DIFFICULT CHILDREN.

Dr. Jessie Taft, Director of the Department of Child Study of the Children's Aid Society of Pennsylvania, contributes to a recent issue of The Family, published by the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work, 130, East 22nd Street, New York (price, single copy, 20 cents; annual subscription, $1.50), a highly suggestive paper on "The Placing of Children who are Difficult to Adjust," and from which we venture on the following suggestive extract.

"From the standpoint of the psychologist or the psychiatrist, those of us who have the temerity to take children and play the part of Providence in their lives, deciding where they shall live and by whom and what they shall be moulded, suffer from two extremes of attitudeboth equally unscientific and equally dangerous. One is the fallacy of believing that the placing of the normal child is a simple matter; that there exists a personality so complete, fixed, and stable as to be proof against being formed into new shapes and ways of behaving by new social environments. We tend to rest back on this secure sense of normality, hard, fast and unchangeable for all time. No matter what we do with it, it will land on its feet and come through safe. When our supposedly normal child begins to develop behaviour problems in the obviously good home which we have found for him, we are likely to feel that he probably wasn't normal after all. We had merely failed to detect the abnormality. We had been misled in our estimate of his personality. Thus we evade the responsibility for the change in behaviour and personality which has come about in the child's response to the environment we have selected. We are sure the home was a good one, therefore the fault must lie in the kind of child. We were mistaken in this child-but we go on believing in the existence of the child who will maintain his normality in any home which comes up to our standards of fitness. The second fallacy,

which is the reverse of the first, is the acceptance of the child with the bad conduct record as inherently difficult or abnormal. Something born in this child who behaves so extraordinarily is responsible for his actions. From the start he is the kind of child who gives trouble. At once we have fallen into an attitude exactly like the first except that it is directed toward abnormality instead of normality. After such a child has failed in home after home, we sometimes find that a chance placement acts like magic and transforms our inherently difficult personality into an ordinary human being. We are astonished and delighted, but we may continue to go on believing in a kind of absolute abnormality because of the ease with which such an abstract entity is established and the extreme difficulty of analysing personality and behaviour when it is thought of as something dynamic, changing, adapting itself wisely or unwisely to changing social stimuli. If we had been sufficiently conscious of the interplay of personalities in the good home where the normal child was placed we might have seen exactly why and how the changes in his behaviour and attitude were brought to pass with no blame to anyone and no reason to change our estimate of home or child. On the other hand, in the case of the child with a history of behaviour difficulties, only analysis of what had gone into forming that child's personality and behaviour would give any clue to the situation, and probably only intelligent experiment over a considerable period of time would provide a sound basis for estimating how much of the difficulty could be considered inherent. The causes for long continued, increasingly difficult behaviour are sometimes so apparently insignficant that we can hardly believe, when we have found them, that they could be responsible for such tremendous changes in the actions of a human being; and the recovery sometimes brought about by a removal of such causes may be too remarkable to be credited. So often we see radical adjustments brought about in personalities

apparently abnormal that we might well leave the concept of inherent abnormality to the exclusive use of the psychiatrist. This is not intended to deny the existence of individuals in which the combination of inheritance and environment is so unfortunate as to make them practically hopeless from the standpoint of social adjustment, but rather to emphasise the danger of taking such a viewpoint with any but a very limited number of cases and then only after painstaking investigation, analysis, experiment and psychiatric diagnosis. To jump to the conclusion that the child with the bad record is necessarily inherently difficult or abnormal is a natural resistance to the detailed social analysis and the painful series of experimental placings which the re-education and social adjustment of such a child often involve, but it tends to prejudice us against children whose behaviour is largely a matter of response to environmental influences and who can be adjusted quite simply once we are willing to discriminate between homes on the basis of the fine points of family inter-relationships and maladjustments and not merely in terms of an unmeaning goodness or badness." .. After a detailed account of two instructive cases, Dr. Taft concludes with these wise remarks: "The placing of children who are supposed to be difficult to adjust is in one sense not different and not harder than the placing of children who are supposed to be normal. If we really stop to analyse the normality, to see how it has been built up, and if we actually follow up the placement by observing the fine points of its effect on the child, getting at the subtleties of attitudes and feelings, beliefs and ideas, the ins and outs of relationships within the family group, as well as in school and neighbourhood, we shall be prepared to understand the breakdown of that normality if it occurs, or even to anticipate and prevent it, but we shall have as difficult and delicate a job on our hands as if we were placing the problem child. This is not meant to ignore the greater ease with which one finds a family home for the child who has no previous record of bad behaviour, nor the difficulty of breaking up behaviour patterns long established, nor

the greater probability that the child who has not given trouble will continue not to give it, but to point out the fact that normality, like abnormality, is a relative term, that each is used for behaviour in which cause and effect are operative; in which radical changes are often brought about both consciously and unconsciously, and that the only safe procedure is to stick to the method of science. Concepts like 'normality' and abnormality' are evasions. Through their use we escape our own ignorance and much work and responsibility. If we use them sparingly and only after careful analysis of the behaviour which they cover, and experimental efforts to change that behaviour, we shall probably find that the normal child is almost as rare as the abnormal child and that the difficulties and subtleties of the child placing job at its simplest are limited only by our own skill and knowledge and intelligence."

