The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-05-05
THREE SESSIONS
 OF PSYCHOLOGISTS
 HELD YESTERDAY
tContinued from Page Five,

sCOmt1mueO rom rage F1VeD | -~~~-~-~-~~~~~~~~>~-~~> tient study of individual cases; by con- stant regularity in personal habits such as eating. sleeping, exercise play as well as by lively personal inter- est manifested among his teachers and officers in his sports, troubles and studies.
 "As any institution progresses and the number of children increase, addition al problems present themselves. The l classes of children are more diversi- !, fled. We have what may be cassed as truants; then we have the delinquents and vet again, the deficient, or feeble minded and dependent. The scale of intelligence is so divergent in these several classes that it is plainly i'm possible for the children to receive much lasting benefit when we try to teach them or to discipline them as a whole-as one body. This being true the answer is classification: then in- dividual control and teaching. Then hurianizing personal touch; the subtly far reaching personal fnfluence-these are the elements demanded in these helpless lives committed to our care In other words. the successful devel- opment of the cottage system in insti- tutional work.
 Age of Individualism
 This is prominently the age of indi- vidualism The leaps and bounds that civilization has taken through the ages from Assyria and Babylonia, through
 Europe to Amerca-clearly point to the
 fact that specialization, individualism, are the hallmarks of our day.
 "1n this institution work one of the
 essential things is to know and recognize the forces that shape characteristic up-
 build and make fair, or mar and destroy ! I. Col 4,.ro or tLA it remains for public benevolence to sub stitute for these poor homes whence these children are withdrawn-homes of ignorance, of impotence, of bereavement
 and oftentime of evil-tae state home. Tt then devolves upon the board of control of any institution so to regulate the state home that,it shall approximate true home: a place that blesses and | strengthens; and it seems that by and through the cottage system can this best be accom- rlished.
 "We realize afresh with each passing l year that our institution cannot pause it must progress The necessities of today are not only greater than those of | yesterday; they are different And ready as we are to acknowledge that the state
 of Alabama has already done much, yet 1 her task is far from complete. Our ever-increasing needs-need of | more space. more buildings. more and better equipment-spring, logically, from
 our very growth; they are in one way
 the measure of our prosperity as an in /, dustriaf school. Moreover, as all teach
 CTS of social economics have plainly de-
 duced, 1t is cheaper--to put it on it's low est plane-it is actually cheaper, as well
 as vastly more prudent to evolve a good citizen from B waif of hoy than
 to suffer him to degelerate into either a pauper or a criminal. It costs far
 less money to a community or a state
 or country. in the long run: not to mention all those intangible. unweighable | results of good or evil that must fol-
 low in either case; and not to insist upon those nobler and more altruistic
 motives for saving a soul alive.''
 Weller on Fairgrounds
 | Of more than usual Interest was the
 address of Charles F. Weller. asso- ciate secretary of the Playground and | Recreation Association of America. He made the statement that "Birming ghan
 has led the south in promoting play grounds" which brought a hearty
 round af applause.
 Play is power In shaping children and young people" said MT Weller
 My little boy has no interest in fill ing the wood box; that Is work. But
 he runs a big. heavy wheelbarrow ur la steep hill because he imagines he