LB
3O8I
II
IC-NRLF
17 52fl
TRUANCY
A STUDY OF THE MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND
SOCIAL FACTORS OF THE PROBLEM OF
NON-ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL
BY
ELISABETH A. IRWIN
Field Worker of the Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Public
Education Association
FROM THE PRESIDENT'S OFFICE
TO THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
JUNE, 1915
TRUANCY
A STUDY OF THE MENTAL, PHYSICAL AND
SOCIAL FACTORS OF THE PROBLEM OF
NON-ATTENDANCE AT SCHOOL
BY
ELISABETH A. IRWIN
Field Worker of the Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Public
Education Association
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE
CITY OF NEW YORK
JUNE, 1915
V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
SCOPE AND METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION 9
I. MENTALITY OF TRUANTS 14
II. HOME STATUS OF TRUANTS 20
Truants from Incomplete Economic Families 20
Truants who have no mothers 21
Truants whose mothers are widows 23
Truants whose parents both work 24
Truants who have step-parents 25
Truants from Complete Economic Families 25
Comparison Between Number of Truants and Non-Truants
from Incomplete Economic Families 28
III. PHYSICAL FITNESS OF TRUANTS 30
IV. THE FAILURE OF TRUANTS TO CONNECT SCHOOL WITH LIFE 41
Non- promotion as a Cause of Non-attendance 42
What Truants do when not in School 42
The Truant's Idea of his Wage-earning Career 44
SUMMARY 46
APPENDIX 48
313976
INTRODUCTION
From its inception, the Public Education Association has re-
garded the enforcement of compulsory school attendance and its
kindred problems of child welfare of primary importance in its
program of service to the New York City schools. While it has
approached this question from many angles, it has not until now
presented an intensive study of the mental and physical status
of the children coming to the attention of the attendance de-
partment.
Through its Committee on Compulsory Education it has
taken active part in the evolution of the legislation culminating
in the establishment of the present Bureau of Attendance, Census
and Child Welfare in the Department of Education, and through
its present director has made several studies in the administrative
problems involved, three of which have been published by the
Association in the last two or three years. Through its visiting
teacher staff, for the last seven years, it has not only been treat-
ing cases of maladjustment to school requirements growing out
of adverse home, school and neighborhood conditions, which
only too frequently lead to irregularity of attendance, but it has
endeavored to get back of the causes of truancy by taking up
cases of irregular or intermittent attendance referred to it by the
school principals. The work of the Association in this direction
has been published for the period ending with the school year
1911, and a more comprehensive and exhaustive description and
analysis of the work for the past two years is nearing completion
and will appear shortly.
The study comprehended in this report was begun in the
autumn of 1913 by Miss Elisabeth Irwin, field worker of the
Committee on Hygiene of School Children of the Association,
who was eminently fitted for the task because of her previous
experience with problems of mental defect in connection with
her work for the Association in co-operating with the Department
of Ungraded Classes of the Board of Education. The scope and
method of her investigation are clearly outlined in the first sec-
tion of her report. The aim has been, briefly, to find what might
5
be called the purely human factors in the problem through study-
ing intensively all the cases actually reported from certain schools
to the Department of Attendance during an entire school year,
to apply, where possible, the remedy deemed advisable and to
measure its effectiveness.
Associated with Miss Irwin in this study were Miss Jessie L.
Louderback, who did a large share of the home visiting and pre-
pared the entire third section of the report, dealing with the
physical fitness of the children studied, Mr. Frederick W. Ellis
and Miss Helen Hannahs of the Department of Social Research
of the Neurological Institute, who gave a great deal of their time
to detailed and intensive psychological examination of a group of
twenty-four boys of the borderline type of mentality, Miss Ruth
S. True of the visiting teacher staff of the Association, Dr.
William Caldwell, who gave two hours every Monday afternoon
to the physical examination of children for Miss Louderback
and Miss True, and Miss Margaret Vanderbilt, who acted as a
volunteer for about two months.
The means of studying the physical fitness of the boys whose
records are included in the study was provided by the establish-
ment of a temporary clinic at the rooms of one of the kinder-
gartens of the New York Kindergarten Association in West
52nd Street. A thorough stripped examination was made with
the permission of the boy's parent, who was invited to be present
and in some cases was.
The manuscript of the report has been in the hands of the
Director of the Bureau of Attendance and Child Welfare of the
Department of Education during the greater part of the present
year and has been critically read by many of those directly con-
cerned with the phases of the problem which it seeks to interpret.
It is interesting to note that the chief recommendation of the
study — that a thorough and competent psychological and physi-
cal examination be made of every case reported for truancy and
that those cases found to be mentally defective be not given
punitive treatment as truants but be removed from the juris-
diction of the compulsory attendance department entirely and
educated in the schools or in institutions as feeble-minded chil-
dren— has been approved by the director of the Bureau of
Attendance and Child Welfare and is being worked out in his
experimental district with the assistance of Miss Irwin and others
who are co-operating in giving mental and physical examinations
to those reported to the Bureau. It is also interesting to note
that the Director of the Bureau is desirous of securing the
appointment of psychologists to organize this work permanently
as part of its service during the coming year. With this effort
the Public Education Association is in hearty accord, as it be-
lieves that Miss Irwin and her collaborators have amply demon-
strated the need for just this kind of service to handle wisely the
problem of attendance in the public schools.
HOWARD W. NUDD,
June 15, 1915 Director, Public Education Association
SCOPE AND METHOD OF THE INVESTIGATION
(It has been noticeable in all the recent studies and reports on
the subject of truancy that very little attention has been paid
to the actual human beings who constitute the problem. The
duties of the school, the court and the truant officer have been
duly stressed. Home and neighborhood conditions have been
taken into consideration as parts of the problem.^ But of the
type ofboVj.his psychology and his motives! one finds no descrip-
tion in the literature on~trle~subjec£ It is to this phase of the
problem that the greatest attention has been paid in this study.
The cases studied have not been selected according to any defi-
nition of truancy but have been taken from the attendance
officers' lists as they came, excluding only those known to be
absent because of definite illness. Also a number of cases begun
have been dropped upon finding; that the absence for which they
had been reported was merely accidental and that the child re-
mained in school after being returned once. All other cases of
non-attendance have been included.
The study has been carried on in two different neighborhoods,
in order that differences in nationalities and environment might
receive due consideration. The greater part of the work has
been done on the middle West Side where the population is
largely Irish- American and German-American with a few Italians.
Twenty-seven cases, however, were taken from an East Side
school of Jews and Italians in order that the investigator might
have some basis for comparison.
One hundred and fifty cases were studied in all. Twenty of
these were girls on the West Side. Twenty-seven were boys on
the East Side. One hundred and three were boys on the West
Side. The children studied were all from seven schools, six on
the West Side in two school districts and one on the East Side.
The six West Side schools were located between 59th Street
and 34th Street west of Sixth Avenue. In spite of the large
9
10
geographical area from which these schools drew their pupils, the
population is almost homogeneous. Toward the south of the
district, second and third generation Irish and German give the
character to the neighborhood throughout, except for a smatter-
ing of so-called "foreigners," Slavs and Italians. Hard driving
poverty and its only antidote drink leave a very small margin
of either leisure or intelligence to consider the advantages of edu-
cation. In a community without ambition and without ideals,
it is small wonder that the number of truants is large.
The East Side school in which twenty-seven cases of truancy
were studied was a boys' school of about 2700 pupils, Jewish and
Italian. The proportion of truants in this school was far smaller
than in any of the West Side schools. The Jewish boys are
anxious for an education and their parents are anxious for them
to have it. Every form of public opinion exerts pressure in this
direction. While on the West Side the lawless spirit of an easy
going Irish neighborhood not only tolerates but encourages an
attitude of indifference toward the schools. In the East Side
school the parent comes when he is sent for and, unless a good
reason exists for a boy's absence, the truant is returned to school
even at the cost of some trouble on the part of the parent. Here
the older brothers and sisters, even those who have arrived in
this country too late to profit by public education themselves,
also respect the opportunity the school offers. It is not unusual
for a big brother to co-operate even to the extent of losing half a
day's pay by staying home from work and hunting out the de-
linquent young brother in his illicit haunt and bringing him to
school by the collar. Such was the case with young Solly, who
was threatened in the presence of the principal with all the tor-
ments of this world and the world to come if ever again he failed
to "show up and learn his lessons, too." Solly, who, armed with
a rainbow-like array of dispensary tickets, had been working the
old game of "sick and had to go to the doctor," took a brace
and came to school after that. When your brother loses half a
day's work to make you go to school he means business and you
begin, yourself, to see that education is important. Thus the
tonic atmosphere of East Side sentiment constantly operates in
the right direction.
The ratio of the twenty West Side girls to the one hundred
three West Side boys in this study fairly represents the propor-
tion of girl to boy truants in that neighborhood. The remark of
II
one of the attendance officers actually expresses the situation, "If
there was a truant school for girls, there would be more girl tru-
ants all right, but now there's no place to put them, what's the
use?" The idea behind this seems to be that the principals feel
that it is useless to report girls for truancy when pushed to its
logical conclusion, for if the girl or the parent proves obdurate
there is no way of forcing the issue. This all goes back however
to the accepted view of the attendance officers and of many of the
principals that the truant school is the cure for truancy.
The method of the investigation has been to interview every
child, his parents, his school teacher, principal or head of de-
partment, and the attendance officer, and to form an estimate of
each case from a synthesis of these opinions. In some cases it has
been possible to discover one cause which has seemed sufficient
to account for the habit of truancy. In most cases, however, a
combination of circumstances has existed which has made it im-
possible to select and name one factor as the definite cause of the
habit of truancy. The figures given throughout the report there-
fore state the number of cases where certain circumstances exist
without definitely stating that any one thing was the absolute
cause. The conclusions are therefore drawn from the fact that
the same circumstance with the same apparent result existed in
enough cases to justify the causal connection.
The economic status of the family, while it has not been entirely
ignored, has not been studied statistically. The fact in this con-
nection which has been most definitely taken into consideration
is whether the family was a complete economic family, that is,
both parents living, the father earning and the mother staying
at home to feed, clothe and control the children. For, in so far
as the family is complete or incomplete, the functioning of the
home as a moralizing or demoralizing influence is affected.
The investigation was not begun with a fixed group of questions
to be answered by parents, teachers and children, but rather by
extensive interviews with each until it became evident that certain
kinds of material were irrelevant, other kinds unreliable, while
still other facts seemed indispensable and worth verifying even
at the expense of more time than had originally been allotted.
The following outline of procedure grew out of the early inter-
views :
12
I. Is the boy mentally — Defective — Normal — Precocious?
A. If defective —
1. Visit home and make home record.
2. Have physical examination.
3. Work to remedy physical defects.
4. Put in ungraded class.
5. Keep record of attendance.
6. Classify and put minimum of work on case.
B. If Normal or Precocious —
1. Visit home and make home record and hygiene card.
2. Have physical examination.
3. Work to remedy physical defects.
4. Make friends with family — all possible members.
5. Keep close record of attendance.
6. Follow out suggestions gained from the following
interview with the boy.
II. Interview with the boy (if normal) —
1. Do you "go on the hook"?
2. What do you do when out of school?
3. Did you do this yesterday, the day before and so on?
(Story of different days.)
4. How did you begin?
5. With whom do you go on hook?
6. Names of friends —
7. Where do they live?
8. Where go to school?
9. What grade?
10. How old?
n. What class are you in?
12. Teacher's name?
13. Do you like her?
14. Do you get on well in lessons?
15. Which one best?
1 6. Which one least?
17. Did you do badly in same one last term?
1 8. What was last class where you did all right in that?
(Compare with class where truancy began.)
19. Which class did you fall behind in?
20. Who was teacher?
21. Was she cross?
22. What seemed to be the trouble with that subject?
23. Would you like help in that subject?
24. Have you any brothers and sister in this school?
25. What classes?
26. What other schools?
27. Who is your best friend in family?
28. Is your mother home in day time?
29. What does she work at?
13
30. What does your father do?
31. Your big brothers?
32. What are you going to do?
33. Did you ever know anyone who did that? When?
Where?
34. How much do you think you will make?
35. What can you work up to?
36. Did you ever think of learning a trade?
37. Would you like to be a printer?
38. Plumber?
39. Electrician?
40. Mechanic?
41. Builder?
42. Did you know you could go to a special school and
learn one of those trades?
The information has for the most part gathered itself about the
four following questions concerning each child :
I. Is this child of normal mentality?
II. Is this child the member of a normal economic family?
(That is, both parents living, father earning, mother
at home.)
III. Is this child below the average physically?
IV. Has this child any outlook or ambition, immediate or
future, that makes school seem logical, desirable or
necessary?
I. MENTALITY OF TRUANTS
The mental normality of the children studied has been deter-
mined first by the use of the Binet Test which has divided them
roughly into three groups, — Normal, Defective, and Border-
line. The first two groups claimed all of the children about
whom no possible doubts could be raised. The results of the
tests were verified by school records, family histories, and
opinions of teachers and principals familiar with the children.
These two groups included no children about whom there was
any doubt or difference of opinion.
The third group originally contained 54 disputed cases. This
group was isolated and made the subject of special study.
Twenty-four were examined by the doctors of the Department of
Ungraded Classes of the Board of Education, twenty-four were
examined by the Psychologists of the Neurological Institute, and
six by hospital clinics. This group of doubtful cases was in
turn divided into three groups, — normal, defective, and border-
line,— according to the opinion of the specialists. After this
further scrutiny, there still remained 12 cases which had to be
classed as doubtful or borderline. This group contains those
children who are still too young or too high-grade for even
specialists to say whether or not they are normal mentally. No
child has been left in this group from failure to obtain a thorough
psychological examination.
The 24 cases which have been studied by the Neurological In-
stitute are by far the most interesting psychological cases. The
detailed analysis of four of these cases is given in the appendix.
All of the 24 in this group have been similarly studied.
The final classification of the total 150 cases studied is given
in Table I.
Of all the truants, 43 per cent were actually feeble-minded and
8 per cent were borderline cases. One of the salient character-
istics of the mental defective is never to do anything regularly
and on time except through training and habit formation or from
outside compulsion. A methodical and well ordered life is
14
essentially the product of a normal mind. Any feeling of accom-
plishment or daily success in the tasks assigned in the regular
school grades is out of the question for a mental defective. And
yet with one exception none of these mental defectives were in
ungraded classes which are provided for the education of the
feeble-minded. Therefore all of them were improperly placed
in their school work. This one cause alone, though contributory
causes often exist, would seem to account for the habit of truancy
in 43 per cent of all the cases studied. For it is unreasonable to
expect any child to go willingly month after month, year after
year, to a class where he constantly meets failure and reproof,
TABLE I. — ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY TRUANTS CLASSIFIED ACCORD-
ING TO NORMAL, DEFECTIVE AND BORDERLINE MENTALITY
Group
Normal
Defective
Borderline
Total
No.
9
15
49
Per
cent
No.
9
8
48
Per
cent
No.
Per
cent
No.
