Criminals in the Making
- Author:
Lightnek Witmek, Ph.D.
“Don’t send me to , Judge,” said a boy nine years of age who had been haled before the Juvenile Court. “Send me to the House of Refuge. The only place I can’t stand is a place where there is nothing doing.”
Nothing doing at home, and nothing doing at school, no playgrounds or other outlet for youthful energies,?this is driving many an active and vigorous boy, possessed of some of the best impulses in the world, into the streets, on to the railroads, and ultimately to a life of crime. Conservative opinion still holds fondly to a system of repression. If it were not so tragic, one could smile at the recent warning of a public school authority against making the truant schools too attractive lest boys should seek to be placed in them rather than remain in the ordinary schools. It is neither impossible nor impracticable for the public schools to provide interesting and instructive employment that will engage the best energies of our adolescent youth. Why then continue to look upon education as a semi-penal discipline, a disagreeable task whose achievement requires a high moral purpose’( Why not adapt, organize and employ games, occupations, gymnastics, anything to take these children off the streets and send them eagerly every morning to the school room ? Our educational systems are too apathetic and conservative to adapt such work to educational purposes, and the public which supports our schools is too unenlightened to give adequate financial support to the proposals of the many progressive educators who have the requisite insight. If the truant schools prove more attractive to boys than the ordinary public schools, it is not difficult to see which is in need of reform. Why must a child be blind, deaf, feebleminded, or a truant to enjoy the advantages of the most approved educational methods, such as a proper amount of exercise, playgrounds, baths, and good food ?
Harry B was one of the boys who is driven to crime by a very natural desire to gratify the normal instincts of childhood. He was twelve years old when I accepted him in July, 1908, as a pupil in the special class conducted for six weeks during the summer school by the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania. The Psychological Clinic hoarded him with a number of other children at a house nearby kept by Miss E. The influence here was very good and Miss E. was devoted to the children who were placed in her charge, but her home was not organized as a hospital school. The children were neither subjected to the restraints, given the personal oversight, nor provided with the occupations, which I consider desirable for the favorable treatment of troublesome boys. The treatment of this boy was a compromise, and eventually a failure, because our limited financial resources made it impossible to provide all that our scientific insight into the problem showed to be essential.
Harry was a large boy for his age and many would have called him handsome. His was the kind of body that craved exercise, and his spirit no less than his body demanded suitable employment. Like so many boys of this type he was fond of machinery, eager to make things, and had a passion for soldiering and outdoor life. When taken with the other boys to the botanic gardens, he formed them into a company of soldiers with the caretaker as general, himself as captain, one of the boys as lieutenant and the others as recruits, and made them march in step. Another day he fixed up his room, arranging a little cabinet with ink bottles, put a sign with his office hours on the door and played doctor. He was very fond of reading and read the papers through every day, talking to Miss E. about the things of interest he found in them. He took out books from the library and read a great deal, especially boys’ books on camping, machinery, and adventure. At first he rendered willing obedience, taking some medicine uncomplainingly at each meal, although he said it was not good and asked the caretaker to talk to him while he took it, so that he would forget about it. In school he was not interested in the ordinary school subjects, but he showed sufficient intelligence, and if it had not been for his indifference he could have learned rapidly. He entered the school with his interest centered chiefly upon the possibility of going in to swim at the University gymnasium. Both in the school and at the boarding house he made a distinctly favorable impression. He was polite, courteous, and anxious to please and be of service. He aroused no suspicion of dishonesty. He entered the school on a Monday morning. On the following Saturday at eleven o’clock in the morning some one who did not know his previous record, gave him a cheque for $10.50 to cash at a neighboring grocer’s. He did not return with the money but went immediately to a department store in the heart of the city, bought a soldier’s suit and took the one o’clock train from the Reading Terminal for New York. This twelve year old boy had never been in New York but nevertheless he succeeded in finding the shortest and quickest route to the Grand Central Station. Here he took a train for Pine Plains