Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1924-06-28

rich;
And as the sun breaks through the
basest Clouds
SO honour peereth in the meanest habit.
Knowing little about psychology but every
thing about human nature, Shakespeare did
not think of mind as merely purse to be
filled or a knife to be sharpened; indeed. he
appears to have been quite unappreciative of
certain schools of advanced pedagogics. If
he, in lieu OF the alienists, were reporting on
young Loeb and Leopold, he belize would
say nothing of "dementia praecox," but
would recall certain well-known characters
of his-Edmund, Regain, Goneri, Iago; and
mayhap remark. with one of his grim smiles,
There's ne'er. villain in all Denmark but
he's an arrant knave"
There were villains in Shakespeare's Lon
don, as there were instruments of dark
ness" in his universe, evil powers who win
us with honest trifles, to betray us in deep.
est consequence" For our sophisticated day,
'vilain" is far too short word, and "instru-
ments of darkness" only relic of medieval
ina gnation. To take seriously the posi-
bility of evil would be questionable as to
teach children obedience and industry. 1t is
related by former nurse of one of the young
Chicago killers that until he was fourteen
years old he did not lace his own shoes; both
boys seem to have been kept from the vulgar
contamination of labor. OF self-denial or
even of selfcontrol they were given to know
nothing. They had everything they wanted;
but,~save for creature comforts, nothing they
needed. Early they must have absorbed the
notion that money can get all things; and
later, when arrested for monstrous crime,
they coolly and avowedly confident that
terrible idea if it were less frequently AS for
things that money can not buy, such as honor
that "peereth in the meanest habit. well,
how can we expect preoccupied parents and
dashing young anarchists to spare time or
thought for such?
The collegiate education of these youths
was brilliant success as regards exterior
polishing, and wretched failure in point of
construction. Both were mentally
keen, neither was morally Or spiritually
awake; and their schooling served but to ac
centuate the one condition and to leave the
other unredeemed. Through all their clev-
er and cynical converse one hears lagos very
self declaring, Virtue? a fig! Put money in
thy purse. say put money in thy purse"
And when this dark folly, rooted in undis-
clpl1ned homes and cultivated by a soulless
education comes to it's tragical harvest, then
spruce and learned gentlemen mount the
witness stand to describe it all as "dementia
praecox."
Be it far from us to speak lightly of such
learning. But we may pertinentIy onote
from the current issue of a magazine that
passes muster with the most liberal, the
New Republic" Observing that the re-
search of recent decades has opened manv
new channels of Investigations which have
enormously complicated" the questions of
insanity and which Gin some cases have iso-
lated certain conditions, assigned them def
hite e'Iology, ana even made prognosis sure"
the New Republic continues: But if the
reader thinks that dementia praecox, which
has been mentioned frequently in this con-
nection, is simple disorder like typhoid
and which you either have or YOU haven't
and any competent doctor can demonstrate to
the satisfaction of all other doctors he is
respectfully referred to the encyclopedias
and the treatises on mental disease. Demen-
Tia praecox Is not disease; it is a collection
OF symptoms. 1t may yet turn out to have
been half dozen different disorders It's
causes ana It's development are utterly OBJ
scure and known only through the most
complicated and various external manifesto
tons There is no sure test for it which can
De applied like the Wasserman test with the
objectivity of a chemical ANALYSIS. Consa-
quently, diagnosis is peculiarly matter Of
opinion based upon the behavior of the pa
hent. No two experts can possibly make
identical observation. Their opinions will
therefore be certain to disagree, and their
opinions are all the evidence there is
More pointed, If less polished is the com
ment attributed to young Frank Mcdowell