Book_ ^i Copyright N^ COPyRIGHT DEPOSrr. YOUTH AND THE RACE A STUDY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE ^ BY THE SAME AUTHOR MIND IN THE MAKING A Study in Mental Development I Volume. i3mo . . . net $1.50 YOUTH AND THE RACE A STUDY IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ADOLESCENCE BY EDGAR JAMES SWIFT PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION IN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SAINT LOUIS AUTHOR OF "mind IN THE MAKING" NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1912 Copyright, 1912, by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS Published September, 191 2 So MY WIFE PREFACE The role which racial instincts play in the emotions, intellect, and will of children has been the subject of many investigations in recent years by those interested in the psychology of child- hood. These studies, however, have had but slight effect upon the methods of the schools. This book is an attempt to show the possible application of some of these results to the edu- cation of children. Teachers have followed the traditional meth- ods of education which were adopted before the knowledge which we now have was available. The ideas and practice of the old English grammar- schools were brought to this country by those deeply imbued with belief in the natural deprav- ity of children, and our educational methods have never recovered from the affliction. The author has tried to indicate how the schools may help to transform into intellectual and moral forces the racial instincts which, as manifestations of original sin, distressed our forefathers. viii PREFACE Effort has also been made to fix the responsl- bihty for conditions that cause these primitive impulses to continue dominant beyond the age when they should yield to social and ethical prin- ciples of action. Washington University, Saint Louis, Mo., July, 191 2. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Spirit of Adventure .... 3 II. The Ways of Youth 41 III. The Chance to Grow 85 IV, The School and the Community . . 129 V. Vagaries of the School . . . . 173 VI. Fallacies in Moral Training . . . 214 VII. The Spirit of the Gang: an Educa- tional Asset 246 VIII. The Release of Mental Forces . . 288 Index . 339 YOUTH AND THE RACE YOUTH AND THE RACE CHAPTER I THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE One day two thirteen-year-old boys disappeared from their homes in Bath Beach. Six weeks later a Nebraska baker, into whose shop they went to buy some bread, concluding from the youngsters' dilapidated appearance that they had run away, drew from them the following story,^ which they afterward repeated at their home. "You see, I wanted to get rich and there wasn't any chance in Bath Beach," said Wilbur, who acted as spokesman. "I just sort of felt that I must see the world. I'd never been in any place but New York, and then I had to go with grown-up folks and was treated Hke a kid. The night we went away I didn't have a cent, but I wasn't afraid. I thought we only had to go out West and find a gold mine. Had I been reading books of advent- ure? Of course I had. That's about the only way you can get adventures at Bath Beach. ^New York World, September 3, 1906. 3 4 YOUTH AND THE RACE "We got on the train for New York, for we knew that was the starting-point for everywhere. Then we crossed the ferry and landed at the Lacka- wanna station in Hoboken. We hung around the freight cars for two days before we got a chance to steal a ride to Buffalo. We went mighty slow on the two dollars that Harry had, so we didn't live very high. *'Out of Buffalo we got a car for Chicago. And, say, the police are no good. Why, my mother sent out descriptions of me, and I used to pass the cops in all the cities we visited without dodg- ing. They never even thought I looked suspicious. **I don't think much of Chicago, and Buffalo's surely on the bum. You see, we stayed most of the time around the freight yards, but we made turns into the cities just so we could see the world. "Of course, we didn't expect to strike it rich till we got West. When we left Chicago on a freight car we didn't stop at any more big cities. "Goodness, but we had some terrible experi- ences! but I wasn't afraid. Once we were held up by two big fellows who were riding on the same freight car. Harry had a six-shooter, and the fellows wanted to get it. First they put their pis- tols to my head and told me to give up my six- shooter. When I said I didn't have one they started for Harry. He had slipped his pistol down THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 5 his trousers leg while they were after me and told them another fellow who was riding on the car had taken it. They went after him, and while they were at it, Harry and I jumped off and hid in the woods. "We had a hard time on the freight cars. The railroad men kept chasing us and we fell off lots of times. I didn't get hurt much — ^just jarred up a bit — but I didn't care when I was hunting a fortune. "We didn't have much to eat, and by the time we struck Wayside, Nebraska, we were getting pretty anxious to find our gold mine. We got a chance to work on the railroad for a few days, so we saved up some money. I didn't have any shoes or stockings and my shirt was all worn out. I bought a pair of long trousers to make me look taller. "Then we started out to walk farther west, but we didn't come to any gold mines. Nothing but prairies everywhere. We walked and walked till we came to Crawford, Nebraska. One day I went into a bakery to buy food. It was our last fifty cents, and the man looked at me kind of funny and said, 'Haven't you run away.?' I told him I had, and he was mighty good to us." Wilbur and Harry were not abnormal hoys. They loved their home and their parents, but they wanted excitement. They might have found this 6 YOUTH AND THE RACE in the nickelodeons and the alleys — the civilized successors of the woods and streams — but these did not satisfy them, and therein they showed their good stuff. They wanted adventures with the wild instead of with the policemen of Bath Beach. And having no opportunity to enjoy ad- ventures at home they ran away to find them. Civilization is young. Not very long ago man was wandering about from place to place, remain- ing in one spot only so long as a comfortable living could be secured for the tribe by hunting, or until driven away by superior enemies. It would be strange indeed if long ages of forest life, during which man laid aside his weapons only to enjoy what they had given him or to prepare for new con- quests, should have left no impress on his descend- ants. But we are not dependent here upon mere conjecture. Let us delay for a moment to glance at some of the evidence. Various writers^ have called attention to certain fears for the existence of which only racial reasons can be offered. As illustrations we may mention fear in the woods after nightfall, though they are much safer to-day than many city streets where *J. 0. Quantz, "Dendro-Psychosis," American Journal of Psy- chology, vol. 9, p. 449. S. S. Buckman, "Babies and Monkeys," Nineteenth Century, vol. 36, 1894, p. 727. A. A. Mumford, "Survival Movements of Human Infancy," Brain, vol. 20, 1897, p. 290. L. Robinson, "Darwinism in the Nursery," Nineteenth Century, vol. 30, 1891, p. 831. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 7 children and men do not have the same timidity; the instinctive fear of wild animals and harmless reptiles; fear of high winds, even among those who have never experienced cyclones or tornadoes; and agoraphobia, an inexplicable fear on any other basis than as a survival of the time when exposure in the open meant death. Water also has played a tremendously important part among primitive people in their conceptions of life, as well as in folk literature, in philosophic speculation, and in religious cults. Professor Bol- ton^ has collected a large amount of data showing the curious attitude of children toward water. All of it is rich in racial memories. The play of children again offers strong prima facie evidence of the irresistible influence of this racial heritage. Investigations of the sports of primitive people always impress one with the fact that certain games are perennial. They are modi- fied from age to age, but they are always the same old games. Spinning tops, archery, guessing games, hidden-ball, dice, ball and racket (in which the racket is strikingly Hke that used to-day in tennis), shinny, foot-ball, quoits, and cat's cradle are a few of those pictured by Mr. Stewart Culin'^ in his * American Journal of Psychology, vol. lo, p. 169. * "Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1902-03." See also "The Study of Man," by Alfred C. Haddon. 8 YOUTH AND THE RACE interesting study of the games of the North Ameri- can Indians. No sport is so dehghtful to boys in the country and small towns, where land enough is available, as digging caves in which to conceal themselves from other boys or from which they may make sorties on neighboring orchards. The spoils of their raids are brought to their retreat with great glee and secrecy, perhaps in time to rot and be thrown away; but that does not matter. It was the fun of seizure, not the fruit, that they wanted. Three boys, whom the writer knows, dig a large and deep hole in one of their gardens every fall. The top is covered with boards and a secret under- ground passage leads to the cavern. This passage is not long enough to afford any real concealment, but such is the deception of play. This cave is the winter rendezvous of the boys, and the coal cars of a railroad near by afford a never-failing source of fuel for the cave fire. A group of boys, in age from ten to twelve, with whom the writer camped one summer, found keen delight in building wigwams out of the branches of trees, and in making a "one-night shelter" by bending down a small tree and piling branches around it so as to protect their heads and bodies from the "rain," while their feet were kept warm by means of a small camp-fire. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 9 Any one who has had contact with boys in the open can dupHcate these instances many times over. They illustrate the natural flow of primitive impulses which have not been dammed up and turned into civilization's alleys. The methods by which these racial instincts may be utilized in the development of boys, instead of being encouraged to function in a non-social way, will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but first it is desirable to see the result of failure to provide conditions suitable to their healthful expression. The following items are taken from newspapers. If they lack the exactness in details usual in news- paper reports, they are nevertheless true in essen- tial facts. The names of the children and some- times other unessential statements are omitted. Case I. — Residents of Jardine Place, Brooklyn, com- plained to the police yesterday that a gang of boys, whose ages range from fifteen to twenty, had left their homes in the district and become pirates, living in a cave on a vacant lot in Jardine Place. It was said that the gang had look- outs posted and lived by looting the neighboring houses of milk and rolls and anything else they could find. Inciden- tally they accosted unsuspecting youths and lured them to the pirates' lair, where they mulcted them of various sums by playing poker. The game, the victims averred, always seemed to be on the side of the pirates. A policeman in plain clothes stalked the juvenile ban- dits at 8 p. M. last night, and discovered that the cave had been excavated fully twenty feet into the ground. The boys all carried tin battle-axes and dark-lanterns, and used strange terms that were supposed to have been in vogue 10 YOUTH AND THE RACE two hundred years ago on the Spanish Main. Sentries were posted, and the password for the night was "Sparum Poco." Not daring to use such strange words, the officer wrig- gled through the tall grass and weeds in Indian fashion. With his ear to the ground, he heard one of the pirates say, "Three ladies and a pair of knaves." To which another answered, "Fade away. I've got four bullets. The pot's mine." Two of the boys were arrested and taken to the police station. The other "pirates" escaped.* Case 2. — A twelve-year-old boy, known among his com- panions as "Chief Yockel, King of the Bandits," gave the police reserves of the Morrisania Station several hours of worry yesterday when he hid himself in a cave of rocks and refused to come out. After the heavy stones had been re- moved by the police and a gang of Italian laborers. Chief Yockel was locked up in a cell on a charge made by his mother that he was incorrigible. "My pals wouldn't stick by me; they all went home," he sobbed as he was being locked up. For several weeks Chief Yockel and his companions have been using the cave in a lot at Fox Street and Saint John's Avenue as a place to read dime novels and play Indian. The cave was about ten feet deep and the entrance was so small that only one boy could enter at a time. Monday afternoon, Yockel discovered his mother's pocket-book on the kitchen table. In it was twenty dollars. Quickly the "Chief" gathered his followers, and announced that the time had come to celebrate. In the mean time the boy's mother missed him and her purse. Shortly after eight o'clock this morning an uncle of the boy saw the "Chief" seated near the cave in which he had slept all night. He started after him, but the young Indian wriggled through the opening and refused to come out. Yockel appealed to the police. The captain of the Morris- ania Station appealed to a gang of laborers across the street, and the work of pulling the rocks away began. > New York Times, September s, 1908. