The sun., 1918-11-23
Yankees Gone to Seed.

A novelist of the realistic school
could put in a long winter studying
one of the recent publications of the
Federal Department of Labor and
might make n thick book from 1t.
This Is Juvenile Delinquency in Ru-
raj New York." written by Miss KATE
HoLLADAY CLAGHoRN OF the faculty
Of the New York School Of Philan-
thropy, who was assisted by several
field agents. These Investigators,
leaving the cities, with which juve-
nile delinquency is usually associated,
went to country villages, to the little
crossroads settlements, and finally to
the solitary farms in the hill country.
They found that while the extent Of
youthful cussedness may not be so
great In rus as 1t is in urbs, the
cussedness is of the same quality,
and the parents seem to be worse
than city parents. The dead hand Of
evil ancestors lies heavily on father
and child:
"One fact made evident is that de-
generacysis not wholly product OF
cities. Many of these country children
have back of them a sorry ancestry and
around them a thrittless family group,
often weak in body and mind. Tho most
dramatic instances Of this are found in
the children brought up In squalor and
ignorance by some wretched family
which has wandered into lonely and
desolate region OF the hills, Not al!
such groups find their level in the slums
some have still the nomad instinct for
solitary places. Here they strip of
standards built UP by the process OF
civilization. But In tho villages also is
found. here and there the run out
stock which has remained inert during
the period of city migration"
Run out stock! 1t seems strange
that in a country so young as Amer
lea the descendants Of great race
should now be~going to seed. Yet
these moribund people are, If we may
judge from the names In Miss CLAG.
HORNS report, Of straight Anglo.
Saxon stock: the Lanes, Parkers
Adamses, Whites, Thompsens, Tom
linsons, Richardses, Wilson's and Mar
tins. An occasional Murphy or Kai
ser Is found, but the names are OK
per cent. Yankee names. Just where
in this State are the twenty-one com
munities investigated the report for
bears to say. They are not thor
oughly infected communities, like the
Piney Woods folk of New Jersey, but
rather separate families or, Mt the
worst, very small groups Of families
The individual defects are varied
Some have gone to seed mentally
some only physically; nearly all, NOR
ally. Poverty, ldiocy, laziness, drunk
enness, thievishness and vice are seer
in various degrees Of horror. If the
report dealt only with the grown ups
the sodden, hopeless parents OF the
juvenile dellnquents, the dark mono
tone would be almost too much for {
Dresser to tackle. 1t is the human
quality of the report in Its dealing
with the individual child that makes
1t so interesting; nothing can make
1t happy. Here are some of the curl
Gus young people:
AUBREY, the ten-year-old son Of i
bad woman who left the village. HI
has eyes that are bright and ex
presslonless like birds" In Sun
day school he behaves badly bu
knows his lessons. He bosses TIT
class. When the others enrage hin
he tries to stab them.
LIZZIE, the seventeen-year-olt
daughter Of the village drunkard ant
horse doctor. "She swears like {
pirate, fiuently and plcturesquely.
Her mother works out and her fathe
stays home and reads the paper. 81
is said that the last town in which Ii
lived gave him SEQ as an Inducemen
to move away"
MARTIN, aged IL, the son of vii
lage minister who doubled his incom