Debit or Credit
- Author:
Gladys G. Ide, Ph.D.,
Social Service Department, Psychological Clinic, University of Pennsylvania.
Reports of the investigations of the progeny of persons who are classically termed feeble-minded have dealt only with those members who had become wards of the state or who were in some way a menace to the social community of which they formed a part. The implication is that the family produces nothing but members of the nonsocial group. The drab farmer-folk and the slow, plodding laborer with their dull, stupid wives fail to catch the eye of the investigator, even though their children may rise little by little to the mediocrity of the majority, and the mortgages be lifted from the tiny strips of land and the homely little town houses. In a word, there is a distinct upward trend in some branches of the family to counterbalance the tendency to sink in the social scale shown by others. The M?n family was founded near one of the flourishing cities of the state of Pennsylvania. The father was a staid, stupid sort of man, a good worker and without bad habits. To be sure he possessed no consuming ambition to achieve eminence, but he was always able to keep his head above water and to supply his family with the necessities of life. The mother was fifteen when she was married. She bore seventeen children, the fir&? twelve of whom Irved and thrived. The last five died in early infancy, the “victims, it would seem, of tired maternity.
It need hardly be said that the children were not of the best in the town. Youngsters whose bare legs are conspicuous not only through the summer but also into the fall after bare legs are no longer considered a luxury, whose frocks and trousers are obviously handme-down, unpatched and too often unwashed, whose hair and hands show the effects of prolonged attacks of the weather, such youngsters are not usually considered the future bulwarks of a community. Day school and Sunday school alike were pretty much unknown to the tribe, and habits of “swiping” and swearing did not endear them to the mothers of more hopeful sons and daughters. Maturing early, marriage with others of the same ilk as themselves was to be expected. Two of the children, the oldest daughter and the youngest son remained single. The son continued in the father’s footsteps, becoming a replica of the father in appearance and habit, good, hardworking and non-assertive, satisfied with his pipe, frugal and self(201) denying. The sister with whom he lived was of the same stripe. Together they bought the old family home, the sister furnishing her share by earnings from ill-paid service at dressmaking. The town accepts this pair, shrugs its shoulders and remarks, “Very good, for a M?n!”
The remaining members of the family with one exception live within a few miles of the elder sister. The youngest child, a girl, married a carpenter, a man from her own group. Neither are able to read or write for useful purpose, but the man is competent and the woman ambitious. She urged their removal to a more distant city where they now own a very pleasant little house, well-furnished. Church affiliations were made and earnest efforts on the part of both parents inspire two boys of school age to stand at the head of their classes. These children are bright little fellows whose teachers speak well of them, both from the standpoint of their ability in school work and also from their behavior. This family together with that of another one of the girls, likewise ambitious and keen, stands at the head of the family group as its most capable members. The second family also is pushing its children through school, is investing in the securities of the United States so popular this past year and is making plans for those affiliations which will mean wholesome social life for their children later on. The home is theirs, the children neat, clean and responsive and the atmosphere one of peace and contentment. It is unnecessary to add that these two families are not on calling terms with relatives.
The second group consists of four families, self-supporting but not constructive. They make their own living, but should difficulties come they might soon slip below the poverty line. The children attend school at distant intervals when required by too-zealous attendance officers. The boys are sallow-faced, sneering chaps from whose loose lips hangs the inevitable cigarette and who slouch on the street corner ta sport their cheap jokes on the passer-by. The girls are gay and flip young birds, addicted to gum, make-up and the movies. All try to work, but find it necessary to change employers frequently as they come to a job poorly prepared both in education and inclination. There have been one or two who have passed time under the guardianship of the state, and there are others of whom the townspeople unfortunate enough to be neighbors shake solemn heads and ask, “What could you expect? They are M?n’s.”
The third group of families, of whom there are four, have been careless about marriage rites. Children are unable to trace their paternal ancestry with needed accuracy. The homes are badly furnished and very badly kept. All are fond of the convivial cup, and the lonely farms have been scenes of orgies impossible to describe. The children of these families attend school but occasionally? illness, lack of food and clothing being frequently the cause of the delinquency in this respect. Eight cases of feeble-mindedness have been found among the children, not one-half of whom have been before a psychologist. One adult and two adolescent members of these families are now in hospitals for the insane in the state, and other adolescents have failed in their efforts to pit their wits against the vigilance of the law. Misery, poverty, dirt and squalor have been the portion of those remaining at home.
In one of the latter cases, a M?n boy married the daughter of a neighbor, and his sister took the same step with the neighbor’s son. On one side the children, five in number, have been either insane or feebleminded, on the other, the two daughters are making their way in the world, one as the widow of a young soldier with an infant still in its first year as a dependent.
Thus the community stands to profit by the efforts of the members of this family who place themselves among the more conventional-minded representatives of their group, who keep their children in school and who make of them valuable material for the community, fit for the responsibilities which shall come to them. The families, who must struggle to maintain themselves at the normal level, still recognize their own value as compared with those of the lowest group, for they refuse to have social relations with them and continue to maintain a sort of aloofness encouraging in its expression of self-respect. Only those of the lowest group promise, in part at least, to place themselves on the debit side of the community ledger.
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