Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1916-05-16

nous variety at once. Failing of prec- edent my own classification of what have called possible families is, at present, about as follows:
 One. The Puritanical l'd-rather- see-my boydea ad-than with-a card in-his- hand family. that drives even good child. who is human, to des- peration and calls intolerance reli- zion.
 Two. The unduly trustful kind that knows there is nothing the matter with their child" and has to be fairly knocked down by the facts.
 Three. The calloused, "laissez faire' family that just leaves the window open at night for their boy to come in when he gets ready. and seems to think that it can really wash it's hands of responsibility for his con- duct by so declaring.
 Four The unduly grown-up family which has forgotten it was e'ver young and considers boy when he rigs up sleeping tent of quilts in the back yard and digs for buried treasure under the hen house, as a subject for either the insane as: lum or the lock-up which regards the trivial unmoralities of children as evidence of a dark, degenerate vi ciousness.
 Five. The fond and foolish family that babies" a boy until he flies 70 the opposite extreme and plays the dead game sport at every chance just to bolster up his self-respect and affirm his manhood to his fel- lows:
 Six. The (not so rare) hysterlcal kind. always in an uproar, exagger- ating every petty fault a child has, living in perpetual nervous excite ment that wrecks self control.
 Seven. Last but certainly not least, the belligerent, "hands-off-of- my-kid" family whose child is holy terror, because backed up at home.
 Task for Diplomat.
 Do you not agree with me that the task of diplomat in the German American service is as nothing com pared to that of the probatio officer, confronted by such lineup? The probation officers role is dual, he is ambassador extraordinary from the child to it's parents and from the parents to the child, with the duty of first understanding and then eX- plaining and interpreting the point of view of each to the other. Unless he can make one side see the good points and the motives for the con- duct of the other, also make each see their deviation from the normal, he will have failed
 l0 {t,s sc and a certain judicial detachment and faculty for reserving judgment until the evidence is all in--which detach- ment must, however. be somehow combined with a real warmth of love and understanding for the people you handle And is it too utterly trite to say also that the eleventh command ment is Don't be sentimental"
 Your pitfalls are many. You can side hotly with the child. believing him an abused angel, and wreck your case. You can forget to guard absolutely the confdences of one side or the other and poison the air with suspicion. You can-perhaps unwittingly-be a spy and double dealer instead of an accredited repre- sentative. You can lose your tenn per. oh, so easily, and your sense of fairness.
 But if you do none of these things if you remain true to your difficult task, you will be putting into practice what seems to me an ideal plan oi family service. That ideal, I may add, is to me at the same time stimu- lating and discouraging because l fall so far short of it.