Part 2
Even diseases of the teeth may play no small part in the making of the wayward boy. There was brought one day to Professor Witmer’s clinic a youngster who for months had been the despair of his parents. He had got completely beyond the control of both home and school discipline; spent his days idling in the streets; seemed incapable of telling the truth; stole all sorts of small articles belonging to his parents, including his father’s watch, which he sold for five cents; and had even begun to steal from the neighbours, a weakness which soon brought him into the clutches of the law. Placed on probation by the judge of the juvenile court, he had behaved as badly as ever, until, as a last resort, it was decided to see what the psychological clinic could do for him.
Beyond indications of some slight eye-strain nothing specially abnormal was found in his physical condition until his mouth was examined. Then it was seen that a number of his first teeth had not been shed, and that the second teeth were forcing their way out alongside the old ones, causing the gums to be greatly swollen and inflamed. Taken at once to the dental clinic he was examined more carefully by Dean Edward C. Kirk, who, advising gradual removal of the lingering first teeth, suggested the possibility that when the boy was relieved of all dental stress his conduct would show marked improvement. The outcome fully justified this suggestion. Says Doctor Arthur Holmes, who watched the case closely in all its stages (_The Psychological Clinic_, vol. iv, pp. 19-22):
“In spite of Harry’s rebellion and loudly expressed fear, he was immediately relieved of one outgrown canine tooth. The effect was almost instantaneous. His whole nervous system seemed to express itself in one sigh of relief.... From that time his improvement has been marked and continuous. His teeth were removed gradually as it was found expedient. Closely associated with this dental condition, and possibly aggravated by it, was an eye weakness discovered at the eye clinic. In order to insure proper treatment, Harry was placed in charge of the social worker of the psychological clinic, who saw that the drops were regularly put in his eyes, accompanied him to the eye specialist, and not only secured glasses for him but accomplished the hitherto impossible feat of making him wear them.
“On account of the dental work and the refraction of his eyes, he was not sent back to public school. Through the psychological clinic a private school was found where the boy could receive the intelligent and sympathetic training he needed. His whole demeanour under the private instruction has been that of a normal boy. He has been put upon his honour and trusted in numberless ways, and in every case he has justified the expectations of his teacher. He is now a healthy boy, with a boy’s natural curiosity, with good manners, good temper, with no more than the average nervousness, and with every prospect of taking his proper place in society and developing into an efficient and moral citizen.”
A still more remarkable case that has recently come to my knowledge concerns a Cleveland youth who, up to the age of sixteen, had been a model of good conduct. Then, having gone through high school and begun work with a business firm, he suddenly developed thieving tendencies, finally breaking into a post-office, an exploit which earned for him a term in a reformatory. This was so far from curing him that soon after his release he adventured into highway robbery, was caught, and was sent to jail.
So sudden and startling had been the change in his behaviour that the Cleveland police authorities were convinced he was not responsible for his actions, and advised his mother to have him committed to an asylum for the insane. Before taking this extreme step she had him examined by a neurologist, Doctor Henry S. Upson, whose careful testing of the boy failed to disclose any signs of organic brain trouble. Dr. Upson noticed, however, that his teeth were badly decayed, and this led him to suggest an X-ray examination, as a result of which it was discovered that the youthful criminal was suffering from several abscessed and impacted teeth.
Following an operation for their removal, there was a steady improvement in his moral as well as his physical health. When his term of imprisonment was at an end he found work in a printing-shop, and at last accounts, a year after the operation, had won for himself the reputation of being “quiet and industrious, self-controlled, and without any indication of either moral or mental aberration.” (_The Psychological Clinic_, vol. iv, pp. 150-153.)
In a single institution—the New York Juvenile Asylum—it was found that the degeneracy of 20 per cent. of a group of fifty “bad boys,” who were mentally as well as morally backward, was due in great measure to similar trivial physical defects, adenoids, enlarged glands, eye and ear troubles, etc. Not so very long ago these boys, like the boys in the individual instances mentioned, would have been deemed the hopeless victims of a bad heredity. It is therefore fair to assume that in time to come other remediable, but as yet unsuspected, physical causes of imperfect mental and moral functioning will be discovered.
