Youth and the race; a study in the psychology of adolescence

Preface

The role which racial instincts play in the emotions, intellect, and will of children has been the subject of many investigations in recent years by those interested in the psychology of childhood. These studies, however, have had but slight effect upon the methods of the schools. This book is an attempt to show the possible application of some of these results to the education of children.

Teachers have followed the traditional methods of education which were adopted before the knowledge which we now have was available. The ideas and practice of the old English grammarschools were brought to this country by those deeply imbued with belief in the natural depravity of children, and our educational methods have never recovered from the affliction.

The author has tried to indicate how the schools may help to transform into intellectual and moral forces the racial instincts which, as manifestations of original sin, distressed our forefathers.

viii PREFACE

Effort has also been made to fix the responslbihty for conditions that cause these primitive impulses to continue dominant beyond the age when they should yield to social and ethical principles of action.

Washington University, Saint Louis, Mo., July, 191 2.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Spirit of Adventure .... 3

II. The Ways of Youth 41

Chapter I The Spirit Of Adventure

One day two thirteen-year-old boys disappeared from their homes in Bath Beach. Six weeks later a Nebraska baker, into whose shop they went to buy some bread, concluding from the youngsters' dilapidated appearance that they had run away, drew from them the following story,^ which they afterward repeated at their home.

"You see, I wanted to get rich and there wasn't any chance in Bath Beach," said Wilbur, who acted as spokesman. "I just sort of felt that I must see the world. I'd never been in any place but New York, and then I had to go with grown-up folks and was treated Hke a kid. The night we went away I didn't have a cent, but I wasn't afraid. I thought we only had to go out West and find a gold mine. Had I been reading books of adventure? Of course I had. That's about the only way you can get adventures at Bath Beach.

^New York World, September 3, 1906. 3

"We got on the train for New York, for we knew that was the starting-point for everywhere. Then we crossed the ferry and landed at the Lackawanna station in Hoboken. We hung around the freight cars for two days before we got a chance to steal a ride to Buffalo. We went mighty slow on the two dollars that Harry had, so we didn't live very high.

*'Out of Buffalo we got a car for Chicago. And, say, the police are no good. Why, my mother sent out descriptions of me, and I used to pass the cops in all the cities we visited without dodging. They never even thought I looked suspicious.

**I don't think much of Chicago, and Buffalo's surely on the bum. You see, we stayed most of the time around the freight yards, but we made turns into the cities just so we could see the world.

"Of course, we didn't expect to strike it rich till we got West. When we left Chicago on a freight car we didn't stop at any more big cities.

"Goodness, but we had some terrible experiences! but I wasn't afraid. Once we were held up by two big fellows who were riding on the same freight car. Harry had a six-shooter, and the fellows wanted to get it. First they put their pistols to my head and told me to give up my six-shooter. When I said I didn't have one they started for Harry. He had slipped his pistol down his trousers leg while they were after me and told them another fellow who was riding on the car had taken it. They went after him, and while they were at it, Harry and I jumped off and hid in the woods.

"We had a hard time on the freight cars. The railroad men kept chasing us and we fell off lots of times. I didn't get hurt much — ^just jarred up a bit — but I didn't care when I was hunting a fortune.

"We didn't have much to eat, and by the time we struck Wayside, Nebraska, we were getting pretty anxious to find our gold mine. We got a chance to work on the railroad for a few days, so we saved up some money. I didn't have any shoes or stockings and my shirt was all worn out. I bought a pair of long trousers to make me look taller.

"Then we started out to walk farther west, but we didn't come to any gold mines. Nothing but prairies everywhere. We walked and walked till we came to Crawford, Nebraska. One day I went into a bakery to buy food. It was our last fifty cents, and the man looked at me kind of funny and said, 'Haven't you run away.?' I told him I had, and he was mighty good to us."

Wilbur and Harry were not abnormal hoys. They loved their home and their parents, but they wanted excitement. They might have found this in the nickelodeons and the alleys — the civilized successors of the woods and streams — but these did not satisfy them, and therein they showed their good stuff. They wanted adventures with the wild instead of with the policemen of Bath Beach. And having no opportunity to enjoy adventures at home they ran away to find them.

Civilization is young. Not very long ago man was wandering about from place to place, remaining in one spot only so long as a comfortable living could be secured for the tribe by hunting, or until driven away by superior enemies. It would be strange indeed if long ages of forest life, during which man laid aside his weapons only to enjoy what they had given him or to prepare for new conquests, should have left no impress on his descendants. But we are not dependent here upon mere conjecture. Let us delay for a moment to glance at some of the evidence.