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 11 The police and the laborers were afraid to work fast, for the whole structure might give way and the boy in the cave be crushed if the keystone rock were moved. After an hour's work, the boy's legs could be seen, and the police tried to throw a noose around them. But the "Chief" was prepared for this emergency, and when the rope slipped across his feet he cut it. After another hour's work the rocks were removed and the boy was dragged from the cave and taken to the police station.^ Case 3. — The Wild West dreams of five Saint Louis boys, whose ages range frorri eleven to sixteen years, suddenly ter- minated yesterday afternoon, when they were rounded up by Saint Louis County officers, while the boys were sitting around their camp-fire formulating plans and telling thrilling stories. The leader of the band led the constable a chase of over a mile, in which the officer fired half a dozen shots before he captured the boy. The youngsters were camping in the woods about fifty feet from the Rock Island Railroad tracks, east of Clayton. The spot they had selected to board an outbound freight was at the bottom of a steep incline, where the train is brought nearly to a stop. Each of the boys had a sharp knife. They all had time- tables of railroads, and were figuring on reaching Texas within two weeks. They carried two loaves of bread and a pound of butter in a sack, besides a pair of new shoes and a carriage-robe. Two of the boys had on two pairs of trousers. They had a pack of playing-cards, with which they said they intended to amuse themselves while in camp. They also had a package of pins, several needles, and a spool of thread. One of the boys said that he had bought the shoes found in the sack, but that they hurt his feet and he had to take them off. They were number ten, and the pair the lad had on were about number five. The young adventurers claimed that they found the carriage-robe. They had eighty-three cents among them, but said that they expected to get more money. * New York Times, March 9, 1910. 12 YOUTH AND THE RACE When the constable asked them if they expected to get more money by holding up a train, they replied, "Oh, maybe we would do that, or else crack a crib and blow wid de cash." ^ Case 4. — Five boys, ranging from fourteen to fifteen years old, were arraigned beforejustice Hoyt, sitting in the Children's Court, yesterday, charged with improper guardianship. After the judge had heard their stories, they were remanded to the Children's Society until Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon a policeman of the West Forty- seventh Street Station saw the boys acting suspiciously in the freight yard of the New York Central Railroad at the foot of West Fifty-seventh Street. He watched them for some time and saw the five climb into an empty freight car attached to a train that had just started to move. He then arrested them. When the boys were searched, an emergency kit was found containing one roll of six-inch gauze bandages, two boxes of pills, one package of court-plaster, two bottles of cough- mixture, two bologna-sausage rings, and three loaves of bread. In court yesterday the one who acted as spokesman said that they had formed a club some time ago to get the necessary things to beat their way West. When asked what they in- tended to do with the bandages, he said, "You can't tell what will happen to you when you get West, and we didn't want to take any chances. We figured that we could get grub from somewhere, but if we got mixed up in a wreck or caught cold, bandages and medicines would be the things we would need." Their parents said the boys had been model children.^ Case 5. — The efforts of two boys, fifteen and sixteen years of age, from New Rochelle, New York, to lead a frontier life came to an end last night when the Portland police raided the camp they had built in the woods. The policemen confiscated pistols and lassos and took the boys to the police station. ' Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 8, 1909. ^ New York Times, May 5, 19 10. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 13 The officers had received word from relatives of the boys to look for them in this section, and learned of their camp through word brought by trappers. They had built a rough hut of small logs, and, as they had a little money, had been living well. They were loth to leave their comfortable quarters.^ Case 6. — Thinking that it would be fun to frighten one of their schoolfellows by sending him a Black-Hand letter, two New York boys, fourteen years old, wrote a note to another boy, the son of wealthy parents, demanding ten dollars and threatening death if it were not forthcoming. The letter was signed, "King of the Black Hand," and was profusely ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and daggers. Two detectives were ordered to find the writer. The boys who had sent the letter smilingly came to the detec- tives and told them that they had written it for fun. To their great astonishment they were immediately arrested and locked up.^ Case 7. — Moving pictures illustrating cow-boy life inter- ested a fourteen-year-old youngster to the point of emulation as he sat in the " Mystic Arcade. " As soon as the lights were turned on he jumped up, pushed his two boy companions out into the aisle, and, pulling from his hip-pocket a revolver, pointed it at their feet and called out, "Dance, you tender- feet." There were two hundred people, mostly women and chil- dren, in the theatre, and so lustily did the boy shout, and so freely did he swing his pistol, that there arose a commotion on all sides. Women screamed and made for the doors. The manager of the theatre came hurrying down the aisle. The boy swung the revolver in line with him. "Hands up," he called. The manager took one jump over the orchestra railing and dived behind the piano. A patrolman of the Fourth Avenue Station saw women * New York Times, June 27, 19 10. ^ Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, February 11, 1910. 14 YOUTH AND THE RACE hurrying out of the theatre. He ran in, saw the revolver, and made for it. The boy, seeing him come, quietly held out the pistol reversed. "Well, partner," said he, "I guess you've got the drop on me." The policeman took him to the station and there found that the pistol was not loaded. They sent the boy to the Chil- dren's Society as a juvenile delinquent and will arraign him to-day in the Children's Court.^ Case 8. — Two boys, aged twelve and thirteen, who said they ran away from their homes in Jacksonville, Illinois, to emu- late Robinson Crusoe and live in a little hut in some big woods, subsisting only on fish, were arrested yesterday morning at Main and Vine Streets, hungry as bears and crying because of the cold and exposure. They said that they had walked from Jacksonville, and, as their parents would not have enough money to send for them, requested that they be cared for by the police. They were sent to the House of Detention.* A pleasant home with kind parents whose chief concern is the happiness and welfare of their chil- dren is sometimes thought to be the best antidote for juvenile escapades, but the desire for adventure is not limited to any one class of boys, as is shown by the following: Case 9. — The thirteen-year-old son of a prominent New York architect, who disappeared from his home on Riverside Drive yesterday, walked into the home of his uncle in Washington, D. C, this morning and said that he was almost starved. The boy was chilled to the bone, since, in the course of his adventures, he had sold his overcoat to buy a steam-boat ticket to Europe. The lad was highly pleased when he learned that his dis- ^New York Times, January 31, 1909. * Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 29, 1912. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 15 appearance had aroused fears that he had gone to the East Side and fallen into the clutches of the Black Hand, and his expression indicated that he would have done just that if he had thought of it. What he had done, however, was to leave New York for the purpose of seeing the world. He reached Philadelphia yesterday. But the city did not suit him, so he decided to go to Europe. He walked down to the wharves and priced out- bound passage. A ticket, he discovered, cost more money than he had, so he sold his overcoat to make up the difference. Then he marched aboard, only to be held up by the captain, questioned, and sent ashore. He then started for Washington, where he arrived late last night. Wandering around near the Union Station — he seems at first to have had no idea of appealing to his relatives — he came to the house of the captain of the Senate Office Build- ing police force and asked for a room. He was taken in, but the officer became suspicious and questions followed. The boy then told of his adventures, and early this morning, on the advice of his new friend, the boy took a trolley for his uncle's home.^ When opportunity for adventures of a legitimate and wholesome sort is not given, city life, cheap novels, and low-grade shows have their way of supplying the deficiency, and the racial instincts may then culminate in actions much more serious than running away from home to lead a frontier life, sending Black-Hand letters, or flourishing an empty revolver. The following are illustrations: Case I. — The arrest of five boys, one of whom was ten years old, two others twelve, while the fourth and fifth were four- teen and nineteen, revealed the attempt of these youngsters last Saturday to wreck the early New Haven Railroad train ^ New York Times, January 22, 1912. 16 YOUTH AND THE RACE leaving New York shortly after noon. The purpose, as they confessed, was to loot the bodies of the dead and injured. They got as far as opening the switch, near the East Port- chester freight yard, having either found or stolen the key. That their plan did not succeed was due to the fact that a switchman happened to see them throw the switch and closed it in time to avert an accident. The train they wanted to wreck carries one of the special club cars on which travel a score or more of multi-millionaires who have homes either in Greenwich or Stamford and who come out early on Saturdays. The probation officers and prosecuting attorney stood aghast this morning when one of the boys coolly told of the plot and stated that the reason of the attempted crime was the hope of getting a few dollars from the pockets of the dead and wounded. The boys further told of having formed a regular organiza- tion which imposed elaborate oaths of secrecy and a part of whose formula consisted in crossing their hearts never to tell any of the deeds that any member of the gang perpetrated. These oaths did not interfere with theiijidesire to confess when they had once been thoroughly frightened. The crime, the boys said, was inspired by a moving-picture show that portrayed a train hold-up.^ Case 2. — A thirteen-year-old boy from the Bronx, having learned from a moving-picture show the first steps in burglary, went out on Saturday night with a brace and bit to gather in some candy for himself and friends. He had his eye on a candy store in the East Chester Station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He bored holes all around the lock of the door and then cut it out. Loading himself with eight dollars' worth of candy he withdrew. A detective of the Westchester Station, who had been as- signed to the case, found a plethora of candy in the morning and learned that the youngster had given it to his friends. The boy was at home when the officer reached there. Upon * Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March i, 19 lo. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 17 arrest for juvenile delinquency he told the detective that he got his idea of burglary from an East Chester moving-picture show.^ Case 3. — Classes at the Humboldt and Assumption schools were excited Tuesday when policemen entered and arrested two boys, one thirteen years of age and the other eleven, who were accused of stealing seventy-five dollars from a grocery store Sunday afternoon. The boys confessed and implicated another boy fifteen years old. He was arrested at his home, where something over forty- five dollars was found concealed in a mustard bottle in the attic. The boys gained entrance through the back door of the grocery, which was guarded by an iron bar. The thirteen-year-old lad bought a pair of roller-skates and a camera, and hired a buggy in which he took a girl driving Sunday afternoon. Four dollars in pennies, which he dis- dained to spend, he gave to a small boy. The boys are locked up at the Soulard Street Station.^ Case 4. — Two small boys, one thirteen years of age and the other nine, were arrested in New York and sent to the Children's Society, charged with having sent a *' Black-Hand" letter to a wealthy woman. The letter was as follows: We demand $2,500 as a Black Hand organization. If it is not paid we will blow up your home and all your family. We have four hundred and eighty-eight members scattered all over the world. You cannot escape us. Don't let the police know of this, or any one else, for, if you do, we will not let up on you if you offer us $100,000. Rich people pay our demands, and they have no more bother, because we protect them. Do as we ask or we will blow up your home and destroy every one in it with revolver or dagger, or send them poisoned food. ' New York Times, June 6, 1910. * Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 24, 1908. 