THE SPIRITUAL EXPRESSION OF CHILDHOOD.

"One of the discoveries of the last few years has been the proper spiritual expression of childhood. We have found, at least approximately, the forms of occupation into which boys and girls in their pre-adolescent days can throw them. selves with complete zest, and the maximum of moral and spiritual profit. There is more than one variation of the prescription, but the type of activity is sufficiently covered by the one word 'scouting.' Scouting is very nearly the full and adequate expression of a small boy's free energy. Through scouting he can bring into healthy and vigorous being whatever capacity there is in him for discovering the make of God's world and establishing himself as a willing and useful member of it. If some great idea of God overarching His world overarches him too, he is, under skilful leadership, treading the upward spiritual path far more effectively than he would be doing it if he were spending his energies in cultivating spiritual states or forming brave resolutions. We are past the day when the ideal Christian child was thought to be one who was exercised beyond his years about the state of his

soul, or the spiritual condition of his elders. We should count as painful and disastrous precocity some of the traits which our forefathers held up for admiration in the ideally pious child. Up to the age of adolescence, at least, we reckon that the child's spirit should grow with as little as possible of self-consciousness and a maximum exhibition of juvenile spirits." The above appears in "Work, Play and the Gospel," by Malcolm Spencer, M.A., published by the Student Christian Movement, 32, Russell Square, W.C.1 (price 4s. net). Α thoughtful work which all interested in religious, moral, educational and recreational work among young men and women will be well advised to read.

MISCELLANY.

The publishers of The Educational Times, Silas Birch, Limited, 23, Southampton Street, Bloomsbury Square, W.C.1, are issuing a series of Educational Times Booklets. No, I deals with "The Public Schools and Athleticism," and is by J. H. Simpson, M.A., author of “An Adventure in Education" (price is. net). The brochure will arouse discussion, for it is an outspoken criticism of the prevailing attitude of educationists to organized games. "At present games, because they are dominated by masters rather less than is work, provide the only field for the exercise of certain collective impulses which naturally exist in any group of growing boys. But only in a school which gives to every boy some share in its government, and at the same time the greatest possible measure of personal freedom, will those impulses find their healthiest and most creative expression." No. II is on "Musical Appreciation in Schools," by Edwin A. Adams, Head Master of Ladypool Road School, Birmingham (price 6d. net), and is a striking plea for a better development of school music. "In these days, when the working classes are demanding, and rightly demanding, more leisure, and are seeking contrast and diversity amidst the monotony of life, let us see to it that the solace and joy to be found in the art of

music is not denied them and that they are taught from childhood to know what is true, to admire what is beautiful, and to love what is good."

- From Despotism to Democracy: A History of Modern Europe, 1789-1923," by H. L. Williamson, B.A., Senior History Master, Carlisle Grammar School, published by Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, Ltd., Parker Street, Kingsway, W.C.2 (price 3s. 6d. net), is just the sort of history reader suited to meet the needs of to-day. It furnishes a lucid, concise, connected, interesting account of events and their meaning in Europe from the time of the French Revolution up to the present. In this simple, informing and attractive record of political evolution prominence is rightly given to social and economic features. The main portion of the book is presented in narrative form with many explanations and details in conveniently placed footnotes. For school use the work is to be warmly commended, and we believe many thoughtful citizens of to-day will find it profitable to refresh their memories regarding the march of European history by a perusal of Mr. Williamson's compact and enlightening volume. There are excellent maps, a feature which merits special commendation.

"The Indian Child's Mother,” by A. D., published by the Church Missionary Society, Salisbury Square, E.C.4 (price 36), is a collection of picturesque impressions of Indian life, particularly as regards the native mother and her child. The substance of the book is presented under three headings: The Indian Woman, The Moslem Woman, and The Christian Woman, and altogether furnishes a telling appeal for missionary enterprise among the women and children of India.

Poetry, edited by S. Fowler Wright and published by The Merton Press, Ltd., Abbey House, Westminster, S.W.I (price is. each number), continues to prosper as a magazine of verse, comment and criticism. The current issue contains a number of original communications of considerable promise. Particulars are given of the Open Prize Competitions.