Per
cent
Girls
45-00
55-56
47-57
45.00
29.63
46.60
2
4
6
10.00
14.81
5-83
20
27
103
100
IOO
IOO
East Side Boys
West Side Boys
Total
73
48.67
65
43-33
12
8.00
150
IOO
GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE PER CENT OF TRUANTS IN EACH OF THE SEX
GROUPS THAT ARE OF NORMAL DEFECTIVE OR BORDERLINE MENTALITY
BORDERLINE
NORMAL GJ
GROUP
Girla
Bast Side Boys
West Side Boys
TOTAL
discouragement and derision. There is a common nightmare, —
almost everyone is familiar with it, — in which one is facing an
impossible task, a mountain that is too steep to climb, a stone
that is too heavy to lift, a door that will not unlock. Teachers
have said that it comes to them in the form of a class that
they cannot control. Most of us know in our waking hours also
as the most unpleasant situation in life, the task that is not only
too hard but impossible. And yet it is just this situation that we
are asking these poor children of limited intelligence to face each
day and if they do not welcome it gladly we call them truants.
16
Legally* these cases do not belong to the attendance officer and
it is simply because their true difficulty is undetected that 43
per cent of the 150 cases were on the truant lists at all. If 43
per cent of the actual number are mentally defective, surely a
much larger proportion than 43 per cent of the attendance offi-
cer's time is spent on these cases, for they are the hardest and
most hopeless and the least improvable of all the cases with
which he has to deal. Every effort made by the attendance
officer on these cases is an effort to push a square peg into a round
hole.
The attendance officer's time is largely spent, of necessity, in
dealing with parents on the subject of a boy's absence. In the
case of mental defectives who cannot get on in school, there is
no co-operation on the part of the child. In a number of cases
where children were placed in ungraded classes, the attendance
thereafter took care of itself. If this fails to happen because
of the deep-seated habit of truancy, the visiting teachers of the
Department of Ungraded Classes are the logical attendance
officers of this department. The children cannot, in any event,
be taken to court and must be dealt with by persuasion rather
than by force. When this department becomes adequate to
search out and care for all the mental defectives in the schools,
the list of all truants will automatically grow less. In the mean-
time, a psychological examination should be given to every child
as soon as he is listed as a truant by the compulsory attendance
department and unless he is found mentally normal, he should be
referred to the Department of Ungraded Classes for admission and
dropped from the list of truants. The additional amount of
work this would seem to involve on the part of the attendance
officer would be far more than counterbalanced by the decrease
* Article 23, Section 621 of the Education Law of 1910, as amended by
Chapter 710 of the laws of 1911, reads as follows:
"Required attendance upon instruction. — i. Every child within the com-
pulsory school ages, in proper physical and mental condition to attend school,
residing in a city or school district having a population of five thousand or
more and employing a superintendent of schools, shall regularly attend upon
instruction as follows:
" (a) Each child between seven and fourteen years of age shall attend the
entire time during which the school attended is in session, which period shall
not be less than one hundred and sixty days of actual school.
" (b) Each child between fourteen and sixteen years of age not regularly and
lawfully engaged in any useful employment or service, and to whom an em-
ployment certificate has not been duly issued under the provisions of the labor
law, shall so attend the entire time during which the school attended is in
session."
in the number of truants to be handled. The 43 per cent of
mental defectives now handled illegally would then require only
one examination in order to be eliminated while at present they
require an unlimited number of home visits and remain on the
lists from one year to the next, until the arrival of the sixteenth
birthday finally removes them.
TABLE II. — DISTRIBUTION OF AGES OF TRUANTS AMONG NORMAL
AND DEFECTIVE*
Age
Boys
Girls
<-p . i
Normal
Defective
Total
Normal
Defective
Total
i otai
7vrs
i
i
i
8 ....
2
2
2
Q
I
I
I
10
6
c
II
1 1
II
17
I
Id
12
9
c
14.
i
i
2
16
13
14
18
18
13
II
31
20
7
i
6
8
6
39
•je
I*
6
21
27
•z
i
4.
-21
Total
74
56
130
ii
9
20
150
The age table (Table II) shows that there were only six
normal boys of fifteen years of age who had not managed by
some means to get in the required number of days and up to the
required grade to obtain working papers and therefore to make
an escape from school. Twenty-one mental defectives of this
same age, however, were stranded, most of them in working
paper classes where they were obliged to remain, off and on, till
their sixteenth birthday should release them. These are the
boys that play hide and seek with the attendance officer. One of
them remarked about another who had been sent to the Parental
School, "I never did think the Troonty'd find Mike. He had a
swell bunk on - - Street. Some one must have squealed on
him. Oh, well, he'll be back soon." The older boys who know
all hope of getting working papers is in vain take a real pleasure
in this game of hide and seek, with the heavy penalty of being
sent to the truant school if they are caught. Many of them have
* In this table the classification doubtful mentality has been included under
normal. 7 years means 7 but not yet 8. 8 years means past 8 but not 9, etc.
18
the friendly attitude of opponents in a tennis match toward the
pursuing officer when they meet on any neutral ground, such as
the school. They hang around and joke as if rather enjoying the
opportunity of a friendly truce. The writer was much enlight-
ened by one of these encounters. The attendance officer was
waiting for the 12 o'clock gong to sound when Pietro came loung-
ing in. "Hello there, Hick," he addressed his officer by the
common nickname of the neighborhood for him. "You got
Joe, didn't you? I thought you would. I told him he'd get
caught. Who was the judge? Oh, I might have known, that
young judge sent me up twice. Say, didn't I strike luck that
last time you had me down? I knew when I saw that old man
that my skin was safe. He won't jail no one when he don't have
to. When he gets to Heaven I believe he'll say to God, 'Say, let
everybody out of jail.' He don't like to send fellers up. He told
me so. Well, you don't catch me takin' no more chances, any-
how, Hick. You'll find me in school the rest of this week all
right. Say, Finnegan's back, you seen him? I got to go. Me
teacher wants a bottle of milk. So long!"
Nothing can be expected from these boys so long as they re-
main in the ordinary grades. Even the ungraded class often
has hard work to hold them when they have passed so many
years in hating and dreading school. If, however, they could
be placed in these classes before the truancy habit has taken hold
of .them many of them would never become a problem at all.
In the 9 cases of mentally defective girls there was no economic
necessity for their non-attendance. All but three of these girls
came from complete economic families, and two of these three
were orphans living with married sisters and could go to school
if they wanted to. Their non-attendance seemed to be cases of
truancy pure and simple and are to be accounted for on exactly
the same grounds as the cases of the mentally defective boys.
They were perhaps even more unanimous in their protest that
they did not like school. They had developed irregular habits
and fallen behind in their classes, couldn't learn to do arithmetic,
wanted to go to work, didn't like to be the only big girl in the
class, and so on through all the rest of the alleged reasons with
which the feeble-minded bby or girl explains his dislike of the
school room.
Of the 150 truants, 44 have records at the Children's Court.
These do not include those who have been sent to truant schools
19
with the parents' consent. Six of these 44 children have records
of two offenses and 2 of three offenses, I of four offenses, mak-
ing 57 court entries for the 44 truants. The charges made against
them were as follows:
Petty larceny 2
Assault I
An ungovernable child I
In danger of becoming morally depraved I
Unlawful entry . I
Larceny 3
Injury to property 4
Child labor law 3
Burglary 4
Disorderly conduct 5
Compulsory education law 12
Special proceedings 20
57
Of these 44 children with court records only 13 are of normal
mentality; 5 are borderline cases and 26 are mentally defective.
The cases of borderline mentality scarcely belong to the attend-
ance officer more than the definitely feeble-minded. These
cases are few and scattered and cannot therefore be placed to-
gether in one class for the kind of education they need, but they
should always be in some kind of special class for observation
and should be marked off in the mind of the teacher as objects
of special care and consideration. Often these boys are returned
after examination for an ungraded class to the grade in which they
failed, only to continue to fail in the same manner. It is only
fair that any boy who is even suspected of being mentally de-
fective should be treated as though he were, that is, with special
kindness, gentleness, and patience, until he begins to do the very
best he can. Not until he puts forth his best efforts is it possible
to discover what his real ability is. The only answer to the fre-
quent comment, "He isn't defective; he could do better if he
wanted to" of the teacher is "make him want to." This is as
true of school attendance as of school accomplishment.
So much for the 43 per cent who are mentally defective and the
8 per cent of doubtful mentality. The following tables and sec-
tions will apply to the 49 per cent who are mentally normal.
II. HOME STATUS OF TRUANTS
TRUANTS FROM INCOMPLETE ECONOMIC FAMILIES
Table III shows the percentage of the mentally normal children
who come from homes that are economically complete or incom-
plete, that is, the father and mother both living, the father earn-
ing, and the mother staying at home to take care of the children.
TABLE III. — NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF TRUANTS OF NORMAL
MENTALITY WHO COME FROM COMPLETE AND INCOMPLETE
ECONOMIC FAMILIES
Group
Truants coming
from complete
economic
families
Truants coming
from incomplete
economic
families
Total
No.
Per cent
No.
Per cent
No.
Per
cent
Girls...
3
7
9
33-33
46.77
18.00
6
8
40
66.67
53-33
82.00
9
15
49
100
IOO
100
Kast Side Boys
West Side Boys
Total
19
25.68
54
74-32
73
IOO
GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE PER CENT OF TRUANTS IN EACH OF THE SEX
GROUPS THAT COME FROM ECONOMICALLY COMPLETE OR INCOMPLETE
FAMILIES
GROUP
Girls
East Side Boys
West Side Boys
TOTAL
COMPLETE
There are 54 cases, or 74 per cent, of the mentally normal truants
who come from incomplete economic families. It is necessary
to treat the West Side and East Side quite separately under this
topic as the types of broken homes are very different in both
cause and effect.
20
21
The East Side boys who come from incomplete families are
no such problem as the West Side boys. In the first place, the
proportion of such boys is small. Besides this, most of the
East Side mothers who work are simply assisting their husbands
in the little family shop or are janitresses of the house where the
family lives. In none of the East Side families was the mother
absent from morning till night. These mothers do not often
work outside their homes. Of the 8 cases of incomplete families,
5 mothers were working. Four were helping their husbands,
one was a janitress, and three were economically incomplete
because the father was out of work. The effect upon school
attendance in these cases was almost entirely the result of the
family's dependence upon the boy as an economic factor. In
the small shop where the mother works there is almost always
work for the boy also. It becomes a temptation to a parent to
keep a boy at home to ''help out" occasionally. They are then
surprised and often grieved to discover that the boy has failed
to attend when he has been sent. The janitress needed her boy
to help her clean house, especially if she was sick or pressed by
any other family emergency. In two cases where the father
was out of employment, the boy had been sent out to earn ille-
gally until the father should get a job. In nearly all these cases
the truancy was temporary and had shown a decided improve-
ment before the study was completed.
The forty West Side cases, on the other hand, were of a far
more serious nature, and, are therefore considered more at length
under the following heads :
TRUANTS WHO HAVE NO MOTHERS
There are 6 boys coming from homes where the mother is
dead and not replaced by a step-mother. The story of each of
these boys is different, and yet in each one truancy seems not
only the natural but the inevitable result of his mode of life.
Perhaps there is nothing more pathetic on all the West Side than
the boy without a mother.
Paul's father lives in a lodging house and can never be found
when wanted. Paul sees him every year or so. In the meantime,
Paul himself is passed around from one married sister to the
other, each grudging him the food he eats and the clothes he
wears. Every time he changes his home, which may be every
few months or every few weeks as he has a circuit of four, he also
22
changes his school. This it can readily be seen does not make
for regular school attendance. All his habits are equally ir-
regular, as would naturally be the case under his shifting environ-
ment. The life of a commercial traveller for a boy of fourteen
is not educational.
Walter's shifting about is on a still shorter meter. He lives
with a lady whom, he explains, his father "was going to marry
but isn't." She works away from home, starting at 6 A. M. every
day. Walter is called at school time by a neighbor when he is
not forgotten. He has dinner at noon with an aunt and supper
at night with his father. After this he returns home at whatever
hour he pleases. The necessity of keeping all these engagements
every day would, it might seem, make him efficient in remember-
ing school at 9 o'clock each morning. And indeed Walter is not
one of those boys who forget to go to school after they are started
from home. Walter suffers from division of authority. No one
knows where he is at any time /except when he chooses to turn
up. He always turns up for meals but he does not turn up for
school. Flying pigeons is more to his taste and in this occupa-
tion he spends his school hours.
John is thirteen years old. His mother died when he was ten
and he lived with his father, sister, and little brother for a while ;
but his father took in another woman and John took his little
brother and walked out. "I wouldn't stand for that," he said.
He had a grandmother who was very old and whose rent was
paid by the church. He went to her and offered to support
himself and brother if she would shelter them. He has sold
papers at the Times Square subway station for two years and
supported himself and Tommy. While getting started in busi-
ness he accidentally contracted the habit of truancy and served
a few months' term in a truant school. " I never stay out now, "
he explained, "except on business." When this gets to be too
often John's name appears on the truant list and he returns hot-
foot to school. His responsibilities are too great for him to take
any chances on getting "sent up" again.
The only reason that Jimmy doesn't go to school is because his
home is so bad he wants to get sent away. His drunken old
grandmother disgusts him and his equally drunken father beats
him. He loves his school and his teacher but he has long cherished
the hope of being sent where school lasts twenty-four hours a day
and home does not exist. Through the perversity of human
23
affairs, this has not happened to Jimmy. He is now sixteen and
has tuberculosis. "If I can just get well," he says, "I'll go to
work now and buy myself a good home."
These are the stories of four boys who have no mothers.
The other two are cases of no home control, the father forgetting
his home ties when there is no one to cook for him and the boys
shifting for themselves for food and education which they find
outside of school.
TRUANTS WHOSE MOTHERS ARE WIDOWS
The second group includes 16 boys whose mothers were
widows. In most of these families, unless an older brother or
sister is working, a charitable society or the church is paying the
rent or assisting in some other way. It would seem that a
more efficient means than the present one might be devised of
assisting these families where the mother and children are of
normal mentality and the children could grow into normal effi-
ciency if for a few years they were tided over economically.
Possibly a widow's pension system would suffice to carry many
families over this difficult period when the home does not func-
tion as a moralizing influence. It is not only the little children
who need the care and training of a mother but the half-grown
boy who is just beginning to be wild cannot be left to his own
devices and neighborhood influences without suffering irreparable
injury. Truancy is only the first step with these boys. What
they do during the hours when they should be in school is more
pernicious in a positive way than the failure to get an education
is in a negative one.
Even when cared for economically, many boys would be more
than a handful for a home withont a father to control and disci-
pline in the face of demoralizing neighborhood influences. Boys
of this age are universally acknowledged to be so difficult to
manage that in the families of the well to do, where home in-
fluences are good, boarding schools are usually considered the
best solution for the boy who is a problem. Why would not a
boarding school be equally good for the difficult boy with a broken
home? Among the poor a good boarding school is possible only
for the confirmed truant. Here he may stay only until he begins
to improve. At that unpsychological moment he is removed
from the favorable environment under which he has gained and
returned to the unfavorable environment under which he had
24
already deteriorated. He must make room for the next boy
who has overstepped the bounds of social endurance. The per
capita cost of a' boarding school education at the New York
Parental School is $2.10 a week. This is always at public ex-
pense. For a boy to be sent there is a social stigma. If the
Board of Education could offer this opportunity to the boy who
is not yet bad or who has just begun to be "wild, " there is many
a mother on the West Side who would scrub her knuckles bare
rather than have her boy "go to the bad." If a boarding school
ceased to be a reformatory and a boy could be sent at the parent's
request instead of on a court commitment there is scarcely one
of the 29 boys in these two groups who would not have been
saved from the r61e of confirmed truant that he now plays. For
few of these mothers who are working so hard for the physical
welfare of their children were indifferent to their moral welfare
but were helpless in the face of neighborhood conditions and
economic necessity.