where a Philadelphia regiment was in encampment. He became the mascot of one of the companies, and one of the men who knew his parents took care of him. He returned to the city with the regiment, having gained, as I subsequently learned by questioning him, quite a large stock of military information. He reached Philadelphia on Wednesday of the week following his hasty exit. Afraid to go home, he put in the time going about with the newspaper wagons, sleeping in one of them at night. On Sunday morning he took the last of his money and spent it on a trip to Washington Park. That night, tired and hungry, with all his money gone, he walked into a district station house and gave himself up. They sent him to the House of Detention, but as no charge was made against him on account of the theft, he was given again into the custody of his parents and returned to Miss E.’s, where he remained three weeks longer. On his return I talked to him most seriously and for the first time about his offenses. The following is taken from the stenographic notes of a part of the conversation:
Q. “Are you sorry you took the money ?” A. “Yes, sir.” (Beginning to cry.) Q. “Why are you sorry?” A. “Because I don’t want to face them.” Q. “Why don’t you want to face them ?” ‘ A. “I am ashamed.” Q. . “Why?” A. “Because I had no right to take the money.” Q. “Did you know that when you took it ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Then why did you take it ?” A. “I wanted to go to Pine Plains.” Q. “Would you rather face it out or go to the House of Tlefuge ?” A. “Face it out.” 224 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. Q. “Do you think if you stay here a couple of weeks more that you can keep from taking money?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Is there anything you want money for now ?” A. “For writing paper. I meant to ask her for some and I forgot it.” Q. “What did you want paper for ?” A. “To write to my mother. We got a couple of little dogs at the house and I want to tell her.” Q. “Do you like better to work or to play ?” A. “Oh, I like some light work.” Q. “Have you ever earned any money?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “What at?” A. “Running errands, serving circulars, and working around stores.” Q. “When you earned money what did you do with it?” A. “Spent it.” Q. “Having a good time ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “For candy?’” A. “I divide up with the fellows.” Q. “Have you ever taken any money before this ?” (!N”o answer.) “Why do you take money?” A. “Don’t know.” Q. “I have been told you once stole a rifle. What kind of rifle was it?” A. “Thirty-two calibre.” Q. “From whom did you steal that ?” A. “An old man.” Q. “Did you take the rifle to shoot or to sell ?”’ A. “To shoot.” Q. “Where did you shoot it ?” A. “Out in the country.” Q. “How did you get to the country ?” A. “Walked out there and tried it.” Q. “How did they catch you ?” A. “As I was standing on a street.” Q. “When was that? Was it right after you took it?” A. “No, a couple of weeks after that.” Q. “Did you have the rifle with you?” CRIMINALS IN THE MAKING. 225 A. “No, sir.” Q. “What had you done with it ?” A. “Sold it to a man for twenty cents and spent the money.” Q. “What did you want money for?” (No answer.) “Somebody told me yon took a horse once.” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “How was that?” A. “I rode him out to Norristown for a man.” Q. “How long did it take you?” A. “From six o’clock until nine.” Q. “When you got out there what did you do ?” A. “Put him in the stable, then the man went out on his farm and I went to him and said, ‘What are you going to give me,’ and he said, ‘Ain’t going to give you nothing,’ and I said, ‘Give me my carfare home,’ and he said, ‘What do you want with carfare ?’ So I went down to the stable, put the saddle on the horse and rode him home.” Q. “When you got to the city what did you do with him ?” A. “Left him on a side street and was walking down Broad Street when he caught me.” Q. “Who caught you, the man you stole the horse from ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Did they take you to the House of Detention that time ?” A. “Yes sir, they sent me there.” Q. “Did you tell them the story of his not paying you ?” A. “Yes, sir; the man said it was all a lie, he would have given me carfare home.” Q. “Would he?” A. “No, sir; he said he wouldn’t.” Q. “What else have you stolen?” (No answer.) “You stole a bicycle once, didn’t you ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Did you take it to sell?” A. “No, sir; the boy who owned it lent it to me to ride home from school, and instead of going to school I rode it around the park. I thought it was a good bicycle and that I would like to have a bicycle like that.” Q. “You tried to sell it, didn’t you ?” A. “A fellow said he would give me some money for it, but I thought it was a good bicycle and I would keep it. I wanted a bicycle anyway.” 