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 she was of sound mind, it was thought that she might possibly be feeble-minded. The difficulty had its chief cause in the behavior of the child's mother.

Martha's parents had wanted their first born to be a boy. That the baby should have been a girl was a great disappointment, and when a son came as their next child, Martha was thrust into the second place. Harry was given precedence in everything. Reproach was always her portion. She was continually being compared with her brother to her own disadvantage.

She would hear her mother tell visitors:

"Martha is stupid, but Harry is bright. Why, Harry even has to help Martha with her lessons."

If it was suggested that Martha run an errand, her mother would say:

"Oh, Martha can't do that. I'll have Harry do it."

When an operation to remove adenoids was prescribed for Martha, her mother exclaimed in her presence:

"Martha will never go to the hospital. She'll just cry. I'll never get her to go."

On another occasion the child was obliged to listen to this comment upon her character:


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 "When Martha gets a nickel, she keeps it to herself. Harry buys candy and gives it to the other children. But not Martha. You wouldn't catch her giving anything away. She's sort of sly."

Is it surprising that Martha should have been silent in school? Ever since she had been able to remember, her every effort at self-expression had been discouraged before it had had so much as a chance to start. Daily she was being told that she was an inferior person, that she was capable of nothing, and that she amounted to nothing. She was bound as effectively as if she had been in chains. She was shut up within herself by the very person who should have fostered her development. She was not free to adjust herself to life.

Only after the mother had been shown the part she was playing in her daughter's unhappiness did the child begin to receive the opportunities she needed. A changed atmosphere at home and special attention in school released her from her handicaps and stimulated her in the use of her abilities. Not many months had passed before the mother herself said:

"There's the greatest difference in Martha. She's a changed girl."

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 It is seldom that trouble is so exclusively due to the limitations which people place around an individual. Usually it is brought about by a combination of restrictions from without and inhibitions within. This is illustrated by the difficulty which Stuart Weston found in making one of the most common adjustments, the adjustment to sickness.

His disease was tuberculosis. He had been ill for three years. Most people in such a predicament follow the advice of a physician and take the cure at a sanatorium. This Weston did not do. Despite the urging of his friends and his medical advisors, he remained at home, working intermittently, as his health permitted. Gradually he grew weaker. His family also suffered. At the end of three years his wife was showing the strain of having his invalidism added to the care of five boys and girls. Two of the children had developed symptoms suggestive of tuberculosis, and discouragement had settled down over the whole family.

The causes of this failure to make the adjustment to sickness lay partly with Weston and partly with the people and things about him. He had been prejudiced against the State Sanatorium


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Rh missin' from hereabouts, so mebby it's them young fellers."

The two motorboats thereupon started for Ragged Reef. The lads were downhearted. They had little hope that they would ever find their two companions alive. The words of the old fisherman struck terror into their hearts.

When they rounded the point they saw the black and ominous line of Ragged Reef before them. A jagged and irregular series of rocks jutting above the surface of the water in the form of a huge semicircle—this was the reef on which the Envoy might have come to grief.

Fortunately, the day was calm so that the searchers were able to venture more closely to the reef than they might have otherwise dared. Frank edged the Sleuth in toward the rocks as closely as possible. Suddenly he gave an exclamation:

"The fisherman was right! There is wreckage there!"

He pointed to a few broken fragments of wood that could be discerned against the rocks. Joe picked up the marine glasses and peered at the fragments for some time.

"It's wreckage of a boat of some kind," he declared gravely, lowering the glasses at last. "But whether it's from the Envoy or not, I couldn't say."

Slim also looked through the glasses. He

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 by false reports of how its patients suffered from neglect. A young woman who had lived across the street from his home had gone there and died. Weston thought he might meet the same fate. He was afraid, also, that if he should go to the sanatorium, his mother-in-law would see to it that there would be no home awaiting him when he returned. He and his mother-in-law had never been able to endure each other. If he was self-sufficient, self-reliant, and self-assertive, so too was she, and at every point they clashed. Weston suspected—perhaps not wholly without justification—that she would use his absence to induce his wife to come and live with her. This meant to him that Mrs. Weston, who lacked the force to resist so strong a will, would become a drudge at the boarding-house which her mother conducted, that the children would be placed in institutions, and that the life of the family would be broken.

Along with this fear was Weston's feeling that he was being overlooked. His pride was hurt by the attitude from which he thought people now regarded him. In the years when all was well, he had been the head of the household. He had made the decisions and his will had dominated every plan. Now that he was sick, those who had come


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 to help him failed to consult him about his family. Conversation with him was limited to efforts to persuade him to enter the sanatorium. Gradually he came to feel that he was regarded only as something to be got rid of, a case to be sent away whether he wanted to go or not. His hurt feelings blocked his judgment. He was no longer free in thought or in action, and he remained at home.

The social worker who was asked to help recognized that here lay the heart of Weston's difficulty. She appreciated his desire to plan for himself and his family, and began at once to seek his advice at every step, bringing his wife into their discussions, so that his decisions were not solitary as they had been before his illness, but were made with Mrs. Weston participating. As soon as Weston realized that his opinion was being considered, and that he was once more a factor in the destinies of the household, he ceased to feel the pique which had been blocking his judgment. He could now think much more clearly about his disease and the appropriate treatment.

The fear that his mother-in-law would break up his home could be allayed only by assurances from the woman herself. These were procured by an appeal to her sympathies. Weston was ex-


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 plained to his mother-in-law. She was shown that the traits to which she objected were, after all, only the evidences of a strong character; that it was his very devotion to his family which kept him at home, and that his whole hope of recovery lay in his going away to the sanatorium in an easy frame of mind. The mother-in-law was persuaded at least to the point of neutrality, and, indeed, a little beyond, for she helped in the preparations for Weston's journey.