A number of them preferred the truant school with all its
stigma to the deteriorating influence of continued truancy. "I
didn't send him to school this morning," Mrs. Gilligan said.
"Mr. B was here yesterday and said if he wasn't in school
today, he'd send him up to Flushing, sure thing, and it's better
so. I have to work out more days than not and it's no use me
to promise he'll go to school, for he won't. He was up there once
and we was both well satisfied. I only hope he'll find him on the
street." By such means only can Mrs. Gilligan and her neigh-
bors get a proper education for their boys.
TRUANTS WHOSE PARENTS BOTH WORK
There are 13 families where both parents are living and
both working, leaving no one at home. Most of the boys from
these homes belong to the type called "wild." Not only do they
suffer from the lack of some one to get them up, dress and feed
them, and send them to school but most of them have behind
them a long history of years during which the street has been
their home and the gang their club. No doubt necessity has
pressed these mothers to leave their homes and go into industry
but the fact remains that their boys arg/but little better off than
those of the widows who are the sole support of their families.
TRUANTS WHO HAVE STEP-PARENTS
There are the homes where one parent is a step-parent.
Five of the 40 West Side cases now under consideration are of
this type. Stories of step-parents always produced the fact that
discipline is lax and the boy is allowed to do as he pleases because
the step-parent, either mother or father, "doesn't feel like hitting
the boy" because "you know how the neighbors talk." What-
ever is really behind this step-parent situation, one never fails
to get this same story. One begins to suspect that to have a
step-father or step-mother on the West Side is the signal for a
boy to go on the loose. The own parent in such a family is
equally often accused of being overlenient and so we have a situa-
tion in which no discipline is expected. An added difficulty in
getting co-operation in school attendance is that the step-parent
is often quite willing, if not eager, that the "wild boy" shall be
sent to truant school, and therefore assumes the r61e of inade-
quate guardian.
TRUANTS FROM COMPLETE ECONOMIC FAMILIES
Of the 9 West Side boys who come from complete economic
families, very different stories may be told. In the first place,
five of these boys were distinctly candidates for a truant school
of the existing type. Three have been there once arid all but
one have brothers there now. They come from families of a low
mental type and still lower moral tone. Three of them are normal
members of feeble-minded families and should be given a chance
in a favorable environment.
In the second place four of these nine have ceased to be truants
during the course of this study. Their reasons for non-attend-
ance were specific and temporary and not difficult to overcome.
One of them was persuaded by a trip to a trade school to see
what was in store for him if he would show a good record
of attendance on his fourteenth birthday. He had acquired
irregular habits during his mother's illness and needed only a
slight stimulus to make him take hold of the situation himself.
Another boy had been seized with a desire to see the world and
for a short period had been going every morning to a busy sub-
way station, sneaking in with the crowd, and then riding up and
down town all day — a city manifestation of the old fever among
boys to go "railroading." His attendance has been regular
26
for a number of months. This was a little fellow of twelve and
he has apparently for the present settled down. He has a good
home where the parents will probably be able to manage any
further outcropping of erratic tendencies.
It was another of this group who was the only one of all the
1 50 to offer a definite complaint against his teacher as a reason for
staying out of school. " I wouldn't come, " he said, "when I had
a fresh teacher. She don't hit you when you're really bad, but
when you're just stubborn, she beats you. Now I'm promoted,
I'll come every day," and he did.
Another of this group explained. "I used to stay out a lot
until the Troonty' come to our house. I didn't suppose it was
any harm." Since the visit of the "Troonty," this boy stays
out from time to time but is not a confirmed truant and will
probably survive without a trip to the truant school.
These four cases together with five similar ones on the East
Side are the only cases of truancy in the whole study that seem
to be capable of being finally dealt with under the present un-
analytical method. The attendance officer has brought these
boys back to school to stay and can always bring others like
them. He was dealing with normal, rational human beings and
had the co-operation of normal and adequate homes. Where
the boys are feeble-minded the attendance officer cannot make
them normal and where the home does not function, he cannot
remake the structure of society. Ideally, all the feeble-minded
would go to institutions for their permanent care, but in the
meantime they must be taken care of in ungraded classes. The
boys with homes which do not function as a supplement to school
in their education should go to 24 hour a day schools with no
stigma attached and should stay there until the home is changed
or until the boy's education is completed. The present system
of sending boys to the truant school after the mischief is done
and sending them back to the environment that demoralized
them with still unformed characters is not only futile but econom-
ically wasteful. The average term of 9 months in a truant school
is manifestly insufficient for an entire education to say nothing
of re-education.
The essential difference between the kinds of causes of non-
attendance among the girls and the boys, considering now only
the group of mentally normal of both sexes, is that the girls were
almost without exception kept home to work and would rather
27
have been in school, while the boys as a rule were not working
but were out of school by their own volition. The stories of the
girls were monotonously alike: "My mother works and I must
mind the baby and Eddie and Joey and clean the house. My
papa is in the hospital five months now, so my mama has to work.
She goes at seven and don't come back till night, so what can
I do?" Or the mother's stories offer no more variety. " I can't
get her off to school on time. I do office cleaning and I don't
get home till half past nine, do my best, and she can't leave the
children till I come and she can't go every day late, so what can
I do?" Or the father's story is, "My wife is dead three months
and who can look after the house and the little children while
I earn their bread? I have to go to work. Nellie's almost fifteen
and if she'd been promoted she'd have had her working papers
by now, but I couldn't send her last term ; how could I with her
mother sick abed and three children, so what can I do?" The
stories of all but three of the normal cases were of this type,
economically incomplete families and the burden falling on the
girl.
Two of the remaining cases were normal members of feeble-
minded shiftless families, where truancy was a family habit,
both of them having brothers and sisters included in the present
study. They are good examples of the unfortunate fact that
the normal members of such families jire more apt to be pulled
down to the habit level of the incompetent members than to
help to pull up to a normal level the low general average of the
family.
Under this heading also belong the two girls of doubtful men-
tality. Poor intellectually befogged creatures were these two,
struggling against the odds of a feeble-minded, inefficient clan.
In a stimulating environment, doubtless both of these girls would
have pulled through on school. As it is, one of them, whose defi-
nition of "on the hook" was "going on the street," is now at
Hope Farm and the other is in the process of being committed
to some protecting institution. Both of them were docile girls,
instinctively good but easily led. Decent homes would have
saved them.
The one remaining case is that of a normal girl who seems to
"go on the hook" as the boys do. She has a gang most of whom
have left school but are not yet working. She goes to school
"when she's chased" and the rest of the time the streets and the
28
"movies" and the Tenth Avenue shops are more to her liking.
A toss of the head and just a touch of defiance in her tone toward
school teachers indicated that she considered a distaste for school
not a thing that had to be justified. Her mother's attitude was
not unsimilar. This seemed to be the only case among the girls
where a truant school would have been the only solution.
COMPARISON BETWEEN NUMBER OF TRUANTS AND NON-TRUANTS
FROM INCOMPLETE ECONOMIC FAMILIES
In order to discover whether the proportion of incomplete to
complete economic families among the families of truants was
great in comparison with the proportion in the neighborhood at
large, a census was taken in one school of 341 children in grades
corresponding to those in which most of the truancy occurred,
namely, the 5th and 6th. Table IV shows that, whereas only
TABLE IV. — NUMBER AND PER CENT OF TRUANTS AND NON-
TRUANTS COMING FROM COMPLETE AND INCOMPLETE ECONOMIC
FAMILIES
Group
Coming from
complete
economic
families
Coming from
incomplete
economic
families
Total
Num-
ber
Per
cent
Num-
ber
Per
cent
Num-
ber
Per
cent
West Side Truants
9
178
18.00
52.40
41
163
82.00
47.60
50
341
IOO
IOO
West Side Non-truants . .
GRAPHIC REPRESENTATION OF THE PER CENT OF TRUANTS AND NON-TRUANTS
THAT COME FROM ECONOMICALLY COMPLETE OR INCOMPLETE FAMILIES
CROP?
West Side Truants
West Side Non-Truants
COMPLETE
INCOMPLETE
1 8 per cent of the mentally normal boys who were truants come
from complete economic families, 52 per cent of the non-truants
of corresponding grades come from complete economic families;
that 82 per cent of the truants in contrast to 48 per cent of the
non- truants come from incomplete homes. Even though the
proportion of incomplete families in the neighborhood is ap-
pallingly large (48%), the number of truants having incomplete
families is vastly larger (82%).
29
The question occurs of course, why, if the incomplete family
is the cause of truancy in 82 per cent of the cases of truants, are
not the 48 per cent of all the boys in the corresponding grades
also truants. In the first place, the fact that the family is in-
complete is probably in most cases not the only cause. It is
most often the negative cause, in that, if any other individual
reason for truancy exists which it is the function of the home to
counteract, the incomplete home fails to perform this function.
Also truancy is not the only one and perhaps not the most viru-
lent symptom of the incomplete home. Court records show an
abnormally large proportion of broken families among children
arrested. There is small doubt that any study of malnutrition
or of scholarship in these same grades would also show the effect
on large numbers of the 48 per cent who were suffering from the
lack of the moralizing and normalizing of a complete home.
To repeat, nothing can bring these adolescent boys into line
for normal and useful citizenship except sfome means of raising
the standard of the home to the point where it will contribute
that part of their education which it is not now the function of
the school to contribute, or of supplying a 24 hour school to
which boys may be sent at cost price, even if necessary at the
expense of the state, before they have become an unsolvable
problem and where they may be kept until they have attained
that degree of training and education that can resist the vitiat-
ing influence of a neighborhood without ambition and without
ideals.
III. PHYSICAL FITNESS OF TRUANTS
The original plan in this phase of the study was to give each
truant a thorough physical examination, with the hope of having
every physical defect immediately corrected, leaving the balance
of the school year free for observing the effect on the truant of his
improved physical condition. But unexpected difficulties arose.
Clinic was on Monday. A truant despises school on Monday.
However 44 were taken to clinics after school hours and had a
thorough examination, and 8 others were taken to specialists
for their various defects.
The second revelation was in the attempt to get the physical
defects corrected ; a truant has no more appreciation of the bene-
fits of medical treatment than he has of the benefits of education.
Added to this was the fear that many children have of the doctor
and the hospital, and fear is a trait over-developed in the average
truant. He^has the habit of running away, of mistrusting anyone
proposing to take him anywhere, — having in mind the oft-
threatened trip to the Truant School, — the fear that he will not
be brought back; that the treatment or the doctor will hurt him.
All these have to be overcome. Then he tells you that he " isn't
sick anyway," that he "must help his mother" or "get wood,"
or even that he will miss a good time with the boys if he goes. A
boy who is seldom at school is less often found at home, so that
careful and patient angling is required until he is landed.
The following is the result of the physical examination of 44
cases :
Boys,
1
36
Girls, 8
No.
found
No. treated and re-
marks
No.
found
No. treated and re-
marks
Condition:
Poor
4
10. To go to country
I
1. 1 2 tonic; 2 to go
Fair
8
in vacation.
7
> to country in
3. J vacation.
Good
15
2
Undeveloped ....
Undernourished .
Rachitic
6
6
2
I
I
Displaced hip.
Anemic
4
4. Tonic given.
I
I. Tonic.
Heart
0
0
30
No.
found
No. treated and re-
marks
No.
found
No. treated and re-
marks
Lungs
2
Observed : nega-
i
I T B glands
Bronchitis . .
2
•2
tive.
Sputum tests
negative.
*.
i
i
Rhinitis
3
3-
I
Adenoids and
tonsils
14.
8. Operated on
•i
I. To be done July
15* 2 not in
Enlarged glands . .
7
No operation
needed.
2
condition for
operation.
No operation
needed.
Digestion — fair or
bad
10
10. Medicine given.
4.
4. Medicine given.
4 Diet ordered
Constipation
n
8.
ii. Medicine, diet
and exercises.
Teeth defective . .
Palate defective. .
27
2
12. Treatment started
at clinic.
Parents are to
take to dentist.
6
4. Treatment start-
ed at clinic.
Eyes:
Vision defective
Strabismus ....
Trachoma
4
4
i
3. Procured glasses.
I. Had glasses. 3
doubtful cases
removed to
Truant School.
I. Operated on.
2. Procured glasses.
I. Not serious.
2
2. Procured glasses.
Conjunctivitis .
Keratitis
3
3. Examined; not
serious.
I
i.
Ears:
Hearing
o
0
Wax
10
I. ....
I
I.
Pediculosis
3
3-
. .
Curvature
4.
2. Had accident.
I
Postural (syphil-
2. Were eye cases.
itic).
Flatfoot
6
Exercises sug-
2
Beginning.
gested.
Circumcision:
Urgent
10
5. Operated on.
Advised
5
3. Operated on.
i. Parents to have
done.
Syphilis
i
I.
I
i.
Wassermann
taken
i
Negative.
I
Positive.
Hernia
i
Urine:
Analysis
i
I. Elimination of
albumen. Diet
ordered.
••
32
After the examination the parents were seen, and were told
what were the doctor's findings. As a rule parents give their
consent to medical treatment and even to operations when told
the need, though they may couple with their consent the remark,
"Yes, take him, if you can get him to go. I can't"; or "he
won't go, he's afraid of doctors." However, there are a few
cases like the following where the need is greatest and the con-
sent hardest to obtain. The boy's examination showed elimina-
tion of albumen through the urine, hernia, defective vision and
teeth, flatfoot and a speech defect which was influenced by his
impaired nervous condition. He received medicine and a diet
was ordered, but his treatment was interrupted by a sojourn at
the truant school. On his return his mother absolutely refused
to have anything done, saying if he needed these things, why
weren't they done at the truant school?
The figures in the above table were compared with 62 cases,
not truants, which were referred to the visiting teacher in the
same neighborhood, many of them on account of physical dis-
ability. These children had the same physical examination.
The results of the comparison were as follows:
General condition
Per cent of
truants
Per cent of vis-
iting teach-
ers' cases
Good
78 +
17 +
Fair
25
2O
Undeveloped 1
Undernourished }•
16 +
61 +
Anemic
Adenoids and tonsils needing operation
Intestinal trouble
38.6
54. e
37
52
Defective teeth
Curvature
75
11 +
85.5
21
Flatfoot .
18
•72
Eye cases were not compared as they were rated differently.
Although the averages in tonsil and adenoid cases and intes-
tinal disturbances are higher in the truants than in the visiting
teachers' cases, the per cent of those in good condition is also
higher; and of defects difficult to correct, like curvature and
flatfoot, is lower. This would put truants not in the list of sick
children but of those needing attention to remediable defects.
33
A sick stomach and a sick headache are given as excuses for
absence from school. A toothache figures even higher, although
all who complained did not avail themselves of the opportunity
to have dental work done.
