You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
If he expect some advice or criticism in the handling of children's misdemeanors by educators, the reader will be grossly disappointed. It would seem to be a waste of time to prove in complicated statistics that there is 'the need for more understanding and agreement among all those concerned with the child's behavior as to their fundamental aims in training', yet this appears to be the main point of the book. But even this conclusion is not followed since
the author says: 'How far teachers desire or are justified in remaining outside the sphere of thought represented by mental hygiene, or what measures might be suggested to bridge this difference are questions outside the scope of this enquiry'.
The question of the author, whether it is 'legitimate to distinguish among misdemeanors', demands a previous question: what is a 'misdemeanor'? Why is 'avoidance of group' or 'daydreaming' or 'shyness' a misdemeanor while in the list of twenty-one misdemeanors given by the author she does not enumerate eating habits, sleeping difficulties (e.g., getting up at night), crying out during sleep, or bothering people with questions? Thus the list of 'misdemeanors' is incomplete. To define such behavior as misdemeanors, furthermore, does not explain anything; it only shows that they either disturb the adult or disturb the child. Naturally those who do not wish to be disturbed are mainly interested in forbidding aggressive behavior, while those sympathetic to children are more interested in calming their fears. Fear and anxiety, however, are words that do not appear in this study. Perhaps some of the 'misdemeanors' might be found to have their origin in such states and thus prove to be not so conveniently appraisable as misdemeanors.