This is not to say that in such cases medication or the surgeon’s knife will prove all-sufficient to prevent the transition from “naughtiness” into outright vice and crime. To this end good moral training will still be the indispensable safeguard, and particularly the moral training to be had through the subtle influence of a good home and good associates. Surely as, for example, the results of the activities of the New York Children’s Aid Society strongly suggest, the home and the companions of youth are the great determinants of character. As has been so well said by Doctor Paul Dubois, the eminent Swiss physician and philosopher (“Reason and Sentiment,” pp. 69-71):
“If you have the happiness to be a well-living man, take care not to attribute the credit of it to yourself. Remember the favourable conditions in which you have lived, surrounded by relatives who loved you and set you a good example; do not forget the close friends who have taken you by the hand and led you away from the quagmires of evil; keep a grateful remembrance for all the teachers who have influenced you, the kind and intelligent schoolmaster, the devoted pastor; realise all these multiple influences which have made of you what you are. Then you will remember that such and such a culprit has not in his sad life met with these favourable conditions, that he had a drunken father or a foolish mother, and that he has lived without affection, exposed to all kinds of temptation. You will then take pity upon this disinherited man, whose mind has been nourished upon malformed mental images, begetting evil sentiments such as immoderate desire or social hatred.”
And it is not only the homeless, deserted, or neglected child, allowed to run wild in the streets, drifting or forced into occupations which bring him more or less closely into touch with the ways and haunts of wrong-doing—it is not only this child who is likely in time to become a wrong-doer himself. No less than the neglected child is the “spoiled” one, however good his heredity, apt to degenerate into delinquency, perhaps into criminality of the worst description. In short, to borrow Pascal’s pregnant phrase, every child at the outset of his life is a little impulsive being, pushed indifferently toward good or evil according to the influences which surround him.
The blame, then, for the boy who “goes wrong” does not rest with the boy himself, or yet with his remote ancestors. It rests squarely with the parents who, through ignorance or neglect, have failed to mould him aright in the plastic days of childhood. What is needed, especially in this complex civilisation of ours, with its myriad incitements and temptations, is a livelier appreciation of the responsibilities as well as the privileges of parenthood. Most of all, perhaps, from the point of view of coping with the problem of wrong-doing, do parents need to appreciate that it is in the very first years of their children’s lives that the work of character-building should be begun.
In this connection a curious story is told of a father and mother, who, full of that sublime eagerness for the welfare of their young which every parent ought to have, took their only child, a handsome boy of three, to an old Greek philosopher.
“We want you,” said they, “to take full charge of our child’s education, and do the best you can for him.”
“How old is he?” the philosopher asked.
“Just three.”
The sage shook his head.
“I am sorry,” he said, “but you have brought him to me too late.”
Modern students of the nature of man are beginning to realise that there is a world of truth in this reply. They are beginning to realise, that, even in the period of dawning intelligence, interests may be created, habits formed, which all the education of later years may not wholly eradicate. Most people, looking back at their years of childhood, are chiefly impressed by the fact that they remember very little of what then happened. Actually, deep in the recesses of their minds, they possess a subconscious remembrance that may be both remarkably extensive and almost incredibly potent in affecting their later development.
The truth of this will become increasingly evident as we proceed. Here let us pause for only one illustrative instance, taken from the experience of one of the most talked about of American women, Miss Helen Keller, who, as is well known, was left by illness deaf, dumb, and blind when less than two years old, but has nevertheless, by careful training, been developed into a woman of brilliant attainments.
Among her many accomplishments not the least astonishing is her power for appreciating music, which she “hears” by placing her hand lightly on the piano and receiving its vibrations. It occurred to Doctor Louis Waldstein, a pioneer in the study of subconscious mental processes, that quite possibly her appreciation of music was connected with latent memories of music she had heard before her illness. To test this theory he obtained from her mother copies of two songs which had often been sung to Miss Keller as an infant in Alabama, but which she had not heard since. These he played in her presence, with a remarkable effect. She became much excited, clapped her hands, laughed, and communicated:
“Father carrying baby up and down, swinging her on his knee! Black Crow! Black Crow!”
It was evident to all present that she had been drawn back in memory to the surroundings of her infancy. But no one knew what she meant by the words “Black Crow,” until her mother, in answer to a letter of inquiry, explained that this was the title of a third song which her father used to sing to her.
“What you wrote,” commented Mrs. Keller, “interested us very much. The ‘Black Crow’ is her father’s standard song, which he sings to all his children as soon as they can sit on his knee. These are the words, ‘Gwine ‘long down the old turn row, something hollered, Hello, Joe,’ etc. It was a sovereign remedy for putting them (the children) in a good humour, and was sung to Helen hundreds of times. It is possible that she remembers it from its being sung to the younger children as well as herself. The other two I am convinced she has no association with, unless she can remember them as she heard them before her illness. Certainly before her illness her father used to trot her on his knee, and sing the ‘Ten Virgins,’ and she would get down and shout as the negroes do in church. It was very amusing. But after she lost her sight and hearing, it was a very painful association, and was not sung to these two little ones” (the younger children).