In order to determine whether truants have more defects than
the average school child, the per cents from the examination of
school children in New York City in 1911 are compared with the
per cents for truants :
Defects
Per cent of school
children
Per cent of truants
Defective teeth
SQ.o
7S.O
Hypertrophied tonsils
IS.O
74.0
Defective nasal breathing
Defective vision
11.9
10.6
36.0
2O.O
Malnutrition
2 5
136
Orthopedic defects
c
27.0 flatfoot
Cardiac disease
.7
and curva-
ture
Pulmonary disease
.2
Defective hearing
.6
••
The above figures for school children are taken from "Medical
Inspection of Schools" by Gulick and Ayres. In both instances
only those cases needing attention are considered. The high per
cents of truants would indicate their special need of attention,
yet several had had no medical inspection in the school or no
recent inspection, their frequent absences probably making it
possible for them to escape notice.
In the following cases the physical defects are a handicap to
education, and may have been the original cause of the truant
habit:
A boy of 14 in a 36 grade could not see to read, and had to
change his seat in the classroom in order to see the blackboard.
Some months previously an optician had fitted both eyes with a
-j-i sphere. This winter the oculist's examination under atropin
revealed hyperopia with very high astigmatism. In January
the boy was fitted with strong lenses, but even with these did
not have normal vision. He wore them during the first few
weeks of the new term. After that his attendance became rare
and finally ceased altogether, the boy having apparently dis-
appeared. It turned out later that he had gone to work; the
3
34
glasses were forgotten. Had they come into his life eight years
earlier perhaps they would have helped to keep alive his interest
in school work. All his family were truants. He has a normal
mentality, and alcoholic parents, and the necessity of work prob-
ably forced itself upon him. That earlier corrected vision might
have saved him is inferred from comparing the case of a 6-year-old
boy, the youngest of a family of truants, who "hated school"
and who was fitted with glasses this spring. He has improved
in his lessons and attends regularly, and his strabismus is being
corrected with improving vision.
A girl of 13 suffering from keratitis was unable to attend school.
She was put under treatment for this and for hereditary syphilis.
It is not probable that she will ever get much from schooling
unless placed — when she is in condition for it — in a blind class.
While she delights in reading — against the doctor's orders —
and interests herself in all that is going on about her, she shows
no ambition to take her place again in the classroom.
The following 8 cases all received special medical treatment for
certain defects, but are not included in the above list of 44 as
they did not have a domplete examination:
E. S. is a mental defective, undersized and undeveloped. She
has evaded school for nearly two years. She was found to have
tuberculosis and has been placed under treatment.
N. R. is one of the slippery youths who was never where one
could lay one's hands on him when wanted for a medical exam-
ination. However, when finally apprehended he was found to
show signs of rickets and marasmus in infancy; general nervous
debility, some defective teeth, and trachoma. For the latter
ailment the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children
have brought the reluctant parents to an understanding of their
duty, and the boy was placed in a hospital for operation. He is
said to be word-blind. It remains to be seen what effect the
treatment will have on his scholarship.
A. R. has tubercular glands on the neck. These furnished an
excellent excuse for non-attendance; she "must go to the hos-
pital." As a matter of fact she went twice, tearing off the band-
ages and washing away the applications as soon as she came out.
She is now enjoying the hospitality of Randall's Island and is
much improved in health.
S. Y. had a Wasserman test, which was negative. His eyes
were examined and glasses procured, and he wears them only
under compulsion. His teeth were in bad condition, 10 or more
needing treatment and filling. He is now attending a dental
clinic weekly.
L. R. has a psychopathic constitution and a bad heredity.
35
He was the first child of very youthful parents. He attends
school only when his mother brings him to each session. His
physical examination showed no stigmata, but a fine, rapid
tremor, enhanced by excessive cigarette smoking. He suffers
from enuresis day and night, and received medical treatment for
this. He is mentally backward, of limited memory and asso-
ciative powers, and learns little during his scanty school attend-
ance.
E. H. has such a weak heart that after an attempt to return
to school she collapsed, and was sent to a hospital.
N. Y. has had several falls. He is mentally defective, and
children of his limited mentality seem to be prone to falls. He
was examined for a nasal obstruction. The septum was deflected
almost obstructing one nostril, but on account of his youth,
operation was deferred. He has, however, been faithful in
attending dental clinic, and had all but one of his defective teeth
filled when clinic closed for the summer.
J. S. has spent the majority of his ten years within an institu-
tion. His home conditions are not conducive to leading him
to establish regular habits of living, and his three months of
"home life" this winter resulted in about nine days of school and
other days and nights on the street. His mentality is normal,
personality attractive, even lovable, though his temper at times
is phenomenally bad. He was found to have insufficient food,
constipation, enuresis, adherent foreskin, and caries. His eyes
were to be examined, but his too speedy return to an institution
interfered. Two and a half months after his return to an institu-
tion he was so improved in every way that his mental examina-
tion showed a year's gain. His great need is a good home to
return to. His scornful retort when he learned that institutional
life again threatened him was apropos. "Put me in an institu-
tion! Put me in an institution ! Put mamma in an institution !"
During the term five of the children examined were transferred
to Truant Schools and two were placed in other institutions.
Three moved out of the neighborhood. Several of these had had
some work done but in none was the treatment completed. Two
later received treatment through the institutions. Other impedi-
ments to getting the work done are in the child himself. His
equivalent for a tonsil operation is "having his throat cut," and
two boys who had gone smiling to the hospital fought their
way out before the nurses had them prepared for operation.
The dental situation is bad. Many have 10 or 12 teeth need-
ing treatment, filling, or extraction and not one of those started
at the dental clinic has come quite often enough to have the work
36
completed. One small boy's excuse for failing to keep his
appointment was "Oh, I had a toothache!" When one remem-
bers how many teeth he has needing attention, and neglected for
ten or fourteen years and needing to be filled or treated one at a
time at a free clinic on a Saturday afternoon — as dear to the
heart of a truant as to the child who is regular — who can blame
him? The dentists were especially kind, and, however busy,
gave attention to each one, but this type of child needs to be
educated to the advantages of dental treatment. His father
and his father's father and all his truant brothers and sisters
got along without a dentist. "Oh no," replied a handsome
Italian boy suffering from toothache, "I don't want to go to a
dentist, why sometimes they kill the nerve!"
The possessor of a newly fitted pair of spectacles walks off
proudly wearing them. A few weeks later an inquiry as to their
whereabouts brings the answer, "I don't wear them because the
boys called me 'cock-eye' or 'four-eyes.' " A truant girl with
but f-§- vision procured glasses, and wore them faithfully for the
last six weeks of school. She appeared to be, at that time, a
phenomenal success in every way. Some time later, however,
her mother remarked, "Sure, what good do they do her, they're
on the shelf." Teachers when they have been interviewed have
gladly co-operated and seen that the child wore his glasses. This
seems to be one of the best ways to establish the habit in the
child. Those of the cases who showed defective vision were in
great need of glasses, and early attention to the eyes might save
many days of wasted non-attendance.
The impaired digestion presents a more extensive problem.
The large percentage of cases of intestinal disturbance were the
most hopeless, partly on account of bad teeth, and largely on
account of the prevailing diet. A diet of bread and tea, the
latter strong and frequent, makes its appeal to the flat pocket-
books of these families as well as to their tastes. Then, too, it
needs no preparation. The little children of three and four pour
for themselves from the tea-pot that has stood for hours. One
boy even rises from bed at night to have his tea. Of course the
penny candy and ice-cream sandwich play their usual part.
The breakfast in the greater number of cases was bread and tea
or coffee; dinner, soup or stew, — largely potato, — bread and
tea; for supper, "whatever we have left." And what do you
think would be left from this restricted menu? Vegetables and
37
fruit play a small part in the diet. Eggs are used or not accord-
ing to the market price. Cereals are not popular nor anything
else requiring much preparation. Seldom is there fresh milk.
At noon the children eat hastily, sitting one or two at a time
while the mother serves standing. Then they depart ostensibly
in a great hurry for school ! The evening meal is a movable feast
frequently enjoyed "when we come in." No one seems to take
it seriously unless there is a father regularly employed to come
home at a regular time. The Italians, as a rule, have better
fare.
The sleeping conditions are as follows:
1 1 sleep one in the bed. 8 sleep one in the room.
20 sleep two in the bed. 18 sleep two in the room.
9 sleep three in the bed. 13 sleep three in the room.
4 sleep four in the bed. 5 sleep four in the room.
All report the window in the bedroom open in warm weather,
29 have it open all winter.
Fifteen have been engaged in some money-making pursuit
after school or on Saturdays. This does not include those who
do housework. All have freedom to play out and none has hard
or steady work. They take pride in the money they earn on
Saturdays with the peddler, on the butcher wagon, or deliver-
ing goods.
The effect on attendance of three complaints is vital. With-
out questioning the sincerity of the excuses, those most fre-
quently offered are, toothache, stomach-ache and "no shoes."
A/ew days' absence leads to the formation of a habit, and even
large boys dread the return to school. The first cause might be
eliminated if the teeth of the younger children (six years old)
could be put in good condition and kept so throughout their
school term, and the dreadful results of neglect seen in the mouths
of the older boys and girls be done away with. The question of
diet is one which needs to be agitated among both parents and
children and one which lends itself to education. Their ignor-
ance along this line is apparent, and a campaign of education
would probably show as good results as the campaign for fresh
air has. The teacher and the visiting teacher can do a great
deal of work here by interesting and instructing the child and the
parents. The "no shoes" condition was remedied in a few cases
through the kindness of a member of the Local School Board and
others. The result was good but temporary, for a second-hand
38
pair of shoes lasts but a short time, and if the getting of shoes is
easy, the wearing them out is easier, and the old cry is heard
again in a few days.
The benefits of the operations are not so easily undone. Most
of the operating was done this term, and it is too soon to see the
effect on attendance although one teacher has already reported
an improvement in behavior. It would be most interesting to
follow these children to the completion of their treatment and
to note their attendance during the next few terms. Many of
them were just becoming interested in their physical condition
and their fears were being overcome when school closed for the
summer.
In 44 cases the figures for attendance in the last two years were
available. Twelve could be said to be attending regularly.
Thirty-one in all showed an improvement; 14 showed about the
same irregularity or a falling off in attendance. Of the 12 cases
showing marked improvement, the majority had been before the
District Superintendent or the Children's Court or a brother and
sister had ; 2 were backed by strong parents ; one became inter-
ested in his schooling; one (girl) had home conditions changed;
one (girl) was transferred to the ungraded class. All had had a
medical examination and all but one some medical attention.
While each truant should in all cases have all the medical
care his case requires, it is too soon to predict that such care will
be a cure for truancy, however much it may assist to make more
efficient citizens. Two boys on whom the winter's work made
the least impress'ion were apparently normal physically and
were building up a splendid physique in out-door life defiant of
compulsory education laws. In contrast to them are the two
following cases:
A. I o years old; 5 A grade; mentally normal ; underdeveloped;
undernourished, heart and lungs negative, tonsils needing opera-
tion; vision R. E. f-g-; L. E. -§-§• strabismus, defective teeth,
digestion bad, lateral curvature, circumcision needed; height
4' i^", weight 60 Ibs.
B. 10 years; 46 grade; mentality a moron; condition poor,
anemic; tendency to pigeon breast, tonsils needing operation;
vision R. E. J$; L. E. -fj; hyperopic astigmatism; defective
teeth, lateral curvature, right and left; circumcision advised;
height 5' 7K", weight 80 Ibs.
A. had no medical treatment further than an examination and
a bottle of medicine. He had glasses but never wore them. He
attended school about 34 days last term, and about May I was
sent to Truant School, from which he was transferred to the hos-
pital for trachoma, and is to have his other operations attended
to while there.
B. was given tonics. He had two teeth filled, then decided
that he did not like fillings. He received eye-glasses, wore them,
broke them and protested against having them replaced, all
within a month. His attendance last term was 100 per cent, and
because of his awakened interest in school, the operations were
not done till July. Then he had adenoids, tonsils, and cir-
cumcision attended to, and is to go to the country for two weeks.
The homes differ. A.'s parents drink, the family is on the
downward road. One brother was arrested and sent away for
stealing. He himself is said to have taken part in a hold-up.
When the parents drink, the boy does not attend school, and
often disappears from home altogether. The superintendent of
the hospital calls him the worst boy in the ward. He knows
every trick for evading law and order.
B. has a home of only moderate comfort which he shares with
eight brothers and sisters of conflicting interests. He has a
severe father, and no mother. His teachers obtain a strong hold
on him. His ambition is not killed; he is "going to be a fire-
man."
The best results would therefore seem to come from the three-
fold co-operation of the home, the school, and those remedying
physical defects, the hope of all being to make the child able and
willing and anxious to get his education.
The only fair conclusion to be drawn from this physical study
is not only the obvious one that every school child needs more
physical attention than he is at present receiving but that tru-
ants especially who have fallen short in one of the prime require-
ments of life should have every physical handicap removed before
they are regarded as cases for punitive treatment. The co-
operation between the attendance officer and the nurse in many
schools seems to be close, but this is accidental. The effort
ordinarily required to get a child examined by the school doctor
seems to be great, whereas it should be not only easy but even
automatically done. Every truant is physically examined be-
fore being sent to the truant school, but this is too late to save
the boy from the necessity of being "sent up" and to save the
city from the expense of his commitment. It is also too late for
physical defects to be remedied before the boy goes away. If a
40
psychological examination were given to determine a boy's
mental normality before declaring him a truant, a thorough
physical examination should at the same time be given to every
boy who did not prove mentally defective. Then every boy who
came to the attendance officer would be certified to be mentally
normal and his physical defects would already be listed for the
school nurse to attend to. The ordinary medical inspection
is not sufficient for this purpose as many of the boys in this study
had never been examined at all. Many others had not been
examined for so many years that the records were completely
out of date. Still others whose school examination was of recent
date showed that grave physical defects had gone undetected in
the hasty routine of the school inspection.
IV. THE FAILURE OF TRUANTS TO CONNECT SCHOOL
WITH LIFE
Has the child any outlook or ambition immediate or future that
makes school seem logical, desirable, or necessary is one of the
important questions in the study of truancy. One falls into the
habit of regarding truancy as the out-cropping of sin or vice as
something abnormal and unnatural. Those who know the mean-
ing and value of education speak as though the instinct to get up
in the morning, to take hat and books and start for school, was as
natural an instinct in a boy as the instinct to seek for food and
warmth in a young puppy. As a matter of fact, this getting up
at a regular time, starting for a regular place where he will be
confined, disciplined and made to work and to do this day after
day is a highly evolved activity and the result of training upon a
being capable of assuming responsibility. When we have a boy
who is feeble-minded and incapable of assuming responsibility
and a home that is defective and incapable of training to regu-
larity, it is the great wonder that a boy ever goes to school at all.
The only substitute for these goads from behind must be some-
thing in the school itself which allures or entices the child to
attend. He must be interested in what he does there, or he must
see it as a means to something he wants to do further on in life.
If the school can supply this, a boy will attend, even in the face of
home and neighborhood deficiencies. For the majority of chil-
dren, the school does this. There are cases where individual re-
sponsibility, home training and school interest all fail, and this
leaves the irresponsible, untrained, uninterested product of na-
ture, the truant. He is not a sinner, he is not vicious, he is not
unnatural. He is merely an untrained, unevolved human being,
whom it would seem to be the/ftinction of the school to attract,
to interest and to train, in spite of himself.