Meanwhile, Weston's prejudice against the State Sanatorium had been met by efforts to arrange for his admission to another institution. While the attempt was unsuccessful, it showed Weston that he was not being forced to go where he did not wish to go; and when it was suggested that in the absence of any other place he make a trial of the State Sanatorium, with the understanding that if he did not like it he should return, he went quite willingly. It is a long-established principle of human nature that to say "you must" when a man says "I won't" only makes his "no" the firmer, while to set him free to do as he pleases dissipates his opposition and releases his energies for a wise decision.

Even more difficult than the adjustment which


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 the sick person must make to his illness is that which is often involved for the other members of the household. Certainly, this was true of the problem with which Mrs. Slater was confronted. Following an attack of influenza, her husband had found it difficult to recover his strength. He could not summon his energies in the way that for the past few years had made him a valuable and trusted workman. He left a steady job and began wandering about the country. Sometimes he sent money to his family. Sometimes he did not. Sometimes he wrote home and sometimes he forgot to do so. Finally he consulted a physician who returned paresis as the diagnosis. The prognosis was a slow mental deterioration that would finally leave him wholly irresponsible.

Mrs. Slater could not accept this fact. She would not believe that her husband's illness was serious or that he was not a competent human being. She continued to expect him to be the person he had been and to play his usual part in the family life. When he failed to do so, she showed a resentment that occasionally expressed itself in a sharp and exacting attitude toward Mr. Slater as guilty of desertion and non-support, but more often in a bitterness toward other


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 people and in a struggle for the rehabilitation of her husband that took her attention from homeand children.

This failure to adjust herself to her husband's illness was chiefly due to her unwillingness to face the disappointment that the acceptance of it involved. Mrs. Slater came of an industrious, orderly, hard-working stock, thrifty, steady, home-abiding people to whom the unusual seldom happened. Mr. Slater was her great adventure. He swept into her life with a picturesqueness and a glibness that thrilled and fascinated her. His had been a vagabond youth, spent chiefly at the races where he knew the bookmakers as well as the horses. He was all that Mrs. Slater's family was not; careless about money, ready to trust everything to chance, and a most interesting person. Mrs. Slater sensed a certain dubiousness in the attitude of her relatives and became engaged without having confided her love affair to any one.

Within a year after her wedding, it became evident that she had married a dissipated fellow who was given to drunken sprees and who could not be depended upon to provide for himself and his family. Frequently during a period of six or seven years she was obliged to seek shelter with


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 her parents for him and the children. She felt his failure keenly, and her pride forbade her the relief that she might have had by unburdening herself to her mother.

Then there came a great change in Mr. Slater. He awoke from one of his sprees to a sense of sin. He was converted from his old ways. He joined a rescue mission, and for four years he was a man to be pointed out as an example. This was the happiest time in Mrs. Slater's married life. She could now be proud of her husband. He was the successful head of his family, a steady workman, and a leader in the church. Her judgment in marrying him was vindicated.

It was this period of happiness that the development of paresis brought to a close. Mrs. Slater could not believe that it was the end. She had only just become accustomed to prosperity. She had participated vicariously in her husband's achievements. Her romance had come true. That it must all cease was too terrible to think about. She could not adjust herself to the new situation. She was too beclouded with emotion to face the facts.

Yet it was precisely this which she must do if she was to be of any use to herself or to her hus-


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 band or to the children. The social case worker whom she consulted began a work of interpretation that continued for months. She prepared Mrs. Slater for the doctor's report that it was paresis, not influenza, which was affecting Mr. Slater. She explained the course which the disease might be expected to take and how it might affect his behavior. When Mrs. Slater insisted that the pain which her husband suffered after the use of salvarsan indicated that the doctors did not know anything about his trouble, the experiences of other people were cited as proof that this was the frequent consequence of these treatments. When Mr. Slater in a sudden flash of energy enjoyed a brief prosperity, the social worker kept in touch with Mrs. Slater so that she could prepare her for the ultimate collapse. Always what had been foretold about the disease took place, until Mrs. Slater began to perceive what was inevitable.

She had lost her husband. He could no longer be the source of interest and inspiration which, despite his weaknesses, he had always been to her; but there were the children, which in the struggle of the past months she had neglected. Here was a means of renewal and strength. Could she dis-


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 cover in the care of them an outlet for the energy which had been going into the vain attempt to prove that her husband was a normal man, she might achieve a measure, at least, of happiness. An opportunity was found for her to spend a day or two a week as a mother's helper in a family where she might observe what child training can mean. This gave her a new vision, while the fact that she was appreciated by her employer brought her assurance and confidence for the meeting of her own problems. Gradually the hope that she had built upon her husband's recovery was transferred to an interest in the education of her children and the making of her adjustment had been begun.

The principles involved in the solution of Mrs. Slater's problem were fundamentally the same as those underlying the treatment of the difficulties of Weston and of the little girl who was silent in school. Each one of these persons was blocked by fears and inhibitions of various kinds. They were stopped from the free use of their energies. They needed to be released from the cramping influence of unfavorable associates and of their own emotions. For the little girl this was accomplished by giving her greater opportunity for self-expression in school and by helping her mother to under-


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 stand her. For Weston it was done by sympathetically interpreting him to his mother-in-law and by enabling him to return to a larger self-determination both in the making of plans for the family and in the selection of the place in which he would try to overcome his disease. For Mrs. Slater it was achieved by assisting her to face the dreaded fact of her husband's mental condition, and by finding for her in the welfare of her children a new channel for activity.

The details of what was done for each of these persons varied, but the goal of the work was the same. Whatever processes are followed in helping a man out of trouble, whether or not they consist, as here, in interpreting people to each other and to themselves, in stimulating initiative and in opening opportunity for self-expression, they should all focus upon the task of releasing the individual from the misunderstandings, the inhibitions, and the restrictive influences that block his development, and of encouraging him always to a higher use of his abilities. To help a man in this way is to prepare him for the making of all his adjustments and to set him upon the road to the mastery of the art of living. Let life be ever so exacting, it yields itself to him who is free.