Almost by itself this impressive bit of evidence justifies Doctor Waldstein’s unhesitating declaration, as set forth in his interesting book, “The Subconscious Self”:
“In those early impressions of which no one seems to be conscious, least of all the child, and which gather up power as the rolling avalanche, the elements are collected for future emotions, moods, acts, that make up a greater part of the history of the individual and of States, more effective and significant than those that are written down in _mémoires_, however _intimes_, or that can be discovered in archives, however ‘secret.’ The strange vagaries of affection and passion, which affect the whole existence of men and women—the racial and religious prejudices that shake States and communities to their very foundations, that make and unmake reputations, and set the wheel of progress back into the dark ages—can be traced to such small beginnings and into those nooks of man’s subconscious memory.”
Decidedly, bearing in mind this principle of the importance of early impressions, the education of the child should be begun while he still is in the cradle—and should in especial include a careful arranging of his environment, both animate and inanimate, so as to put most effectively into play that greatest of all educational forces, “suggestion.”
II
SUGGESTION IN EDUCATION
The term “suggestion” has of late fallen into undeserved disrepute. To most people, as a result of its frequent linking with the term “hypnotism,” it implies something exceptional and weird. Yet in reality suggestion is one of the most universal of facts, and there is nothing “uncanny” about it. Properly defined it means nothing more than the intrusion of an idea into the mind in such fashion that it is accepted automatically, overcomes all contrary ideas, and leads to a specific course of action. The slightest reflection will show that this is of frequent occurrence.
Every time I yawn after having seen another person do so, I am acting on the suggestion given to me by his action. Every time, after reading a skilfully worded advertisement, I buy something which I do not really need, I am again acting under the influence of suggestion. So, too, when, in a moment of abstraction, I imitate any act perceived subconsciously, as in the amusing instance related by Professor Ochorowitz in his book, “Mental Suggestion”:
“My friend, P——, a man no less absent-minded than he is keen of intellect, was playing chess in a neighbouring room. Others of us were talking near the door. I had made the remark that it was my friend’s habit when he paid the closest attention to the game to whistle an air from ‘Madame Angot.’ I was about to accompany him by beating time on the table. But this time he whistled something else—a march from ‘Le Prophète.’
“‘Listen,’ said I to my associates, ‘we are going to play a trick upon P——. We will order him to pass from “Le Prophète” to “La Fille de Madame Angot.”’
“First I began to drum the march; then, profiting by some notes common to both, I passed to the quicker and more staccato notes of my friend’s favourite air. P—— on his part suddenly changed the air, and began to whistle ‘Madame Angot.’ Every one burst out laughing. My friend was too absorbed in a check to the queen to notice anything.
“‘Let us begin again,’ said I, ‘and go back to “Le Prophète.”’ And straightway we had Meyerbeer once more, with a special fugue. My friend knew that he had whistled something, but that was all he knew.”
Here, obviously, we have on the part of the man accepting and acting on the idea suggested to him, a temporary suspension of the critical faculty. Had he been on the alert, had he been aware of Professor Ochorowitz’s intention, he would never have followed the lead thus given, refraining from doing so if only from fear of appearing ridiculous. This element of uncritical, automatic acceptance is fundamental in suggestion, and it is this that makes suggestion such a tremendously important factor in the life of the young.
The child, it has often been said, is the most imitative of beings. This is only another way of saying that childhood is the most suggestible period of life. Precisely because the critical faculty is then undeveloped the child readily accepts and translates into some form of action the suggestions impinging on his mind from the external world. Necessarily some impressions are experienced by him more frequently than others, and by the very fact of repetition these tend to induce in him a more or less fixed mode of reaction. Thus, without the slightest awareness, he acquires good or bad “habits” of thinking and acting, and displays moods and tendencies which, often regarded by parents as quite inexplicable, are the logical and inevitable product of suggestions with which he has been bombarded since his life began.
In this way are to be explained many personal characteristics often mistakenly attributed to the influence of heredity. If a man is a “grouch,” and his young son also displays unmistakable signs of grouchiness, it would indeed be rash to jump to the conclusion that the son had been born grouchy. It may well be—the chances are, it is—that he has acquired a grouchy turn of mind simply through imitation of his father’s habitual attitude. “A little girl only fifteen months old,” to quote one observation by that careful student of child life, B. Perez, “had already begun to imitate her father’s frowns and irritable ways and angry voice, and very soon after she learned to use his expressions of anger and impatience. When three years old this child gravely said to a visitor, with whom she argued quite in her father’s style, ‘Do be quiet, will you? You never let me finish my sentences.’”