Various writers^ have called attention to certain fears for the existence of which only racial reasons can be offered. As illustrations we may mention fear in the woods after nightfall, though they are much safer to-day than many city streets where

*J. 0. Quantz, "Dendro-Psychosis," American Journal of Psychology, vol. 9, p. 449. S. S. Buckman, "Babies and Monkeys," Nineteenth Century, vol. 36, 1894, p. 727. A. A. Mumford, "Survival Movements of Human Infancy," Brain, vol. 20, 1897, p. 290. L. Robinson, "Darwinism in the Nursery," Nineteenth Century, vol. 30, 1891, p. 831.

children and men do not have the same timidity; the instinctive fear of wild animals and harmless reptiles; fear of high winds, even among those who have never experienced cyclones or tornadoes; and agoraphobia, an inexplicable fear on any other basis than as a survival of the time when exposure in the open meant death.

Water also has played a tremendously important part among primitive people in their conceptions of life, as well as in folk literature, in philosophic speculation, and in religious cults. Professor Bolton^ has collected a large amount of data showing the curious attitude of children toward water. All of it is rich in racial memories.

The play of children again offers strong prima facie evidence of the irresistible influence of this racial heritage. Investigations of the sports of primitive people always impress one with the fact that certain games are perennial. They are modified from age to age, but they are always the same old games. Spinning tops, archery, guessing games, hidden-ball, dice, ball and racket (in which the racket is strikingly Hke that used to-day in tennis), shinny, foot-ball, quoits, and cat's cradle are a few of those pictured by Mr. Stewart Culin'^ in his

* American Journal of Psychology, vol. lo, p. 169.

* "Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1902-03." See also "The Study of Man," by Alfred C. Haddon.

interesting study of the games of the North American Indians.

No sport is so dehghtful to boys in the country and small towns, where land enough is available, as digging caves in which to conceal themselves from other boys or from which they may make sorties on neighboring orchards. The spoils of their raids are brought to their retreat with great glee and secrecy, perhaps in time to rot and be thrown away; but that does not matter. It was the fun of seizure, not the fruit, that they wanted.

Three boys, whom the writer knows, dig a large and deep hole in one of their gardens every fall. The top is covered with boards and a secret underground passage leads to the cavern. This passage is not long enough to afford any real concealment, but such is the deception of play. This cave is the winter rendezvous of the boys, and the coal cars of a railroad near by afford a never-failing source of fuel for the cave fire.

A group of boys, in age from ten to twelve, with whom the writer camped one summer, found keen delight in building wigwams out of the branches of trees, and in making a "one-night shelter" by bending down a small tree and piling branches around it so as to protect their heads and bodies from the "rain," while their feet were kept warm by means of a small camp-fire.

Any one who has had contact with boys in the open can dupHcate these instances many times over. They illustrate the natural flow of primitive impulses which have not been dammed up and turned into civilization's alleys.

The methods by which these racial instincts may be utilized in the development of boys, instead of being encouraged to function in a non-social way, will be discussed in subsequent chapters, but first it is desirable to see the result of failure to provide conditions suitable to their healthful expression. The following items are taken from newspapers. If they lack the exactness in details usual in newspaper reports, they are nevertheless true in essential facts. The names of the children and sometimes other unessential statements are omitted.

Case I. — Residents of Jardine Place, Brooklyn, complained to the police yesterday that a gang of boys, whose ages range from fifteen to twenty, had left their homes in the district and become pirates, living in a cave on a vacant lot in Jardine Place. It was said that the gang had lookouts posted and lived by looting the neighboring houses of milk and rolls and anything else they could find. Incidentally they accosted unsuspecting youths and lured them to the pirates' lair, where they mulcted them of various sums by playing poker. The game, the victims averred, always seemed to be on the side of the pirates.

A policeman in plain clothes stalked the juvenile bandits at 8 p. M. last night, and discovered that the cave had been excavated fully twenty feet into the ground. The boys all carried tin battle-axes and dark-lanterns, and used strange terms that were supposed to have been in vogue two hundred years ago on the Spanish Main. Sentries were posted, and the password for the night was "Sparum Poco."

Not daring to use such strange words, the officer wriggled through the tall grass and weeds in Indian fashion. With his ear to the ground, he heard one of the pirates say, "Three ladies and a pair of knaves." To which another answered, "Fade away. I've got four bullets. The pot's mine." Two of the boys were arrested and taken to the police station. The other "pirates" escaped.*

Case 2. — A twelve-year-old boy, known among his companions as "Chief Yockel, King of the Bandits," gave the police reserves of the Morrisania Station several hours of worry yesterday when he hid himself in a cave of rocks and refused to come out. After the heavy stones had been removed by the police and a gang of Italian laborers. Chief Yockel was locked up in a cell on a charge made by his mother that he was incorrigible.

