Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief?
AN EXPERIMENT IN SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT :Author: Marion Braungard, M.A., Social Worker, Psychological Clinic, University of Pennsylvania
When Peter’s grandmother, dejected and discouraged, brought her thirteen year old grandson to the Psychological Clinic, the charges against him were almost too numerous to mention. A Reform School had been recommended as the only remaining method of dealing with him. No voice rose in his defense. The local Scout and Choir Masters had been forced to exclude him from their groups permanently for non-conformity. At school, after a series of difficulties, he had been assigned to a Counsellor who had earned a reputation for success in handling severe discipline cases. This man made a systematic effort over a period of months to gain Peter’s confidence, and to direct his activities along more acceptable lines. He was reluctantly forced to admit that he could accomplish nothing. Peter had broken all promises, abused his privileges, and continued to lie, steal, and disorganize classes by his misconduct. His scholarship was almost as unsatisfactory as his conduct. The Principal had decided that expulsion from school was the only course to be pursued, and he predicted an early criminal record for Peter. The complaints from the neighbors were various. Among other things Peter was cruel to animals, even to the extent of forcing snow into horses’ eyes; he bullied younger children; he was destructive; he stole, often for no apparent reason; he lied on all occasions. The last person to give him up was his step-grandmother, who had brought him up and whom he called “Mother.” She had tried every conceivable form of punishment and inducement to no avail. Her patience with him seemed boundless until she observed some indication of possible sexual misconduct and felt that she must protect her young daughter. She turned to her minister for help and he advised psychological examination and placement in a reform school. Peter was examined by Dr M. S. Viteles, a diagnostician at the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania, in February of 1928, and he has been under the supervision of the Clinic from that time to the fall of 1929. On Dr Viteles’ recommendation, a thorough social investigation of the case was made by the Social Worker. This article is in the nature of a report from, the Social Service Department to the Examining Psychologist.
There is nothing malicious about Peter’s appearance. Broad shouldered and stocky, with high cheek bones and a flat nose, he appears to be agreeable and easy going. Occasionally, he displays an innocent smile which would disarm anyone not in possession of the facts concerning him and indeed wins over some who are. However, during his earlier clinic visits we rarely saw the smile because at the time he came to us he was being attacked from so many sides, that he had become sullen and non-commital. Questioned about his activities he lied convincingly until he discovered that Dr Viteles knew something of his history and then he became insolent. Although not as attractive as the proverbial “bad boy” there is an elusive appeal about Peter, which may explain in part why his grandmother favored him even above her own little daughter, and why she was so heartbroken at the thought of giving him up in spite of the embarrassment and trouble he had given her. Nothing is so sweet to Peter’s taste as praise in any form, but when he receives it he becomes unbearable in his evident satisfaction with himself. He cannot endure blame in any form. It is always correction in some form which precipitates one of Peter’s bad moods.
In the psychological examination it appeared that Peter’s intellectual competency was normal but not above the middle twenty per cent of his group. On the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon Scale his Intelligence Quotient was 86; Chronological Age 13-3, Mental Age 11-5, Basal Age 9, highest level at which he passed tests 12. His low memory span of 5 was responsible for his basal age of 9. His visual and auditory memory span for digits both fall in the lowest ten per cent of boys at the 15 year level.* Work on the performance tests was qualitatively good as to coordination, discrimination, distribution of attention and approach to the problems. An examination in the Psycho-Biochemical Clinic under the direction of Dr Starr, and a thorough medical examination were recommended. The Psycho-Biochemical examination was negative except for a pronounced glucosuria which was considered as probably due to temporary emotion. Dr Starr suggested the possibility of a deep seated emotional disturbance; perhaps referable to interuterine intoxication shortly before birth. He also thought there * Learning, R. E. Tests and Norms for Vocational Guidance at the Fifteen-year-old Performance Level. Psych. Clinic, 1922, 193-215. might be a tendency toward diabetes. The physical examination was entirely negative. Dr Viteles deferred diagnosis and recommended a thorough investigation of home and school situation by the social worker of the Psychological Clinic.