18 YOUTH AND THE RACE There was a break in the letter here to make room for the picture of a dagger-pierced heart, a revolver, and a bottle marked "poison." Then the letter continued: After you pay ^2,500 you will be free from all expense. Take twenty-five $100 bills on Thursday evening, between 8 and 9 p. M. Deposit the money in a tin box and place it under some leaves on the ground close to the park wall at the first light post at the right hand of the small entrance to Cen- tral Park, between Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets, op- posite your house, and let it stay there till you get a letter from us that we received it. Black Hand. On the advice of detectives the woman decided to carry out the instructions. Disguised officers were to follow her. Shortly before nine o'clock last night she stepped from her house, crossed Fifth Avenue to the park, and deposited a tin box under some leaves by the park wall. The detectives watched her until she returned to the house. Then from be- hind the park wall they took up their vigil. It was some min- utes after nine o'clock before they were rewarded by seeing two boys walk down Fifth Avenue and poke beneath the leaves. Finally the larger boy came upon the box and to- gether the youngsters started off on Fifth Avenue. The detectives followed them for a block or so and then pounced upon the two, separating them immediately so that they could not converse and neither one could hear what questions were asked of the other. The smaller boy wept bitterly as he felt the officer's hand on his shoulder and began to scream and cry for his mother. The elder boy, who still clutched the box, took his arrest stoically. "What's in the box, kid?" asked the detective of the elder boy. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 19 "I don't know what's In it," replied the lad. "A man I met at Seventeenth Street and Third Avenue offered me a quarter to come and get this for him." "What did he look like.?" asked the officer. "Why, he was a tall man with a black mustache." The other officer meantime was asking the same questions of the younger boy, and got the same replies until he asked for a description of the man. "He looks just like you," whimpered the little chap. This officer had no mustache. Convinced also by the actions of the boys that they had written the letter, the detectives took them to the Children's Society. The older boy had a lot of cigarette pictures, such as come in packages of certain brands of cigarettes, and a list of dime novels, blood-thirsty ones, to judge by their titles. He was anything but blood-thirsty himself, however, when he was ushered into the society's rooms.* Case 5. — Two brothers, ten and fifteen years old, respec- tively, were arrested in an Illinois town by a deputy sheriff on a charge of placing an obstruction on a railroad track to wreck a train. It is alleged they put twenty large spikes between the ends of two rails, wedged in such a manner that they would in all probability have wrecked a fast passenger train which was due but a few minutes from the time the spikes were dis- covered. A workman saw the boys running away and discov- ered the obstruction, which was a short distance above the depot at Loraine. He removed the spikes and reported the matter. There was snow on the ground and the boys were tracked to their place of concealment.^ Case 6. — Many daring burglaries in Pittsburg are charged against three brothers, the youngest seven years old and the oldest under fifteen, who are now locked up in the South Side ' New York Times, February 25, 1909. ' Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 1908. 20 YOUTH AND THE RACE Police Station. For two days policemen had been tracing them. Eight Mount Washington homes are said to have been entered by them during the last three nights. Much valuable booty was secured and hidden away in the dark recesses of an abandoned coal mine just across the Monongahela River from Pittsburg. There they lived like brigands and planned their night attacks on South Side houses. Partly burned candles, with which they had lighted their rendezvous, food, knives, bayonets, and swords were among the things found by the police when they searched the cave.^ While adventures that girls seek are usually different from those enjoyed by boys, still this sex differentiation does not always occur in early girl- hood, as is shown by the following press cHppings: Case I. — A woman, whose home is in Marion, Illinois, has asked the chief of police to assist her in finding her daughter, fourteen years old, who disappeared from her home a week ago, after telling some of her girl friends that she proposed to become a female detective. The girl took twenty-three dollars in cash with her. Just before she left home she wrote to her best girl friend and told her of her intentions. After she arrived in Saint Louis, she mailed another postal card to her chum, but there was no indication of where the girl was living in this city. The conductor of the train on which the girl came to Saint Louis told the police that she represented herself to be an orphan and said that she was on her way to visit an aunt. She paid her fare and the conductor gave her no special attention.* Case 2. — A twelve-year-old girl, the daughter of a well-to-do brick mason, confessed yesterday in the Children's Court that, 1 New York Times, June 28, 19 10. ' Saint Louis Post-Dispatch. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 21 twice during the week, she had set fire to the apartment house in which she lived. The reason which she gave was that she had seen such things pictured on the screen of a Bronx moving-picture theatre. The child admitted that it was she who had written a threatening letter which was found tied to the door-knob of her father's apartment, and in which she demanded fifty- dollars as the price needed to keep her from burning up the house and everybody in it. She also laid the Black Hand part of her scheme to moving pictures. On Monday a fire was started in some rubbish that had been placed by the girl in the hallway on the second floor. The fire was discovered by a tenant, and was extinguished without the aid of the firemen. The next day a second fire was started near the same place. Again the tenants were able to put it out before the firemen arrived. The tenants realized that an incendiary was at work and were greatly concerned, many of them remaining up all night Tuesday to watch. The police were notified, as was also the fire marshal. A detective was assigned to the case, and early Wednesday morning he went to the house with the fire marshal to investigate. The father of the child turned over to them a letter which he had found tied to his door-knob that morning. The letter read: "If you don't put fifty dollars under the door-mat we will burn your home and everybody in it. " Black Hand." The detective saw that the letter was in the handwriting of a child, and he questioned every child in the apartment house. When it came little Ethel's turn to be quizzed she at first denied the authorship, but when she was shown that she wrote the same kind of a hand as that in which the letter was written she broke down and confessed. "I saw a moving picture in which there was a fire and people were rescued," the child sobbed, "and I also saw one where the Black Hand tried to get money. I don't know why I did it, but I did not mean to do wrong." 22 YOUTH AND THE RACE The parents of the child were the most surprised of all the tenants at the confession.^ Case 3. — Two girl highway robbers are being sought by the police of Newark for holding up a number of young girls on the street and taking money from them. Both the girl bandits are described as about fifteen years old, well dressed, and pretty. For the past several nights the young robbers have been operating through the streets of Newark in the crowded district of Broad and Market Streets. Their victims in every instance were children who were sent on errands with money. One of the girls held the victim while the other tore her pocket-book from her hand. The girl who took the purse ex- tracted the money, threw the pocket-book in the owner's face, and walked away.^ Case 4. — A girl, thirteen years old, is in jail at Cuyahoga Falls, charged with attempted bank robbery. She will be brought to the county jail to-night. This afternoon she en- tered the Falls Savings Bank armed with a revolver. She asked for the cashier, but he was out, and the assistant was in charge. She sat in the outer office for a few moments, then approached the man at the window, and, levelling the gun at his head, said: "Give me the money in those vaults." The man was startled, but replied that the vaults were closed and he could not open them. "Then give me what you have in your pockets," was her next demand. "I have no money," he answered. Disappointed, the young bank robber hesitated, backed to the door, and started down the street on the run. She was arrested later by a policeman. The girl lives at the Falls and is of a respectable family. ^New York Times, July 15, 1910. ' New York World, September 3, 1906. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 23 She has been impatient of parental restraint and is fond of Wild West literature.^ Case 5. — A girl fourteen years of age wound up an exciting escapade of two days at Niles, Michigan, this afternoon by calmly going to sleep, after she had been locked up, charged with horse-stealing. She had given her parents and friends a terrible fright. Stimulated only by cookies and confections and her own lively imagination, the young miss carried through her lark with a high-handed disregard for consequences. She rented a horse and buggy at a Niles livery, after running away from home yesterday. Then she made a round of several bakery shops and confectionery stores and loaded the buggy with pies, cakes, and candies. Thus provisioned, she started out to see the country. She drove seven miles to Buchanan before nightfall. Near Buchanan she stabled her horse and spent a comfortable night at a farm-house, after inventing a story to satisfy the farmer that she was not a runaway. To-day she resumed her trip, stopping occasionally to rest her horse and to open a fresh bag of sweets. By the middle of the afternoon she had covered the thirty miles between Buchanan and Michigan City. "I don't care," the girl remarked, when told that a telegram had been sent her father. "I certainly have had the time of my life." When her father and an officer from Niles arrived here to- night they found the child asleep. She was taken reluctantly home an hour later.* The following are more typical of girls' advent- ures, representing, as they do, their desire to do — or pretend to do — the thing that makes them socially conspicuous in their set. In the first in- ' Saint Louis Republic, July 12, 191 1. ^New York Times, August 12, 191 1. 24 YOUTH AND THE RACE stance it was automobiling. This also illustrates the enjoyment which girls experience in finery. The story of having been kidnapped was invented to account for the possession of an automobile dress which the child had purchased after long economy. Besides the enjoyment which she her- self would derive from the dress, though she might never have an opportunity to ride in an automo- bile, its possession, together with suitable stories, would enable her to boast to her playmates about her rides. After purchasing the dress, however, she found it necessary to account to her parents for such a useless garment. How she did this will be seen in the following newspaper account: Case I. — Numbered trading-stamps led to the collapse of the remarkable fiction, worthy of a moving-picture dramatist, by which a girl of twelve explained her absence from home from Monday morning until Tuesday morning. She wrote a confession Wednesday and signed it in the presence of her mother and detectives, in which she declared the story of being kidnapped in an automobile by two men to be a pure fabrication, conceived by her own imagination. Trading-stamps were found in her possession on her return to her home, and she explained them by saying they were given with a cheap automobile dress and veil which the men by whom she was supposed to have been kidnapped purchased for her. From the number on the stamps it was learned that the sale was made at a certain large department store, and the clerk remembered that the girl made the purchases herself. She now admits she bought the dress and veil with money she had saved during several months. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 25 She says that she invented the story to excuse her truancy from school. The narrative was crammed with thrills. It began on her way to school, when an automobile panted up beside the pavement, and a man sprang out, gagged her with a handkerchief, and bundled her into the machine. His com- panion in the automobile poured a liquid on the handkerchief, which she knew was chloroform, because it put her to sleep. She awoke in a West End lodging house, according to her story, and the men were with her. They then chloroformed her again. She awoke in the morning and the new clothes were given to her. The men discarded the automobile for a storm buggy and drove her to Union Station, telling her she was to be taken to Chicago and would never see Saint Louis again. Not until she was on the train did she succeed in eluding them, by pretending to want a drink and slipping out of the car while on the errand.