VI THE INCORRIGIBLE CHILD The incorrigible child makes me think of the story of a band of street boys, one of whom had a big apple which he was eating alone. Six pairs of eyes, hungry and envious, watched him sadly. One lad at last could contain himself no longer: “ Say, Dick," he burst out, "will yer gimme de core?" Between bites, Dick replied: "Dere ain't goin' ter be no core." 66 "Dere ain't goin' ter be no incorrigible child," ladies and gentlemen, when we shall have come to see that every child, properly understood and properly trained, is "good to the core." I need not define the incorrigible child. We all know him as the child that hates school, torments the teacher, demoralizes the class, disobeys the rules, and defies authority—even the laws of the state. He is present in every school, and, if reports may be relied upon, is present in ever-increasing numbers. He it is who is responsible for the nervousness and breakdown of many a teacher who succumbs to his torments. He it is who burdens and weights down the best of teachers by his presence in the class. He it is who robs the rest of the class of time and instruction by his demand upon the energy and patience of the teacher. But, "with all his faults, I love him still." I have seen and am seeing the incorrigible boy at his worst -in a section of the congested East Side of New York City, where over twenty-five thousand school children of both sexes are housed within an area of less than half a square mile. For many years school accommodations in this section of the great metropolis have been inadequate. Even now, after eight years of constant effort on the part of recent boards of education, the number of schools is not equal to the needs of the district. For many years children had been kept upon a waiting list or sent away from school because there was no room. The compulsory 66 education law could not be enforced because there was no school place for the non-attendant. Have you any idea of what happens to the boy of the tenements if he is left on the streets for a year or two? Take the history of the boys committed to city or penal institutions during the last ten years and you will learn. Read the biography of the city's professional loafer and you will find out. The boy kept out of school gets his education on the streets and graduates in loaferism, gambling, and burglary by the time he is fourteen. This has been the fate of many hundreds of boys, ruined for life because of administrative niggardliness, or because of the official wickedness of those teachers and principals who attempt to maintain discipline by driving the troublesome boys out of school. But this condition has gone by in New York. Compulsory truancy" is a thing of the past, because every child must now attend school, even tho for the younger children, in some sections owing to lack of accommodations, only part-time instruction can be afforded. In consequence of better administrative methods, hundreds of children, mainly boys, have been brought into the schools, lawless, undisciplined, untutored; fitted by age and size for the middle and upper grammar grades, unfitted in book learning for any but the lowest primary classes; ignorant as new-born babes of all that the course of study demands, wise as veterans in all street shrewdness and knowledge of the seamy side of life. Introduce five or six of these street Arabs into any class, can you not foresee the result? Tired, discouraged teachers must refer extreme cases of discipline to the principal; tired, discouraged principals must give valuable time and their best energies to the investigation and treatment of the acts of delinquents. Add to these internal burdens the additional one of the boy paroled by the Children's Court; the boy known to be a thief; the boy known by his classmates to have been arrested; the boy known by his confederates to be sent back to school unpunished; the boy whose answer to the question: "What did they do to you in court?” is, “Oh, nuttin'! De judge jest talked soft ter me," and the result is disheartening. The incorrigible child, now counted by the score, must soon be counted by the hundred, unless remedial and preventive measures can be immediately applied. On the one hand, there are the boys already bad, who must be reclaimed; on the other hand, there are the boys not yet corrupted, who must be saved. In every class there are children several years older than the age for which the regular grade work is designed. Think of the effect upon the boy of twelve or fourteen, who, having spent years on the street, peddling, gambling, and often stealing, is forced to attend school with forty, or fifty, or sixty little fellows of six or seven and compelled to repeat with them, "One apple and two apples are three apples." Think, too, of the effect upon these six- or seven-year-old babes associating with the boy who swears, gambles, and smokes, and who has eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, of less good than evil. Let me say right here that the first-year classes are meant for the babes, and the second-year classes for those a bit older, and the child of ten, or eleven, or twelve, or older, has no right in the regular classes of the first three years, no matter how ignorant he may be of reading, writing, or arithmetic. Such a classification of the older boy has a bad subjective influence upon him, and a correspondingly bad objective influence upon the child for whom the grade work was planned. My first recommendation, therefore, to meet these conditions, is the formation of special classes for the children over age. It will be found that, with few exceptions, so few as to be almost a negligible quantity, the incorrigible child will find his way into a special class, which at once relieves the regular classes of the most objectionable material. The teachers for special classes must obviously be selected with great care, in order to secure for these backward children the teaching power and the sympathy and the encouragement necessary to bring them forward more rapidly than is possible in the regular classes. The so-called non-essential studies should be taken from the course and the teacher's whole energy devoted to carrying the children on to meet the academic requirements of the childlabor law. Much attention, too, should be given to physical training. Promotion from group to group and from class to class should be promised and given at any time that progress is evident, and each child be made to understand that this special grading is solely for his benefit. In New York, this experiment showed good results from the beginning. Many a boy, responding for the first time to a real interest in his welfare, began to realize the importance of trying to please his teacher; and later, not only showed interest in his work, but a real desire to learn. Many of these boys, who had been, or were destined to become incorrigible, under the old classification, were saved by being placed where work was provided suited to their years and ability, and where an earnest teacher was willing and able to give them the individual help and encouragement they needed. The formation of special classes helped much, but it did not solve all the difficulties. The incorrigible child and the chronic truant were still too much in evidence. The former, after having had a fair trial under at least two teachers, was officially suspended by the principal. To have returned to his old school, a suspended boy, whether sinned against or sinning, would not only have had a bad effect upon other children, but it would have made it difficult for the delinquent to do his best. There is much truth in the old adage, “Give a dog a bad name and hang him." The transfer to another school was accompanied by a warning that a second suspension would result in commitment to the truant or parental school, a threat invariably executed. The principal of the school whither the boy was transferred was made acquainted with the circumstances and the boy placed, if possible, in the class of a good teacher. He was also placed on parole to the district superintendent, at whose office he was compelled to report every Saturday, bringing with him a record of daily attendance and conduct. In like manner, all chronic truants and all children placed on probation by the Children's Court were compelled to report to the district superintendent. A word of praise, a word of admonishment, a moment's friendly conversation, the loan or gift of a book, a ticket to a ball game or some good entertainment—these things give the superintendent a hold upon the parole boys and a claim which most of them will recognize. In my experience, several got to a point where they would polish their shoes, smooth |