226 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. Q. “How long did you ride it around ?” A. “All afternoon.” Q. “When did the man offer you money for it ?” A. “When I was riding it around the park.” Q. “What did you ride it down Market Street for ? To see if you could sell it?” A. “Because I did not want to get caught with it on my hands.” Q. “Why didn’t you take it back to the boy ?” A. “Because he would give me a good licking.” Q. “Why?” A. “Because I had kept it out.” Q. “Didn’t you know you hadn’t any right to keep it out ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Why not?” A. “Because I promised to give it to him when I got back to school in the afternoon.” Q. “You knew you were doing wrong then ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “What did you do with the money you got for the bicycle ?” A. “Spent it.” Q. “Didn’t you sell it because you thought of all the things you could buy with it.” A. “Yes, and another reason was I did not want to get caught with it ?” Q. “How much did you get for it ?” A. “A dollar eighty.” Q. “At the store on Market Street ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “How soon did you get caught ?” A. “ISText morning.” It had been reported to me that Harry had gone to revival meetings held shortly before in Philadelphia, and had been converted, confessing his crimes after the manner of “Sentimental Tommy”. I questioned him about this. Q. “Why did you go to revival meetings?” (ISTo answer.) “You believe in God ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Do you believe there is such a place as hell ?” A. “Yes, sir.” CRIMINALS IN THE MAKING. 227 Q. “What is hell ?” A. “Where the devil is.” Q. “What does he do to you ?” A. “Don’t know.” Q. “Didn’t you hear about hell at the meetings ?” A. “No, sir.” Q. “Are you ever afraid of going to hell ?” A. “I never think of it.” Q. “Didn’t you think about it when you went to the revival meetings ?” A. “No, sir.” Q. “Aren’t you afraid you may die and go to hell ?” A. “I never think about it.” Q. “You got converted at the meetings, didn’t you?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “What does getting converted mean?” A. “When they take your name down.” Q. “Is that all?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Did you go up on the platform?” A. “!No, he came down.” Q. “Did you tell him how bad you had been ?” A. “No, sir.” Q. “What did he ask you when you gave him your name ? What were you supposed to be giving; your name for ?” A. “To go to Jesus.” Q. “When you gave your name did you mean that you wanted to go to Jesus?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Did you really want to go to Jesus ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Or did you simply want to get your name down on paper ?” A. “I wanted to go to Jesus.” Q. “You felt that way because he had been preaching to you ?” A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Do you go to Sunday-school ?” ‘A. “Yes, sir.” Q. “Do you like Sunday-school?” A. “I think it’s all right.” Q. “Do you like to hear about Jesus and God in Sundayschool, or doesn’t that interest you?” A. “That’s all right.” Q. “Does it interest you ?” A. “Yes, sir.”
I could not discover that the boy had any real appreciation of the seriousness of his misconduct. He showed great sensibility during a part of my arraignment, first beginning to sniffle and finally crying outright. He claimed he had no idea of taking the money until he read in the newspaper about the soldiers being at Pine Plains. Although he wept copiously, ten minutes later he was inquiring eagerly about going over to the gymnasium to enjoy the swimming pool. Even after I explained to him that a boy of his reputation could not be trusted there and that he would have to wait until some one could be found to go with him, he showed no shame but rather appeared injured. There was no doubt that he regarded his own wishes as imperative and that he had little regard for the opinions of others. This may have been the result of defective home training, but it may also have been due to the possession of a volatile conscience and a temperament bordering on the pathological. He avoided, whenever possible, facing his trouble or thinking of unpleasant things. He was friendly, pleasant, and thoroughly at ease, carrying the conversation along lines which interested him personally and appearing astonishingly independent for twelve years old. He had the not uncommon boyish trait of boasting of his accomplishments, but he was large for his age and perhaps his easy domination of other boys had given him a high opinion of himself and his powers. Mentally precocious, he was nevertheless backward in the ordinary school subjects. Harry had originally been sent to the Psychological Clinic by the committing magistrate at the House of Detention. He was brought to us in the custody of his mother for the purpose of making an examination as to his mental status, in order that the magistrate might have the benefit of our opinion in reaching a final disposition of the case. The boy’s mother claimed that his actions could be explained only on the principle of mental deficiency. She seemed to think that Harry was a case of “Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde”: sometimes he was very good for as long a period as three months, and then he would have a more or less protracted outburst of lawlessness.
