Part 18 (1/2)
I left hi he solved it; Christo wouldn't lend him any rails, but if Tommy liked he, Christo, would run his line up to Toreed In a week's tier town, and Tommy was appointed President of the whole state He spenthis tunnels At first he would allow no one to enter his suburb, but in a few days he ceased to clai
I think that most anti-social children are like Tommy: when their self-assertion is threatened they react with hostility The cure for thes instead of people No boy will try to break up a ball gaer is that the teacher will often step in when the boy ought to be left to his co is the best disciplinarian
One day a class and I riting five-minute essays I would call out a word or a phrase, and ould all start to write The children loved the inality For exairl wrote of her broken doll, another of a broken tramp, another of a broken heart; a boy wrote a witty essay on being stoney broke, another wrote of a broken
On this day Wolodia, a boy of eleven, did not want to write essays I called out a word, and we started to write Wolodia began to talk loudly
”Stop it,our essay”
He grinned and went on talking
”Oh, shut up!” cried Joy
”Shan't!” he snapped, and he went on talking
Diana rose with a deterrimly, and the class seized him and heaved him out Then they barricaded the door with desks Wolodiaon the door, and as a result we could not proceed with our writing
”Let hiested
The class protested
”He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the period,” I said
They took away the desk and Wolodia came in He went to his seat
and not a sound ca the rest of the period This incident ireatly; my co was against him he was defeated It was a beautiful instance of the force of public opinion
Cases of stealing should be treated by analysis Moral lectures are useless; the cause lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture does not touch the unconscious Nor does punishment affect the root cause of the delinquency The teacherdown into the child's unconscious in order to find the cause
An illu book for all teachers and parents to read is Healy's _Mental Disorders and Misconduct_ He shows that stealing is very often a sy like this: a child has been punished for sexual activities; later he breaks into a store and steals an article sex activities and thieving have this in common, that they are both forbidden, but the boy has found that much
So when he is actuated by a sexual urge he dare not indulge it; but his sexual wish finds a substitute; it goes out to the associated forbidden thingthe article on the store counter
We see the same sort of mechanism in the neurotic patient; she fears her own sex impulses, and because she dare not admit her sex wishes into consciousness she projects her fear on to dogs or mice or rats
All phobias--fear of closed places, fear of open places, fear of heights--are displaced fears; the sufferer is really afraid of his own unconscious wishes
I do not say that all juvenile stealing is due to repressed sex
Stealing may mean to a boy a ainst authority of father and teacher; it may be the result of any one of a dozen causes But whatever the cause stealing is always associated with unhappiness, and the teacher _ I confessed that I liked to cheat the railway coround that ”a ten-mile journey without a ticket is the only romantic experience left in a drab world”
That was a delightful bit of rationalisation The real reason for my delinquency lay in ainst the authority of parents and teachers Later in life I unconsciously identified the railway company with the authorities of my infancy Authority said: ”Don't do that or you will be s: ”Don't travel without a ticket or you'll be fined forty shi+llings”
My rebellion was really a rebellion against authority This may seem to be a far-fetched explanation, but the fact remains that now that I have discovered the reason I have no more desire to cheat the railway company
Old Jeems Broon was buried to-day, and Dauvit went to the funeral He ca
”What's the joke, Dauvit?” I asked