With mental and emotional disorders as the cause of half of all human disability, the writer considers it important that each community have a mental hygiene center where preventive information is disseminated and where early assistance may be obtained. It is now fairly well established that at least one third of all the problems presented to the better child guidance clinics are solved and that another third are improved. Two brief case histories from the Indiana Mental Hygiene Service show how psychotic patients who otherwise would have needed institutional care were adequately supported by clinical psychiatric treatment over a period of four or five months. A mental hygiene clinic unit consisting of one psychiatrist, two psychiatric social workers and a clerk will serve a population of about 100,000. Only twenty-two of the state and territorial health departments have any type of mental hygiene activity. A special mental hygiene department in each state health service and a mental hygiene unit in each community health department are needed for an effective program.