The material gathered on this point of what the school does
to make good the deficiencies of the home and the neighborhood
is rather difficult to show in tabular form. It was gathered
around the following points:
41
42
1st: Number of non-promotions and character of school
marks, both indicating whether the feeling of success or failure
was acting as a goad or a millstone.
2nd. What the child did when playing truant as showing what
his rival activities were and where his real interest was, if not in
school.
3rd. What the child looked forward to as an adult occupation:
that is, whether the future appealed to his imagination as some-
thing to work toward or seemed not to figure at all in his thoughts.
NON-PROMOTION AS A CAUSE OF NON-ATTENDANCE
In regard to the first point, non-promotion or a series of non-
promotions as shown on the blue record cards of the school had
preceded the first sign of truancy in nearly every case. In the
43 per cent of feeble-minded and 8 per cent of borderline
cases this was to be expected. Here records of appalling dis-
couragement were written. Often two, sometimes three, terms
in every class accompanied by C and D rating with a constant
repetition of "not proficient in arithmetic and reading," or "not
proficient in arithmetic and spelling" became monotonously
common in the study of these records.
In the school histories of the normal children, however, one
hoped to find a record of one term in a grade from I A to 8 B in a
majority of cases. Among the normal truants, however, this is
far too often varied with a repetition of a grade, changes from
one school to another, and finally with sojourns at the protectory
or one of the truant schools. The habit of taking a transfer
from one school to another, especially to a Parochial School,
appears on the face of these records as commonly as it does in the
stories of the mothers and of the attendance officers themselves.
One of these boys had attended seven different schools during
five years of his school life, not counting the Catholic Protectory,
where he had been sent for truancy.
On the whole, promotion seemed to be a great stimulus to
attendance but by the same token, non-promotion seemed in
more cases than not to have been the starting point for non-
attendance.
WHAT TRUANTS DO WHEN NOT IN SCHOOL
The question which was put to every child at some time
during one of the interviews with him, "What do you do when
43
you go on the hook?" brought a surprisingly small variety of
answers. For the most part, however, they were truthful.
Those boys who had anything to conceal usually became vague
instead of producing an innocent substitute for the truth. The
one thing common to them all was the pervasive mood of free-
dom. "Oh, I go all around," is a direct quotation from over a
dozen West Side boys. This was often followed up by more
specific stories of going after wood, down on the docks, or "to
my Aunt's in 89th Street." Another favorite resort was "to
the Park to see the animals." One almost believed from the
frequency of this reply that a special officer stationed at the
animal cages would catch his quota of truants there every day.
And as a matter of fact almost any pleasant morning whoever
cares to "go on the hook" and will look in on the new bear cubs
in Central Park will find plenty of little boys of school age to
keep him company in that alluring occupation.
This way of passing the stolen hours, innocent in itself, pre-
vails mostly among the smaller boys. Many of the older boys
are engaged in the very characteristic West Side occupation of
pigeon flying. This is done from the roofs of the tenements,
where one gang is pitted against another, stealing pigeons back
and forth, and the sport becomes, when over-indulged in, a very
deteriorating occupation. Pigeon flying is one of the activities
by which the loafers of the neighborhood, boys over school age
who are chronically out of work, lure the school boys into their
gangs. It was one of these gangs that on nth Avenue dropped
a brick on the head of a truant officer last winter, so the story
goes, and but for the protection of his stiff derby hat would have
killed him. These gangsters ^re the worst influence in the
neighborhood, working not only against school attendance but
against home control and good ideals. To the younger boys
they look like heroes. They fight and swear and spit and chew
and boast. They advertise themselves to the small boy as
"what you will be if you do as we say," and the small boy, as
they say, "falls for it" for lack of any other vision of the period
of life just ahead of him. These older boys promise to protect
the younger ones from the "cop," the truant officer, and the
court. For every boy in such a gang who gets sent up, dozens
escape. Therefore the younger boys believe in the proffered
guardianship and accept it.
The school does not feel more bitterly against these gangs than
do the mothers of the boys themselves, but both seem powerless
44
to contend against them. The West Side gang is a sort of self-
perpetuating institution which is constantly fed from beneath
by the ranks of truants as the older members pass on to deeper
shades of vice, graduating into the thugs and saloon toughs of
the neighborhood, who in turn lend protection to the next in
succession.
The only way to keep a boy out of these gangs on the West
Side is to keep him in a school and at home. When the mother
is at work all day and the boy gets ahead of her, the gang is wait-
ing to receive him. It is small wonder that many of the women
beg to have their boys sent to the truant schools.
THE TRUANT'S IDEA OF His WAGE-EARNING CAREER
The third point in regard to the child's idea of his own future is
illuminated by the list of occupations that were given by boys
who had formulated any plans whatsoever. Their answers were
divided into two groups, — those which showed imagination and
those which simply accepted what the environment had to offer
as the easiest entrance into wage earning without regard to per-
sonal preference or future economic prospects:
SHOWING IMAGINATION (WEST SIDE)
"A job to open doors for ladies who
get out of automobiles."
" Going out in the world to make my
way." ^
11 An engineer and run an engine."
"A job in a pool room, you get
lots of tips."
"Bring stuff around to boys in in-
stitutions."
"Going to be a sailor."
"An artist and paint scenes on the
walls of saloons."
"Chauffeur."
"Carpenter." (After a term in the
truant school.)
"Engineer in factory."
"Electrician."
(EAST SIDE)
'College."
'Broker."
'Doctor."
'Lawyer."
'Architect."
'Civil engineer."
'On the railroad."
SHOWING NO IMAGINATION (WEST
SIDE)
'Iron foundry."
'Piano factory."
'Errand boy."
'Office boy."
'Bundle boy in hotel."
'Fireman on engine."
'Elevator boy."
'Paper boy."
'Helper to someone."
'Work for city."
'Some trade."
'Messenger boy in a disorderly
house." (Already has the job.)
' Get a nice easy job."
'What I can get."
'Anything."
'Don't care."
'Don't know."
(EAST SIDE)
'Fruit seller."
'Baker."
'Office work."
'With father in Safe Co."
'Pencil factory."
In very few West Side cases did the present school life seem to
45
connect in the boy's mind with his individual future. With the
East Side boys there was ample manifestation of a strong sub-
jective connection. The boys who wanted to go to college, to
be a doctor, a lawyer, or an architect all saw school as a means of
getting there and even though they had drifted into truancy
temporarily, this ambition furnished a lever by which it was pos-
sible to urge them back into school. What the West Side boy
lacks in impetus from within himself and stimulus from the neigh-
borhood and home surroundings should in some objective way
be made up to him by the school. Even a feeble-minded boy
has more interest in coming to school when his teacher tells him
he can learn to do something that will help him to get a better
job, especially if she continues to hold this thought before him.
Of course it is difficult in the regular grades for the teacher to
find time for the consideration of individual ideals, but even in
the working paper classes which are small, the boys had made no
plans for wage-earning careers. "Oh, I'll get some kind of a
job, " was the usual attitude. One boy who had only 8 more days
to attend school before getting his working papers, said, "Oh,
I suppose I'll work at something." Other boys who declared
they were eager to go to work, had their interest chiefly centered
in making money rather than on any special kind of work which
they wanted to do.
Two things were equally noticeable in the conversations on the
subject of future occupations. First was the absolutely unstim-
ulated attitude of the boys, all within a year or so of working age
and many within a few months of actually seeking employment.
Apparently neither &t home nor at school had anyone presented
to them any constructive plans for a "career." Second was
the eagerness with which they entered into conversation on the
subject and welcomed suggestions of any kind. It would seem
that individual interviews with these boys concerning their
economic prospects and the/relation of education to success
would be a fruitful means of interesting them in regular attend-
ance. While vocational training in the schools and pre-voca-
tional classes are under discussion and scientific vocational guid-
ance is merely a phrase, doubtless a little unscientific/but inter-
ested conversation between individual teachers and individual
boys would be most remunerative in helping the child to bridge
that wide gap between the known and the unknown, and in
giving him a vision of a future career founded on his present edu-
cation.
SUMMARY
In conclusion, the original questions around which the material
for the study was gathered and a brief summary of the results
secured are here given.
1. Is this child of normal mentality?
In 43% of the 150 cases, — No.
In 49% of the 150 cases, — Yes.
In 8% of the 150 cases, — It is doubtful.
2. Does this child come from a complete economic family?
In 26% of the 150 cases, — Yes.
In 74% of the 150 cases, — No.
3. Is this child below the average physically?
The 44 cases studied were probably not below the average
school child of the neighborhood but far below the normal.
4. Has this child any outlook or ambition, immediate or future,
that makes school seem logical, desirable, or necessary?
The only stimulus which the school offers, namely promotion
and good marks, these children did not have. On the other
hand, they did have non-promotion and poor marks to dis-
courage them.
The home and neighborhood influences of the West Side are
both defective in supplying stimulus to ambition.
Apparently neither teachers nor parents have ever attempted
to give these children any vision of the relation of their present
education to their future wage-earning careers.
Truancy is like sickness in that every case cannot be cured by
a dose from the same bottle. More than half the value of the
treatment must consist in a careful and correct diagnosis of the
cause in each case. In this comparatively small number of cases
of truancy (150) so many different causes have been found that
there must be on the entire list of truants throughout the city a
still larger number of causes as yet undetected. Only an ana-
46
47
ly tical method of treating these cases can bring about an intelligent
and effective handling of them. The one recommendation that
can strongly be made as a result of this study is that a thorough
and competent psychological and physical examination be made
of every case reported for truancy, and that those cases found to
be mentally defective shall not be given punitive treatment as
truants but removed from the jurisdiction of the compulsory
attendance department entirely and educated in the schools or
in institutions as feeble-minded children. This would decrease
the number of cases to be handled and immensely increase the
possibilities of success in the handling of the normal cases by the
attendance officers and truant schools.
APPENDIX
EXCERPTS FROM REPORTS PRESENTED BY
FREDERICK W. ELLIS AND
E. HELEN HANNAHS
OF THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL RESEARCH OF THE NEURO-
LOGICAL INSTITUTE, NEW YORK CITY
I. TESTS USED IN THE MENTAL EXAMINATION--
Group I. Establishment of General Habits and Relations.
1. Name and address. Place of birth.
2. Day and date (8:4). Months of the year (9:4). Date of birth.
3. Handwriting, punctuation, spelling, vocabulary and grammar of the
written work.
4. Counting forward and backward by rote and by skips (8:2).
5. Family history. Personal history. School history. Employment.
Other personal data.
Group II. Readiness in Making New Adjustments.
1. Recall of figures (8:5).
2. Making crosses or other graphic signs.
3. Peg board.
4. Reproduction of geometrical forms (10:2).
5. Reproduction of sentences (15:3).
Group III. Continuous Effort in the Process of Adjustment.
1. Recall of objects (Kirkpatrick). Grouping of objects.
2. Arranging weights (Galton; 10:1). Estimating lengths (12:1).
3. Cancellation test (Bourdon).
4. Directions test (Wood worth).
5. Mixed sentences (12:5).
Group IV. Ability to Construct under Controlled Conditions.
1. Continuous addition (Kraepelin; Simpson).
2. Simple calculations.
3. Paper tearing (Adult: I ).
4. Form board (Seguin). Construction puzzle (Healy).
5. Invention of story with given objects.
Group V. Purposive Control of the Thinking Processes.
1. Sentence completion (Ebbinghaus; 9:5; 10:4).
2. Incorporation of three given words in a sentence (Masselon; 10:5;
12:2).
3. Writing opposites (Thorndike).
4. Free word production (Jastrow; 12:3).
5. Description of pictures (7:2; 15:4).
4 49
I
50
Group VI. Precision in Dealing with Likeness and Difference.
1. Omissions in pictures (8:3).
2. Comparison of remembered objects (8:1).
3. Definitions above use (9:2).
4. Detection of absurdities (10:3).
5. Use of abstract terms (12:4).
NOTE. — The figures in parenthesis refer to corresponding tests in the
Binet antLSimon Intelligence Test.
II. REPRESENTATIVE CASES FROM DIFFERENT
GROUPS
FROM THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE GROUP
Hammer, William.
Age: 14 years, 10 months, 12 days.
Binet and Simon score: 9.4.
Physical growth period : Early adolescence.
Mental growth period: Later childhood, more active type.
Retardation: Two growth periods.
School grade: 56.
General Information.
Physical Condition: He was born in Germany, His birth and develop-
ment were normal. He was breast fed one year. There were no con-
vulsions. He has had measles. He was operated on for adenoids and
enlarged tonsils but still has obstructed breathing. He fell from his bi-
cycle when young and was thought to have injured his nose.
Family History: His father Gustav was born in Hamburg, Germany. He
came to the United States about 1900, and nine months later brought over
his wife and children. His people were farmers in Germany. His father
died thirty-seven years ago. His mother, two brothers and two sisters
came to the United States. His mother died here. One brother is a
pilot. His sisters have a good business but "don't help him any." He
worked until recently in a piano factory at twenty-five dollars every two
weeks. He is now laid off because "they are taking on young boys at five
dollars and laying off old help." The father looks able bodied and does
not seem to be alcoholic. He talks with a strong accent difficult to under-
stand.
The mother was born in Germany. Her parents are dead. Her people
did not immigrate. There is no consanguinity. The children are:
1. Daughter; married; one child.
2. Daughter; married; two children.
3. Son; married; works on tinfoil for tobacco.
4. Son; died while teething.
5. Son; 20 years, formerly with Buffalo Bill Company.
6. Daughter; 18 years; lives out as servant. No work at present.
7. William.
8. George.
9. Daughter; 8 years; school lA, was tongue tied and operated on
twice with some improvement. Not strong. No appetite.
10. Son; 4 years old; at home. Left with married daughter when
mother works out.
Home Life: The father does not have steady work. The mother has been
51
working in families to help support her own family at one dollar sixty
cents a day. The children have been on the street. They pay nine
dollars rent. The boys have to be home at 8 p. M. They are given three
cents each to buy their noon lunch. William is anxious to go to work.
He has no birth certificate and cannot get his working papers. He helps
a peddler Saturdays at fifty cents a day. The family have been helped
by their church in various ways. The mother has been provided with
work and the boys have been taken to Sunday School.
School Problem: He has been left back a number of times and has been
markedly deficient in spelling and arithmetic. He says he is going to
High School and to college and at the same time says he plays truant
because "school is too hard." He is three years retarded in his grade.
BiNET-SiMON INTELLIGENCE TEST
YEAR NUMBER OF TESTS
123456
I, 2
3
4
I t
7 i I $ i i
8 t t t t t
9 t - t t t
10 - I
12 I %
15 - -
INTERPRETATION OF BINET-SIMON TEST
Binet and Simon Intelligence Test: He is an adolescent in his physical
growth, and in his mental development is in his later childhood period.
He is getting his later childhood mental experience in an active way, that
gives some promise of his reaching the pre-adolescent stage. To do this
he needs only to give description of common objects that include char-
acteristics peculiar to them alone. He seems likely to do this, judging by
the effort he made. He is one full growth period retarded and part of
another, a degree of backwardness that makes him a subject for careful
scrutiny. Should he emerge into the next period there is little promise
of his engaging very actively in its pre-adolescent mental experiences.