"My pals wouldn't stick by me; they all went home," he sobbed as he was being locked up.

For several weeks Chief Yockel and his companions have been using the cave in a lot at Fox Street and Saint John's Avenue as a place to read dime novels and play Indian. The cave was about ten feet deep and the entrance was so small that only one boy could enter at a time.

Monday afternoon, Yockel discovered his mother's pocket-book on the kitchen table. In it was twenty dollars. Quickly the "Chief" gathered his followers, and announced that the time had come to celebrate. In the mean time the boy's mother missed him and her purse.

Shortly after eight o'clock this morning an uncle of the boy saw the "Chief" seated near the cave in which he had slept all night. He started after him, but the young Indian wriggled through the opening and refused to come out. Yockel appealed to the police. The captain of the Morrisania Station appealed to a gang of laborers across the street, and the work of pulling the rocks away began. > New York Times, September s, 1908.

The police and the laborers were afraid to work fast, for the whole structure might give way and the boy in the cave be crushed if the keystone rock were moved. After an hour's work, the boy's legs could be seen, and the police tried to throw a noose around them. But the "Chief" was prepared for this emergency, and when the rope slipped across his feet he cut it. After another hour's work the rocks were removed and the boy was dragged from the cave and taken to the police station.^

Case 3. — The Wild West dreams of five Saint Louis boys, whose ages range frorri eleven to sixteen years, suddenly terminated yesterday afternoon, when they were rounded up by Saint Louis County officers, while the boys were sitting around their camp-fire formulating plans and telling thrilling stories. The leader of the band led the constable a chase of over a mile, in which the officer fired half a dozen shots before he captured the boy.

The youngsters were camping in the woods about fifty feet from the Rock Island Railroad tracks, east of Clayton. The spot they had selected to board an outbound freight was at the bottom of a steep incline, where the train is brought nearly to a stop.

Each of the boys had a sharp knife. They all had timetables of railroads, and were figuring on reaching Texas within two weeks. They carried two loaves of bread and a pound of butter in a sack, besides a pair of new shoes and a carriage-robe. Two of the boys had on two pairs of trousers. They had a pack of playing-cards, with which they said they intended to amuse themselves while in camp. They also had a package of pins, several needles, and a spool of thread.

One of the boys said that he had bought the shoes found in the sack, but that they hurt his feet and he had to take them off. They were number ten, and the pair the lad had on were about number five. The young adventurers claimed that they found the carriage-robe. They had eighty-three cents among them, but said that they expected to get more money.

* New York Times, March 9, 1910.

When the constable asked them if they expected to get more money by holding up a train, they replied, "Oh, maybe we would do that, or else crack a crib and blow wid de cash." ^

Case 4. — Five boys, ranging from fourteen to fifteen years old, were arraigned beforejustice Hoyt, sitting in the Children's Court, yesterday, charged with improper guardianship. After the judge had heard their stories, they were remanded to the Children's Society until Saturday.

On Tuesday afternoon a policeman of the West Fortyseventh Street Station saw the boys acting suspiciously in the freight yard of the New York Central Railroad at the foot of West Fifty-seventh Street. He watched them for some time and saw the five climb into an empty freight car attached to a train that had just started to move. He then arrested them.

When the boys were searched, an emergency kit was found containing one roll of six-inch gauze bandages, two boxes of pills, one package of court-plaster, two bottles of coughmixture, two bologna-sausage rings, and three loaves of bread.

In court yesterday the one who acted as spokesman said that they had formed a club some time ago to get the necessary things to beat their way West. When asked what they intended to do with the bandages, he said, "You can't tell what will happen to you when you get West, and we didn't want to take any chances. We figured that we could get grub from somewhere, but if we got mixed up in a wreck or caught cold, bandages and medicines would be the things we would need."

Their parents said the boys had been model children.^

Case 5. — The efforts of two boys, fifteen and sixteen years of age, from New Rochelle, New York, to lead a frontier life came to an end last night when the Portland police raided the camp they had built in the woods. The policemen confiscated pistols and lassos and took the boys to the police station.

' Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 8, 1909. ^ New York Times, May 5, 19 10.