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first and the hardest lesson to learn about people who are in trouble is that they can be helped only if they want to be helped. There is no such thing as making an adjustment for somebody else. Only the husband and wife can make the adjustment to marriage; only the mother and father can make the adjustment to parenthood; only the widow to widowhood. No one can live another person's life. No one can overcome a single disadvantageous habit for him. No one can make him strong by working for him. No one can make him think by thinking for him. Whatever of happiness an individual achieves depends fundamentally upon himself. However great the opportunities that may be offered to him, however wise the suggestions that may be made to him,


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 unless he himself is desirous of profiting by them, they can accomplish nothing for him.

What causes this lesson to be especially difficult to learn is the instinct to help that dwells in all of us, an instinct so powerful that often we cannot resist its impulses. Frequently it forces us to spend our energies in trying to help where help is untimely, where the individual is not ready to change, and where, therefore, he benefits not at all, or, at least, very little by what we do.

The only satisfactory approach to helping a person out of trouble is that which is made in response to a request for help. This need not be a formal request. It may be conveyed by a look or in a chance remark. Like the patient who seeks a physician for the relief of the symptoms of his disease rather than for the cure of the malady itself, the individual in difficulty may ask assistance in something incidental to the real problem. The girl whose difficulties with her family have culminated in her running away from home may inquire about a job, but a question or two will show her trouble to lie deeper. A man may seek a loan when actually his difficulty is a maladjustment to work.

The desire for help may be variously indicated.


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 but there must be at least some sign of dissatisfaction or some stirring of the urge to better things. Occasionally one will be placed in such a professional or friendly relationship that he can stimulate this desire, but usually, unless its presence is evidenced by an appeal for assistance, an attempt to give advice will start under unfavorable auspices and with little chance of success. Without such a request, how can we tell whether the person in trouble has any confidence in us and in our ability to be of service?

Often what we, looking at a life from without, may think is trouble may not be trouble at all, but only a different way of living from that which we prefer. Husband or wife out of a far more intimate knowledge than ours may be able to discount each for the other words or behavior that seem to us intolerable, while parents may have a far more healthy relation with their children when they are alone with them than when they are conscious of being observed. Or it may be that an individual may willingly endure handicaps in his personal life because other things are more important to him. That sometimes is the price of genius. It is frequently through the storm and the stress of unfulfilled emotion,


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64 was able to see more fragments of wreckage farther along the reef.

"Some boat has been battered to pieces along here. There isn't enough wreckage left to tell whether it was a motorboat or a sailing vessel." He scrutinized the mainland. "Nothing there," he announced finally. "Not a sign of life—nor wreckage either. It's all on the reef."

So interested had the boys been in the fragments of broken wood on the jagged rocks that they had not noticed that the motorboat was edging in closer to the reef. There was a strong current at this point and, unnoticed by the boys, the boat was being carried irresistibly forward.

A warning shout from the lads in the Napoli told them of their danger.

Frank had throttled down the engine so that the Sleuth had been almost drifting. Now he sprang for the helm, conscious of the peril that had crept so insidiously upon them.

The great black rocks of the reef loomed closer. The motorboat seemed to be dragged mercilessly toward its doom. The powerful current had the craft firmly in its grasp!

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 through trouble and unhappiness, that the great achievements of art and science are attained. Until such an individual indicates that he wants advice, it is not for us to urge our services upon him.

There are, however, situations in which one is justified in intervention even against the will of the person in difficulty. These are when a man is demonstrably incapable of managing his own affairs, when he is so neglectful of his children as to endanger their morals and their physical well-being, or when he does this deliberately, and when he is a menace to the health and life of his associates. Society has recognized such conditions as prejudicial to its welfare and has established laws and a definite procedure for dealing with them when they arise. For the person who is of unsound mind, it is possible through the courts to have a guardian appointed, and, if necessary, to have the mentally defective individual committed to an institution. The court can take children from parents who are ill-treating or neglecting them, and in many States the department of health has authority to remove from his home the diseased person who is endangering the health of his family and of his neighbors. There is vast room for dis-


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 cussion about when a man is incapable of managing his own affairs and when he is a menace to the health and life and morals of others, but experience in bringing questions of this sort before the courts enables public health officials and social case workers to know what evidence will be required by judges and lawyers; and when a family appears to be suffering by reason of the actions of one or more of its members, it is wise to consult the appropriate municipal department or social agency before acting.

Except in situations of this sort, intervention that is not invited runs the risk of failure. This may mean having to watch a friend's distress grow greater and greater when we feel certain that we could be of assistance. Often, however, matters must become worse before they can become better. Sometimes a man must reach the depths before the realization of his misery becomes strong enough to imbue him with the will to achieve a solution of his problems.

There is always the hope that he may of his own strength be able to overcome his difficulties; and this is vastly more important than that we should have the satisfaction of aiding him. The sense of achievement and of power that springs


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 from meeting and making his own adjustments is too precious a possession to be denied to any human being. That which makes for the development of the person in trouble, which increases his strength, which adds to his character, should be the goal of every one who truly cares for other people; and there is nothing which will do more to forward the winning of this goal than the solution of a man's problems by himself.

It is when he decides that this is not possible that the time for help comes. So long as he does not run counter to the lives of others, our service to him is greatest when we await his call for assistance; when we undertake the art of helping only after having been asked to help.


