fortitude to venture upon it must be wary of the crossroads. I am not suggesting that we all attempt to follow the same route. Each must choose his own, for if we live only by imitation we will become as stereotyped as the letters on a typewriter. There will be no new discoveries, no inspiration to adventure into the unknown and progress will cease.

In one of his many philosophical appearances before an Angle Society meeting, Professor Wuerpel made the following statement: "Where conditions are fixed there is no progress. Every new scientific discovery carries in its wake innumerable and undreamed changes. These changes must be met with a flexible philosophy of life, but also we must never forget that fundamentals remain fixed."

We are much too prone in this great and wealthy country of ours to settle back and feel that the mere contribution of money will make for progress. That, my friends, is the easy way out-the side road of the slacker. Were it only a matter of money The Angle Orthodontist could, for the asking, set the standard for the world's scientific publications. Its shelves would be piled high with manuscripts awaiting publication. Real progress comes from the inner urge in a man to do something different, something better than has ever been done before, and this requires both effort and sacrifice.

This society has not sought to assert leadership in the field of orthodontics; leadership does not come for the seeking. Leadership comes to an organization such as this, if it comes at all, because of the devotion of the individuals in that group to maintain a standard above the average. If we have achieved such a position in the profession, and in all modesty I believe we have, there goes with it the responsibility not only to maintain the standards which we have set but to raise them still higher. That responsibility now is shared with the younger men in the organization. That they will meet this challenge rests on the inner urge in each of them to carry on to the full extent of his ability. They are being tried and I am sure they will not be found wanting. What we have accomplished in the past twenty-five years justifies our strong dedication to the principles upon which this society was founded and which alone can bring about the results which we seek. The opportunity of serving this society is one of the greatest privileges orthodontia has to offer. May those of us who now enjoy that privilege as well as those we may welcome in the future, never forget Angle's ideal of perfection which is so characteristically expressed in the motto by which he lived and which hung on the wall of the school in Pasadena, "There is but one best way."