Similarly, peculiarities that seem to be wholly physical may thus be handed on from father to child—characteristic gestures with the hands, pursing of the mouth when reading, shrugging the shoulders, etc. Even left-handedness, often conspicuous as a family trait, is probably, in a certain proportion of cases at all events, the result of imitation rather than heredity. In one interesting case cited by Doctor Waldstein (“The Subconscious Self,” pp. 56-59), an English lady, Miss X——, had lost her mother when less than three years of age. A year afterward, during her first attempts at sewing, it was noticed that she was threading her needle with her left hand. This had been the habit of her mother, and Mrs. X—— herself continued throughout her life to use her left hand in threading needles, although she was otherwise right-handed.
“Surely,” said she to Doctor Waldstein, “this is an example of inheritance, for I could not have been taught to sew by my mother.”
When, however, he inquired closely into this lady’s mental make-up, he soon discovered that she was most impressionable, easily and unduly affected by her surroundings, full of prejudices, and given to sudden likes and dislikes. Manifestly, if in adult life she was so suggestible, she must have been even more suggestible in early childhood, and Doctor Waldstein promptly asked himself the question:
“Is it not more natural to assume that the mother’s habit of threading a needle with her left hand, witnessed daily during the first three years of childhood, left its effect upon the ductile memory of the child, so that she adopted the same habit in the absence of other teaching, than to assume a needle-threading centre on the right side of the brain of this particular individual?”
In view, then, of the extreme suggestibility of childhood, and in view of the fact that under ordinary circumstances the impressions most forcibly impinging on a child’s mind are those emanating from his parents, a good parental example is the first essential in utilising the power of suggestion as an aid in education. This may sound trite, but how many parents appreciate all that it involves?
It means the regulation of the whole family life with the special purpose of creating for the child a ceaseless flow of suggestions which, being subconsciously absorbed by him, will give a desirable “set” to his mind. Not merely in their dealings with the child but in their intercourse with one another, with all other members of the family, even with casual visitors, the father and mother will have to be constantly on the alert to manifest only those traits which they desire to see dominant in their little one. If they wish him to be courteous, they themselves must be courteous; if they wish him to grow up industrious, they must be models of enthusiastic industry; if they wish to develop in him sentiments of unselfishness, they must banish selfishness from their hearts.
In a word, they must think and behave as they desire him to think and behave, and, so far as is humanly possible, they must thus behave all the time. This of course necessitates considerable self-restraint and self-training on the parents’ part; but it is absolutely indispensable. The child’s eyes and ears are always wide open; his suggestibility is such that he is prone to absorb and react to any inconsistency of parental speech or behaviour, no matter how occasional or seemingly insignificant it may be. If the father, in a moment of irritation, eases his feelings by a vigorous expletive, the mother may be horrified next day when her little boy utters a strange-sounding word. If the mother, to avoid a tiresome caller, tells a “white lie” through the maid-servant who answers the caller’s ring, neither father nor mother need be astonished if their little girl unexpectedly displays a tendency to untruthfulness; it is not a manifestation of “innate depravity,” it is only another illustration of the power of suggestion to affect the growing child.
Even such a “small matter” as the discussion of the news of the day may become a potent factor for evil in the development of the child. There are not a few parents who, entirely unmindful of their children’s presence, retail to each other the petty chit-chat, the scandals, the deeds of violence and crime, which so many of our newspapers injudiciously “feature.” At the time the child may seem to be paying no heed to the parental discussion; but, if only because it is a discussion between his parents, it is certain to make a profound impression upon him, perhaps to the extent of prompting him to imitate the deeds in question. Hence, in his games, he plays pirate, bandit, train-robber; and sometimes runs away from home and “starts West,” to play bandit and train-robber in earnest. In this way, to the sorrowing parents’ amazement, seeds often are unwittingly sown to grow into poisonous plants.
No less mischievous is the discussion, in the child’s hearing, of such frequent subjects of conversation as the latest musical comedy or “problem play,” the “novel of the hour,” the fluctuations of the stock market, the new fashions in gowns, the fortunes of the local professional baseball team. Parents whose interests are thus lamentably limited, or who choose to talk about little else, need not be surprised if their child manifests a colossal indifference to things really worth while. For his sake, if not for their own, they should cultivate an intelligent interest in good books, good music, good art. Discussing these, they will just as surely enlarge his mental and moral horizon, as by discussing inferior themes they will limit it.
And—another point of prime importance—whatever they talk about, they should make it a practice to use only clear, correct language, and should insist on their child doing the same. Above all, they should not converse with him in “baby talk,” or permit any linguistic errors he may make to go uncorrected. They should not do this for several reasons, chief among which is the fact that an incorrect diction is itself a great obstacle to correct thinking.