In a conference between the Social Worker and the Principal of the junior high school which Peter attended, the history of Peter’s conduct and his pending expulsion reported in an earlier paragraph of this article was fully confirmed. However the Principal promised to retain Peter in school until the Psychological Clinic had formulated a plan for him, provided the plan was evolved with dispatch. The social investigation led to a discovery of Peter’s strange and complicated family connections. Peter’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. B., were both under twenty years of age when he was born. His mother died when he was a day old, and he was turned over to his paternal step-grandmother to be cared for, while his father went to war. Peter’s paternal grandmother was described as ‘’ flighty.’’ She left her husband and he re-married a woman much younger than himself. At the time this second wife took charge of Peter she had a daughter six weeks old. Peter was brought up entirely as though he were the child of his grandparents, and the brother of their daughter. His father had never supported him nor had any responsibility of him up to the time he was brought to the Clinic. The family life in his grandparents’ home is a singularly pleasant one, apparently devoid of any friction. The family is uniformly religious with the exception of Peter. Mrs. B.’s entire life centers about her home and her church. She is not a woman of many contacts or wide experience, but she is a woman with more than average common sense, and a desire to do everything she considers her duty as thoroughly as possible. The only weakness she displayed was her inclination to indulge Peter too much, and forgive him too readily. This home situation, abounding in religious training to the extent that Bible reading and prayers were never neglected, but table manners and the usual forms of child training were not stressed, produced a very acceptably conformed little girl, and also produced Peter. The children were not permitted to attend movies or take part in what were considered worldly activities. The little girl received sufficient satisfaction from attending Sunday School, securing the praises of her teachers at school, singing in a children’s choir and helping her mother with housework. On the other hand, Peter, as he grew older required forms of excitement far in excess of these mild pleasures. He began to delight in such pranks as stealing newshoys’ papers and by the time he was thirteen years old had succeeded in excluding himself from everyone’s good graces.
Peter’s father remained abroad after the war to do reconstruction work in an isolated rural section of the Near East. While there he married a woman many years his senior. She is an unusually well educated and cultured woman, coming from a family of college professors. Before the war she had studied abroad and taught foreign languages in a western university. Her husband, Peter’s father, is a hard working commonplace man who did not complete high school. When they returned to the United States Peter was about four years old. Mrs. B., Junior was anxious to take charge of the boy but Mrs. B., Senior refused to give him up. She noticed that Peter’s father disliked him, always called him a “bad boy,” and was inclined to punish him too severely. She had become very much attached to Peter and though she had never considered legally adopting him she looked on him as one of the family. Believing that the Senior B.’s had the prior claim to Peter, since they had always had entire charge of him, the Junior B.’s abandoned their plan to bring him up as their son. They left the city and for the next half dozen years lived in various places and by various means. Mr. B. ‘s aversion to his son when he was very young did not come to light in the history of the case until the case had been under our supervision for more than a year due to a sort of family pride which kept it hidden. When Peter, as a little boy, made childish advances to his father, he was frequently repulsed or punished for being a ‘’ bad boy.’’
The Examining Psychologist, believing that placement in a reform school would preclude any possibility of Peter’s becoming a member of society, prescribed a complete change of environment as imperative since Peter’s reputation as the “bad boy” of the neighborhood was too firmly established to be lived down. Mr. and Mrs. B., Junior, at the time Peter was brought to the Clinic as an “incorrigible boy” had been living for about a year on the outskirts of a small town. Mr. B. was establishing a chicken farm. Mrs. B. was keeping house and teaching languages in a nearby high school. They seemed to present the most promising and natural solution to the problem of supplying the new environment in which Peter might make a fresh start. The Social Worker’s task of persuading the young B. ‘s to accept the responsibility of Peter in their home was not very easy. Both felt that they were too busy to undertake anything so strenuous as dealing with what Peter promised to be. It also appeared somewhat unfair that Peter should be delegated to them after he had turned out so badly when he had been refused to them earlier. However, on realization that some drastic effort was necesary to save Peter from the house of correction or a similar institution, arrangements were finally made for Peter to live with them for a six month’s trial period. It was agreed that this father and step-mother should have unquestioned control over him. There was to be no communication with his former home, and at any time during the six months that Peter should prove too difficult they were free to send him back. Arrangements were made for Peter to be excused from school attendance until the fall. The spring term was far advanced and the personnel of the school he would have to attend was not the sort to which Mrs. B. felt Peter should be exposed before she and Mr. B. had gotten him somewhat in hand. A summary of the work he had been doing in school was obtained by the social worker and sent to Mrs. B. who planned to teach him at odd moments herself.