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help a man out of trouble one must know and understand him. This would seem to be axiomatic. The surgeon does not operate until he is intimately acquainted with the physical condition of his patient. The lawyer does not venture an opinion upon a contract without first informing himself about the legal issues involved. Before ever ground is broken, the architect has ascertained how much stress each floor of the projected building will bear. No one would entrust a watch to a jeweler who began by indiscriminately pottering among springs and pinions instead of intelligently endeavoring to discover what was wrong. Certainly, then, when the difficulty concerns a human being, we should approach its adjustment from as complete a knowledge and understanding of him as it is possible to obtain.

Yet knowledge and understanding are precisely


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 the elements most frequently lacking in human relationships. Although people have learned the value of the fact in science and in dealing with material things, they have still to make any general application of it in their association with each other. Here supposition usually has precedence over information. Prejudice outranks evidence and impulse comes before reason. There is no better proof of this than the number of voters, who, without so much as an attempt at verification, allow their electoral decisions to be influenced by the slanders which are whispered about the personal lives of political candidates. The world made up its mind about revolutionary Russia before it had learned to know either Russia or the revolution; and it is not only the schoolgirl, who, without inquiry into causes, pronounces as 'stuck up' the acquaintance who does not notice her as she passes by.

This failure to appreciate the importance of examination and understanding enters even into the family circle. It jeopardizes the harmony between husband and wife and makes difficult the bringing-up of children. Mark Twain's account of how Aunt Polly punished Tom Sawyer for breaking a sugar bowl, which he had not broken, is typical of what happens in many homes.


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 One evening, it will be remembered, Aunt Polly caught Tom stealing sugar from the table and rapped his knuckles by way of reproof. Later, while she was out of the room, Sid, Tom's usually well-behaved half-brother, reached for the sugar bowl. It slipped between his fingers and fell to the floor. Aunt Polly returned and discovered the fragments. Tom awaited the punishment of the offender, not without a certain sense of satisfaction, but "the next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted to strike again when Tom called out: 'Hold on, now, what er you belting me for? Sid broke it!'

"Aunt Polly paused perplexed." She had punished the wrong boy. Of course, she was too proud to confess her error, and, overcome with self-pity, Tom stalked away into the night. Life was awry between nephew and aunt. If only Aunt Polly had stopped to learn the facts!

She was, however, no different from the rest of human beings in this respect. One need not look far to find many repetitions of her mistake. There was Mrs. Brown whose relatives were estranged from her because of the constant crying of her baby. The family blamed the mother's


text: The Missing Chums/Chapter 5

title: The Missing Chums/Chapter 5


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 lack of firmness. They said that the child cried because he had not been properly trained. He had all the appearance of health, and so it did not occur either to the mother or to the relatives that he might not be well. Finally, the situation became so uncomfortable for Mrs. Brown that she left her home. The difficulty was brought to the attention of a social case worker, who suggested that the baby be examined by a physician. A slight intestinal trouble was discovered which an operation corrected. The boy ceased his fretfulness and the cause of difference between the mother and the relatives was removed.

Social case work abounds in similar illustrations, showing how dependent upon facts human problems are for their solution. It is seldom possible to recognize at sight the nature of another person's trouble. Usually what we see on first acquaintance are only symptoms. People generally postpone seeking advice about their personal affairs until they are facing a crisis, and then it is their immediate perplexity from which they want relief. It bulks so large that often they can think of nothing else and emphasize it to the exclusion of the real problem. So it is that one of the first lessons to be learned about helping other


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 people is the importance of looking behind the present difficulty for the disturbing cause, of diagnosing the adjustment that must be made.

It is essential, also, to discover the things within and without the individual to which he can turn for the material he may need in building his life anew. This involves learning to know the personal characteristics of the man who is in trouble: his appearance, his mannerisms, his disposition and temperament, his qualities of character, his habits and his interests, his ambitions, his desires, his talents, his skills, his physical and mental capacity.

It involves learning whether he has any plan for meeting his difficulties and what that plan is, and how he has met similar problems in the past. Likewise is it important to be acquainted with the extent and variety of his resources. What are his assets? They may be many and varied. When a man is suddenly stricken with illness, his most valuable resource may be the hospital that his taxes or his contributions have been instrumental in maintaining. Membership in a civic club was one of the assets which a woman used in making her adjustment to widowhood. When her husband died, she found in her efforts to improve


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 living conditions in her neighborhood an interest that helped to fill the gap that death had made in her life.

To be informed about a man's savings and his credit, or their absence, may be as important in aiding him to solve his problems as information of this kind would be in reconstructing a business on the verge of a receivership. An individual's friends, his relatives, the members of his immediate family, are another valuable asset.

It was the discovery of a resource in relatives that changed entirely the latter course of the lives of two old people. They had reached the years of feebleness and declining strength, and now, alone and apparently friendless, they were living sparingly in two rooms, each with an evergrowing fear of what might happen to the other if he or she were taken first.

The question was not so much one of the physical comforts of life. A home for the aged would have been glad to receive them, or it would have been possible for them to obtain a stipend upon which they could continue to live together, but this would not have solved the problem of their loneliness. They needed to spend their last days among their own kith and kin, and it was rela-


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 tives that the social case worker, whom they had asked for help, endeavored to find.

The old people had lost all trace of the other members of their family. One clue after another was followed, the search leading first away from the city and then back to it, until at last, within three quarters of an hour's ride on the street car, half a dozen nephews and nieces were found, all living in the same neighborhood.

Years before the old man had violated the ancient family custom by which the great Bible with its history of births, christenings, marriages, and deaths descended to the oldest son. Being the youngest, and coveting the privilege that could not be his by right, he took it by stealth and disappeared. Sometime later he went to live with one of his sisters. Both broke with the rest of the family, and it was not until the social worker was called into consultation that they learned that they were not alone in the world, but that near by there were those to whom they were 'Uncle Sam' and 'Aunt Mary,' and who, the past having been forgiven, would gladly welcome them into their homes.

