Evening star., 1925-03-01

| havior. To this end, the national
committee has established centers for
study in the public school systems of
| several larger cities in the United
States.
The reason for this step was the
| fact that in the public schools Of the
country, future citizens are assem-
| bled. The staffs of these established
| centers, composed, as a rule, of a
| doctor, a nurse. a social worker and
| a psychiatrist, have studied the child
| not as an isolated individual, but as
part of the whole social setting
| from which he came. including his
family and his material home or lack
of il.
DR.. White made the statement,
however, that poverty and criminal
tendencies in parents are not the only
causes for maladjustment in children.
Often household which offers the
child no relaxation because of its
nerve-racking activity, which gives
no quiet hours for his study and no
quiet corner in (which he may read or
dream-often that household pro-
duces as annoying and dangerous an
| individual as the squalor of the tene-
ments.
Figure of Bent Twig.
But the old figure of the bent
continued. IF we can straighten out
that twig before IT has grown 'sot in
its ways, before it becomes full
grown in the wrong direction, we can
make of the child who might other
wise become an annoyance-possibl
danger to the community-a useful
citizen.
we fellows who run the big hos
pitals for the insane look upon them
as immense laboratories for the study
of human behavior, and the results
which certain behavior may bring.
The results of our experiments are
useful in many places, especially in
the juvenile courts of the country.
Those courts, each day becoming
more of constructive force in their
communities. apply the results of our
study, seeking to make readjust-
ments of those causes of dereliction
which they discover in their cases.
Every sort of problem is repre-
sented in that great group of chill
dren who attend our public schools
Teachers usually recognize material
which is on the way toward serious
antisocial conduct
But the problem of whether
Johnnie's home offers him a restful
hour for the study of those lessons
which he is constantly missing; or
"Helner June, VINO Is caught 'Swip-
ing other children's lunches, does so
because she is just bad or hungry
or whether Tim, who is everlastingly
accusing some other boy of stealing
Z his thunder or his material belong
ings. is really misused-those prob
lem's aren't the teachers problems.
She can't spend her after school
hours Investigating: and, frankly,
she wouldn't know if she could for
her training hasn't made her keen in
searching out these matters.
And here is where the psychiatrist
comes in. The psychiatrist furnishes
the largest number of qualifications
for the job. He works from the
standpoint of the physician, not that
of the diSciplinarian. He is the
physician who writes a prescription.
He is not the policeman who en-
forces the law"
Miss Alice Deal, actively engaged
in public school work, agrees heartily
with DR.. Whites conclusion. The
! executive committee of the Columbia
Junior High School, to which she pre-
sented her own conclusions after
study of the situation in her own
school and knowledge of the prob
lem" child in other schools, was COM
posed of the following personnel:
Mrs. D. F. Angler, Mr.. and Mrs I. w.
Huntzberger. Mrs. o. Owens, Mrs. J.
p. Skehan, Mrs. L. E. Vogt, Mrs. Carl
Smith and Miss Bertha II. Caron.