INTERPRETATION OF GENERAL MENTAL TEST
Efficiency Test: I. General Mental Habits: He is not very well estab-
lished in the forms of thinking appropriate to his physical age. He made
time statements correctly. He made statements of place indifferently
in the matter of details. His handwriting is poor but legible. His spell-
ing is faulty. Examples of this are: "ribbin" for ribbon; "waiter" for
"way to"; "stared" for started; "whos" for whose; "differculty" for
difficulty; "honur" for honor; "befor" for before. He spelled correctly
some equally difficult words, as neighbor, beautiful, separate, crooked,
roughness, excused, fault. The unevenness suggests a possible element of
carelessness. He certainly was careless in counting, as he came out 18
too many in a total of 170. As 4 separate lines count up to 18 it is prob-
able that he counted one line twice. His vocabulary is quite objective
and his words produced with fair fluency.
II. Readiness in Meeting New Situations: His sensori-motor perform-
ances are fair. His crosses were of the second grade and fair in number.
He reproduced all the geometrical forms, with some inaccuracy in the
fifth and seventh. His effort on the seventh was better than on a previous
52
trial in February. He recalled only 5 figures. He recalled neither
sentence with verbal accuracy, but his imperfections were not such as to
suggest a natural language defect so much as an ineffective effort to form
language habits.
III. Persistence in Gaining Effects. He did well in two important tests
in this group. In the cancellation test he scored correctly 18 out of the
20 lines. He succeeded in arranging two of the mixed sentences and ap-
proximated correctness in a third.
In other tests he did poorly. He failed in judging weights and in judging
lengths. He recalled 9 out of 10 objects, but he was quite incoherent in
his attempts to recall the order. He was at a loss to establish any
relations between the objects without going outside the objects.
If he is to be credited with carelessness, this absence of emotional reac-
tion to the objects might be an adequate explanation. He is much more
efficient when he is dealing with definite materials, and this is true whether
the materials be sensori-motor or ideational. Where he has to contribute
interest to the situation he is not effective.
IV. Ability to Elaborate Situations: The characteristics displayed in the
previous group are evident here. He added 3 sums correctly, failed in
the fourth, added I correctly, failed on the sixth, then added 3 correctly.
His total of 7 out of 9 in 2 minutes was not bad, but there seemed to be
no good reason for his failures except a fluctuation of interest in the task.
He was slow in placing the forms in the board, but quick in working out
his puzzle. No reason could be assigned for this discrepancy, unless
again it be fluctuating interest. He did not do his calculations. He did
not construct a pattern from tearing folded paper. His attempt at in-
venting a story showed some maturity of interest in the value of the
objects for creating a situation, but did not go beyond this. He has not
an active mind and except where the material is merely to be manipulated
does little in making combinations.
V. Dealing with Alternatives in Purposive Thinking: His performances
here were immature and ineffective to the point of indifference. This is
true of the incomplete sentences where he fails in one of the easy and all
of the more difficult ones. It is also true of the attempt at making a
sentence including three words, where his sentence is correct in form,
but negligent of any exact meaning. In the opposites test he gave cor-
rect alternatives for 7 of the first 8, and only a scattered 4 out of the re-
maining 12. He gave a voluminous description of the pictures, but only
developed a simple explanation in the first one of the three.
VI. Dealing with Positive and Negative Elements in Situations: He did
moderately well on the less mature tests, but failed to specify what was
wrong in the absurd statements, and did not recognize any essential
characteristics in the general terms.
Summary: He has some ability, of a slightly immature degree of develop-
ment, but this is offset by a considerable degree of mental inertia. He
sometimes recognizes the more important elements in situations, and is
ready to do something if appealed to, without deep concern as to the out-
come. This was illustrated by his brave attempts at the hard opposites,
only 3 of which turned out correctly. He is not resourceful and only
makes a good showing when situations are modified to admit of an obvious
and easy completion. As a workman he does not give promise of doing
work that is not presented in single operations. School has lost its inter-
est for him, and this is not likely to be revived outside of a vocational
school. It is not obvious that he would do effective work at any employ-
ment. It seems likely to be difficult to keep him stimulated to the degree
of activity that will make him more than barely self-sustaining and this
only for himself.
53
Ambrosini, John.
Age: 13 years, I month, 27 days.
Binet and Simon score: 9.2.
Physical growth period: Pre-adolescent.
Mental growth period: Later childhood, the more active type.
Retardation: One growth period.
School grade: 56. Now in a special D class for conduct. One year retarded.
Physical Condition: He is undersized. His head is poorly shaped. His
hands are coarse and bleeding. Every four days he has some kind of
attack that keeps him in bed with nausea.
School Problem: He is a truant; he steals; he is troublesome in school.
He is only one year retarded. He has had fairly good marks all the way
up from i A.
Ambrosini, Pietro.
Age: II years, 7 months.
Binet and Simon score: 7.6.
Physical growth period: Later childhood.
Mental growth period: Early childhood, the less active type.
Retardation: One growth period.
School grade: 28. He is in a C class for foreigners. He is three years
retarded and cannot do the 26 work.
Physical Condition: He is undersized. His head and hands are of an
inferior type. He has a pinched look. He is left handed. His speech
is indistinct and blurred. He sticks out his tongue as he works.
Family History: The parents are Italian born. There are eight children.
The two oldest brothers are in confinement, one of them under charge of
murder in Waterbury, Connecticut. The third brother is home on tem-
porary leave from a Protectory where he spent the last year. He is to
return to the Protectory for the summer. John is the fourth child and
Pietro the fifth. The three smaller children look delicate, the youngest, a
baby of two months, especially so. The father is apparently healthy.
The mother is very large.
Home Life: The father is inclined to be demonstrative. The mother
appears to be a nice woman but assumes a helpless attitude when ques-
tioned about her sons and husband. She says of them that they "are
no good. " She keeps the home neat and apparently gets good meals for
her family. The father does little towards the support of the family.
School Problem: He can do no school work at all. He has been put in a
C class for foreigners because he was so small and so troublesome. He has
always been deficient in every subject. He is a truant.
BINET-SIMON INTELLIGENCE TEST
JOHN PIETRO
12345 12345
6 J 6 { J I % I
H m i l- ili II
9 t % t t - 9. .1 •- t
io----- 10 - -
12 - - % - - I2_____
I5 - I 15
54
INTERPRETATION OF PIETRO'S BINET-SIMON TEST
Binet and Simon Intelligence Test: He is in the pre-adolescent stage of
his physical growth. His mental development is two growth periods in
arrears, and he is getting his early childhood mental experiences in an
inactive way that gives poor promise of further development. Although
he is 12 years old in July he did not tell right from left, only mentioned
objects in pictures, instead of giving simple descriptions, did not carry out
3 simple orders given him at one time, did not note the omissions in muti-
lated outline pictures, did not describe objects by their distinctive uses,
did not recite the months of the year, and did not give any conclusion at
all for simple unfinished sentences. He passes none of the tests of the
pre-adolescent period. The impression gained from this testing is one of
settled incapacity for any but the most primitive tasks. It is interesting
to compare him with his brother 16 months older, as they have the same
heredity, were brought up under the same conditions, and present the
same social fault. The summaries of the Binet and Simon examinations
of the two boys are placed here side by side for comparison.
INTERPRETATION OF PIETRO'S GENERAL MENTAL TEST
Efficiency Test: I. General Mental Habits: This boy's general mental
performances are about on a level with his older brother's. He has the
same difficulty in establishing mental co-operation; he is indifferent to
exact statement of times; he is lax in statement of places; his handwriting
is equal to John's in legibility but lacks some of John's regularity; he had
the same difficulty in counting, although with more excuse on account of
the crowded condition of his tally marks. There is not enough differ-
ence here to account for the fact that Pietro is in 26 while John is in 56.
The later tests must be relied on for an adequate explanation.
II. Readiness in Meeting New Situations: Pietro recalled figures better
than his older brother. He also pegged a trifle faster. Like John he
reproduced successfully only two of the geometrical forms, but the gen-
eral character of this work was poorer. His work in continued cross-
making was 2 grades lower, and snowed poor manual co-ordination. He
did poorer work in repeating sentences, in neither case being able to com-
plete the sentence. This very low power of adjustment to simplified
and definite situations goes a long way in accounting for the different
rank of the two boys in school.
III. Persistence in Gaining Effects: He has the same fairly satisfactory
immediate recall as his brother, with some advantage in the matter of
order. Both fail to connect objects by an over-lapping of inherent inter-
ests, but this boy is much less successful in his attempts, both at recogniz-
ing and at describing relations. He put a rider and chair together with
the explanation; "So the man can sit down." He put the axe and
chicken together, but in describing their interest to him overlooked the
chance to indulge his fancy and explained: "The axe is going to chop the
wood." He seems to be lingering in the stage of getting simple recogni-
tion of often repeated situations, appearing in his mind as dimly familiar
images. He cancelled better than his brother, improving noticeably
toward the end of the task and scoring correctly 1 1 lines to his brother's
4. His mental behavior, then, is slightly more orderly, and he is quite a
little more steady in application. Where order and physical application
do not count he is not so good. He failed in judging weights and lengths.
Most significant was his total failure to restore any order to the mixed
sentences.
IV. Ability to Elaborate Situations: One who cannot recognize the pos-
sible interest in situations can hardly be expected to do much toward com-
bining materials into new situations. He failed in all four of his attempts
at addition, which puts him in an inferior relation to school work as com-
pared with his brother. He was a few seconds slower with the form
55
board but considerably faster with the puzzle. His appreciation of the
value of the objects for story making was livelier, and this correlates well
with his better recall of order for similar objects. The interests dis-
covered in the objects were still sparse, as shown by the fact of their gen-
eral dissimilarity. This also correlates with his failure to make any good
simple associations in this first set of objects shown him. Pietro's mind can
be stimulated by contact with other minds, perhaps more readily than
John's, but the resultant mental activities are not so abundant or so well
ordered as to enable him to participate in their efforts at managing mate-
rials and dealing with situations so as to alter them to his advantage.
V. Dealing with Alternatives in Purposive Thinking: The same thing is
true of his lack of ability to keep pace mentally with those who are think-
ing out definite purposes and putting them into effect. In this he is dis-
tinctly inferior to his brother. Where his brother gave irrelevant con-
clusions to the partially elaborated situations pictured in the unfinished
sentences, he merely repeated the statement in a more incoherent form.
VI. Dealing with Positive and Negative Elements in Situations: He was
not only inferior to his brother here, but his inefficiency amounts to a
real incapacity for entering into clear relations with the natural order
about him. The comparisons offer an illustration of this so typical as to
call for quotation : "A butterfly can lay honey but a fly can't. You can
burn wood but you can't burn cloth. You can put cloth on the table
and you can burn paper. ' ' He describes things only by their most familiar
uses.
Summary: Pietrp is neither so vigorous nor so efficient as his brother.
The Binet and Simon scores of 7.6 and 9.2 do not express the difference
as well as the school rating of 2B and 56, and the interpretation in terms of
growth of an arrears of two full growth periods. Pietro is physically in
poorer condition, mentally less constructive, and less discriminating,
though slightly more persistent and industrious. He is so poorly re-
lated to his surroundings and to the mental activities of boys of his age,
and especially to boys of the more influential adolescent age, as to make
him the plaything of others. In the conflict of social influences, some more
mature and some less, some more concerned for his advantage and some
less so, he is poorly equipped to distinguish and take sides. In this situa-
tion his brother, with the peculiar characteristics described in the study
of his Efficiency Test, is the deciding influence. He needs to be removed
from this particular influence and to be put under influences that work
singly to his advantage.
FROM THE BORDERLINE GROUP
Grogan, Michael.
Age: 12 years, 7 months, 26 days.
Binet and Simon score: 8.8.
Physical growth period: Pre-adolescent.
Mental growth period: Later childhood, the less active type.
Retardation: One growth period.
School grade: 3 A. Repeated 2A. His marks are B and C.
General Information.
Physical Condition: He is pale and delicate looking, with a pinched in
mouth. His lower teeth are in bad condition. He has adenoids and en-
larged tonsils. Needs circumcision. He bites his finger nails, speaks
indistinctly; he is anemic and fourteen per cent, below the normal weight.
He is poorly fed as the family is partly depending on charity. At an
early age he fell out of a window and hurt his head. He now has a pain
in his head which he attributes to this fall. He states that the pains
56
come on in school and at that time he cannot think; also that he feels
the same pain when he raises his arms in the physical exercises. He likes
to stay in bed mornings to sleep as he is often awake nights especially when
he has to care for his mother. He is said to have been born "with a
black veil over his body."
Family History: His father died of pneumonia; he may have had tuber-
culosis; is said not to have been a heavy drinker. His mother has a
cough; has heart, nerve and stomach trouble; these are said to be due to
nervous shock following a railroad accident.
He is the youngest of four living children; one child, Peter, is a mental
defective; the mother states that he was normal until he was thirteen
when he fell down an airshaft. The two other children are normal.
School Problem : The mother states that he is not a truant but she*keeps
him home when she needs his help. He is apparently unable to apply
himself with any profit to school work.
BiNET-SiMON INTELLIGENCE TEST
YEAR NUMBER OF TESTS
123456
I, 2
3
4
5
6
r } I J } 1
8 t t % I %
9 J - I - -
10 - - - -
12 % - - %
15
Adult -
INTERPRETATION OF BINET-SIMON TEST
Binet and Simon Intelligence Test: He has reached the pre-adolescent
stage of physical development, but his mental performances are those
characteristic of the preceding stage of later childhood. Even these
activities are of the less efficient type. Of the later childhood activities
tested he showed certain control of but two of the simpler ones, namely
the recognition of different pieces of money and making change. Of the
early adolescent activities tested he showed an independent judgment of
the length of lines. He also showed some comprehension of the practical
aspects of some simple virtues. This suggests that his emotional temper-
ament is developing somewhat in advance of his general intelligence and
that it may become a source of appeal in gaining his co-operation for
further efforts at self-development. At least it may prove effective in
reducing any tendency to active opposition toward good.
INTERPRETATION OF GENERAL MENTAL TEST
Efficiency Test: I. General Mental Habits: His power to form general
mental habits has been exercised to little advantage for the past four
years. His handwriting is of the grade of an efficient child of 8 years.
He spells correctly only simple words. He does not punctuate. His
vocabulary is meagre and his speech ungrammatical. He did not count
correctly either backward or forward. Though he could give the day
and date orally he did not write it correctly, and he could not make a
written statement of when and where he was born.
II. Ready Adjustment to Particular Situations: His power to adjust
himself to particular situations is not great. He showed poor manual
co-ordination in making crosses and in pegging. His ability to get and
reproduce simple oculo-motor images is low. He showed a slightly
57
better capacity to catch and reproduce simple word pictures, but not
enough to make him apt in exchange of ideas. He recalled 6 figures,
which suggests that it is necessary to make a definite appeal to him to get
anything like fair reproductions.
