Potential Shock

Potential Shock By THOMAS R. HENRY D ANGEROUS children are rare. They seldom carry their primitive day dreams of slaughter and carnage into reality. Yet not infrequently newspapers contain accounts of killings by early ado- lescents. Children with cravings which threaten to be realized occasionally come into the Gales Special School, after proving unmanageable in other public schools. There they are given special study by Harold D. Fife, principal. Paul was a sullen, unmanageable boy with an obsession for knives. He was dangerous and teachers were afraid of him, with good rea- son. It wasn't the child's fault that he never had killed anybody. It was his good luck. When a teacher tried to disci- pline him he would draw a knife on her. On several occasions he attacked other children with knives. It was a wonder that the schools put up with him as long as they did. Again and again, knives were taken away from him but he always was able to get another. Where he got them nobody knows. Probably he stole most of them. Knife a Necessity A KNIFE was a necessity for the ^ lad's existence. It was as vital as morphine to a dope fiend. The probability is that he suffered nerv- ous tortures when deprived of a knife. He would have got it somehow, regardless of what ob- stacles were put in his way. Fife volunteered to take Paul. School officials warned him that he would be dealing with a crazy kid who was certain to kill somebody sooner or later and that it would be best to put him away some- where, with no further attempts at reform. The child came from an excel- lent family. There was nothing Boy Killer Becomes Absorber Expert (From the Washington Star) [Note — This is the fourth of a series of articles describing the re- markable experiment in the redemption of boys who have proved unmanageable in ordinary schools, which is being carried on by the\ District Public School system. Harold D. Fife, principal of the Gales Special School, is a Utah product. His early education was obtained in Salt Lake City, after which he attended college in Washington, D. C. He is a sincere "Mormon." Those acquainted with his success have marveled at his ability to handle incorrigible boys. The Lord says that those who keep the Word of Wisdom "shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures." Is this an answer to those who wonder at young Fife's remarkable achievements!' — The Editors. ] wrong with his home environment. His brothers and sisters were all perfectly normal. He had a low I. Q., placing him among the high-grade morons. In school he had been a continual fail- ure in everything. He wouldn't study. He couldn't learn if he did. Fife had him examined by a first class psychiatrist who found at the base of the knife throwing obses- sion the old inferiority complex. The child suffered from his appar- ent inferiority in his classes. He had to have some way of attracting attention, of becoming the central figure on the stage. Knives did it. When he flew at somebody with a long, sharp knife in 'his hands folks noticed him. The smart children became insig- nificant figures compared to Paul on such an occasion. Sought Impression U E wanted to impress himself on folks, to make them feel his presence and his importance. A teacher would feel a knife thrust in her body. She would pay at- tention to Paul then — he would be the most important figure in the world to her. Paul, of course, hadn't reasoned all this out. He simply felt it. So long as he had a knife in his pocket he felt himself the ruler of his little universe. Without a knife he felt sick, helpless and unneces- sary. It was almost a foregone conclu- sion that the time would come when a murder would be necessary to the boy's peace of mind — a murder into which he would be forced inevitably. At the Gales School, Paul re- mained the sullen unmanageable, bone-headed kid. The change of environment apparently did no good. He still carried knives. Fife tried to talk him out of it, but it is impossible to argue a person out of obsessions. The form may be changed, but not the substance. Fife suspected that here again was a case of dual personality, but there was no point of contact. The child seemed to have no interests upon

The Improvement Era for February, 1930 273 which other interests could be grafted. Even knives did not constitute such an interest. They existed, for him, only to stab folks with. Wanted to Kill Pitcher T F Paul was playing base ball and -*■ was struck out, for instance, his immediate reaction would be to rush the pitcher who so humiliated him with a knife. The teacher saw that he had an almost hopeless job on his hands. The only course open was a patient study of minute behavior character- istics, some one of which might prove a key to the boy's better na- ture. It required weeks and weeks before the clue came — weeks during which Paul just moped around the room, pretty much his own boss. Fife noticed the boy several times puttering with the valve