Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-01-08
BY THOMAS r. HENRY.

BY THOMAS Il. HENRY.
The home is an extremely vital factor
in the molding Of child personalities,
Harold D. Fife, principal of the Gales
! Special School, has found in his studies
of the children problem in the D. c.
school system.
The case of James - carried him
! far into the depths of psychic life.
James is the oldest of ten children.
He lives on the outskirts of the Dis
| trict, about 6 miles from the Gales
! School.
! His mother has PHI D. degree from
one of the great Eastern universities.
She speaks f1uently six languages. She
! is woman of charming personality
and SelfiesSly devoted to her children.
| His father is watchman-a power
full, domineering, ungracious person.
! atty. HIS Is a product of the hard
school of the sea and the docks, the
| school of fist, club and knotted rope
| He believes a father should be the
| boss in his own home and has no use
| for any new-fangled notions of raising
/ children. If they don't behave he
holds. the only thing to do is to beat
| it out of them.
! Father Beat Him.
When James got in trouble With his
| teachers the father knew how to
! handle the case. He beat him within
an inch of his life. He repeated the
treatment again and again. The child's
/ back was covered with livid scars.
| IN CT Of rofO 6r
, became incorrigible, the teachers said
He was sent to the Gales Special School.
Here among strange children he was
still stranger child. Fife could find
no point of contact. The boy took no
interest in anything. He would sit in a
| corner by himself all day long, refusing
to join in the clasSwork or games of
the other boys. He insisted he had done
| nothing to be sent there. When the
teacher tried to pat him on the back
he ducked
Il amt done nothing to be hit for"
he said.
1t looked like an incipient case of
| dementia praecox. The child had three
mental breakdoWns in the schoolroom-
Fife called them mental breakdowns"
for want of better word.
He Identified himself with Napoleon.
He couldn't be convinced he wasn't
| Napoleon.
Once he galloped across the floor on
broomStlck for a horse, Furnishing
stick for sword.
Forward, my brave men!" he cried.
| When the teacher and some of the
other pupils grabbed him he fought
desperately. He seemed to have an
abnormal strength.
Never Be Sent to EIba.
I'll never be taken alive" he cried.
I'll never be sent to EIba."
Generally he was Napoleon at Elba
or st. Helena, not Napoleon the con-
queror.
These Authorizations were Short
lived After the broomstick incident
he came to Flies desk.
II don't know what happened NV
head was gone" he said.
child with such Authorizations nat
urally Is sent to psychiatrist. The
psychiatrist was puzzled over James
and didn't make definite recommended
tons. Most of the time the boy
seemed normal, although far too much
given to day-dreaming. He was a
| worshiper of idols. He lived the lives
| OF his idols, rather than his own life.
The fathers lashingS had driven the
! poor child out of the real world into
| this dream world.
| Yet Fife found, curiously enough, that
ne couldn't make contact through
| the boys idols. He resisted condition
| ing on the Napoleon complex. It was
| impossible to graft upon this an in
tereSt in school history, for example.
| Now it was observed that James never
ate lunch with the other boys at the
school. During lunch time he always
disappeared up the street. He told the
other boys he went to get hot lunch
that he didn't have to eat cold
lunches like them.
Given No Lunch Money.
Finally the facts came out. James
was eating no lunches at all. He was
! given none to carry to school. He had
! no money to buy any. He was not
even given car fare. Every morning he
walked the 6 miles from his home to
the school and every evening walked
back-very likely to another beating.
When Fife charged the boy with not
eating any lunches he denied it indig-
/ nantly. He wasn't poor trash that
couldn't afford to eat what they wanted,
he said. He went to a restaurant and
was waited on. He didn't have to put
I
! and Dago boys. He came from home
| of wealth and luxury
The teacher didn't try to argue him
out of this story. Instead he told some
of the other boys about it, in conf
| dence. He asked them to save some
of their lunches each day and offer
| them to James. telling him that they
had eaten all they wanted or arousing
his curiosity about Greek or italian
| food.
These boys, good lads at heart even
if they were thieves, gun-toters and
knife-throwers, were moved by the
story and carried out their part of the
deception.
James merely flew into rage when
the food was offered him. Did they
think he would eat such miserable
stuff? he asked. Hadn't he just dined
on hot roast chicken?
They tried to give him car fare. They
tried to provide him with an oppor-
tunity to earn money.
He only flew into ungovernable RACES
He retreated further and further from
the personality of James into the per-
J sonality of Napoleon.
Great Personal Pride.
= Here was a beautiful case of an in
feriority complex in child of enor-
NOUS personal pride. His strange be-
havior was compensation for the
hurt pride which was killing him
There may have been some other ele-
ment involved, but it was not found. He
had an abnormally acute sensitivity tc
pity or patronage-to any suggestion
that he couldn't stand on his own feet
One way to show his superiority was by
being bad. Attempted sympathy he in
terpreted as pity. and acted accord
ingly.
After a few visits to the home Fife
/ became convinced that nothing could
be accomplished without a change OF
environment-yet, strange to say, hi
found that the mother, when she wa:
herself. was an almost ideal person tC
IaNe charge of .Ianes The change n1