Resources, then, are the assets a man has outside of himself. They may be economic; they


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 may be spiritual; they may be social. They may be his employer, his lodge, his church, his relatives, his bank account, his university, the municipal employment bureau, the hospital around the corner, his building and loan association. Always they are among the stanchest of the timbers that can be used in helping a person make his adjustments.

Along with the knowledge of them must go the facts which show the influences bearing immediately upon the individual's life. One must appreciate what might be called his setting. Setting may be either a succession of recent events or a present environment which is having a direct effect upon an individual's behavior. His family, his associates at work, the neighborhood in which he lives are all part of his setting. They condition his actions just as what we feel and do in the evening is affected by what has happened and by what we have done during the day.

It was setting which supplied the clue to the unusual behavior of Mrs. Doran. One morning a woman of charming personality called to see her. The two women had had a friendly acquaintance witheach other. Nevertheless, no sooner had Mrs. Doran caught sight of her visitor than she picked


text: The Missing Chums/Chapter 6

title: The Missing Chums/Chapter 6


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 up a vase and hurled it at her, and then, pushing her out of the house, slammed the door upon her. Considering only the pleasant character of the visitor and the previous cordial relations which had existed between her and Mrs. Doran, one could only conclude that Mrs. Doran was either vicious or insane. The possession of additional facts gives the incident its true interpretation.

Mrs. Doran's husband had tuberculosis. He had been away at a sanatorium, but having become homesick had returned to his family. The trip and life in the city had been a serious drain upon his health, and Mrs. Doran saw that he was steadily losing the strength he had gained in the mountains. About this time she learned that the older of her two boys had been infected with his father's disease and that it would be necessary for him to take the cure. Application was made for the admission of Mr. Doran and his son to the sanatorium, and Mrs. Doran decided that she would insure their staying away until their disease was arrested by giving up her home. Her younger son, Henry, was sent to live with a family in a neighboring suburb and Mrs. Doran made preparations to store her furniture as soon as the sanatorium could receive the two patients. A month


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 passed. Twice word was received that there was a place for Samuel, the boy who was sick. Each time on the very day when he was to leave, and after Mrs. Doran had nerved herself to the wrench of separation, notice arrived that his departure would have to be delayed. Meanwhile, Henry seemed to be enjoying his new home so much that his mother began to worry lest in the presence of greater comforts he would forget his parents and his brother.

On the day that Mrs. Doran's visitor called, Samuel's trip to the sanatorium had just been postponed for the third time. Mr. Doran had been venting his own irritation upon his wife and had been abusing her so violently that she had been obliged to take refuge in the cellar where she had spent the night. Morning found her physically and nervously exhausted. Her head ached and she was worried to distraction. She had reached the breaking point.

At this critical time the caller appeared, and with a pleasant smile asked how she was feeling. It was the last straw. To see any other human being cheerful at that moment was more than Mrs. Doran could endure, and she hurled at her visitor the first thing upon which she could lay


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 years have passed and we are no longer young men and we have nothing put by.”

“I advise that you take the words of Algamish and say to yourselves, ‘A part of all I earn belongs to me.’ Say it in the morning when you first arise. Say it at noon. Say it at night. Say it each hour of every day. Say it to yourself until the words stand out like letters of fire across the sky.

Impress yourself with the idea. Fill yourself with the thought. Then take whatever portion seems wise. Let it be not less than one tenth and lay it by. Arrange your other expenditures to do this if necessary. But lay by that portion first. Soon you will realize what a rich feeling it is to have something upon which you alone have claim. As it grows it will stimulate you. A new joy of life will thrill you. Greater efforts will come to you to earn more. For of your increased earnings, will not the same percentage be also yours to keep?

Then learn to make your treasure work for you. Make it your slave. Make its children and its children’s children work for you. Invest it cautiously. Avoid frisking your principal in the hope of usurious returns. Beware the dreamer and the schemer and all who have not proven their sound judgment and dependability.

Counsel with wise men. Seek the advice of men whose daily work is handling money. Let them save you from such an error as I myself made in entrusting my money to the judgment of Azmur, the brickmaker. A small return and a safe one is far more desirable than risk.

Enjoy life while you are here. Do not overstrain or try to save too much. If one tenth of all you earn is as much as you can comfortably keep, be content to keep this portion. Live otherwise according to your income and let not yourself get niggardly and afraid to


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 hands, an understandable action when we know its setting.

Similarly, our attitude toward the man who apparently is listless and uninterested in his work changes when we learn that he is having to stay up most of the night nursing a sick wife. There was a time when truancy was thought to be entirely due to difficulties innate with the schoolboy, difficulties that might be corrected by sending him to a special school, but experience has shown that often the home from which the child comes is chiefly responsible for his trouble. The parents may be discouraging him, they may be ill-treating him, or they may not be taking enough interest in him. In his setting may lie the explanation of his truancy.

Immediate environment and recent events are not always enough to enable one to understand the man in trouble. Sometimes his difficulty lies deeper. Its solution may be determined by his early life and training. Facts of this kind which have to do with the previous, as contrasted with the current history of the individual, social case workers call background.

It was the knowledge of the background of George McKloskey which made possible an un-


text: The Missing Chums/Chapter 7

title: The Missing Chums/Chapter 7


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 derstanding of his present difficulties and the helping of him to make a better adjustment.

McKloskey was considered to be a failure by all who were acquainted with him. He had not succeeded in supporting his family. He had never held a job for any length of time. He had made no friends. He seemed, if anything, to avoid his neighbors and his fellow workmen. He complained frequently of feeling tired and worn out. His relatives said that he was lazy, and because he was silent, called him "dummy." Even his wife who loved him dearly began to wonder whether he was not too easily exhausted and whether he ought not to do more for his family. Various attempts were made to solve his problem. None of them was successful. As soon, however, as the background of his life was learned, the way out of trouble became clear.