* Another instance which was reported to the writer is exceedingly interesting in the wealth of fancy woven into the play as it was acted by the girl. Case 2. — The girl was sixteen years of age. She was the daughter of respectable, hard-working parents. Her father kept a small shop and by frugality and close attention to business maintained his family in comfortable circumstances and sent his children to school. The town was so large that the school children knew nothing about the home life of many of their associates. This enabled the daughter to weave the following exhilarating romance into her life. Her father and mother, the girl told her school associates, spent most of their time in Europe. When they were not travelling abroad they lived in their summer cottage in Michigan, and, by way of helping the imagination of her * Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 2, 19 lo. 26 YOUTH AND THE RACE friends to picture her luxury, she showed photographs which she had purchased of a pretty summer cottage. She arranged a girls' box party at the theatre, at her own expense, and invited one of the teachers to accompany them as chaperon. The money to defray the expenses was skilfully purloined from the till of her father's shop which she was required to tend after close of school. Of course, her guests must be supplied with flowers, but this caused no serious diffi- culty, as a relative kept a greenhouse in which she was fre- quently left alone. The box party became somewhat complex, however, because she could only tell her family that she was going to the theatre, and her mother, naturally, could not allow her to go alone. But she was equal to the emergency and proposed that her older sister accompany her. On their arrival she told her sister that one of the teachers was giving a box party and had invited her to sit with them. She then joined her school friends and chaperon in the box. Of course, the romance would not have been complete without a devoted young admirer. So she gave her girl friends the name of one of the officers of the street railway company, which she found on a transfer. Occasionally she pointed him out, always selecting some young man who was just disappearing in the distance. She also displayed flowers which he had sent to her, roses that she had secretly taken from the greenhouse of her relative. Several times she said that he had invited her to take a drive with him and had told her to ask a girl friend to accompany them. A sudden mes- sage, however, invariably called him back to business, and his disappearing form was always pointed out. Meanwhile he had left the horse and carriage — which she had hired with money taken from her father's money drawer — in front of the school building. It was a pretty little play of an imaginative, adolescent girl who found the monotony of tend- ing shop and doing housework inadequate to her romantic years. Of course, she was discovered at THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 27 last and her parents, in chagrin, withdrew her from school. She is now watching the shop again, a quiet, sedate young woman. We judge acts according to the standardized estimate of the worth or execrability of the deed, and for that reason we are usually mistaken in our judgment. Were ethics so simple it would never have become so perplexing as to require volumes to elucidate a theory with as many more for its refutation. Life is entanglingly complex. Traditions, beliefs arising in the social and relig- ious institutions of the past, and racial vestiges which express themselves in instinctive tendencies, combat one another with their contradictions, to puzzle the thoughtful and obscure the right course of action. To the unthinking, life is all quite plain, or at any rate easily defined. "Don't fear to ax for what you want," said John Bloom. ^ "There's no rule against axing. There's no rule anywhere, an' good an' bad's a toss up. You may pull a prize out of your life — or you may not. Every- thing's run by chance, according to the plan of Providence." The very fact that unmitigated condemnation of these attempts at adventure presupposes under- lying simplicity of impulse is alone sufficient to throw doubt upon the correctness of the judgment. 1 "The Secret Woman," by Eden Phillpotts. 28 YOUTH AND THE RACE The motives leading to human action are never simple, and they rarely reveal themselves to super- ficial observers. This is the reason for the rule of skilful detectives never to accept the simple expla- nation of a crime. "Always distrust appearances; believe precisely the contrary of what appears true, or even probable," said Tirauclair to the young Lecoq. In trying to ascertain whether love for the wild and the spirit of adventure have any racial justi- fication for existence, it is first necessary to ex- amine the attitude of young children toward cer- tain natural phenomena. This was briefly done, and investigations in support of the position were cited in an earlier part of this chapter. Such racial justification having been discovered, educa- tion must take account of the fact and provide for the gratification of these instincts, because they represent the first break from the animal cunning of man's arboreal ancestors — nature's first attempt at something higher than brute ethics — as well as for the reason that if allowed to mature without control, these instincts retain all their primitive non-social or anti-social characteristics. On the other hand, if the education of boys is so planned as to furnish an outlet for this racial energy through sports and serious activities that involve social relations, while still satisfying the THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 29 craving for excitement and adventure, these same instincts then become powerful educative forces. As the psychical characteristics by which early man maintained his existence and gained suprem- acy over the beasts from which these traits alone separated him, they are the beginning of human mind and the source of all positive, modern virtues. In judging the behavior of children it is impor- tant to remember that the higher cerebral centres are just beginning to secure the control which at maturity should be theirs. Primitive impulses are still rampant. Principles of conduct do not yet possess the boy. The racial mind is contending for supremacy with modern ethics and culture. Even in the adult this control of the higher centres is at times relaxed, and then the unrelenting fierceness of our early ancestors reveals itself in all its cruelty. Illustrations are almost superfluous. During the French Revolution men carried away the hearts of their victims as proof of their prowess, and exhib- ited as trophies the heads which had been hacked off with pocket-knives. Lest these acts may be thought characteristic of a peculiar people in an earlier, less thoughtful age, the writer may, per- haps, be pardoned for recalling the brutal fight for souvenirs over the dead body of aeronaut John- stone, at Denver, Colorado, November 17, 1910. "One of the broken wooden stays had gone almost 30 YOUTH AND THE RACE through Johnstone's body. Before doctors or po- lice could reach the scene, one man had torn this splinter from the body and run away, carrying his trophy with the aviator's blood still dripping from its ends. Frantic, the crowd tore away the canvas from over his body and fought for the gloves that had protected his hands from the cold." ^ Such acts as these, revolting as they are, do not necessarily indicate degeneracy. They show the ancient savage let loose in modern man, and when that happens the veneer of culture and altruism acquired during the comparatively few years of civilization cannot restrain the brute. Gaining trophies is one way of emitting glory, and there was Httle that primitive man would not do or give for this distinction. The Indians' enjoyment of scalping was due less to the delights of torture — for they knew ways of producing more exquisite suf- fering — than to the satisfaction of securing tro- phies, and the modern souvenir mania has the same psychical basis. Fortunately, cruelty is not the aspect of the racial mind which causes most concern for children. With them it is oftener the careless unconcern about the more serious matters of life, and the in- satiable longing of the primitive soul for something new and exciting. Like savages, children are both * Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, November i8, 1910. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 31 readily entertained and easily bored. Life must be spirited or they will break its bounds and find their own adventures. This was the motive in the instances cited in the early part of this chapter, and it was the cause of the following interesting little adventure : The "Cave Club," as it is called, has been unearthed by the truant officer. The cave was built a month ago by four youngsters ranging in age from eight to twelve, to shelter them from the cold during the winter months so they would not have to stay indoors. When built it was about eight feet square. Yesterday morning the boys enlarged it on account of the increasing membership, which now totals eleven. The cave is provided with chairs, benches, stove, and lamps, while the dirt walls are covered with pictures. It looks very comfortable, and will provide a warm place during the cold afternoons. If one did not know of the cave it would be hard to find. It was dug in the yellow clay, and after the top was laid with heavy boards it was covered with dirt. The stove- pipe just reaches the level of the roof and can be seen only from a short distance. The three boys who were in the cave yesterday afternoon said they played hookey sometimes and had used the cave as a hiding place while they were working on it, but now that they have it completed they are not going to play hookey any more, as they are afraid they will be found out and the cave de- stroyed.^ The problem, then, seems to be to give boys the adventures which they crave without encouraging reversion to the primitive, ancestral type. There is abundant evidence that this can be done, but * Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, November 22, 19 10. 32 YOUTH AND THE RACE the most striking instance, perhaps, is that of the Boy Scouts. The success of this movement has been so remarkable that the enthusiasm which it creates must spring from deeper sources than those that supply the transitory interest in many ac- tivities. What has worked the miracle of making boys willing to give up their old Ufe of lying, and stealing, and running away from school? Some have thought it the uniform. "Stick a boy into a uniform," they say, "and you can do anything with him." Can you? Try a prison garb and see what happens. It is what the uniform stands for that determines its effect. Plan a piece of work so that it will involve some physical activity and authority. It does not much matter what the work is. Then gather together a few boys, tell them that you need their help, put responsibility on them, and they are ready for business. Not long ago, about half a dozen urchins were making hfe miserable for the fruit venders and street-car conductors in a crowded district of one of our cities. Car windows were broken, conductors stoned, and fruit was stolen. The policemen were powerless, because the boys vanished immediately after committing the offence. A young man in the neighborhood said that he would stop the disturb- ances if the poUce department would agree not to prosecute the offenders when they were caught. THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 33 The chief smiled compassionately at his innocence, but, being helpless, he let him have his way. A club, called "The Boys' Protective Society," was organized from the lads of the neighborhood. The members met once a week in a rented hall, played games, and organized for their work. One night the leader of the gang of toughs was caught in the act of overturning a fruit stand. As it was a choice between arrest and accompanying his cap- tors he yielded. Indeed, the whole affair struck him as rather entertaining. It certainly was an easy way to escape a night in jail. He was taken to the hall and messengers were at once despatched to summon the members of the club. A court was organized and the prisoner found guilty. The question of punishment was a serious problem, and the captive, understanding their perplexity, smiled in derision. But the boys were equal to the situation and sentenced him to be an "outcast." They told him that they would not play with him, that they would not even speak to him on the street. He said he didn't care, and went out with a very haughty air. The next day, Saturday, the boys of the neighborhood gathered for their usual base-ball game on a vacant lot. While they were organizing for the game the prisoner of the night before arrived and was at once chosen by the leader of one of the sides, who was not a club member. 