County Probation Society Hears Vienna Psychiatrist
Dr. Alfred Adler, Noted Lecturer, Sees Crimeless Era in Distant Future—Discusses Handling of Children—Annual Dinner-Dance at Gramatan
By ELISABETH CUSHMAN
(Special To The Daily Argus)
BRONXVILLE, Feb. 26. — A vision of a world so highly civilized that it will no longer need probation or probation officers was sketched briefly last night for the Westchester County Probation Association at its annual dinner-dance in the Hotel Gramatan.
The speaker, Dr. Alfred Adler, psychologist, psychiatrist and lecturer of Vienna, warned his audience of more than 300 persons, however, that a society able to dispense with the necessity for probation is still far in the future. It will be realized, he said, as he spoke on "Probation and the Prevention of Crime," only after many years in which the schools will base their handling of children to some extent on the findings of probation workers and children's Court Judges.
Gives Prevention Thesis
The finest prevention work lies in the recognition by educators of slight deviations in children's conduct, he said, warning that there is in these children the possibility of future delinquencies. At present, he added, the world has not reached a state of development where sufficient information has been unearthed and placed at the disposal of the schools, nor has the fullest cooperation between churches, courts, schools and parents yet been attained—but it is on the way. The school of the future, using these detailed and exhaustive findings, will send out no child unless he has fully developed social interests, is capable of full social cooperation and is so adjusted that he will be able to give society the full contribution of his total potentialities, Dr. Alder declared.
Neither environment nor heredity, Dr. Alder pointed out, can be considered dominant factors in a child's development; though each plays a certain role, the child's own creative power must be reckoned with and his inherent possibilities cultivated. It cannot be predicted what any child, given the same heredity and environment as another child, will turn out to be, since the child's individual assimilation of influences to which he is subjected cannot be predicted.
Sees Probation Necessary
The speaker maintained that delinquency originates because of an individual's unpreparedness to cope with unfavorable situations. With the world as it is today, even admitting the advances it has made in criminology from the days when it placed the emphasis on the punishment of the crime instead of the correction of the criminal, it is impossible to do without probation. The probation worker, he pointed out, can never afford to forget that there are ways of reaching an understanding of practically every delinquent case, frequently by working on some undeveloped social sense, absence of which has resulted in activity harmful to society.
In a brief address, Children's Court Judge George W. Smyth paid tribute to the efficiency of the Westchester County Probation Association. An estimtae shows that his court and the probation department touch the lives of ten thousand children annually. The emphasis, he pointed out, is on the social aspect of each case, with stress removed from the legal angle.
Moore, Harper Speak
Brief speeches were also made by former Children's Court Judge Benjamin Moore, William J. Harper, chief of the Probation Department, and Charles Chute, secretary of the National Probation Association.
Others at the speakers' table were Mrs. Smyth, Mrs. Edward Bailey of White Plains, a member of the board of directors of the S. P. C. C.; Victor Passage, director of the Probation Department of the Fairfield County Children's Court; Mrs. Rodgers and Mrs. William H. Livingston of New Rochelle, chairman of the Children's Court Committee of the Board of Supervisors. John F. Rodgers of Yonkers, president of the association, was toastmaster.
Dancing followed the dinner.
Fuente: «County Probation Society Hears Vienna Psychiatrist. Dr. Alfred Adler, Noted Lecturer, Sees Crimeless Era in Distant Future—Discusses Handling of Children—Annual Dinner-Dance at Gramatan», por Elisabeth Cushman, The Daily Argus, Mount Vernon (N.Y.), miércoles 26 de febrero de 1936, página no indicada en la imagen. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen de la página en Fulton History (Mount Vernon NY Daily Argus 1936 - 0848), que es legible entera y permite prescindir de las conjeturas del OCR del archivo. Se conservan las erratas del impreso («Dr. Alder», dos veces; «estimtae»). La misma crónica de E. Cushman salió, algo más breve, en The Herald Statesman (Yonkers) del mismo día con el titular «Speaker Sees Communities Without Need Of Probation» (no cotejada). Se omiten las demás piezas de la página.