Our first brief examination made clear the necessity of suspending judgment until after the boy had been for some time under observation. The medical and other dispensaries at the University Hospital reported the boy poorly developed and ansemic, but otherwise normal, and recommended a tonic and treatment, but no operation, for catarrh and enlarged tonsils. His history revealed that even as a small boy he never wanted to play near home, preferring to wander off, but he was ten years old before he actually ran away. When he was seven, his aunt who was paying them a visit, took him on her lap and allowed him to play with her pocket book. Later when she wanted to go home, both Harry and the purse were missing. He had gone to a shop in the neighborhood, had ordered ice-cream, and presented a dollar in payment. The shopkeeper brought Harry and the dollar home.
According to the mother’s story he had always been a heedless boy, too busy with his own affairs to listen to what was said to him, given to lies and the invention of sensational stories, subject to crazes and fads, always wild about something and willing to go to any length to get it. If he had been the son of well-to-do parents, this natural craving for a bicycle, a cowboy outfit, a knife, and excursions into the country, would have been amply gratified. The family, however, were wretchedly poor, and his desires not being deadened by poor food and deprivation, nor choked by fear, which is usually the case, he took what he wanted regardless of the law. He was really making an effort in his own poor way to escape from the terrible conditions which surrounded him. Underfed, under-exercised, under-stimulated mentally, he endeavored to cut his way out from the boredom of his existence. He came to us without a toothbrush, necktie or collar, and during the hot summer weeks he wore his heavy winter underclothing.
Harry was one of seven children, all living and none of them markedly degenerate. The younger children, however, showed the degenerating effects of the family’s struggle for existence. The mother was a well intentioned woman, but unable to cope satisfactorily with the task of rearing and managing seven alert and energetic children on a meagre income. The family history revealed nothing to account for any inherited mental or moral degeneracy. I consider Harry the product of his environment,? the very natural product of poor food, poor care, insufficient discipline, inadequate school facilities, and lack of expert assistance to guide the family in the art of controlling a difficult boy. To whom should the family of a troublesome boy turn for this expert assistance? To the physician? To the psychologist? To the officers of the Juvenile Court? To the Children’s Aid Society? All these agencies are consulted when the father and mother make their last fight to save an erring son from the reform school or some penal institution. Why do they so often neglect to consult the only accredited authority on public and private morals?the nearest representative of the church, their personal pastor, who might be expected to respond with a well considered plan for the moral regeneration and development of each individual child ? Harry’s parents, for example, were religious people, members of a Protestant church, and we were told that their minister knew a good deal about the case. The boy also liked to attend Sunday-school, said his prayers willingly, and took kindly to religious instruction. His case was one which might have been greatly helped by proper religious instruction, but the parents had never taken the minister into their confidence, nor had the minister ever talked to the boy about his waywardness. The situation in my opinion does not indicate any great lack of interest or sympathy on the part of the clerical profession, but it does reveal the very natural result of too much Greek and Hebrew to the exclusion of psychology and sociology.
