--- Title: Dr. Adler on Delinquency. Common Sense a Social Achievement Description: The Manchester Guardian, Manchester, May 18, 1936 (No. 27978), unsigned. Report of the three lectures given by Alfred Adler ("The relation of parent and child", "Social misfits" and "Delinquency") at the conference of teachers and social workers organised by the Liverpool Council of Social Service and the Liverpool and District Home and School Council at Liverpool University on Saturday, May 16, 1936. Author: Periodista sin firma URL: https://adler.school/archivo/adler/cronicas/original/1936-05-18%20Dr.%20Adler%20on%20Delinquency --- # DR. ADLER ON DELINQUENCY ## Common Sense a Social Achievement “Common sense is really a social achievement,” said Dr. Alfred Adler, the founder of the school of Individual Psychology, lecturing at Liverpool University on Saturday Vanity, he said, was “such a lack of common sense.” There were people who had for a motto “Everything or nothing,” not understanding that both did not exist. (Laughter.) Dr. Adler, who addressed three meetings of teachers, social workers, and others organised by the Liverpool Council of Social Service and the Liverpool and District Home and School Council on “The relation of parent and child,” “Social misfits,” and “Delinquency,” said delinquent persons were cowards because they shrank from the solution of normal problems. The pickpocket was a coward because he used the negligence of people in crowds, and the burglar was a coward because he felt a conqueror from the start. The murderer, too, was always sure of his success, and that we could not call courage. One burglar, asked why he, a healthy, intelligent, and clever man, did not get a job, answered: “You do not know the terrible conditions of labour.” (Laughter.) Dr. Adler’s remarks were related to a study of the “problem” child who was anti-social and only strove for a personal superiority. One found among delinquent persons that in childhood they had been pampered. For such a child “getting and taking” was success, and he stuck to it for that reason, organising his life in relation to an unreal world. He became sure he could do a thing and not be detected “It is rare,” said Dr. Adler, “that a delinquent person is caught in his first delinquency.” Dr. Adler was asked a question about “pampering by magistrates,” and answered that such “pampering” came too late. If the child had not been pampered before it would not be before the magistrates. Corporal punishment did not effect anything more than, perhaps, to scare the child and make him more sly than he had been before. The Archbishop of Liverpool (Dr. Downey), who presided over the discussion on delinquency, recalled the time when even its friends regarded psychology as the “Cinderella of the sciences.” He thought Dr. Adler more than any one man in modern times had placed psychology on a sound scientific basis. Dr. Downey spoke of the jargon of psychology, and said it was to Dr. Adler’s credit that he had brought order into this confusion. --- *Fuente:* «Dr. Adler on Delinquency. Common Sense a Social Achievement», *The Manchester Guardian*, Manchester, 18 de mayo de 1936 (n.º 27978), sin firma. Transcripción hecha sobre la imagen del recorte conservado en el Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv (Pressemappe 20. Jahrhundert, ZBW, carpeta de persona Alfred Adler, pe000141, hoja 00004), que es enteramente legible, cotejada con un OCR propio (Tesseract); el recorte no da la página. Faltan en el impreso los puntos tras «on Saturday» y «not be detected», y en «stuck to it» la *t* apenas se ve; se transcribe tal cual. Las palabras partidas a final de línea se unen.