McKloskey had been born in a small mill town. His mother died when he was still little more than a baby, and his father, a drinking man, married a woman who had seen the bottom of fully asmany glasses as he. The child knew little except hard work and abuse. Almost his earliest recollection was that of being kicked into the street by his father with the command that he beg food of the neighbors.


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 He had not spent a day in school. At nine years he went to the factory that his parents might profit by his wages, and there he worked long hours until he was sixteen. Then he grew weary of the drudgery and hardship of his life and the regularity with which his father appropriated his pay envelope. He ran away from home and came to the city. There he knocked about from one job to another. He had barely passed his twenty-first birthday when he met the girl whoa few months later became his wife. Whatever his difficulties in living had been before, they were soon accentuated by the responsibilities of a family, and life became more and more miserable for him and for the household.

Underlying all his experiences were two great emotional facts. He had not gone far past boyhood when he began to suffer from attacks of epilepsy. They were not frequent, but they were always imminent. Sometimes they seized him at work, sometimes on the street. He could never tell where or how they would develop. When he was in the throes of one, his wife seemed better able to take care of him than anybody else, and aside from the fear which he had of them at any time, he dreaded a visitation in her absence. They


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 left him weak and nervously exhausted, so that he had no energy for work.

But he suffered from even a greater handicap. He was illiterate. This was one reason why his jobs were so many and so brief. Sooner or later a situation would develop which would demand an ability to read and he would either be discharged or he would leave through shame. For he was an American of American parentage. If he had been of foreign birth, less would have been expected of him. He would have expected less of himself. Always there was with him this second dread, the dread of the discovery that he could not read. More than the fear of epilepsy it was this which caused him to avoid the company of his fellow workmen. It deprived him of the assurance which every man needs in order to make new acquaintances.

It influenced him in his social life. Several times he had suffered embarrassing disclosures. Once while visiting some friends he was found reading a magazine upside down. On another occasion he had been obliged to confess his inability to tell the time, but the most serious of all the unfortunate incidents that developed from his lack of education happened in Sunday school. Church


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 had been a refuge to him from his troubles. He had found solace and self-expression in religion and he was rarely absent from services.

Then one afternoon in Sunday school the teacher of the Bible class asked him to read a verse of Scripture. McKloskey tried to decline, but the more he demurred the more insistent did the teacher become in encouraging this apparently bashful young man. Finally McKloskey left his seat and walked out of the room, his face ablaze with mortification. That broke his connection with the church.

With each new experience, either of this kind or of an attack of epilepsy, McKloskey's fears grew stronger, until he lost all confidence in himself. He became ashamed of his appearance, although his clothes were no worse than those of many of his neighbors, and in order to avoid being seen he almost never entered his own house by the front door.

Is it surprising that, with such a background of fear and barrenness of opportunity, McKloskey should have been shy, that his jobs were shortlived, and that he made few friends? Yet McKloskey had character; he was not without initiative; he had a substantial asset in the devo-


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 tion of his wife; both he and she had a sense of humor which enabled them to laugh at the worst of their difficulties; he had a strong and abiding interest in work in the soil—'the ground is just like a fellow to me,' was how he expressed it. When these and other facts appeared, the way in which McKloskey could find his niche became plain. He needed an environment to which he could feel equal and in which he would have a sense of security and comfort. This sort of environment was found for him in a village of a few hundred people from which he could go to work on a neighboring truck farm, and where there was a simple, friendly atmosphere that after the complicated life in the city made him feel immediately at home.

As in the helping of McKloskey, so with many another person, a knowledge of background may be the determining factor in making possible a readjustment to life. A man is what he has been. He is truly a part of all that he has met and there is no better key to his present than that which he has thought and experienced in the past. If, in addition to knowing a man's background, we know his setting, his resources, and his personal characteristics, we are close to understanding the man himself.


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 There can, of course, be no final knowledge of human beings and their difficulties, no complete acquaintance with them. Seldom are the depths of personality plumbed, seldom are all experiences disclosed. Personal characteristics, a man's plans for himself, resources, setting, and background, are merely categories under which one can assemble at any given time the facts which he possesses about a man. They make possible a tentative diagnosis, a diagnosis of the situation as it presents itself to-day. To-morrow it may be altered by additional facts; for unlike materials and machines people are forever changing and forever new.

The great essential in arriving at an appreciation of men and women is to remember that all information about human beings is relative and must ever be subject to revision. Then, and then only, are we prepared successfully to apply the four categories that have been described, and thereby to achieve the knowledge and the understanding of other people which are necessary to the helping of them out of trouble.


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task even of approximating a knowledge of other people would be impossible were it not for the fundamental need which every human being has for self-revelation. If this is true when the course of life is clear and undisturbed, it is most assuredly true when a man is in difficulty. Then reticence requires an almost conscious effort and confession is often a necessity. There are times when the urge to unburden one's self will not be denied and one is compelled to speak.

The experience that befell a social worker while on a train returning from the seashore is by


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 no means uncommon. A shift in the crowd which filled the aisle of the car—it was the evening of the Fourth of July—placed him opposite a young man who had come on board at the last stop. The man might possibly have been a mechanic, Plainly he was a sturdy, hard-working, self-respecting fellow, not at all the kind of person to air his affairs in public. He asked the social worker when they were due at the terminal and the latter in reply brought forth his time-table. A few minutes later a question about hotels was asked, and answered.

Beyond this there was no conversation. After a quarter of an hour the train approached its destination and the social worker began edging his way toward the platform. The young man followed him, and, as they reached the steps said with a sigh:

"Well, I'm feeling mighty blue to-night."

"That's too bad," the social worker replied. "This isn't a day on which to feel blue."

There was a pause for a moment or two. The train had slowed almost to a stop. Then, the young man continued:

"I've just said good-bye to the best friend I have on earth."


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 "Oh, I'm sorry," his companion responded. "I'm' sorry."