On his return to the special class, after he had run away to Pine Plains, Harry showed a decided change in behavior. He became disobedient, nagged and plagued the other children, and toward the latter part of his stay he was insolent to the teacher and uncontrollable in the school room. His bad behavior could be directly traced to his boredom and lack of interest. I believe that one thing only interested him in his school room work, the making of a wicker basket, and yet I am confident that under careful individual instruction and discipline he would have become submissive to the constraint of school life, and would have made rapid improvement. The concentration and persistence Harry so obviously lacked in the school room, were noticeably present while reading a book which told how to make a boat out of logs and how to set traps for catching pickerel in the ice. We were unable to provide for the needs of this boy and others like him, because we lacked the financial resources and equipment. In the summer of 1910 we undertook an educational experiment with a group of these boys under conditions which more nearly met their requireCRIMINALS IN THE MAKING. 231 ments,* but we still await the financial resources necessary to conduct the experiment with an adequate equipment and organization. Opinions may differ in regard to the diagnosis of this boy’s condition. There was undoubtedly a nervous and emotional instability which the examining neurologist thought might possibly be “hysterical,” but attaching a pathologist’s tag does not wipe out the fact that this boy’s history, barring the few flagrant offenses, is the history of hundreds of boys who turn out well, and that there was in his case a failure to provide the essentials of a wholesome mental and moral discipline. I considered the boy very good stuff, well worth the effort and pains necessary to turn him into a useful man. His crazes, his imagination, his love of wandering, the nerve and courage which took him to the camp at Pine Plains, ISTew York, are all of them excellent traits to serve as a foundation for the building of character.
Perhaps fate was kind to this boy. In the month after he left the care of the Psychological Clinic, he ran away from home for the last time. Stealing a long ride on a freight train, he fell under the wheels and was killed. Of such material as he are made the tramp, the hobo, and the habitual criminal. Prom such as he, under slightly different circumstances, are developed the finest specimens of manhood the human race affords.
Fatalism is so common a philosophy, that it amounts to a mental habit. Rooted up, it grows again in new places and in new forms. The Oriental lies down upon his bed of sickness and pain and resigns himself to death because it is the will of God. We take a more kindly view to-day of the actions of Divine Providence, and ascribe to man’s ignorance and inertia some of the diseases and ills of life. Keligious fatalism, however, is no sooner eradicated from the human mind, than a scientific fatalism takes its place. Heredity is now the fatalist’s “Deus ex machinaThe physical and moral ills of an individual are not ascribed to the sins of his forefathers, but rather to their diseases and defects. Feeblemindedness, insanity, moral degeneracy, these are doubtless in a certain proportion of cases the direct result of an inherited factor. ISTevertheless, mental and moral degeneracy are just as frequently the result of the environment. In the absence of the most painstaking investigation, accompanied by a determined effort at remedial treatment, it is usually impossible to de*An Educational Experiment with Troublesome Adolescent Boys, by Arthur Holmes, Ph.D. The Psychological Clinic, Vol. IV, No. 6, Nov. 15, 1910, p. 155. cide, when confronted by an individual case, whether heredity or the environment has played the chief role. Who can improve a man’s inheritance? And what man’s environment can not be bettered? In place of the hopeless fatalism of those who constantly emphasize our impotence in the presence of the hereditary factor, we prefer the hopeful optimism of those who point out the destructive activity of the environment. To ascribe a condition to the environment, is a challenge to do something for its amelioration or cure; to ascribe it to heredity too often means that we fold our hands and do nothing.
Take for instance the belief in human depravity and criminal instinct1?. Public opinion, even scientific opinion, is clearly fatalistic. In this country the treatment of the criminal is still conducted with a view only to punish or segregate, scarcely ever to educate or cure. A much discussed theft brought out the following headlines and phrases in the local newspapers,?”this boy whose criminal tendencies,” “some queer mental characteristics,” “the propensity for evil,” “criminal instincts,” “a rare specimen of juvenile depravity.” Head these and then consider that the boy at whom these phrases were directed was not yet ten years old. This congenital monster, a bom criminal, was only a little boy whose disposal was giving the Children’s Aid Society in Philadelphia so much concern, that he had been sent to the Psychological Clinic for examination. Was he a bad boy, a moral imbecile, criminally insane, feebleminded, or merely untrained, uneducated, undisciplined?