34 YOUTH AND THE RACE The boys belonging to the club then left the field. Only two remained to keep the "outcast" com- pany, and they were not members of the club. At the next meeting of the society the following note from the former prisoner was presented: "If yez will let me jin yer club I won't do nothing any more and will play yer way." He was elected to membership and at the next meeting he brought three of his old associates and begged that they be admitted. From that time fruit dealers and car conductors had peace. There is no inconsistency in boys trading mis- demeanors for social service, provided the latter is equally virile. The destructive, anti-social im- pulses express the racial need for self-assertion, for aggressive action. Paradoxical as it may seem, with boys destruction is construction. They are trying out a plan of campaign against their ene- mies. It is not always necessary that the "enemy" shall have committed unfriendly acts, since boys look upon adults as a peculiar people who are try- ing to coerce them into actions against which their racial instincts rebel. They want to do things which show their power, and the most natural ob- ject against which they can pit their resources is that strangely unnatural creature, civilized man, whose occupations are so tame and uneventful, and who always cries, "Peace! Peace!" They are THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 35 living through the period of the race when survival depends upon eternal vigilance and ceaseless ac- tivity. But action is the one thing which is left out of account in the home and school. Naturally, then, children find their own field of operations, and since primitive instincts, when undirected, tend to reinstate the life of our savage ancestors, conflict with modern civilization ensues. We have said that the fundamental problem in training boys consists in furnishing adventures without encouraging reversion. The club of Boy Scouts does this, both by the suggestion given in the name and by the demand for readiness to act in emergencies. Adventures need not be spectac- ular to meet the requirements. Boys will tramp through the woods with guns, without firing a shot, until ready to drop from exhaustion, and enjoy every minute. The imagination helps amazingly, provided it has something to work upon. Scout- ing is the cue for countless racial reminiscences. Though the uniform is not necessary, it furthers the play of the imagination. The "adventures" that come with emergency calls, as well as those which the adolescent mind easily thinks into drill exer- cises of a military sort, give the boys opportunity to show oflF. All of this appeals to the racial in- stincts, and whatever has their support draws its power from an exhaustless reservoir of energy. 36 YOUTH AND THE RACE Social virtues, which boys honestly intend to prac- tise some day, when they reach the dry, spiritless age of their teachers and parents, now acquire the irresistible force of race enthusiasm. They are thrifty, and truthful, and studious, because these virtues are a part of the Scout's honor. Organization into scouts is not the only means of transforming racial tendencies into educative forces. Responsibility, freedom to manage things, is what boys want. All sorts of racial emotions cluster around the idea of authority. The teacher may suggest, but the suggestion must be so subtle that the children think the plan their own. Then it takes possession of them and they carry it out with the same vigor that animates their play. The nervous system is much like other complex machinery. Sometimes it gives results and again it does not work. With children the chief disturb- ances in the running of the nervous machinery are inhibitions and vagrant nervous currents. Inhibi- tions are the child's protest against the neglect of his deepest instincts. Boys require action, with freedom to initiate and discover; yet they are com- pelled to learn dreary facts which have no meaning for them. Often the work is wholly fruitless in the opinion of the teacher as well. One school with which the writer is familiar has given up formal grammar because it was found profitless, THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 37 and another, for the same reason, has abandoned geography. But it is a commentary on educational intelHgence that a third class, turned loose in these subjects, asked so many questions and became so excited over their discoveries that the teacher had difficulty in keeping their pace. If there were no adventures here, the children, at all events, were not suppressed, and their instinct to investigate and display their knowledge was not curbed by the limitations of the course of study. Perhaps they were interested in verbs before mastering nouns, but in learning that something was done they soon discovered that some one had to do it. Geography literally drove the teacher to the swamps. And here the boys found real adventures. Hardly had school closed before they were off to the woods and streams. When they came back they were loaded with mud and information. Boys who had played truant could not be driven away from school. One who had been suspended for a serious offence begged, instead, for a whipping, so that he might not fall behind the other boys. The class session was the clearing-house for the information. Here, under the guidance of their teacher, they compared notes and learned the meaning of what they had discovered. Evidently inhibitions and vagrant nervous im- pulses are not a necessary part of even the school- 38 YOUTH AND THE RACE boy. He will be active, he insists upon adventures, and he is bound to show off. Yet these are the very qualities which the school suppresses. The objection may be raised that the school was not organized to provide adventures. The reply to this is, first, that it is the duty of the schools to educate, and second, that teachers should make use of every means to improve their own energy- efficiency. Both of these statements are sufficiently commonplace to be acceptable. Our forefathers acted upon them when the teachers and pupils went into the woods for their occasional outing, to gather a fresh supply of birch switches. The schools have abandoned the rod as a promoter of educational efficiency, but they have put nothing, except sentimentality, in its place. Now, we have found racial instincts to be a tremendous force in the life of boys, driving them on in search of situa- tions which shall satisfy the functional nervous craving for adventure. It is the law of the race, written in the blood and fibre of the youth. I am not advocating turning study into play, nor roaming woods and fields in search of mere excite- ment. I do insist, however, that we have here a group of racial instincts available for the teacher who cares to increase his efficiency. If this view is correct, it is quite as unintelligent to ignore these instincts as for an efficiency engineer to overlook THE SPIRIT OF ADVENTURE 39 losses that might be converted into useful energy. For these impulses are either with the educative process or against it. The problem is to direct them into new channels which make for mental and moral development, instead of allowing them to run the more natural, easier course of truancy, cheap shows, and dance-halls. The practical ques- tion in the problem is: Can these racial instincts be utilized in the educative process.'' Will the plan work? In answering these questions it is only necessary to show that it has worked with a suffi- ciently large number of pupils gathered from the usual varied surroundings of public-school children. If, in addition, we can show that the plan works under less favorable conditions than those which commonly characterize public schools, the argu- ment is so much the stronger. It is not necessary to prove that every teacher can win to his support the native instincts of boys, any more than in demonstrating the efficiency of steam one must show that every man can manage an engine. In both cases the thing to do is to find some one who understands his job. We have already noted several instances in which racial instincts were advantageously used for development. These cases were introduced to illustrate the amazing possibilities of primitive impulses as educative forces. The scout idea, it 40 YOUTH AND THE RACE may be objected, does not fit school conditions. For this reason, if the school is to avail itself of these instincts it remains to be shown that they may be used to promote self-control among pupils and improve the quality of work in the class. To this, then, we now turn. CHAPTER II THE WAYS OF YOUTH It happened about two years ago in a country school. The building was perched on the top of a desolate hill, midway between two groups of farms which extended long distances in every direction except in that which led to the school. The httle red house looked as though it had been dropped by a cyclone, so incongruous were the sur- roundings. Yet the patrons would have placed the building on another planet, to give each equal distances, could they but have bridged the chasm. Then they would never have visited it except to dismiss the teacher. But their jealousy was only human. It is self-satisfying to possess privileges even if we never derive advantage from them. One teacher had been dismissed because she asked for an assistant that she might have more time to study in preparation for her classes. Being very practical people, these farmers wanted the best. They knew just what a good teacher should be, and, as usual, the desirable qualities included everything which the former teachers lacked. It is strange how all the bad qualities are combined 41 42 YOUTH AND THE RACE in those whom we know, and all the virtues united in one for whom we are always vainly searching. At all events, one who had not yet learned her lessons was not up to the standard of these prac- tical people. It set a bad example to the chil- dren, they said. What is the use of going to school if one must be forever studying? One teacher after another came — and suddenly left. The big boys managed that. Like their par- ents, they had their ideals and they had not yet found the one they wanted. Boys are rather par- ticular in their preferences. The plan of dis- missal was usually left to the biggest boy in the school. Joe was something of an artist in his way, and he prided himself upon his dehcate touch. He always managed to be hard at work when the disturbance which he had arranged occurred. Then he appeared as the champion of the small boy whom he was using as a decoy. It was pleasant to be looked upon as the defender of the oppressed. The child was not to blame and the teacher punished him because he was little. That was the way in which Joe put it to his associates and parents. A new teacher was to take charge in the morning and the boys were looking forward to the event. The change always relieved the monotony. Joe went early, because, hke a good general, he wanted THE WAYS OF YOUTH 43 to look the ground over. He entered the building with his hat on, by way of showing his familiarity with the place, and found himself face to face with a pleasant-looking girl who was putting the room in order. "Good-morning," she said, smiling as she went on with her work. Joe squirmed, standing first on one leg and then on the other, and finally took off his hat. The teacher looked hardly older than himself, and it was more than the defender of the oppressed could stand to see her working without offering assist- ance. "Shan't I help you?" he asked. "Yes, if you will, please. Then we can finish before the children come." It was a great rehef to have something to do with his hands. Curiosity also brought others early, and great was their amazement to meet Joe at the door putting the finishing touches to cleaning the black-board erasers. "She's such a little thing," he said apologet- ically, "and besides, she's a girl." Of course, every one wanted to help. What- ever Joe did was all right. So, in a moment they were all at work filling ink-wells and clearing out the papers which were wadded into the desks. "There, I guess that will do for this morning," 44 YOUTH AND THE RACE said the teacher. "Now, let's take our seats and get ready for work." Joe sat down and took out his book. He was too much flustered to do anything else. There was a mysterious silence during the day, broken only by the work of the recitations. Joe studied, or pretended to, because he was trying to recover himself. It contradicted his notion of fair play to annoy one with whom he had just been working on terms of equality. Besides, she had set him apart from the others when she said, "We can finish before the children come." At any rate, he would wait until to-morrow, he thought to him- self, before starting the fun. At the close of school the teacher asked Joe to stop a minute. As the others left, the lad ap- proached the desk and stood with his hands dan- gling helplessly, wondering why he had consented to wait, and with half a mind to run out the door. "Day after to-morrow is Saturday, Joe, and I want to take you all down to the creek to show you how geography is made." "I didn't know it was made. I thought it was just writ," replied Joe. "We will see when we get to the creek. But I must have some help. There are more children than I can take care of alone, and then, too, I shall need some one to help show the others all the THE WAYS OF YOUTH 45 things that are to be seen, so I want you to help me. This was a new situation for Joe, but he had never yet refused an appeal for aid. He had posed so long as the champion of those who needed as- sistance that he had come to think himself quite virtuous. Besides, it