Mr. B. gave promise of being an excellent disciplinarian for Peter, and Mrs. B. seemed to possess splendid qualities for attracting and developing a young boy, so hope of some improvement in Peter was entertained in the Clinic. Peter’s grandmother agreed to leave him strictly alone. She exacted from him a promise to read the Bible half an hour each day and to write occasionally, then turned him over to his father and stepmother. Dr Viteles had an extremely serious session with Peter before sending him to his new home. Peter was given to understand that he was on probation and that although he had been given up as “no good” by everyone who knew him, he was being offered a fresh start and an opportunity to demonstrate what he had in him. His status and obligations were clearly defined and he promised to conform to all requirements of the new situation. Life at a reform school was described in such a manner as to make it less attractive to Peter than he professed it was. He understood that he was under the supervision of, and responsible to the Psychological Clinic. Dr Viteles expressed to Peter the hope that he would accept the challenge and succeed in his new opportunity.
The Social Service Department planned to keep in very close touch with all developments of the chicken farm so that every necessary movement might be made to encourage the B. ‘s to continue their supervision over Peter. We visited Peter in his new home on several occasions, he was brought to the clinic at stated intervals, and correspondence between Mr. B. and the Clinic was frequent. In every contact an effort was made to understand Peter in order that he might be intelligently encouraged to demonstrate acceptable behavior. From the beginning the odds appeared to be against conversion to conformity but it seemed worthwhile, in the few years before he should be past school age, to attempt to prepare Peter to meet the requirements of society.
Reports of the first year were diverse but on the whole showed definite improvement, which was however, not sufficient to satisfy us that Peter was competent to keep out of trouble. The trite expression to the effect that we have our “ups and downs” is very applicable to Peter’s behavior. No sooner had we settled down with a sigh of relief over a good report than it was followed by another which stirred us into activity again.
A group of chronological extracts from letters, clinic visits, and home calls will serve to show the fluctuations which characterize what we believe can be called Peter’s progress during a year and a half. The first reports were so favorable as to make the least wary among us consider closing the case. Early in April Mrs. B. wrote in part:
So far things have gone very well indeed. I do not know whether all the pressure brought to bear has brought the boy to his senses or not. He has given us almost no trouble, is obedient, respectful, and tries to please. Of course, all the conditions are favorable for helping him to be a good boy. He is not with other children at all, and is with his father all the time. We are letting him help with the chickens. In fact he calls the cockerels his. He is industrious and for the most part trustworthy. (Just a bit careless at times.) We have had no occasion to punish him. He takes very docilely all the correction we make. We only suspect him of telling one lie but cannot prove that.
A month later, when Mrs. B. brought Peter to the Clinic we learned that the early account could be supplemented by more encouraging reports. The case notes on the visit read : His activities have been varied. He is helping with the chickens, and though at first his father had decided that he could have nothing to do with them, he is going to leave Peter in charge of them for six hours while he attends a poultry meeting next week. Peter helped a neighbor three afternoons, planting strawberries and wants his pay in strawberry plants. He has started a strawberry bed of his own. He and his father have planted a vegetable garden and a flower garden. He has helped his father with cementing and painting. As a reward Mrs. B. took Peter to lunch at Wanamaker’s and then to his first movie. Before the movies Peter visited his grandmother for ten minutes.
Six weeks passed and in July came a letter which suggested that some slight evidence of the old Peter was coming to the surface. However, the misbehavior was insignificant when compared to his earlier record, as several quotations from the letter will show. They also bring out Mrs. B.’s analysis of Peter. She had hoped to awaken some response in him to her own intellectual interests. She would have liked him to go to college, etc., but she quickly came to realize that Peter’s potentialities did not extend in that direction. In many respects lie is continuing to behave as he did when I reported to you with him in May. He is industrious, works like a little Trojan, and there isn’t anything too hard. He is really a great help to his father. He continues to obey his father. I really believe that his father is the only person he has obeyed in his whole life. Most of the time he seems contented. In other respects I notice a slipping back into his old ways. I think he would still lie if he could “get by” with it. He is beginning to question my authority and argues with me about what I tell him to do (when his father is not present).
He went to pick strawberries (at 3 cents a box), did unusually well for two or three days when he then grew careless, did not follow instructions and finally came home because he was reproved. His father calmly took him and made him finish. This is the only time he has been off the place without one of us except on an errand in the immediate neighborhood.