III. Persistence in Gaining Effects. When called on to perform other
similar tasks requiring more continued effort he did slightly more satis-
factory work. He recalled 9 out of 10 objects shown him, with only one
mistake in order. He recognized simple and playful relations between the
objects, though he did not show more than a very childlike ability to think
and to talk about these relations. He did not waver in his careful com-
parison of the lengths of lines. His least satisfactory work was in the
cancellation test where he did not manage to get himself well under con-
trol until the last four lines. Scattering successes before this brought
the total number of lines correctly scored up to 10 out of a total of 20
lines. He compelled himself in the same fashion to a correct judgment of
weights on the second and third trials. With the much more mature
tests of rearranging mixed sentences he could do nothing. On the whole
his practice ability is unexpectedly good as compared with his readiness
to grasp definite tasks and indicates clearly a superiority of organic
power as compared with his motor control.
IV. Ability to Elaborate Situations: His immaturity and his ineffective-
ness in the use of his slight abilities was shown clearly by the poverty of
the results obtained when he undertook constructive work with definite
materials and under definite conditions. ^ He added slowly, getting cor-
rect results in 2 out of 3 additions made in 2 minutes. His time for the
form board was quite long. He worked unintelligently at the puzzle
given him for some time and was obliged to give it up. He failed com-
pletely in constructing a pattern from torn paper, and could do nothing
in constructing a story. No amount of persistence seemed likely to avail
to bring him any mastery of these more elaborate tasks.
V. Forming Purposes and Holding them in the Face of Alternatives:
When set at work requiring the carrying out of purposes, or the forming
of new purposes, on the level of pre-adolescent interests, he was quite
ineffective. He was handicapped in this by his inability to grasp simple
situations, and by his small vocabulary and limited stock of ideas above
the level of names for objects and actions. So far as these tests can show
he is limited to recognizing the purposes of others and is not apt at form-
ing them for himself. Purposive thinking and acting are not likely to
engage him as his co-operation with others who are more purposeful can
be secured only by appeals to his feeling or his self-interest.
VI. Affirming Positive and Negative Elements in Situations: In spite of
his poor ability to direct his mind toward more remote accomplishments
he showed some ability to recognize likenesses and difference and to des-
ignate them clearly. This moderate power of recognition in elaborate
situations parallels the moderate ability for persistent practice shown in
the third group of tests, and holds out a possibility that he may develop
some power to perceive and relate as he grows physically more mature.
Summary: It is apparent that his school grade of 2B does not measure
his advance in gaining experience of the common facts of life and it is
difficult for him to be interested in the work of this simple grade. The
fact that he has a fair memory for simple facts, the power to recognize
associations, and a feeling for ideas of conduct, shows that he has a poten-
tial ability that is not getting physical re-enforcement or stimulation from
the remoter form of activities characteristic of school life. It his physical
debility and mental listlessness could be offset by a free and vigorous
out-of-door life, with abundance of good and normal conditions for the
exercise of right impulses, under a maximum of appeal to good feeling,
it is probable that he would show some improvement in general efficiency.
It seems probable that neither his physical nor mental development
will be very strong. The next year will probably determine whether there
is any latent power to mature mentally. Unless some change for the
better takes place the chances are that he will be baffled in his efforts at
self-support and that he will feel deeply his inability to prosper.
Mackaye, Wardwell.
Age: 9 years, 3 months, 20 days.
Binet and Simon score: 8.2.
Physical growth period: Later childhood.
Mental growth period: Early childhood, the more active type.
Retardation: One growth period.
School grade: 3 A.
General Information.
Physical Condition: He has a high narrow forehead and long face. He
looks thin and delicate. He has a typical adenoid facies, he is a mouth
breather and drools.
Nothing abnormal is reported about his birth. He had measles, chicken-
pox and whooping cough. He has had his tonsils operated on unsuccess-
fully and is to come to the hospital for a complete enucleation. He is also
to have a circumcision. He has had a growth removed from the genitals.
He formerly had enuresis but does not suffer from this now.
Family History: His parents were born in the United States. His
mother died of tuberculosis seven years ago and his grandmother died of
the same illness recently. He has one sister seven years old. His father
is again married.
Home Life: He lived with his father for four years. He has boarded in
various places, recently with a family on Staten Island. His father does
not think that his present boarding place is satisfactory as he seems to
have neither enough to eat nor sufficient care. The woman in charge of
the place reports him as being most unsatisfactory in his conduct. She
also states that he is suffering from an eruption on the skin which is prob-
ably an itch.
School Problem: He is reported to have been a truant from school while
living on Staten Island. After coming to New York, February, 1914, he
stayed away from school for two days. He has done the same two other
times since for a whole day and a half day.
His father's mother always thought that there was something wrong with
him mentally and a physician, a friend of his father's, also thought that
there might be something the matter with him. At school he is reported
to be forgetful, inactive, nervous and sometimes irritable. He is apt to
get into trouble with the other children. He does not tell the truth, he
shows a great deal of self pity, tells tales on the other children, but seems
kind to little children. His reports show him to be good in reading and
hand work and poor in other work, especially with numbers.
BiNET-SiMON INTELLIGENCE TEST
YEAR NUMBER OF TESTS
123456
If 2
3
i
8
9
10
12
15
59
INTERPRETATION OF BINET-SIMON TEST
Binet and Simon Intelligence Test: In his physical development he has
just passed out of early childhood. In his mental development, as shown
by these tests, he is still in early childhood, and still actively engaged in
getting the experiences appropriate to that period. The tests for the
early childhood period that he passed successfully have a simple practical
value for gainful purposes. He knows the months, tells the time of day,
and is mainly correct in his statement of the date. He also makes change,
calculates the value of stamps of two denominations, and executes as
many as three simple commissions given him at one time. His vocab-
ulary is fairly ample. He is limited in the successful use of these abilities
by his inability to name colors, his inability to give more than the simplest
description of pictures, or to describe common articles apart from their
simpler uses.
His retardation of one growth period cannot be considered serious, but
his uneven use of the abilities of the earlier period warrant a closer study
of his general efficiency.
INTERPRETATION OF GENERAL MENTAL TEST
Efficiency Test: I. General Mental Habits: He shows great unsteadi-
ness in his attempts to set up his more general mental activities. He hesi-
tated over the day of the week. He could not tell the place of his birth.
He wrote his address so that it is necessary to conjecture his meaning.
His handwriting is very unsteady and poorly formed, though still legible.
His spelling of simple words is usually good, with lapses, as "bild" for
build, "lott" for lot, "mouny" for money, "sickness" for success, "diffi-
kulty " for difficulty. He paid no attention to punctuation. He counted
103 crosses he had made as 99. For a boy in the 3A grade he is still labor-
ing heavily in the first stages of his general mental development. He must
have tried hard or been favored, to get his present classification.
II. Readiness in Meeting Particular Situations: His responses here are
so unready as to emphasize the instability referred to in the first group.
He is unable to command an immediate definite response, as shown by his
poor grade of crosses, his poor and slow pegging, his heavy and effortful
tracing of lines, and his poor representation of his oculo-motor reactions
in reproducing geometrical forms. His language performances are poor,
but not distinctly worse than his motor performances. He recalled the
major portions of sentences that are long and difficult in the early child-
hood period. The most evident indication is of a general muscle insuffi-
ciency, shown especially in the unsteadiness and strain in his use of his
short muscles.
III. Persistence in Gaining Effects: He has an amount of interest in situ-
ations superior to his ability to meet them. He gave a good recall of
objects, and his recall of the order was equally good. Both were normal
for his age. He did not recognize as well the possible relations between
the objects, and did not comment thoughtfully on those relations he did
recognize.
His failure to advance steadily in this work of recognition gives a good
picture of the mental situation. That it is not altogether due to natural
inability is shown by his finally judging the weights on the third trial.
That it is due to a state of instability, that he cannot at present master,
is indicated by his work in the cancellation test, where he scored correctly
only 2 lines out of 20, and made 44 errors out of a possible 200. His
work grew poorer as he progressed.
An interesting relation between his limited power to recognize and I
much more limited power to apply himself is shown in his attempts to
rearrange the mixed sentences. Two were failures. In the third 1
sought to avoid a direct issue by giving a fairly clever paraphrase of the
6o
sentence. It seems just to give him some credit for his effort and the
right direction it took.
He appears to have some native ability but to be unable to command its
use in such a way as to get a cumulative effect. His best effort is at
recognizing and repeating. It does not appear that in his present con-
dition he will benefit by forced application. He is not able to do more
than easy review work.
IV. Ability to Elaborate Situations: The quality of his mental perform-
ances did not improve in his attempts to work constructively under
fixed conditions. He tried 4 additions in 2 minutes, but succeeded in
only the first. The simple calculation given him proved too mature for
his comprehension, as did the paper tearing test. He put the forms in
the board with fair speed, but could do nothing with the puzzle given him.
In the problem of inventing a story he showed that he could make a
narrative sentence, but did not furnish supplementary material from his
imagination readily, and showed a tendency to be fanciful and not really
constructive. He first stood the splints on end. Failing in this attempt
the idea still remained with him of building something high, and he began
his story. "Once upon a time there was a man who was in a house and
could not get out, so one day he made something high and climbed out."
After this suggestion was exhausted no other came, and he began play-
ing with the objects and whispering symbolic sounds, as he handled them
over and imitated the activities suggested by them. He kept this play
up for three minutes apparently completely oblivious of the examiner.
In general he did not show himself able to meet fixed conditions requiring
sustained and delicate physical effort. It was significant that his diverg-
ence in the direction of futile play activity did not deteriorate to the level
of irrelevance.
V. Mastering Alternatives in Purpose Making: His work in this group
of tests was childish and revealed only a limited present capacity for
mastering thought situations. He finished two of the incomplete sen-
tences, that fit his mental age, well and the third somewhat unsatisfactorily.
The sentence building given him was too mature and cannot be counted
against him. Although he could not give opposites for the words sub-
mitted he offered many good synonyms or continuations of the idea
inherent in the words. It is of importance that his mind continues to
work, and that his superfluous work shows no irrationality. Unfortu-
nately his abundant word product was not recorded. His purposive con-
trol of his thinking process is poorly developed but seems to be present
in a latent form. No dominating aberrant purposes came into view, and
he can be charged with nothing more than irrelevancy.
There is a probable suppression of the purpose making behavior and a
likelihood that this has a definite somatic basis.
VI. Dealing with Positive and Negative Elements in Situations: The
omissions in pictures, a simple early childhood test, failed to command
his attention. He showed his power to recognize differences in value in
other tests of this period that are more linguistic in character, suggesting
that the failure mentioned is to be associated with his motor instability.
He gave comparisons of remembered objects, he made simple descriptions
of the uses of objects, and he detected absurdities. ^ The details of the
last mentioned test were not available, and this is particularly unfortunate
as it is one of the most mature of his efforts and might have had consider-
able diagnostic significance.
Summary: This is one of the very clear instances where an interpretation
of the test depends on a careful scrutiny of the contents of the response,
as well as its technical value for scoring purposes. In general his responses
show much mental debility, and this characteristic overshadows the
question of his natural ability. The whole question of interpretation
turns on the nature and degree of his motor unsteadiness, and the sort
6i
of result that might be obtained in a systematic effort to re-establish his
peripheral steadiness. There is no testimony to show that in his institu-
tional life any such efforts have been made. Since he left the institution
he has been passed around in boarding houses, and the last report from
him is that he is probably suffering from scabies. He should have definite
physical treatment, and should for a time, at least, be given simple review
work in full quantity rather than much new work. He has not been a
truant for such a time, nor in so flagrant a way, as to make him a candidate
for the Disciplinary School. On the other hand he is especially in need
of good home influence. If these can be provided he may well prove able
to respond to school opportunity and overcome some of his present mod-
erate retardation.
III. SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL MENTAL TEST
On account of lack of forms for many of the tests, it is impossible to make
an exact statement of the efficiency of any individual, or even to rank the whole
list with any conclusiveness. Under the circumstances the best that could be
done was to select out the most inefficient. As quickly as possible this was
done at the point where the inefficiency of the individual becomes so great that
he appears to be shut out from the intellectual activities of the group to which
his age would naturally assign him. • Such an inability to participate in the
activity of his fellows may well be considered a natural and urgent reason for
wanting to wander off into another environment, where the demands are less
taxing, and where appreciation is less grudgingly bestowed. The exciting
cause does not matter so much as do the length and inflexibility of attitude
of the school and of the pupil. As a usual thing the school does not think it
can change its attitude. When the pupil cannot and will not modify his atti-
tude, any display of vigor on either side naturally brings about some degree of
alienation. The inability of the pupil to meet the minimum demands of the
school situation constitutes a latent occasion for an earlier or later breaking
down of the community of interest between them. The process followed, then,
was a general one of exclusion, based on the consideration of the fact that the
act of truancy is merely a going into effect of an implicit renunciation of useful
relations between teacher and pupil. The details of this process of exclusion
are set down here, group by group, for the entire set of tests.
GROUP I. ESTABLISHMENT OF GENERAL HABITS OF THINKING AND EXPRESSION.
This group of tests differs from the others in the generality and simplicity
of the performances tested, and in the distinction it makes between the power
to set up mental symbols for the general facts of experience and the habit of
accurate and complete use of these symbols. In inspecting the performances
of a set of individuals like this one, it is necessary to keep in mind how little
there is in their experience, outside of the formal demands of the school, to
force them to deal exactly with material so general in its nature and so sym-
bolic in its mode of expression. It is necessary to recognize the inertia of
naive minds toward situations like these, and also to recall the degree to which
fairly efficient minds depend on the pressure of practical necessity to keep them
to the mark in such matters as legible writing, ready statement of the exact
date, and full as well as accurately written statement of addresses. Allow-
ance should be made here, if anywhere, for the influence of environment.
The actual showing in this group is as follows. Only two individuals gave
the name of the city in giving their address, and not one gave the state. Only
5 out of 24 gave the complete day and date. Handwriting was for the most
part legible, but was not in any case well established and free from signs of
inco-ordination. No one attained a grade higher than the fifth from the top
of Thorndike's Handwriting Scale. Punctuation was for the most part
ignored. Correct spelling was the exception. Inaccuracy in simple counting
was the rule. Nevertheless 21 out of 24 counted backward from 20 to o
62
correctly. As this test is short, and as the forward counting test was long and
the majority of mistakes made in the latter part of the counting, it is probable
that the inaccuracy is due to a lack of power of sustained effort rather than to
lack of ability.
Eleven out of the twenty-four were so generally inefficient as to seem to
be shut out from participation in the general thinking characteristic of their
school environment.
At the conclusion of the survey it was found that all of those who showed
this marked deficiency Group I showed marked deficiency throughout, and
the group of the inadequate is pretty well marked out in this first set of tests.
GROUP II. READINESS IN MEETING NEW SITUATIONS.
The tests selected for this group are simple operations which require no
special direction of the attention, no manipulation of the material, and are per-
formed in very brief time. The test of immediate recall of figures, to be of
much differential value, should have been given in more extended form. The
recall of sentences would have shown better results if it had been given in more
extended and more carefully graded form. The other three tests furnished
good material for comparative purposes.
Twenty-two out of twenty-four repeated 5 figures. This test, which is
one of the eight year old tests in the Binet and Simon scale, is evidently too
easy for the pre-adolescent group.
Continuous cross-making brought out marked differences. Beginning
with the highest grade and running down to Grade 5, the number of individuals
in each grade was I, 8, 9, 5, i. The 6 individuals in the 2 lowest grades were
considered inadequately fitted to do any work requiring much skill.
t Pegging is a more severe test, and also brought out striking differences.