fitted into his feelings of superiority that he should be selected to assist in instructing the others. Of course, he consented. Any big boy would. The anticipated events of the following day did not occur. Joe was trying to think the thing out. He knew the boys expected something to happen, but again his idea of a square deal interfered. He had been chosen to help teach the others on the excursion. He could not begin by making trouble. "She don't just boss you around and tell you to get to work," he said apologetically at recess. "She treats a feller as though he had some sense." Saturday afternoon the children returned from their tramp loaded with specimens for the next week's study. That evening when Joe sat down with a book which his teacher had lent him, he remarked to his wondering parents: "Those boys don't know nothing. It's a big job to help teach 'em, and a feller's got to work." This is putting the responsibility for discipline 46 YOUTH AND THE RACE and work upon the children, where it belongs. The teacher is left free to help and direct and inspire. And these are the duties for which disposition and training alike should equip, else one is unfitted to teach. Under the ordinary method of teacher-control, a large part of the attention is divided. If nothing is happening, there is, at least, expectation that something interesting may occur, and so the atten- tion wanders from one possibility of entertainment to another, returning frequently to the teacher to read the danger-signals in his look and attitude. It will not be gratifying to the strenuous peda- gogues who pride themselves on their discipline to learn that in their school this divided attention is always in evidence. Martinets are good game for mischievous boys, and there is no closed sea- son. The more watchful the teacher, the more ex- citing the sport. A few days ago a young man, speaking of his employer, said: "He makes you feel that you are working with him instead of for him. You think that the business is yours as much as his." Some teachers possess this personality, and they create a feeUng of self-government without machinery to help the illusion. Unfortunately, such teachers are rare because this quality of mind fits men for posi- tions in which their talent has a wider scope. The THE WAYS OF YOUTH 47 manner of producing the spirit of self-government is unimportant, however, provided only it is cre- ated in some way. The complete reversal of the children's views about behavior is, perhaps, the most striking change observed in a school after the introduction of pupil-government. This change is especially noticeable in the case of boys who have been in- corrigible in other schools. "This boy is a menace to the school and com- munity because of his total lack of moral sense," was the recommendation written by a New York principal for a boy who was being transferred to School no, Manhattan. This school has pupil- government, and the new boy found to his amaze- ment that he was no longer a hero when he be- haved Hke a ruffian. Instead of having the other boys on his side against the teachers, he discovered that he had to answer for his offences to his own playmates. The situation was so odd that at first he did not know what to make of it. So he waited. He wanted to see how the land lay. And he found out. For, like most bad boys, he was bright, and one trial before his schoolmates was enough to convince him that his way of doing business was antiquated. As he was only twelve, he was not too old to get a few ideas and adapt himself to new conditions. One day the principal sent him out to 48 YOUTH AND THE RACE buy postage-stamps. When returning he saw three boys so far away from the building that he knew they were truants. He took them back to the school and dehvered them to the principal. Later, in recognition of his observation and skill, his schoolmates elected him chief of police. His work with truants, in his new office, has made a record for his school. At another time a boy was dragged into the same school by two policemen. He had been sent by the court and, as he did not enjoy the prospect, he had tired out the two big men with his struggles. So they dropped him on the floor at the feet of the principal. After listening to the story, the principal gave the boy a card of permission to go where he wished, adding that if he preferred not to stay in the building he might leave. This struck the boy as a strange way of handling him. But since he was free to go, he thought he would Hke to stay a while. So, he wandered from one room to another and finally found a boy acquaintance making a desk. There was no teacher in the room and the visitor amused himself by picking up some of the tools and trying them on whatever hap- pened to be convenient. One of the boys stepped up to him and said: "You are injuring our property. You must leave those tools alone." THE WAYS OF YOUTH .49 "Who are you?" asked the intruder. *'I am one of the aldermen of the School City." The new-comer looked with astonishment at the diminutive representative of the authority of the school. He was not accustomed to this treatment by a boy smaller than himself. The novelty of the situation puzzled him. But he laid aside the tools and sat down. At the close of school, he told the principal that things looked pretty good to him and he guessed he would come the next day. He soon became an active citizen of the School City. The instances of which we have been speaking are typical of the behavior of boys when in con- trol of their work. Their laws may be unwritten, but woe to him who transgresses them! A young- ster in School 23 of the Bronx was reported to the governor of his class for disorder. The governor convened the council and, after the evidence had been heard, the defendant was pronounced guilty. As the boy refused to acquiesce in the verdict, the governor laid the matter before the principal. The culprit was summoned to the office and told that he must make his peace with the governor and council before he could return to the class. It was not pleasant, but he did it. A short time after, he appUed for admission to the " Boy Scouts" of his class. The application was laid on the 50 YOUTH AND THE RACE table by his classmates until sufficient time should have passed to enable them to determine whether he was worthy of the honor. A boy of twelve in School 109, Brooklyn, dis- obeyed his teacher. He was tried in the court of the School City and found guilty. In this case the youthful judge, for reasons which he thought adequate, after a severe reprimand, released the boy on parole. This was the last occasion for summoning him before the court. It is such situations as these that count for moral growth. These children are not taught morality. They grow into it. The lessons are more effective than if they came from the teacher because they represent the sentiment of the class. As an eighth-grade boy in School 23, of the Bronx, put it, "No boy likes to be thought different from other boys. No boy wants a whole class down on him." ^ The behavior of the pupils in these schools springs from the impulse of children to want the things that they control done well. They act rightly because under these conditions right ac- tion is identical with accomplishing what they have set themselves to do. The difference be- tween such behavior and that of pupils managed according to orthodox pedagogy is illustrated by * The Spirit of the School, January, 191 1, p. 8. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 51 a school which was recently brought to the atten- tion of the writer. The teachers, live janitors, and fifty-four monitors were required to keep hardly more than twenty-two hundred children in order when they assembled for the afternoon session. If this is thought to be an extreme in- stance, the writer may mention that he has seen many schools dismissed, with teachers located at every turn on each floor. With such evident fear of their prowess, it is little wonder that children take dehght in outwitting their guards. The needlessness of this pedagogical bluster is seen in the Thirteenth Avenue School, at Newark, New Jersey. Here twelve pupil monitors elected by the children have entire charge of the entrance and dismissal of nineteen hundred pupils. At the close of recess the writer stepped down to the playground and found monitors putting the chil- dren into line and marching them upstairs. Every- thing was done quietly and rapidly. There was no nonsense. Just before the hour of dismissal the monitors left their classes and took their re- spective places in the halls and on the stairs. The teachers remained in their rooms until the children passed out. The abihty of pupils to control themselves when they know that they are not watched from se- cluded corners and through glass doors is also seen 52 YOUTH AND THE RACE in School 114, Manhattan. Here the order of the boys as they march through the halls from room to room, which they do every forty minutes, needs no supervision except that of the officials of the School City. Here, also, the same young admin- istrative officers direct the dismissal of the chil- dren. After school they take charge of those who remain in the building to play, a privilege which is granted because of the congested condition of the streets. Even in the street, on the way to school, the School City uses its authority to pre- vent disorder among its citizens. At School 52, Manhattan, the writer had an opportunity to see how well the pupil officers could handle the children in case of fire. The principal signalled all the teachers to his office and then rang the fire-alarm. Instantly the class officer in each room took charge and in a moment the chil- dren were pouring down the stairs in orderly pro- cession. There was no delay and no confusion. Yet, so far as the children knew, there was a real fire and imminent danger. An illustration of the efficiency of children in the presence of actual danger has just come to the writer's attention. A fire occurred in one of the buildings of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, of New York City. When first discov- ered, smoke was already widely spread through THE WAYS OF YOUTH 53 the part of the building in which the fire started. At the sound of the fire-gong, the officers of the two repubUcs — one of the boys and the other of the girls — immediately took command of the chil- dren and marched them to the playrooms in an- other wing of the large building, where they re- mained in charge until the firemen extinguished the flames. Truancy and tardiness have also been greatly reduced through the activity of the young admin- istrative officers. In the grammar department of the Thirteenth Avenue School of Newark, New Jersey, which contains over seven hundred chil- dren, there have been only twenty cases of tardi- ness and no truancy during the past year. The principal of a New York school puts truants in charge of active citizens of the school republic who formerly were themselves truants. The boys know how to find runaways, and when once truants have been discovered, former delinquents are skil- ful in handhng them. Besides, there is a sym- pathetic bond between the two that appeals to the truant. The feehng that authority and force are unfairly used, which arises so easily in pohce con- trol of truancy, is absent. Fair play is the pride of boys. They may boast of their thefts. Their playmates may call them liars without producing so much as a ripple of 54 YOUTH AND THE _RACE anger. But accuse them of playing unfairly and there is trouble at once. Now, one of the advan- tages of pupil-government is that it furnishes a body of administrative officers to act in an emer- gency, and a court to permanently settle the diffi- culty. When no such organization exists, wran- gling is interminable. No one has more authority than the others. Consequently, if the accused be one of the larger boys, he holds his own by his superior personality. Under pupil self-govern- ment, the boy charged with unfairness is at once sent from the game. That is the duty of the police commissioner of the city republic if he is present. If not, any officer of the government may act. Comparative size and strength do not matter. In only a few instances has a boy resisted the authority of the City. And he has never re- peated the offence. Resistance does not pay, because the sentiment of the entire body of citi- zens supports the administration. A new-comer who has always ruled his playmates may test the sentiment, but he finds himself unsupported, and a boy will not long hold out alone. The refusal of his schoolmates to play with him is a convincing argument. When the case comes up for trial, the children may be equally divided on the question of guilt. But, again, once the case is settled by the court, there is unanimous support of the verdict. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 55 We have seen that children are zealous in the enforcement of laws which they themselves have made. Boys will report their best friend for vio- lation of their rules. In doing this they do not feel that they are tale-bearers. They have a com- mon purpose which is vital to all. This is a seri- ous matter with them, as any one may observe who has watched them at their own occupa- tions. Opposition is treachery to the pupil-body. Therefore, it should be severely handled. So they are remorseless in reporting misdemeanors. The punishments inflicted by the court vary in different schools. In some instances the con- victed boy is sentenced to the service squad, or to extra sessions in the school-room, with additional work. In extreme cases he may be placed on probation or deprived of citizenship. If the chil- dren think the case too serious for the punish- ments within their jurisdiction, the culprit may be reported to the principal with or without rec- ommendation regarding the penalty. In one such case the court requested a public reprimand, and the principal said that never in his experience was a reprimand so solemn or effective. The censure was not the principal's. It came from the fellow pupils of the boy. That was why it hurt. The enthusiasm of the children in support of 56 YOUTH AND THE RACE their laws is seen also in their readiness to join in the enforcement even at the expense of the pleasures which are sometimes thought to be in- stinctive. The poHce commissioner for the past year in the Washington School at Allston, Massa- chusetts, was small for his age. A fight occurred on the playground between two of the larger boys with whom the commissioner was unable to cope physically. He at once called upon one of the larger boys for assistance. The fighters were sep- arated and sent to the side lines. There was no evidence of the pleasure that boys usually find in watching a fight. They themselves had passed the law against fighting, and here was a clear violation which they would not permit. Later the offenders were brought before the court, found guilty, and punished. There is little doubt of punishment meeting with approval, for children almost invariably sup- port their officers. Those who resent having moni- tors appointed over them by their teachers, ac- cept, without a murmur, monitors whom they elect as president, police commissioner, or, as in the case of the School Country, army officers. A boy in School 52, Manhattan, resisted the authority of one of the monitors and finally struck him. The rest of the children refused to allow him to take part in their games until he had accepted the THE WAYS OF YOUTH 57 punishment of the court and promised not to repeat the offence. These same officers, though not usually officious, are always ready to assume responsibility. A teacher once reported to the principal of the Thir- teenth Avenue School in Newark, New Jersey, that two boys were fighting on the playground. The mayor of the School City happened to be in the office and the principal asked him to attend to the matter. The boy went at once, and as soon as the others caught sight of him the fight ended and the participants vanished. The teachers of this school are never stationed on the playground to preserve order, and the principal has been called down only once or twice during the year. This school, it is interesting to note in this connection, is the one to which incorrigible boys are usually sent. Children cannot be described in terms of single acts. The same instincts may have varied forms of expression. Fighting, or delight in seeing others fight, is only one expression of the underlying in- stinct. Boys want to control, to rule, to display authority, to show off. Fighting is usually a means to the larger end. The skilful teacher recognizes this and turns the instinct into educative channels by giving opportunity to display authority in sit- uations which develop social responsibility. And pupil-government offers just these situations. 58 YOUTH AND THE RACE There is, however, an even wider field in which pupil-government exerts an influence over its citi- zens. In several schools the boy officials volun- tarily assume responsibility for the progress of backward children. If they are absent, these offi- cials visit them in their homes. They see that their work is kept up and, when necessary, help them in their studies. The office of commissioner of charities offers a further opportunity for the development of altru- istic impulses. This office is by no means a sine- cure, especially in the larger cities. Since all of the supplies are contributed by the children, the ethical value of the work is not limited to the com- missioner. The young commissioner of School 147, Manhattan, in his June report thanks the citizens of the School City for their contributions. "They were distributed to needy children. Last month I gave out nine ties, one pair of trousers, and one pair of shoes." Neckties are more of a necessity to school life than might at first be thought. The School City requires neatness in its citizens. Boys must have their hair combed, their shoes must be polished, and they must be reasonably neat in other respects. If they are careless, the proper officer admonishes them. Disregard of the friendly warning brings them before the court. They soon find that it pays to be clean and neat. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 59 The jurisdiction of the court has at times been a serious question. In several cases the decision has been handed down that the authority of the officials extends wherever citizens of the school are found. Naturally, this radical extension of authority of the School City exerts a soothing in- fluence upon the work of evening gangs. It was this decision also which enabled the poHce com- missioners to take up the problem of truancy. The cure of truancy means much more than fining parents or dragging a boy by the collar to the school. The citizens in several of the school cities have accomplished more than the truant officers appointed by the board of education. The efficiency of these children in handling mat- ters that have troubled older heads suggests a wide range of opportunities for social growth. The re- sults obtained by some of the school officers are amazing. Miracles are common occurrences. The children in School 109, Brooklyn, could not keep the building clean because of the defective street pavement. They also found the noise of the traffic disturbing. Their senators and representatives instructed the school street commissioner to take up the matter with the city authorities. Finally, through the persistent efforts of the youthful com- missioner, the streets in the vicinity of the school were repaved. 60 YOUTH AND THE RACE Again the local board for School 147, Manhat- tan, tried for five years to secure guards for the trees around the school building. Recently the park commissioner of the School City undertook to procure them. The guards were furnished and, in addition, eight new trees were supplied. This is training through doing. Its practice is not in high favor among pedagogues, but the theory is a charming subject for teachers' institutes. One is reminded of Bernard Shaw's epigram, "Those who can, do; those who cannot, teach." In all of the schools in which pupil-government exists, the administrative officer for each room assumes control in the absence of the teacher. In School 23 of the Bronx, the governor takes charge. He uses the teacher's "plan-book," conducts the recitation and assigns the lesson for the following day. The writer wandered through School no, Man- hattan, looking for disorder. By chance he stepped into a room in which a member of the class was explaining a problem on the blackboard. The room was quiet and the children were hard at work. When asked why he was in charge, the boy replied that he was the alderman from that room and the teacher had been called out. A teacher from School 109, Brooklyn, was unex- pectedly detained at home during the morning THE WAYS OF YOUTH 61 session. When she succeeded in getting word to the principal, he found on going to the room, that the mayor of the School City had taken charge and was conducting the recitation. This attitude toward the work is characteristic of all schools which have pupil-government, so far as the writer has been able to obtain information regarding them. The school consciousness has been replaced by a social consciousness. The children are working together to accompHsh some- thing. The work is theirs and the teacher is there to assist, not to drive. In his absence, everything goes on as usual, and, on his return, the children are loaded with questions and difficulties. There is no attempt to show off. The same serious activ- ity prevails as when children are trying to build a boat on a Saturday afternoon. Teachers are so vigorous in their denial that this attitude toward school-work can exist among chil- dren without the strong disciplinary hand of a pedagogue, that the writer, at the risk of repeti- tion, will describe in some detail one of the schools referred to above. It is School no, Manhattan. The school has about 2,300 pupils, over 95 per cent of whom are foreigners. It is located in the most crowded section of Greater New York, and at the present time ^ contains, among others, 14 ^ Namely, at the time when the writer visited it in 191 1. 62 YOUTH AND THE RACE part-time classes. About 150 of the boys were sent to the school from the courts or from other schools in whi^h they were said to be incorrigible. Surely, such a school is about as hopeless for pupil- government as one could find. But let us see what the principal has to say about it. "Pupil-government, which we have had for over nine years, has become so much a part of the school administration that we should feel considerably handicapped without it. We have been relieved of the supervision of the yards, halls, and stairs at all times. "The authority of the pupil-government extends wherever the citizens of the school may be found, even into the homes. "We have found that the example of the [school] citizens and the personal influence of the [pupil] officers have been more successful in reaching the incorrigible boys and those sent by the courts than anything else. We refer our cases of truancy to the mayor, who investigates and assigns the de- linquents to certain of his officers. These boys take a personal interest in the pupils both in the school and in their homes. They invite them to join in their games, off"er to help them in their studies, seek them out when they are absent, and try in all possible ways to help them to become ehgible for citizenship in the School City." THE WAYS OF YOUTH 63 This is the way pupil-government works out in a school apparently least adapted to the success of the plan. Pupil-government is no longer an experiment. It has secured results which the school-master has failed to obtain by the traditional method; and it has gained these results in enough schools and under sufficiently unfavorable conditions to en- able us, in case of failure, to know that the blame rests on the principal. It is a matter of under- standing boys and being able to treat with them on terms of equality. But there is where the hitch comes. Equality in relation to the pupils is repugnant to school-masters. It colHdes with their feeling of superiority. Besides, pedagogical lore is against it. The idea is not covered with the mould of antiquity. The writer admits that working on terms of equahty with one's pupils has not been the pedagogical fashion; but the few men who practised it» were geniuses at teach- ing. This ought to give the plan respectabiUty. It is natural that a change of style should be opposed. It involves discarding a good many antique ideas, to say nothing of men. The fash- ionable method, however, has not been produc- tive of results. It has not proved itself efficient. Dissatisfaction with education in America was never keener than it is to-day. The cause of the 64 YOUTH AND THE RACE trouble, as usual, is the boy. He neither respects nor obeys. He is growing up without any regard for law or feeling of responsibility. This is the way one often hears the conditions stated. The other day a friend told the writer that the inhabitants of her town had been obliged to give up raising flowers. The school children jump the fences and pull up the flowers with the roots, rac- ing over the grounds as suits their youthful pleas- ure. This is their method of securing "specimens " for the class-room. It is easier than going to the woods. This is in New England, where they are popularly supposed to do educational things a lit- tle better than on the "western frontier." Besides, the schools of this town are somewhat renowned for their efficiency even in New England. They have even been in the magazines. Therefore, they must be among the best from the standpoint at least of righteous pedagogues. So perhaps we shall not be thought indefensibly pessimistic if we venture the opinion that the discouraging statement regarding the lawlessness of American boys is not wholly without foundation. But if our justification for this admission is still ques- tioned, it is only necessary to call attention to the touching wails heard at educational gatherings. The last of these lamentations was uttered at the recent meeting of the National Education Associa- THE WAYS OF YOUTH 65 tion. "Disregard for law is fast becoming an Amer- ican characteristic," ^ is the way it was put. To remedy this unfortunate condition, the committee thinks that "certain elemental virtues must be in- culcated in childhood and youth." Thirty-four virtues are enumerated. A course of instruction is offered which shall inoculate kindergarten chil- dren against the germs of inattention, disobedi- ence, and selfishness, to be followed in the gram- mar school by suitable doses of patriotism, courage, and determination. The virtuous product is then to be preserved in altruism by a high-school course in the relations of the individual to society. The conviction that "certain elemental virtues must be inculcated in childhood and youth," is older than man himself. The question for dis- cussion is not the duty but the means. This is the problem, and the writer ventures the asser- tion that the method proposed by the Committee on Teaching Morals will not solve it. Children are immune to talks. Were they not, they would long since have perished from despair over the hopelessness of ever growing up to the state of perfection of the talkers. To-day we are in the patent-medicine stage of education. We are always seeking pedagogical 1 "Tentative Report of the Committee on a System of Teaching Morals in the Public Schools," p. 2. 