Evening star., 1932-03-13

tinguish between the true and the untrue. the
real and the unreal, the scientific and the
magical. And even educated persons taken
in by superstitions new and old.
Your boy may search in vain through his
textbook in effort to find out whether
lightning never strikes twice in the same
place" He will probably find nothing to in
dicate whether the direction of the points of
the moon has anything to do with the
dryness or wetness of the month following.
Probably the subjects of toadS and warts, four
leafed clover and luck, cold hands and warm
heart, and high foreheads and intelligence
all sadly neglected.
Consequently high school graduates. and col
lege graduates, too continue to hear these
things and hearing them, believe them or are
influenced by them.
NR. OTIS w. CALDWELL and Gerhard z.
- Lundeen of the Institute of School Ex-
Fermentation, Teachers, College, Columbia
University, gathered together list of 200 un-
founded belefs-not all those that are regarded
as important, but enough to serve basis for
an interesting experiment
The whole list Of 200 was given in the form
of test to more than a Thousand high school
seniors and college students. Each person was
asked to indicate after each belief whether he
had heard Of it, whether he believed it and
also whether his actions were ever influenced
by it.
The following beliefs selected from the list
will give you an idea of what is was like:
Fat people are always good-natured.
Dew falls from the sky.
If you tickle baby you will cause it to
stutter.
If the grounding sees his shadow ground
hog day there will be six weeks of bad weather
Seven is lucky number
Dreams go by contraries.
Good people die young
average have heard of approximately half
the 200 items IN the list They believe in
about 20 per cent of those with which they
are familiar. They say, however, that they
are influenced by even more of the ideas than
they actually believe. % per cent.
More than 80 per cent Of the high school
seniors who had heard the saying believe that
when the plumage of birds Is very heavy. that
fact foretells a severe Winter But they are not
50 credulous regarding all the sayings. Al
though two-thirds had heard that a witch can
and sometimes does conceal her identity in the
form Of q black cat only 2 per cent were
inclined to fear o dark-hued kitty for this
reason.
This information on what public school grad
yates actually believe will aid teachers in revis-
ing the science course to hit directly at preva-
lent unfounded beliefs-showing the youngsters
which ideas are false and why they cannot be
true.
Some indication of the great number of old
superstitious sayings that still current in
the United States and influencing life and be-
havior to greater or lesser extent is given by
another list compiled by students of the Wis
consin State Teachers College, under the di-
rection of Profs ]. O. Frank and H. w Talbot.
A total Of 488 students made individual lists
of superstitions they knew to exist in the COM
munity. Altogether, 1,244 different supersti-
tions were reported
COME of these were very common "A black
- cat brings bad luck" appeared ON all but
four of the lists. Finding a horseshoe brings
good luck" was reported by 442. Breaking a
mirror brings bad luck" was reflected on All
lists
Perhaps you would like to test yourself
and your neighbors-to see how much influence