The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1924-08-06

lie. 1t is not only Loeb and Leopold
who viii lie and steal, and who
have been advertised through col
umns of print, but most boys do 1t.
Instinct causes them to steal and
lie. Instinct was handed them as a
heritage from their forbears. ProW.
dence originally proved It, that the
human family might know how 70
lay hold of life and live and grow
and it's just as much a part Of man
and Just as necessary q part as the
circulatory system which we can see.
Man has thwarted the plans OF su-
premacy. Generations have desc
Grated instincts and humanity toys
with overdone instincts or habits Of
dissipation and resultant hereditary
emotional or neurotic conditions,
from which children suffer and from
which there is little escape. Call It
"dementia praecox," emotional In
sanity" defective affectivity," dis.
eased mind" mental sickness" dis
turbed emotions" hidden deviltry, 4"
unbalanced cerebellum." affected
basal ganglia." or what not, many
names might be suited TO many con-
ditions that actually exist I'm the lives
of youth, yet the child is helpless
while humanity looks on and strives
In vain to mete out punishment
rather than seek to find a restora-
tive to normally II such a thing
could be done. without digging up
the bleached bones of those who
sleep.
Should Train Instincts
Instincts are implanted into the
human life for the sake of giving
rise to habits. Habits make charac-
ters and characters make lives.
Unwisely or carelessly trained in
stincts in children grow into bad
habits in youth and manhood. In
stincts belong only to childhood and
youth. and after habits are formed
instincts, as such. fade away.
The instinct of ownership, that
great desire of possession, which as
serts itself in childhood and often
robs the world OF its beauty and
home of it's sanctity, causes boys TO
steal. It may be a pencil. or a
pocketknife, the change from
mothers purse, or the tennis racquet
left carelessly on a bench, but the
instinct Is just the same. and the
desire to do It, overpowering and
the boy steals.
Most parents threaten their chill
dren or discipline them largely
through deterrent methods, and the
boy lies to protect himself from pun
ishment, or to relieve himself of en-.
barrassment, this protection being
the balancing portion which is dis
played in some manner in every
phase of life. Imagination, which
asserts itself dominantly from the
third to the seventh years, and is the
instinct that inspires the child to be
dramatic, or to be a writer Of ability,
in the same channel, II wrongly d..
rected, makes him lie. Thus one can
see how the dramatic imaginative ma
ture of Richard Loeb, improperly
backed up by defective emotions,
might tend toward lies or crime or
both.
Richard Loeb's mother, a shrewd
and capable woman, entrusted her
son into the hands of a governess, &C.
centric and unacquainted with the
psychology Of child life. Under her
reign over him, Richard sought and
found protection in lies. She cul-
tivated the tendency, possibly
through ignorance, and possibly
through means Of getting by, and
proving her value as a good govern
ness to a mother who was entrust-
ing her most precious charge to the
care of another. The nurse had no
thought of the child's futures to live
in favor with the family one week
at time was her purpose and her
Job. This example should be cited
by all mothers as being very sure
that the nurse is a person At to care
for the child, II 1t is absolutely neces-
sary that they have one.