In a case of this kind the question cannot be answered without keeping the boy for a month or more under observation and training in the proper surroundings. A brief examination could and did determine that he was mentally normal. To care for a lively and energetic boy is expensive and the resources of the Hospital School at the time were not adequate to provide for his board and training. It was then determined to place the boy at an institution which is often used as a substitute for the reform school, and while waiting to be entered at this institution, he was boarded by the Society for a few days at a private home. One Sunday afternoon he brought to the house another boy somewhat older than himself, and together they planned to break into a desk containing some jewelry and money and use the proceeds to go to the circus. Some time after midnight the two boys got a hatchet from the kitchen, broke into the desk and after securing the jewelry and money, decamped. George was captured the next night. He had sold a ring, not of great value, for three cents. He gave away a diamond ring and the rest of the jewelry, all of which were brought back by the boys among whom they had been distributed. He also took a five dollar gold piece which he had induced some one to change for him, and when caught he still had left about two dollars and a half.
Let us admit the seriousness of this offense, but some proportion should be maintained between the offense and its punitive consequences, between even a crime and the spiritual flaying to which our objurgatory epithets subject the offender. What parent of a nine year old boy would care to have him publicly branded a thief possessed of criminal instincts, because he took a few articles of jewelry and some money to obtain the wherewithal to go to the circus ? There are many nine year old boys living in respectable homes in the city of Philadelphia who steal, in the course of a single year, from their parents and others, more than this boy has had an opportunity to take in his whole lifetime. In wellto-do homes the peculations of childhood are made good by the child’s protector, and the child is subjected to the kind of home discipline which in time educates him to an understanding of the significance of his actions and to a sense of personal responsibility. Circumstances alter cases, and regrettable as it may appear, it is nevertheless true that the financial standing of a family often determines whether the false step of one of its members shall be considered a criminal act or merely a more or less trifling transgression. Some time ago at the Juvenile Court I saw a child held for taking from an aunt the sum of five dollars, which he had promptly spent to give his playmates a good time. This money represented the accumulated savings of several years of hard work, and its loss was a very serious matter. The boy was a menace to the very existence of that family, not because he was so bad but because the family was so poor. The only remedy which society had to offer was to put the boy in the House of Refuge. This is said in no wise as a reflection upon the House of Refuge, for this institution provided him with a better home, a better school and a better playground than he had previously enjoyed, but the same boy in a different environment, if he had taken this money from the well filled pocketbook of a relative, would have been soundly spanked or given such punishment as commended itself to the family, and there the matter would probably have ended.
In the public comments upon George’s offenses, to which I have referred, it was said that he had “manifested a criminal bent at an early age.” George was indeed handicapped from the start. While an inmate of the Philadelphia Hospital, a homeless waif of eighteen months, his future foster mother was so much attracted by the boy’s appearance that she persuaded her husband to adopt him against his better judgment and the wishes of his family. This alone was enough to give George that bent which public comment spoke of as criminal, for constant bickering is not a favorable soil for the growth of mentally and morally normal children. To add to George’s difficulties his foster mother died insane when he was five years old, and George not only lost his protector, but it would appear that his life and behavior had been for some time in the charge of a woman who was growing gradually insane. He was then placed in a children’s home, where he remained for two years, until the foster father married again and once more gave the boy a home.
After a few months George proved himself quite unmanageable. His second foster mother complained that the boy had an uncontrollable temper, and was obsessed with the idea of playing on the railroad. He was picked up repeatedly by the police and taken to different station houses. When told to do anything he did not like, George would kick and scream, making enough noise to attract the neighbors to the house to see what was the matter. His teacher at school sent word that he did not attend regularly. In other words, George at a very early age showed enough independence to try to get his own way and to roam about in search of adventure.