The officers had received word from relatives of the boys to look for them in this section, and learned of their camp through word brought by trappers. They had built a rough hut of small logs, and, as they had a little money, had been living well. They were loth to leave their comfortable quarters.^

Case 6. — Thinking that it would be fun to frighten one of their schoolfellows by sending him a Black-Hand letter, two New York boys, fourteen years old, wrote a note to another boy, the son of wealthy parents, demanding ten dollars and threatening death if it were not forthcoming.

The letter was signed, "King of the Black Hand," and was profusely ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and daggers.

Two detectives were ordered to find the writer. The boys who had sent the letter smilingly came to the detectives and told them that they had written it for fun. To their great astonishment they were immediately arrested and locked up.^

Case 7. — Moving pictures illustrating cow-boy life interested a fourteen-year-old youngster to the point of emulation as he sat in the " Mystic Arcade. " As soon as the lights were turned on he jumped up, pushed his two boy companions out into the aisle, and, pulling from his hip-pocket a revolver, pointed it at their feet and called out, "Dance, you tenderfeet."

There were two hundred people, mostly women and children, in the theatre, and so lustily did the boy shout, and so freely did he swing his pistol, that there arose a commotion on all sides. Women screamed and made for the doors.

The manager of the theatre came hurrying down the aisle. The boy swung the revolver in line with him.

"Hands up," he called. The manager took one jump over the orchestra railing and dived behind the piano.

A patrolman of the Fourth Avenue Station saw women

* New York Times, June 27, 19 10.

^ Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, February 11, 1910.

hurrying out of the theatre. He ran in, saw the revolver, and made for it. The boy, seeing him come, quietly held out the pistol reversed.

"Well, partner," said he, "I guess you've got the drop on me."

The policeman took him to the station and there found that the pistol was not loaded. They sent the boy to the Children's Society as a juvenile delinquent and will arraign him to-day in the Children's Court.^

Case 8. — Two boys, aged twelve and thirteen, who said they ran away from their homes in Jacksonville, Illinois, to emulate Robinson Crusoe and live in a little hut in some big woods, subsisting only on fish, were arrested yesterday morning at Main and Vine Streets, hungry as bears and crying because of the cold and exposure. They said that they had walked from Jacksonville, and, as their parents would not have enough money to send for them, requested that they be cared for by the police. They were sent to the House of Detention.*

A pleasant home with kind parents whose chief concern is the happiness and welfare of their children is sometimes thought to be the best antidote for juvenile escapades, but the desire for adventure is not limited to any one class of boys, as is shown by the following:

Case 9. — The thirteen-year-old son of a prominent New York architect, who disappeared from his home on Riverside Drive yesterday, walked into the home of his uncle in Washington, D. C, this morning and said that he was almost starved. The boy was chilled to the bone, since, in the course of his adventures, he had sold his overcoat to buy a steam-boat ticket to Europe.

The lad was highly pleased when he learned that his dis-

^New York Times, January 31, 1909.

* Saint Louis Globe-Democrat, January 29, 1912.

appearance had aroused fears that he had gone to the East Side and fallen into the clutches of the Black Hand, and his expression indicated that he would have done just that if he had thought of it.

What he had done, however, was to leave New York for the purpose of seeing the world. He reached Philadelphia yesterday. But the city did not suit him, so he decided to go to Europe. He walked down to the wharves and priced outbound passage. A ticket, he discovered, cost more money than he had, so he sold his overcoat to make up the difference. Then he marched aboard, only to be held up by the captain, questioned, and sent ashore.

He then started for Washington, where he arrived late last night. Wandering around near the Union Station — he seems at first to have had no idea of appealing to his relatives — he came to the house of the captain of the Senate Office Building police force and asked for a room. He was taken in, but the officer became suspicious and questions followed. The boy then told of his adventures, and early this morning, on the advice of his new friend, the boy took a trolley for his uncle's home.^

When opportunity for adventures of a legitimate and wholesome sort is not given, city life, cheap novels, and low-grade shows have their way of supplying the deficiency, and the racial instincts may then culminate in actions much more serious than running away from home to lead a frontier life, sending Black-Hand letters, or flourishing an empty revolver. The following are illustrations:

Case I. — The arrest of five boys, one of whom was ten years old, two others twelve, while the fourth and fifth were fourteen and nineteen, revealed the attempt of these youngsters last Saturday to wreck the early New Haven Railroad train

^ New York Times, January 22, 1912.

leaving New York shortly after noon. The purpose, as they confessed, was to loot the bodies of the dead and injured. They got as far as opening the switch, near the East Portchester freight yard, having either found or stolen the key.

