A Juvenile Delinquent
- Author:
Edward A. Huntington :About: Principal of Special School No. 3, Philadelphia.
On January 8, 190G, Andrew Boyd,1 a boy of eleven years, was transferred, on account of persistent truancy, from a Philadelphia primary school to Special School No. 3, of which I am principal.
Physically the boy was in bad condition. He was poorly flourished; his open mouth and general physiognomy gave rise to the suspicion of the existence of adenoids. An examination by the school physician revealed both enlarged tonsils and adenoid growths in the naso-pliarynx. A deep scar on the skull and the absence of one of his fingers bore testimony to some severe injury in the past.
Mentally, Andrew was retarded or “backward” in development. Although he was eleven years of age, it was necessary to place him in a class doing the work of the second school year.. His mental deficiency was due not only to pedagogical retardation, but also, at least in part, to a physiological arrest of development affecting chiefly the brain. This may have resulted from the presence of the adenoids.
Andrew’s reputation for playing truant was well founded. He was absent the second and fourth days after registration. From January 8th to March 8th he was present but thirteen school sessions out of a total of forty-three. When he appeared at school he was usually accompanied by his mother, who would conclude a rambling and profuse explanation of the boy’s previous absence from school by requesting for trivial reasons that he be dismissed on that day one, two, or even three hours early. The requests, however, were unnecessary, for seldom did he remain throughout the entire session. At some moment when his teacher’s attention was occupied, or during the recess periods, Andrew found a way for stealing out.
Some time after Andrew’s admission to the school Mr. Boyd began to manifest an interest in his son’s condition. Several times he brought him to school. On a number of these occasions Andrew left his father at the front door, passed around the building as if to enter by the boy’s entrance, climbed the rear fence, and disappeared.
1 This name has been chosen to conceal the boy’s identity. (21)
Mr. Boyd volunteered the information that he was most unfortunate in his home life, owing to the habits of his wife. He advised me not to listen to her, and claimed that owing to his wife’s neglect of her duties, the result of drunkenness, it was impossible for him to do what was best for his boy. Home neglect could be inferred from the untidy appearance of both mother and boy, and especially from the odor of the boy’s clothing. The mother’s appearance, as well as that of the boy, seemed to bear out the father’s accusation.
It seemed to me that the first step in the treatment of Andrew’s truancy was the removal of the adenoids with which he was afflicted. I therefore endeavored to explain to Mrs. Boyd the partial dependence of her child’s condition upon the naso-pharyngeal obstruction. I told her that before we could begin to restore him to a normal mental and moral condition it would be necessary to perform a slight operation upon his nose and throat to remove certain growths there which obstructed his breathing and retarded his physical and mental development. I advised her to allow me to send Andrew to a hospital, where a medical specialist would make an examination, and, if it proved to be necessary, his naso-pharynx could be operated upon. I offered to relieve her of all care in the matter if she and her husband would merely consent to the proper treatment. Mrs. Boyd appeared willing, but her husband refused. I am confident that the subsequent history of this boy would have been very different if the school authorities had had sufficient authority to act effectively at this point. As it was, the moral situation had to become acute before the first step was taken to apply the proper treatment.
On March 8th the attendance officer prosecuted Mr. Boyd in the magistrate’s court, and a fine of $2.50 was imposed. This failed to bring about any noticeable improvement in the child’s attendance. From this time until April 10th he attended but three out of a total of twenty-three sessions.
On April 10th Andrew was arrested for stealing shoes from a freight car at Wayne Junction. On this charge he was brought before the Juvenile Court. Since this time (April 10, 1906) he has been under the jurisdiction of the court and in the custody of one of its officers.
When the probation officer to whom the case was referred by the Juvenile Court called upon me for a report on the boy’s character, I described to her his mental and physical condition, and explained the means which I believed must be taken to save the child. She took great interest in the case, and in the Juvenile
Court on May 16th succeeded in having the court consent to an operation. The next morning the newspapers reported the fact in the following manner:
“Tumor Cut Out to Make Bad Boy Good; Court Orders Unique Experiment on an Eleven-Year-Old Thief.”
The probation officer placed the boy in St. Luke’s Hospital, where the operation was successfully performed; but before the wound was healed the boy escaped. On May 29th he was again brought before the Juvenile Court and placed upon three months’ probation. As he now failed to attend school altogether, the probation officer brought him before the court on June 25th, at which time the boy was given a hearing and all those persons interested in the case were present and allowed to contribute evidence. The probation officer, in her address to the court, stated that the mother was a drinking woman and the home no fit place in which to save the child. In my testimony I stated that the operation which had been performed was not in itself a cure, but that it only made mental and moral improvement possible. The next and most important feature of his treatment must be prolonged careful training. I stated that in my opinion this training could not be given in a special school, owing to the child’s persistent truancy and to the disadvantageous home surroundings. Under the existing conditions I recommended to the court that the boy be placed in the House of Refuge, where adequate care and training would be afforded.
Representations were made to the court on the part of those sentimentally interested to the effect that the boy should be permitted to remain at home for the mother’s sake. The decision of the court was that Andrew should remain on probation and in the care of his natural guardians, and it was further determined that if Andrew should fail to attend school every day during the first two weeks of the fall session, ho should then be sent to the House of Refuge. The result of this decision was to place the boy in the custody of two unfit persons, and to allow him to roam the streets during the summer months before the first attempt at training should be made.
In the following September, as the boy appeared but twice during the specified two weeks of the term, he was again brought before the Juvenile Court on September 24th. The father was instructed by the court to file a petition to have the boy placed in the House of Refuge on a charge of incorrigibility, but he failed to comply. At about this time Mrs. Boyd was placed in the House of Correction for drunkenness.
The case was allowed to drift along until October 22d, when Andrew was once more brought before the Juvenile Court. This time the court committed him to a small private farm school near Norristown. He was taken there by the probation officer on October 24th. Two hours after she had started homeward the boy ran away.
This having proved a failure, the child was sent on an order from the court to live with an aunt on York Street. Tie was transferred on November 5th from my school to Special School No. 2, which is located near his aunt’s residence. From November 5th to February 20th Andrew was present twenty-four out of sixty-seven school sessions. The attendance officer reported frequently seeing him loitering around the railroad station at Wayne Junction. He appeared to have deserted his aunt.
On February 20, 1907, the child was again arrested for stealing, and was given a hearing before the Juvenile Court on February 2Gtli. The probation officer again recommended to the court that Andrew be placed in the House of Refuge. The court, however, placed him on thirty days’ probation with the understanding that he live with his aunt on York Street.
On February 23 the attendance officer received instructions from the Chief of the Bureau of Compulsory Education to prosecute Mr. Boyd for the non-attendance of his child at school. These instructions probably will be carried into effect. The boy’s mother is noAV serving her second term in the House of Correction for drunkenness.
The history of this case presents the efforts of the Board of Public Education, through its Bureau of Compulsory Education and the system of special schools, to cope with the problem of controlling Andrew Boyd so as to subject him to appropriate mental and moral discipline. The failure of these efforts is to be attributed to the triumph of sentimental considerations, and perhaps to a misconception of the function of the House of Refuge, an institution established for the mental and moral training of children who are likely through bad environment, lack of home discipline, or improper associates, to fall into criminal ways. The boy will doubtless someday be committed to the House of Refuge, too late perhaps, for that institution to undo the results of the year’s training at home and on the streets. If boys like this are not to be committed to the House of Refuge, it is desirable that the city should supplement the public school system with a parental school, where children of this type may be kept for brief periods and after improvement returned to the home and the regular schools.
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