His father went after him physically about two weeks ago for not watering the chickens as he was told to do, and then wilfully pouring an unlimited amount of disinfectant into the water when he was sent out to do his job over. This is the only time he has been touched since he came.
Many of these things I probably notice because I have more time and am with him more. The discouraging part to me is that there is so little to build on. He does not want to be anything. Told me last week that he did not propose to “waste” his time going to school until he was twenty. (I had remarked that he would be twenty when he graduated from high school.) There are so many things, his personal habits, care of his clothes, the house, that are so hard to correct. He can scarcely speak a correct English sentence. His letters are most illiterate. And he does not seem to care. His conceit is amazing.
On the other hand, the boy has his side. We are not accustomed to any children and are probably exacting, expecting too much. It would not surprise me at all that he would eventually run away when he gains a little confidence. I think that it is still a great question whether we can do anything permanently with him but at least we will keep on trying and stay the evil day as long as possible.
“We visited the chicken farm in August and found affairs progressing fairly well. Peter has been industrious both in helping his father and tending his strawberry bed. Mr. and Mrs. B. were apprehensive of the time when Peter should go to school and be asRICH MAN, POOR MAN, BEGGAR MAN, THIEF? 99 sociated with other children. Since the six-months trial period was drawing to a close they requested the Clinic to extend its supervision to include his first few months of school. When Peter had been in school about a month Mrs. B. wrote:
Peter had not been in school three weeks when we received a note from a teacher saying she refused to admit him to her class until she heard from us, that he was “the rudest boy she had had in her classes in her 9 years’ teaching experience and that his word of honor did not amount to a snap of the finger.” We had a session with him, told him if any other report like that came to us that he would be “thrashed” and a further offense would mean we turned him over to you,?the Clinic. Since then we have had no complaint. Mr. B went to see this teacher and all the others. I had already talked to his principal and his home-room teacher, but I did not tell them the whole story for I wanted the boy to have his chance without prejudice. The other teachers whom my husband interviewed were not so severe in their judgment. One reported that his attitude toward the other pupils was not nice. However, his view of school in general stays the same, he hates it and dislikes most of his teachers.
As far as money is concerned he seems to be honest. As far as telling the truth is concerned, it isn’t in him. He’ll lie about anything to defend himself, and will never acknowledge he is in the wrong. We cannot tell from his account how he stands in school. One thing had a vital effect on him. His father told him that he would keep him in school until he passed the eighth grade if he had to keep him there until he was twenty years old. In November Peter came to the Clinic with his step-mother and we learned that she was more encouraged than she had been when she wrote us in October. Mr. B. recently interviewed all Peter’s teachers and their reports were uniformly good except for a slight complaint of conduct from his home-room teacher. He had received a grade of 90 in Arithmetic and had twice been made Captain of a group in geography class where his grade was 100. In addition he has joined a debating club and talked with great interest of an approaching debate. This type of thing he scorned in his old days. He looked very well, dressed in his first suit with long trousers. He affirmed that he did not like school any better than he ever had but that he would hang on for awhile in order to get a better job when he started to work. He admitted he was glad he had gone to live on the chicken farm instead of to a reform school, although he considers his father very severe.
Mrs. B. thinks Peter considers her extremely cranky because of her insistence on good table manners, etc. She does not believe he will ever learn to be truthful, and by nature, she considers him a bully. It is unfortunate that Mrs. B. is so extremely busy teaching, keeping house, and helping with the chickens because it results in her being frequently tired and impatient when she is dealing with Peter. Mr. and Mrs. B. have kept up a policy of restraint and close supervision with Peter. He has no spending money because they are afraid of cigarettes, etc. At least once, he has been in a pool room environment. Peter has some friends at school with whom he plays marbles or football or takes walks at lunch time.
The next report was of a different nature. In February we learned that there had been two unsatisfactory conduct reports from school. He was whipped both times. Mrs. B. writes:
I don’t think tlie first did any good, this last on Thursday seemed to improve his mood. He has been “peaches and cream” since. His father has had to go to school twice in the last two weeks as two different teachers sent him out and would not allow him to return until his father had been in. In the first case he had to apologize before the class, his father being present. It seems that for some curious reason he thinks that no person of feminine persuasion has any authority over him. He talks clear across the room when he feels like it, walks out when told to remain after school, treats the teachers with the utmost contempt as though they were mere children. Some of his teachers have not reported any serious misconduct although all say he gives them trouble.