That their plan did not succeed was due to the fact that a switchman happened to see them throw the switch and closed it in time to avert an accident.

The train they wanted to wreck carries one of the special club cars on which travel a score or more of multi-millionaires who have homes either in Greenwich or Stamford and who come out early on Saturdays.

The probation officers and prosecuting attorney stood aghast this morning when one of the boys coolly told of the plot and stated that the reason of the attempted crime was the hope of getting a few dollars from the pockets of the dead and wounded.

The boys further told of having formed a regular organization which imposed elaborate oaths of secrecy and a part of whose formula consisted in crossing their hearts never to tell any of the deeds that any member of the gang perpetrated. These oaths did not interfere with theiijidesire to confess when they had once been thoroughly frightened.

The crime, the boys said, was inspired by a moving-picture show that portrayed a train hold-up.^

Case 2. — A thirteen-year-old boy from the Bronx, having learned from a moving-picture show the first steps in burglary, went out on Saturday night with a brace and bit to gather in some candy for himself and friends. He had his eye on a candy store in the East Chester Station of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. He bored holes all around the lock of the door and then cut it out. Loading himself with eight dollars' worth of candy he withdrew.

A detective of the Westchester Station, who had been assigned to the case, found a plethora of candy in the morning and learned that the youngster had given it to his friends. The boy was at home when the officer reached there. Upon

* Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March i, 19 lo.

arrest for juvenile delinquency he told the detective that he got his idea of burglary from an East Chester moving-picture show.^

Case 3. — Classes at the Humboldt and Assumption schools were excited Tuesday when policemen entered and arrested two boys, one thirteen years of age and the other eleven, who were accused of stealing seventy-five dollars from a grocery store Sunday afternoon.

The boys confessed and implicated another boy fifteen years old. He was arrested at his home, where something over fortyfive dollars was found concealed in a mustard bottle in the attic.

The boys gained entrance through the back door of the grocery, which was guarded by an iron bar.

The thirteen-year-old lad bought a pair of roller-skates and a camera, and hired a buggy in which he took a girl driving Sunday afternoon. Four dollars in pennies, which he disdained to spend, he gave to a small boy.

The boys are locked up at the Soulard Street Station.^

Case 4. — Two small boys, one thirteen years of age and the other nine, were arrested in New York and sent to the Children's Society, charged with having sent a *' Black-Hand" letter to a wealthy woman. The letter was as follows:

We demand $2,500 as a Black Hand organization. If it is not paid we will blow up your home and all your family. We have four hundred and eighty-eight members scattered all over the world. You cannot escape us. Don't let the police know of this, or any one else, for, if you do, we will not let up on you if you offer us $100,000. Rich people pay our demands, and they have no more bother, because we protect them. Do as we ask or we will blow up your home and destroy every one in it with revolver or dagger, or send them poisoned food.

' New York Times, June 6, 1910.

* Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, March 24, 1908.

There was a break in the letter here to make room for the picture of a dagger-pierced heart, a revolver, and a bottle marked "poison." Then the letter continued:

After you pay ^2,500 you will be free from all expense. Take twenty-five $100 bills on Thursday evening, between 8 and 9 p. M. Deposit the money in a tin box and place it under some leaves on the ground close to the park wall at the first light post at the right hand of the small entrance to Central Park, between Sixty-sixth and Sixty-seventh Streets, opposite your house, and let it stay there till you get a letter from us that we received it.

Black Hand.

On the advice of detectives the woman decided to carry out the instructions. Disguised officers were to follow her.

Shortly before nine o'clock last night she stepped from her house, crossed Fifth Avenue to the park, and deposited a tin box under some leaves by the park wall. The detectives watched her until she returned to the house. Then from behind the park wall they took up their vigil. It was some minutes after nine o'clock before they were rewarded by seeing two boys walk down Fifth Avenue and poke beneath the leaves. Finally the larger boy came upon the box and together the youngsters started off on Fifth Avenue.

The detectives followed them for a block or so and then pounced upon the two, separating them immediately so that they could not converse and neither one could hear what questions were asked of the other. The smaller boy wept bitterly as he felt the officer's hand on his shoulder and began to scream and cry for his mother. The elder boy, who still clutched the box, took his arrest stoically.

"What's in the box, kid?" asked the detective of the elder boy.

"I don't know what's In it," replied the lad. "A man I met at Seventeenth Street and Third Avenue offered me a quarter to come and get this for him."

"What did he look like.?" asked the officer.

"Why, he was a tall man with a black mustache."

The other officer meantime was asking the same questions of the younger boy, and got the same replies until he asked for a description of the man.