Dividing the results into 5 grades beginning with a time of 55 to 65 seconds for
loo holes, and running up by ten second intervals, the distribution of indi-
viduals for the different grades was 7, n, 4, I, i. The 6 individuals in the 3
lowest grades were considered as belonging to the inadequate group.
Recall of geometrical forms as given was a hard test. On account of the
usual familiarity with ordinary forms the simpler ones were given in a group
of 4, and then 3 more elaborate ones were given singly. The test was vitiated
by the fact that the last two forms shown had become familiar to most by
former experience with the Binet and Simon test. As the best use that could
be made of this test under these conditions, the first two very simple ones were
neglected and the 6 who recalled none of the remainder were counted in the
inadequate group.
The recall of the sentences given was too hard for all but one of the 24
and must be counted too difficult a test for such a group.
In the 3 tests that gave usable results, 10 manifested one or more instances
of unreadiness so great as to exclude them from effective participation in school
activities.
There was a poor showing in the matter of motor co-ordination and con-
trol, as in the cross-marking, where 14 out of 24 were below the second grade.
The motor responses were slow, as was shown in pegging, where 14 out of 24
required 70 seconds, a fair allowance for the test being 60 seconds. Only 2
out of the 24 drew correctly from memory all of the 7 geometrical forms. Only
one out of 24 reproduced exactly two sentences of 14 and 24 syllables re-
spectively.
GROUP III. PERSISTENCE IN GAINING EFFECTS.
The tests in this group differ from those in the preceding group in dealing
with more abundant material, in more highly organized form, and for a longer
time. The material in some of the tests, as in the recall of objects, arrange-
ment of weights, and cancellation, requires no mental interpretation to judge
correctly of its use. In other tests, as grouping the objects, estimating lengths,
following directions, and arranging sentences, considerable mental work has
63
to be done, in which little resource can be had to motor aids. One ability is
required in all of them, namely, that of continuous effort.
The results obtained bring out conspicuous differences in efficiency. In
the recall of objects, in which 8 out of 10 in order, with a score of 80, is con-
sidered a good performance, only 3 reached 80 or above. Counting 70 and
below as a poor score, 13 were conspicuously inefficient.
In grouping the objects with some more fundamental reason than recogni-
tion of familiar association, 14 out of 24 showed conspicuous inability to de-
scribe the reasons for the combinations they made. This list of 14 is a long
one, but the test is searching, as the possession of the ability to recognize and
discuss relations is one that is indispensable to participation in the common
activities of school or society. The tests of recall and association show some
degree of correlation. Of the 15 who failed to make good associations 9 made
a poor recall of the objects.
The judgment of weights and lengths did not bring out so many differences,
but the comparison of the two types of judgment brought to light a consider-
able group of inadequates. Of the 13 who failed to get the weights all three
times, 9 failed in the judgment of lengths. Details of the weights test were
not preserved, so that no closer comparison can be made.
The cancellation test showed marked differences in efficiency. Only two
cancelled the whole field of numbers without error. Fifteen averaged one
error in cancellation in every two lines. Below this the tendency to error in-
creased rapidly. The total of errors for 15 individuals above the limit of 10
errors in 20 lines was 52. The total of errors for the remaining 9 was 243.
Had it been possible to give a good directions test the total result for this
group would have been more satisfactory, but this test was omitted for acci-
dental reasons.
The mixed sentence test given was hard for this group. Only one rear-
ranged all three sentences correctly. Only 8 got any correct results. Twelve
others tried all three and failed in all. Four failed to make an effort in one or
more of the sentences.
Those who failed in 3 or more of the 5 tests given were counted as so
lacking in persistence in meeting situations that required special outlay of time
and effort as to make it difficult for them to participate in school life. These
numbered n in all.
GROUP IV. ABILITY TO ELABORATE SITUATIONS UNDER GIVEN CONDITIONS.
This group of tests requires not only readiness and persistence but also
sustained and comprehensive interest and lively manipulation of materials.
The materials of the group are varied. In one test are numbers that are to
be summed up into one comprehensive number. In another test there are
puzzles where dissected pieces have to be fitted together in a way that is com-
pletely determined. In another a folded paper is torn and the shape and loca-
tion of the missing parts have to be constructed with the aid of a pencil sketch
while the paper is still folded. In these three tests the conditions are quite
definitely fixed. A fourth test requires the working out of simple time prob-
lems by the aid of numbers, with the use of more than one fundamental process
of arithmetic. The fifth test requires the utilization in one comprehensive
description of 10 objects suggestive of rustic life just being invaded by present
day methods of travel. The last two tests are clearly the more difficult.
In the adding test 5 of the 24 subjects failed to get any correct results.
Counting 3 a minute of these short additions a moderate accomplishment, 8
only showed average ability, in what is one of the simplest and most familiar
of school tasks, and only one of the 8 was absolutely accurate in his work.
Of the two calculations given both are practical for the sixth grade and
one is practical for the fifth grade. These calculations were plainly too hard
for these subjects, 1 1 of whom do not reach the fifth grade, and 17 of whom do
not reach the sixth grade. Only one solution was found for the simpler prob-
lem and none for the harder problem.
In the paper tearing problem I out of the 24 was successful.
64
The form board test was a satisfactory one, as it was finally accomplished
by all, and brought out a striking difference in time of performance. Count-
ing 20 seconds as a liberal time in which to place all the forms, 9 of the 24
exceeded this time by 50 per cent.
In the construction puzzle, which presented the same sort of problem in
more elaborate form, this sort of inefficiency came out more strikingly. Count-
ing 100 seconds as a liberal time in which to place all the pieces, 1 1 took more
than double the necessary time and 4 sextupled it.
The same sort of constructive imagination is called for in the test where
use of language is involved in inventing a story. There were 7 successes out of
the 24 attempts. Even this credit must be doubtfully given, as the stories,
with one exception, were of poor quality.
GROUP V. DEALING WITH ALTERNATIVES IN PURPOSIVE THINKING.
In the previous group a considerable amount of free mental work was called
for. At the same time the outcome was pretty definitely fixed by the limita-
tions of the materials offered. In this group much more freedom is allowed.
The starting point is definitely established in several of the tests, as where
sentences are started but not finished; words are given for which a definite
alternative is prescribed; other words are given which must be combined in
some common use; and pictures are submitted for interpretation. The test
which allows for the freest mental movement is that in which a subject is called
upon to write as many separate words as possible in a given time. This test
is by no means as free from conditions as it would seem to be at first sight.
The exigency of writing the largest possible number in a given time sets up_a
condition that throws the mind back on a characteristic form of movement in
the use of language and flow of ideas that displays its limitations in a decisive
manner, even revealing at times definite pathological states. This test was
used in the very limited manner prescribed in the Binet and Simon scale,
where the sole judgment passed is on the number of words produced in a given
time. For some of these subjects the word list was preserved, but not in a
sufficient number to make possible the definite judgment that is desirable in
the case of a group with such peculiar characteristics. The results of this
test are not very valuable for the purpose of ranking the individual members
of the list, but have some slight value for the purposes of exclusion to which
resort is made in this summary. The unfinished sentences depict situations
which allow different solutions, some in practical action, others in practical
judgments. There are two groups, the first three sentences being simpler
and more practical. The second group of five calls for some reflection and
experience. In the first group, 5 of the 24 found satisfactory solutions for all
three, and 10 more found satisfactory solutions for 2 out of 3. This test is
evidently well within the range of this group and its suitability as a type of
test was well demonstrated. This makes it the more interesting to notice
that in the second group, in which there are 5 chances, 20 failed to find a single
satisfactory solution. Combining the two groups and counting failure to
make any good solution, or only I good one out of 8, as demonstrative of in-
adequacy, 7 individuals fell into the extremely inefficient group.
In the test where three given words must be included in one comprehensive
statement only 6 succeeded. The test as it stands was of little value for the
purpose, but 2 individuals made a more obvious failure than the others.
The opposites test presents a list of words for which the subject is sup-
posed to find in his vocabulary alternatives that present an exactly opposite
idea. Two groups of words were given, one decidedly harder than the other.
The hard list was beyond the efficiency of this group of subjects. Eight
attempted to give the entire 20 hard opposites but only I gave as many as
4 correctly, and 16 gave none correctly. In the easier list more success was
obtained, and the list is one of differential value. No one gave more than 13
exactly correct opposites. Only 8 gave more than 10 correctly. Twelve gave
2 or less than 2 correctly. Counting as inadequate those who gave none or
only one there were 7 in the least promising group.
65
In the free word list there were only 5 who succeeded in giving orally 60
or more words in 180 seconds, that is more than one word in 3 seconds. The
number of words dictated was not recorded in 3 cases, which makes it impossible
to make any fair estimate of the result.
A bare description was easy for a group of this maturity of experience.
Nineteen out of the 24 gave satisfactory descriptions of all 3 pictures. IP the
interpretation of the situations shown in the pictures a widely different result
was obtained. Eleven of the 24 failed to give any satisfactory interpretation.
None interpreted all 3. One interpreted 2 pictures and 10 interpreted one.
On account of the fact that all the tests in this group deal with language
materials, an additional test was given with more objective materials. The
one chosen was a variation of the distribution test usually given with mixed
cards. In this test the material to be sorted is 60 sticks of 6 colors, 4 inches
long and l/& inch square. The time was recorded and brought out striking
differences in efficiency. Those who took as much as 90 seconds, that is, 1 }/£
seconds for each stick, were counted as extremely inefficient. They numbered
7 in all.
GROUP VI. DEALING WITH POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE ELEMENTS IN THE SAME
SITUATION.
The tests in this group cover a wide range of thinking activity. Only one
test is given where objective materials are presented. From the point of view
of objectivity it is a poorly constructed group. From the point of view of
language activity it calls for the production of a satisfactory variety and range
of materials, from the comparison and definition of familiar objects to the
paraphrase of simple general terms. It includes one good test for suggesti-
bility in which contradictory statements are made as if they were within the
range of possibility, and the subject is asked to detect the inconsistency.
The test which calls for the detection of omissions in mutilated outline
pictures, which is included in the 8 year Binet and Simon tests, was passed by
1 8 of the 24. It is evidently a simple test for these subjects. The 6 who failed
showed a major degree of inefficiency on this occasion, whatever they might
show under stress of a more practical necessity.
Comparison of familiar objects in simple language was easy for these sub-
jects. Like the preceding test it is a little difficult to present in such a way
that any urgency is felt about carrying on the thinking process with particu-
larity. Only one failed to make any comparison. Two failed to give more
than one comparison. Eleven gave all three comparisons. Much more satis-
factory use of this test could have been made if the full statements had been
recorded instead of only success or failure, as examination of the statements
frequently brings out very definite degrees of inefficiency.
The definitions test is another which is hard to put exactly in true
problematic form. What is called for first is a description of the terms pre-
sented. What is ultimately desired is such a description of each term as will
differentiate it from other objects belonging to the same class. To give the
use of the object satisfies the first condition. To give the descriptive use of the
object, or such a description of it as to indicate the appropriate use, is the
only thing that will satisfy the second condition. Practice, either in the
higher primary grades, or in more mature forms of experience should give a
decided advantage. The full answers were not recorded, so that a discriminat-
ing judgment of the results could not be made. Success or failure in 3 out
of 5 of the terms presented was the only result recorded. Of the 24 subjects
1 1 failed entirely. The list is long but the test is searching and a low degree
of thinking power is evidenced.
The test calling for the detection of absurdities is one that it is possible
to put very directly. Its general character has been described already in this
section. Success and failure in 3 out of 5 was the only score recorded. As it
is not fair to assume that the 18 who failed were all inefficient to the point of
inadequacy no benefit was secured from the test. The intrinsic value of the
66
test has not been found to be very great aside from the fact that its results are
easily computed.
A description of the 3 simple general terms presented was difficult for the
subjects. Only one gave all three. Six gave two and six gave one. The
test is given by Binet and Simon among the 12 year tests and is plainly hard
for them, and it would not be fair to rank the 1 1 who failed as totally inade-
quate without considering the details of the responses, which unfortunately
were not recorded.
The number of tests which were applied with any sort of satisfaction
amounted to 22. As has been noted, they vary greatly in their usefulness for
the purpose in hand, and when summed up can only be used as evidence of a
roughly drawn line between inefficiency and extreme inefficiency. If the num-
ber of scores indicating extreme inefficiency is added together for^each indi-
vidual, it is evident that those who approach a total of 22 scores in 22 tests
must differ appreciably from those who approach a total of none. The sum
of the scores for inefficiency for the whole group of 24 truants ran as follows:
16, 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 10, 9, 8, 7, 7, 6, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, i. Counting
somewhat arbitrarily as a symptom of extreme inefficiency a total of 10 scores,
the number of extreme inefficients is 9. According to this rough method of
separation of the more inefficient from the less inefficient, there is, therefore,
some ground for stating that 9 out of the 24 border line cases of truancy are so
unfitted to participate in the social and intellectual life of the school that they
are practically cut off from its directing influence and may well be considered
cases of social alienation. They are truants because they have no fitness for
conformity. They cannot conform because under simple and natural test
conditions they show that they are not capable of acquiring a general stock of
knowledge in communicable forms; nor of meeting new situations readily;
nor of persisting in the face of steady demands; nor of altering situations in
which they find themselves to their advantage, nor of forming and carrying
out simple purposes; nor of breaking up situations so that at least some simple
features may be dealt with in the light of experience. Whether this proportion
of 9 out of 24 hopeless cases is typical of all groups of what are called in this
study of truancy "border line cases," lying between hopeless and explainable
cases, remains to be seen. This test accomplishes its purpose if it raises
definitely the question of a considerable degree of truancy due to a type of a
mind which is unfitted to conform to the social and intellectual demands of
school life, while yet possessing considerable insight and power of self-direction.
The general validity of this plan of exclusion appeared to be well supported
by the outcome of the whole investigation. The limitations of the method are
obvious, but the practical results seem to be more convincing and significant
than could be obtained by a simple Binet and Simon test or by any test which
seeks to measure the efficiency of separate mental processes and sum them up
into a numerical equivalent of individual efficiency.
PUBLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION OF THE CITY
OF NEW YORK
FOUNDED 1895. INCORPORATED 1899
40 WEST 32ND STREET, NEW YORK CITY
The Public Education Association was founded in 1895 to study the problems
of public education, investigate the condition of the common an<
schools, stimulate public interest in the schools and propose from time 1
such changes in the organization, management or educational metlv
might seem necessary or desirable. Its efforts are confined to the we!
the New York City public schools, but it a 'iape these effor
with the best educational theory and experience of the country.
OFFICERS OF THE A
CHARLES P. ROWLAND,
JOSEPH R. SWAN, -I dent
MRS. SCHUYLER VAN RENSSELAER, \V. K. BRICE,
Honorary Vice-Pre:- HOWARD
EXECUTIVE COMMITT;
MRS. MIRIAM SUTRO PRICE, Chair;
LEONARD P. AYRES Miss C. R. LOWELL
W. K. BRICE J. K. PAULP.
CLYDE FURST URGE D. STRAYER
MRS. E. C. HENDERSON JOSEPH R. S\\
CHARLES P. HOWL \
The work of the Association is carried on through a trained
ber of committees. The Children
one of the pieces of int<-
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HYGIi
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