Brought at the age of eight before the Juvenile Court of Philadelphia, George was held on a charge of incorrigibility and committed to the custody of the Children’s Aid Society with instructions to place him in a country home. A good home was found for him but he continued hard to manage, and addicted to the habit of taking things from the house to give to the children in school. The woman in whose charge he was placed to board by the Society, wanted to give him up on several occasions, but always relented because the boy was so attractive. Finally she did give him up, and he was brought to Philadelphia, where the Children’s Aid Society took every means to secure the best physical attention and to obtain for him the right kind of home. While in their care he was frequently caught taking small sums of money. The more serious theft of j ewelry and money from his last caretaker brought him at the age of nine once more before the Juvenile Court. The study of criminology in this country is still in its infancy. Indeed it has not advanced very far even in the countries of Europe, where several journals are devoted to its study. For the present the only safe attitude for the community to assume is one of appreciation of its own ignorance. If we only recognize that in the majority of cases we do not know what causes criminal actions, we shall be at least in a position to learn something. This is certainly the attitude of the Psychological Clinic with reference to this and many another boy’s offenses. No one ought to decide why a bo/ steals, from the mere recital of his actions and history, nor yet from a brief mental and physical examination. In a difficult and doubtful case it may take months of careful study with an attempt at training before we can be at all certain of his characteristics and of their effect in determining his behavior. Nevertheless, one may give expression, tentatively, to certain conclusions as to this boy’s moral status.
George steals because he wants the money and his social interests, which include his moral nature, have not yet been sufficiently awakened to cause him to have much regard for the rights of others. I do not believe that there is such a thing as a criminal instinct. There is, perhaps, an instinct of appropriation which George shares in common with every other member of the human race? the instinct to take what you want when you see it. This is not a crime, nor is the instinct criminal. Society makes the crime by determining what acts of appropriation are illegal. It is immoral and illegal to appropriate jewelry and money which doesn’t belong to you, but a nine year old child is not expected to have a full realization of the moral judgments or legal enactments of the community. In fact, it is only gradually that the child can be made to appreciate the distinction between “mine and thine” and in a broader sense to recognize the rights and feelings of others. We admit that circumstances alter cases even with children of more mature years. College students are permitted to celebrate an athletic victory on the streets, and the disturbance is regarded as nothing more than an ebullition of youthful spirits and energy, whereas if it were a labor organization celebrating a strike victory, it would be called riot and anarchy. The institution of the Juvenile Court for offenders under sixteen years of age is evidence that the community has begun to recognize that the human infant acquires only gradually a personal responsibility for his actions. A nine year old boy does not steal in the same sense in which a sixteen year old boy or a man may steal. It is probable that any ordinary parent would have experienced difficulty in managing a boy like George. He was selfwilled and absolutely fearless. This was shown when he was received in a school where they had a swimming pool. The instructor asked George if he could swim. He said, “Oh, yes, I can swim.” When the instructor’s back was turned he jumped in and was almost drowned before they could get him out. When questioned he said he had told the instructor he could swim because he thought he could if he tried. He announced that he would keep on trying until he succeeded. Upon fear as a basis develops that wholesome respect for authority, which is the beginning of the individual’s subjection to law and order. In the absence of fear the only other instinctive trait to which one can appeal, is love. Most children under ten years of age have a lively sense of both fear and personal affection. Through their fear of authority, the fear of God or man, or through a strong personal regard for some one or more persons, the child is usually trained to obey those who are placed in authority over him. Home discipline is the chief factor in compelling a child to take the right path of moral development. In the case of George he had never known a real or permanent home nor anything resembling a discipline which appeals alternately and in due proportion to the instinctive emotions of fear and love. The well spring of love had never been tapped in this boy. To win love, one must make oneself indispensable to a child’s happiness. It is reported by the social worker that George felt aggrieved at his foster father, maintaining that he should have come to see him. He also announced that he intended to keep on giving trouble until his father gave him an allowance of fifteen cents a month pocket money. Although only nine years of age George had a mental development beyond his years. He was alert and ingenious, always up to something, which according to circumstances might be either good or bad. For example, during the time he was at the private boarding house near the University, he spent part of each day in the University Library. He read books like Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper,” and Andrew Lang’s fairy stories. Once he came up to the desk and asked for Kipling’s “Five Nations.” When the attendant told him it was poetry and that she did not think lie would like it, lie answered, “No, I don’t want no poetry. I thought it was history.” At my clinic I had him read a paragraph of a selection from George Eliot’s “Mill on the Floss,” in order to discover how well he could read. When I stopped him he came forward and asked in a whisper, “May I take the book and finish that ?” When I gave him the book and allowed him to go into an adjoining room, he finished the selection. During his brief stay at the boarding house he spent his free time reading in the library and watching the trains from the South Street bridge. He was one of those children for whom the operation of machinery has a peculiar fascination. That he had planned to rob an apartment house by climbing in through a kitchen window, as reported by a detective, is to my mind only an instance of imaginative enterprise.