of the steam radiator in the room. At such times he seemed absorbed in the mechanism. He didn't ask questions about it — but just screwed and unscrewed the valve time and time again. Ordinarily a child puttering with the steam radiator in a schoolroom would have been reprimanded. Possibly the boy had a mechan- ical mind, Fife thought. He de- cided to test him out. The next morning, through his breakfast a little late, he glanced hastily about his garage for some mechanical de- vice for the child. There was nothing appropriate. He picked up an old shock absorber, broken, out- of-date, and long past its days of usefulness. Upon such trifling incidents as this the course of a whole life may turn. That day in school Paul was fascinated by the shock absorber. Time after time he took it to pieces and put it together again. He re- sented any efforts to explain to him how the device worked. He had found his vocation. Turns Inventor A FEW weeks later he came to ■^ the teacher with the an- nouncement that the old shock ab- sorber was no good, that the fellow who made it didn't know anything about the principle of the thing, but that he had invented a much better one. He had made it at home out of wood. He explained his idea and it seemed workable. It operated with water which, Paul said, was the great defect. Water ran through the holes too easily. He had an idea that what shock absorbers needed was molasses. Fife gave him some money to buy a quart of molasses. Shock absorbers began to replace knives as Paul's obsession. He thought and lived shock absorbers. Still he wouldn't learn anything else. Fife decided that it was best to let well enough alone. He saw that the proper environment for the boy was a shock absorber en- vironment, for the time being. Paul was rather young to go to work, but a garage owner, after re- peated solicitation, agreed to give him a trial without any pay. The boy leaped at the chance. He could get money from his folks, he said, and would be willing to pay the garage man for an opportunity to live among shock absorbers. That was months ago. Today Paul has the reputation of being one of the best shock absorber me- chanics in Washington. He does nothing else. Some of the most expensive cars in the city are brought to him for his expert opin- ion on shock absorbers. Works in Garage "PUT he is far more than a shock absorber mechanic. He has a shock absorber imagination. He is working on the perfect shock ab- sorber for automobiles. It is very likely, experts who have looked over his work say, that Paul will some day revolutionize the world's ideas on shock absorption. He is a shock absorber genius. He knows everything about them and thinks of nothing else. He seems to have an instinctive ability to look at a rough-riding car and tell what is wrong with its shock absorber system. But he already is thinking be- yond shock absorbers for automo- biles into the subject of shock absorbers for men. He has an idea in mind, he confided to Fife, which will enable a human being to walk over hard pavements as if he were floating through air. Some day he is going to provide this great boon for humanity. Is the greatest shock absorber ex- pert in Washington a dullard? Fife asks. Paul doesn't throw knives any more, but the same old inferiority complex is at the root of his per- sonality. But he has found a more effec- tive way to make people "feel" his presence and pay attention to him. This is by the working of genius. American Visitors to England 'T'HE Alliance News of London, says that most of the American visitors to the British metropolis seem to have gotten out of the habit of drinking alcoholic liq- uors. The editor says: Most of London's most fash- ionable hotels are at present full of wealthy American visitors. Head waiters are very disgruntled because very few of them drink intoxicants. Last week, in the dining-room of a famous West End Hotel, twenty-three tables were occupied by Americans. Only one party was drinking wine, most of the rest iced-water, the re- mainder "soft- drinks." Soda fountains were fully employed in London hotels on Independence Day. The Daily Express of July 3rd contained the following para- graph : "There is always the possibility on July 4, in London that the sup- ply of soft drinks may run out. It is a firmly rooted English belief that no American will take a soft drink when there is anything stronger going. "Actually, many of them are firm teetotallers, and have been heard to say that their chief com- plaint against this country is the difficulty of making people under- stand that when they ask for a "soft" drink they are not employ- ing an American expression for a cocktail of a whiskey and soda. T'HERE is about one ounce of A alcohol in each of these: Three oz. of 47% whiskey. Two pints of 4% beer. One pint of 8% wine. In the last year before prohibi- tion, (1919) 92% of all alcoholic liquor consumed in the U. S. was in the form of beer and wine. — U. S. Statistical abstract.