66 YOUTH AND THE RACE elixirs for the cure of childhood's satanic exuda- tions. When shall we learn that the common- place maxim, "We learn by doing," is as valid in moraHty as in the manual-training department? Children grow into the social virtues by practis- ing them. And no teacher is so efficient in this training as the playmates of the boys. The dif- ference is that under the method of precept and instruction, the children look upon rules of con- duct as part of the teacher's stock in trade. They are rules which adults put upon them. Of course children do not reason it out. They do not an- alyze either the rules or the situations. They simply look upon the requirements as useless ob- stacles to their pleasure at the moment. Under self-government, however, all this changes. A New York principal who has a successful pupil organization thinks one of its advantages is just this, that it makes children analytic. The writer himself heard an animated and intelligent discus- sion, in a legislative assembly of the school to which reference has just been made, of the ques- tion whether pupils should be allowed to speak in class without permission of the teacher. The problem which these youngsters were trying to solve was, What conditions are most favorable to the progress of class-work? Did they themselves — the pupils — receive more from the recitation THE WAYS OF YOUTH 67 when each one could ask questions and express his opinion without restraint? There was no school consciousness here. It was social consciousness — the attitude of co-operation for a definite end. They had something to do with which they were all vitally concerned. How could they best do it.? Having decided that problem, they firmly hold one another to the agreement. This is teach- ing self-control, and training in obedience to law. School efficiency reduces itself finally to the men- tal attitude of the pupils. Subjects of study may be rearranged. The hours may be shortened or lengthened. Promotion may be rapid or slow. It will all be useless unless at the same time the children are freed from the notion that the school- work and discipline are put upon them by an extraneous and superior force. Introduce any improvement you please and the educational efficiency will still be determined by the mental attitude of the pupils toward their work. The excuse for printing this platitude is that school- men have not grasped it. They are continually trying to interest children through new machinery, such as attractive studies or by oiling the old engine with sentimentality. But boys ridicule sentimentality, and if the new studies attract them for the moment, the problem remains un- solved. For mental growth requires that children 68 YOUTH AND THE RACE enter vigorously into the accomplishment of what- ever work is given them. Too much attention is being given to wheed- ling children into learning. This statement will meet with approval because it coincides with man's desire to display authority. Besides, there is at present a strong reaction against the cajolery practised by the schools. The conclusion, how- ever, that relief is to be found in severe discipline from the principal's office is a mistake. Martinets are no more fitted for the school-room than senti- mentahsts. A threatening hand will make a boy cringe while it is raised, but he slyly awaits his chance when the back is turned. Martinets make cowards and sneaks, but not men. They do not train for self-control. Neither do they produce an attitude of mind which gives educational effi- ciency. Severe discipline from the teacher's desk accentuates the school consciousness in the pupils, and it is just this state of mind that fosters op- position and resentment. Everything which the children do under these conditions is done through compulsion or fear. Educational efficiency re- quires co-operation between teachers and pupils, and co-operation means the elimination of the school consciousness and the substitution for it of the social consciousness. A few men have the power to create at once an intimate alUance with THE WAYS OF YOUTH 69 children. When they do this, they produce a sit- uation similar to that which exists under pupil government. They accomplish the same result without the aid of the machinery of organization. But such teachers are lamentably few. The writer usually finds the most rascally little deceivers in the schools of principals who boast loudest of the seraphic virtues of their charges. The proper order has been reversed. These children have learned how to manage the principal. Pupil-government creates a desire for order, dis- cipline, and study, because the children feel that they are in charge. Authority always produces an attitude of responsibility. The pupils regard rules of conduct as vital to themselves because the problems of the school are now their own. Infractions of the regulations interfere with the performance of their work. So they are severe in their judgments. They tend to view every- thing from a personal and social point of view. "But only the man who has had experience in both methods, the old institution-method of dis- ciphne and the plan of a limited self-government, can realize the enormous difference in the spirit of discipline, the powerful effect upon the char- acter and individuahties of the children and upon the morals in general. . . . Instead of training the child to blind submission and blind obedience, it 70 YOUTH AND THE RACE helps him to evolve, to clarify, to rationalize into moral precepts and judgments what would other- wise appear to him oppressive and repulsive laws." ^ The writer has seen all of the virtues for which the Committee on Teaching Morals has prepared its mixture, taught on the playground, in the school, and at the courts of the schools which have pupil-government. The health commissioner attends to tidiness, and every citizen sees to it that the necessity of obedience, self-sacrifice, pa- triotism, courage, determination, and the relations of individuals to society are impressed upon those who need them. To be called to account by one of their own companions is a serious matter. It lacks the entertaining features of a similar arraign- ment by their teacher. They are no longer mar- tyrs and heroes. They are outcasts from their playmates until they make good. The chief trouble in pupil-government is not laxity in enforcement of law. The boys are inclined to be too severe. The offenders submit gracefully, however, because it is the decision of their associates. To "take their medicine" without wincing is a part of the ethics of boys — that is, if the medicine is pre- scribed by their comrades. Under the system of teacher control, boys look 1 " Some Modern Tendencies in Jewish Orphan Asylum Work," by Ludwig B. Bernstein, pp. 18-19. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 71 upon order as an evil to be endured only when the uselessness of resistance to a superior force has been demonstrated. This does not mean that a fight always precedes the acceptance of over- lordship. It is usually assumed that the teacher can maintain his authority if the issue be forced, but the children test him in various ways to learn how far they may go. If conditions seem favor- able, they push on further. They feel their way with more or less caution, at first, but grow bolder as they find their advance and the accompanying pleasures undisturbed. With a new teacher these actions are much like those of pioneers exploring a strange land. They are in an enemy's country and must move cautiously, retreating when the opposing force is too strong for successful opposi- tion. Children have not yet learned to prize order as a means of providing the quiet necessary for study. Why should they appreciate the value of discipline before they understand the determina- tion and persistence which must precede and ac- company success in life.f* The educational utility of pupil-government grows out of this lack of ex- perience. Self-government turns school sentiment into a forceful motive for discipline without re- quiring the pupils to appreciate the future value of the training. They are acquiring ideas of social rights and duties, and habits of study; and they 72 YOUTH AND THE RACE are securing them under condirions essenrially the same as those in the outside world. This is a clear improvement on the traditional school which intro- duces unreal conditions found nowhere else in life. But there is another reason for children's resist- ance to external authority. Man wants to have his opinions asked. It was not oppression that caused our forefathers to revolt against England. They only wanted to be consulted about taxes and a few other matters. Had the king's advisers understood men well enough to consult with the colonists about ways and means of raising money, they would probably have drunk George's health in well-brewed tea instead of diluting it in the water of Boston harbor. It must be admitted that, until quite recently, in the United States at least, this regard for one's opinions was easily satisfied. It was sufficient for all requirements that the government be called democratic and representative. Political business could then be transacted by packed caucuses and conventions without interference from those who were deceived into believing that they were rep- resented. The delusion was aided by sending men around to invite the people to political meet- ings to hear the questions of the day discussed. The inference which men drew was that their opinions and votes were thought valuable. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 73 This credulity, awakened by appeals to man's self-esteem and love of glory, is a rudimentary trait in the civilized adult. It is strikingly con- spicuous in savages and normally characteristic of children, since they live the psychical life of our primitive ancestors. Its general and obtrusive presence in adults is evidence that man is only relatively civilized. Scratch his skin and you draw the blood of the savage. Tickle him gently and the simpHcity of early man responds to your touch. To-day, however, the insistent demand, among other things, for direct primaries and the recall, indicates the approach of a new stage in man's evolution. He is growing restless under sham democracy and misrepresentation. Children, in spite of their credulity in many matters, are excessively jealous of their preroga- tive to manage their own affairs. They are quick to see through pretence and affected compliance with their wishes. Their zeal for their institu- tions may date back to the tribal relations of primitive man when each member of the group was conscious of his importance in the dehberative councils of his nation. At any rate, the upper grammar and high school age is the period in which children are devoted to governmental functions. The desire to be consulted in the management of their business rarely takes the form of specific 74 YOUTH AND THE RACE demands. To be sure, boys occasionally have their revolts or their "strikes," but these are only spo- radic occurrences. The rarity of these events is probably due to the children's realization of their own weakness. They know that an outbreak will be sternly suppressed. Consequently, they adopt the subtler method of secret resistance and de- ception. Stern repression is the best culture for deceit. Pupil-government, on the other hand, cul- tivates frankness. The motive for deception is removed, since the enactment and enforcement of rules are in their hands. They do not deceive one another because, among their fellows, the im- pulse prevails to admit the offence, to stand their ground and defend themselves. Moreover, boys are clever in detecting falsehood. They know the game. Besides, they are not repressed by social, or, if you please, educational restraints. They do not hesitate to accuse of falsehood. In this way, by their own "third degree" they often force a confession which an adult would only inhibit. To be accused of falsehood by playmates does not have the disastrous effect which would follow if the charge were made by the teacher. Indeed, when the accusation is made and proved by play- mates the result is decidedly educative. Pupil- government thus becomes a highly moral instru- ment for the schools. THE WAYS OF YOUTH 75 There are several reasons why self-government appeals so strongly to children. They want to organize and direct something. If they are not allowed responsible participation in school mat- ters they do not regard the business as theirs. It is the teacher's and he must handle it as best he can without their assistance. Meanwhile, since they are determined to manage something, they arrange other events without regard to conflict of dates. That is the trouble. The school busi- ness and boys' events are scheduled for the same hour and place, i. ' A^' Jo ^¥ 38" J) llo