If this boy had been kept constantly employed at work which engaged his interest and stimulated his mind, he would have given very little trouble. George had so much energy and was so constantly in search of some form of activity that he could easily have kept one or perhaps two able-bodied persons busy finding sufficient occupation for him. A well planned theft was in his case the result of misdirected energy. His initiative and mental development far outstripped the development of his moral perception and judgment. It was, therefore, a case of uneven development, a common condition in troublesome moral cases. Owing to the desultory character of his school instruction, George was not up to boys of his own age, but he showed himself quite capable of handling the ordinary school subjects. He did sums in addition, (Subtraction, and multiplication, and did them not only quickly but in a way which showed that he had full mastery over his intellectual faculties. I asked him to write a sentence telling us something about the country, about the horses or the chickens. He had previously written his name on the board at my request, saying, “I can’t write very well.” He wrote the sentence, “The hens eat up our money.” Turning around and answering our look of incredulity, he said, “That’s right, I’ll show you how it is. We buy food for them with our money, and they eat the food, so they eat up our money, don’t they?” In response to the magistrate’s questioning, he described minutely how corn is planted, and when the magistrate said that New York was not a good state for corn, George volunteered, “I am sorry, Judge, but I will have to disagree with you. New York is all right for corn.” There are those who consider precocity a sign of degeneracy. It may be the start238 TEE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. ing point of degeneracy in some cases, notably where precocity is associated with backwardness and the child is unevenly developed, but precocity is no more a danger sign of degeneracy than genius is a symptom of insanity.
George was committed by the Juvenile Court to a reform school. He has been in the institution almost two years. I am informed that his conduct has been exceptionally good?a record of which he is justly proud, and that he will shortly be discharged, remaining however under probationary supervision until he is twenty-one years of age. He may repeat the history of many men of eminence, influence, and respectability who were every whit as troublesome in their youth. The same qualities which make for a career of usefulness will help him to become an intelligent and dangerous member of the criminal class. Who is the arbiter of this boy’s fate?the boy himself or the community which has controlled his life and nurture almost from the day of his birth? Committed to the care of the community before he was one year old, adopted at eighteen months under legal forms recognized by the community, returned directly to the oversight of the community by his foster father when he was haled before the Juvenile Court on a charge of incorrigibility, coming under the care of the Children’s Aid Society, and finally committed to a reform school which is supported by private philanthropy and state aid, George is certainly to be looked upon as a product of this community, the ward of the city of Philadelphia and the state of Pennsylvania. I have never seen an instance where the intelligent portion of the community is so clearly on trial. If he takes the road that leads to a criminal career, and becomes for most of his life a charge upon the public, it will not be the fault of any one person or any one agency, for all have done their best; but it will most assuredly be the fault of society at large. It will mean that neither one nor all of the existing agencies are able to provide for the moral development of this particular type of boy. To discover what additional agencies are needed, what financial resources and equipment must be provided, and what methods of orthogenic treatment must be devised to meet cases of this kind, is one of the problems of investigation undertaken by the Psychological Clinic.
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