They left the car and started walking down the platform together.

"I'm as much in love with her now as when I married her," the first man remarked; and he began to tell his story. For an hour and a half these two, who until that evening had been strangers to each other, remained in the station while the unhappy husband disclosed the things that were troubling him, many of them of the most intimate character.

He had just left this wife who, he discovered, had been unfaithful to him. The whole tragedy was recent and vivid in his mind and the compulsion to tell was stronger than his natural reticence. The social worker was the first person to whom he happened to speak after leaving home, and to him, therefore, he revealed his distress.

As with this man, so with many people, inhibitions are weakest immediately after an emotional experience. It is then that such persons are most likely to tell what is upon their minds. With others the desire to tell is cumulative in its urgency, until at length they can hold their secrets no longer.


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 spend. Life is good and life is rich with things worth while and things to enjoy.”

His friends thanked him and went away. Some were silent because they had no imagination and could not understand. Some were sarcastic because they thought that one so rich should divide with old friends not so fortunate. But some had in their eyes a new light. They realized that Algamish had come back each time to the room of the scribes because he was watching a man work his way out of darkness into light. When that man had found the light a place awaited him. No one could fill that place until he had for himself worked out his own understanding, until he was ready for opportunity.

These latter were the ones, who, in the following years frequently revisited Arkad, who received them gladly. He counseled with them and gave them freely of his wisdom as men of broad experience are always glad to do. And he assisted them in so investing their savings that it would bring in a good interest with safety and would neither be lost nor entangled in investments that paid no dividends.

THE TURNING POINT in these men’s lives came upon that day when they realized the truth that had come from Algamish to Arkad and from Arkad to them.


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 It is, indeed, the unusual man who is able to resist the desire to unburden himself, and frequently the price of resistance is a miserable and an embittered personality. People want to tell. When they hesitate, it is only because they wish to be certain that they have found an individual in whom with security they can confide. And by security they mean, not merely safety from a repetition to others of what they have told, or the assurance of action that can be taken to help them, but also the far greater security that comes from the knowledge that they are understood, for people seem almost instinctively to believe, and rightly, that the individual who understands them will guard their secrets and will be able to advise them.

Whatever success a man has in learning to know those whom he is called upon to help rests largely upon whether or not they see in him this capacity to understand. It is the surest introduction to confidences. The person who would possess it must have a fundamental respect for other people. He must feel the unique importance of each individual who approaches him and he must have a faith in human nature that is founded, not upon a sheltered optimism, but upon a know-


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 ledge of the facts. "Diogenes," says Chesterton, "looked for his honest man inside every crypt and cavern; but he never thought of looking inside the thief." He who would receive the confession of another man must see honesty in the thief without being blind to his thievery. He must feel neither surprise nor horror at any revelation that may be made to him, no matter how unusual. It is not enough to be silent and to refrain from expressing these emotions. They must not even exist.

He must be impersonal. He must not judge. His attitude toward the person who has revealed himself must not change from what it was before the secret was disclosed. "I told you," explained one woman who had confided to another woman certain things about herself unknown even to her husband, "because I knew that it would not make any difference." It is the capacity to hear the worst or the best in human nature and to accept it neither as worst nor as best, but as life, which is the supreme test of him who would become the confidant of his fellows.

This is by no means an unapproachable ideal. Granted that one has faith in human beings and a liking for them, he can cultivate understanding as


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 he would cultivate any other attitude of mind. It is largely the outgrowth of an enlightened experience in dealing with people in trouble. The man whose first response to abnormalities in the conduct of his neighbor is—"I won't have anything to do with him. His actions are outrageous. He's no good. He doesn't amount to anything"—soon finds his ideas changing when he is faced with the necessity of helping the person of whose behavior he does not approve. Then the conduct which aroused his anger or his disgust becomes a problem to be solved. The more unusual the behavior, the greater he finds the challenge to his ability. He seeks more and more for causes and solutions and, in doing so, obliterates his old prejudices and preconceptions. He begins to appreciate some of the handicaps under which human beings less fortunately placed than himself live; and thus gradually he acquires the attitude and point of view that those in need of help seek in selecting a person to whom to tell their secrets.

Character and personality are not the only introduction to confidences, nor are they alone always enough to encourage self-revelation. Circumstance plays an important part in causing


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 people to tell their secrets, and sometimes seemingly superficial things indicate to people the sort of person who will understand them.

The mere fact that a man is a physician or a social case worker is to many people a guarantee, not simply that they can expect competence and helpfulness, but that they will receive a sympathetic hearing. Certainly no one is entrusted with more secrets than those who follow these two callings. With what difficulty does a physician achieve a vacation. Let it be known that his profession is medicine and the most casual conversation will develop into a revelation of the intimate facts about the life of his vis-à-vis. Similarly the social case worker usually accepts rather than solicits the confidences of those in trouble. The men and the women to whom other men and women may reveal themselves are so few that he whose position or training gives promise of insight and an open mind is singled out for this service.

Of all the circumstances which are taken to indicate the capacity to understand, perhaps the most common is a kinship in experience. One mother will tell another mother what she would be slow to confide to an unmarried person. Mem-


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 bers of the same profession, those who have suffered a similar bereavement, men who have faced danger together, have a sense of mutual appreciation that helps them to unburden themselves. How often has one person been heard to say of another, "He's been through it; he knows."

Frequently it is helpful to match what the person in trouble is revealing with a revelation of something in one's own life. It reassures the man in trouble to learn that the handicap or the difficulty which he had thought to be unusual is familiar to others, and that the person who is listening to his story has faced a similar problem. There is a value in the mere sharing of experiences. It gives a person a sense of security to find that his confidant is ready to give of himself as well as to take.

Next, perhaps, to this kinship in experience as a means of helping people to reveal themselves is a kinship in interests.