He seems to have moods when he is absolutely devilish, sullen, unreliable, and resentful of all restraint. Then there are times, as now when he is anxious to please, interested, etc. Part of these (the former) come from the fact that he has an unusual sense of personal liberty. He feels he should do as he pleases about his life, and his activities. When he once gets an idea in his head, about any subject, nothing can change his opinion.
Mr. and Mrs. B. have decided to accept Dr Viteles’ advice and not urge Peter to go to school beyond eighth grade. A tentative recommendation was made to the effect that when Peter should pass the age of compulsory school attendance he should receive specific vocational guidance at the Psychological Clinic, be placed in a Y.M.C.A. Home for Working Boys, and be aided in finding his first job by the Clinic. Dr Yiteles suggested that Peter gradually be given more freedom in recreation. He has been taking part in athletic events at school, gone skating occasionally, attended movies and so on.
Just before Easter we received the best report of work and conduct in school we have had, and in addition, Peter had been elected president of his home-group. Nor was this all, he was taking an interest in his appearance for the first time and his conduct at home was improving. He was permitted to join the Boy Scouts. This good report was the last high spot in Peter’s record for three months.
An Easter egg was sent to Peter from Dr Viteles and the Social Worker with congratulations for his good behavior. However, his achievement was of short duration as reported in a letter from Mrs. B. which reads:
His new honors and tlxe praise, etc., seemed to go to his head and he grew so ‘’ cocky’’ that he had to have a fall. He has not spoken to either one of us except when he had to, and has consumed his egg in solitary grandeur. He certainly is a queer nature, for he wants only praise and then loses all sense of value when he gets it.
After this, Peter’s affairs became more and more discouraging. In school, because of misbehavior in and out of the classroom, it was decided that Peter should not be allowed to return in the fall. Mr. B. began to claim openly that he had no affection for his son, and his behavior suggests that he has a positive dislike for Peter. This condition was not evident to us when Peter went to live with his father but has come to the surface gradually, and at present there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that Mr. B. dislikes his son. Mrs. B., Senior noticed a similar feeling on his father’s part when Peter was a youngster and she attributes it to the fact that Mr. B.’s first wife died giving birth to her son. At present, Peter is very unhappy. He works for his father and is constantly getting into difficulties both with him and his step-mother. It is evident that the experiment of having Peter live with his parents should be brought to a close. That the environment into which Peter was placed was not ideal is certain. His step-mother was too busy to exercise patience in dealing with him and his father was at times unreasonably severe; but the fact that Peter was not known to anyone in the community combined with the other possibilities offered by the chicken farm made the plan seem worth trying. The best course open seems to be that of returning Peter to his grandparents who are anxious to have him resume living with them. It is barely possible that now he may appreciate his home there to the extent of mending his ways. His record for the past year is an improvement over the preceding year but it is not nearly good enough to warrant a favorable prognosis. He has not been known to steal during the past year but he is apparently unable to adjust himself satisfactorily to other people. It seems almost inevitable that his asocial tendencies will eventu102 THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC ally get him into serious trouble. Nevertheless Dr Viteles is planning to help Peter find a job when he returns to Philadelphia in order that he may have another opportunity to make good.
Peter’s problem has not been successfully solved by the Psychological Clinic. However, following his activities very closely for more than a year has emphasized the fact that in dealing with such boys there is no royal road to success. It is not possible to make a plan which will extend over any length of time nor to accept behavior demonstrated at a given time as a fair sample of the boy. Very close follow-up work combined with constant adjustment of plans to meet new developments was necessary to assure us that we were doing all that existing conditions permitted. In the case of this boy, our ear has been constantly to the ground and we have made every effort to help him conform to the ordinary requirements of home and school but we have failed to accomplish anything more than a barely noticeable improvement.
The diagnosis in the case is Normal Mentality on the intellectual scale, intellectual competency not above the middle twenty per cent of his age group. Considered from the temperamental standpoint, Peter’s personality is characterized by a well set pattern of nonconformity, which appears to be the direct outgrowth of unfortunate parental and child relationships in early childhood and unsatisfactory environmental conditions in later boyhood. The prognosis in the case is unfavorable.
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