A social case worker had been called upon for advice about the apparent incompatibility of a husband and wife. Both were Armenians. The woman who had been deserted by the man accused him of neglect, abuse, and non-support. Her relatives endorsed all she said.


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 It was important that the social worker should learn the man's side of the story. Accordingly she called at the home of a friend of his, also an Armenian.

"I have come to see you," she explained to the woman who answered her ring, "because I am trying to help some friends of yours, Mr. Terian and his wife."

Instantly a mask seemed to fall down over the face of the woman.

"I know nothing," she replied.

It was winter-time and the weather was raw, and so the social worker stepped into the hall saying, "It's a cold day. May I come in for a few minutes?"

Mrs. Demoyan took her visitor into the living-room.

After the two women were seated, the visitor began, "You're an Armenian, aren't you? I have been so interested in Armenia because it has had such a terrible struggle. How long did you live there?"

Simple and obvious though this introduction was, it immediately brought a response. The subject was of the greatest consequence to Mrs. Demoyan, and she began talking about her life in Armenia.


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 "They have different customs about marriage over there, haven't they?" the visitor suggested after a while.

Mrs. Demoyan replied by saying that she had not known her husband until the day before she was married. She added that Mr. and Mrs. Terian had met each other only five days before their wedding.

A more desirable approach to the purpose of the interview could not have been found. In a very few minutes Mrs. Demoyan had told Mr. Terian's story and had promised to send him to call upon the social worker in order that he might talk with her about his marital difficulties.

Interests are inherently seductive. It is almost impossible to refrain from talking about them once they are suggested, and, as with Mrs. Demoyan, the transition from the impersonal to the more intimate interest takes place almost unconsciously. This is particularly true of the use of reminiscence as a means of learning to know elderly people. The past which they enjoy describing supplies the very background that is essential to him who is trying to understand their problems, and at the same time serves as an introduction to the other facts which it may be necessary to obtain.


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O your contant Refual, when I have aked Leave to prefix your Name to this Dedication, I mut till init on my Right to deire your Protection of this work.


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 There is a value in conversation upon subjects other than the one of immediate importance. It gives the man in need of help an opportunity to become acquainted with the personality of the individual who desires to aid him. While this can be carried to the point at which it becomes a waste of time, there is often no other way of conveying to a person the assurance that here is one with whom he can feel safe. This applies also to doing things together. A lunch, a talk across a restaurant table, an afternoon stroll, may bring forth secrets that no interview in an office could produce. Again and again, the boy or the girl whose reticence has resisted all efforts at conversation has been helped to self-revelation by the influence of an afternoon in a moving-picture show or a ride on a motor-bus.

There is about the doing of things together something which takes from a man the consciousness of being observed. Many people, no matter how much confidence they may place in the person to whom they are talking, prefer not to have him looking into their faces while they speak. To know that he is being noticed reminds a man of himself and makes him self-conscious. If he is seated by the side of his confidant instead of


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 opposite, this sense of being watched does not become so strong. The idea that an individual is more likely to reveal his secrets when he is in the shadow than when he is in the full glare of light is not without its foundation in experience. We want to tell our secrets unobserved even by the person to whom they are being revealed.

Far more important than this in aiding an individual to unburden himself is the demonstration of a friendly interest in him. It was sucha demonstration which caused a young unmarried mother to talk to a social case worker about the father of her baby when she had been unable to discuss it with any oneelse. Instead of seeking an interview upon this subject, the social worker had written a note to the girl asking whether she would not like to enter night school. She knew that the young woman was anxious to learn bookkeeping. When the girl arrived, the conversation was first directed to her new job. She had just obtained a position which gave her an opportunity to work with figures and which greatly pleased and interested her. The question of further training in business was discussed, and plans were made for her admission to an evening high school. Not


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 until then did the social worker venture upon the real subject of the interview.

"Do you feel like talking about Walter, now, Nina?" she asked. Walter was the name of the father of the baby.

The girl began to cry. She had kept her troubles to herself for so long a time, she said, that she had become hopeless. She was relieved to be able to speak about her anxieties. Secure in the friendly interest of the social worker, she told her story.

Sometimes so gradual an approach to the facts is unnecessary and it is possible to go directly to the heart of the trouble.

Two friends who had not seen each other for more than a year chanced to meet on the street.

"How have things been going?" asked the first.

"Fairly well," was the somewhat doubtful reply, and the first speaker, observing a cloudiness about the usually clear and alert glance of his friend, went straight to that which he desired to know.

"Jim," he said, with concern, "are you worried?"

Jim was worried. His friend had opened the door to his story and he laid bare his anxieties.

Even more interesting was the opening ques-


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 tion of a physician who was being consulted by an extremely nervous person. She was so excited when she entered his office that she was visibly trembling. The doctor saw his opportunity.

"Are you always as nervous as this?" he asked. Nothing could have been better planned to relieve the patient. By recognizing her difficulty instead of appearing to ignore it, he placed her at once in a free state of mind and soon she was telling him about herself.

"The manner in which this first approach is made to the individual in difficulty frequently determines the success of the interview. This is illustrated by the different ways in which two persons set about helping an ex-soldier out of trouble. The soldier had been discharged from a hospital which reported: There is nothing wrong with the man physically. He seems to be worried about something. Possibly he may be having trouble with his wife."

A young man, a novice in social case work called to see him. Having in mind the statement from the hospital, his greeting to the patient was: "The doctor says you seem to be worried about something. Are you having trouble with your wife?"


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 The soldier, of course, assured the young man that he had not a worry in all the world and that his wife was a great comfort and help to him. More than this he would not say, and in despair the young man asked a social worker of maturity and experience to see what she could accomplish.

On entering the room, she noticed beside the bed a tray with the breakfast upon it untouched. The soldier lay partly propped by pillows. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

"Not very hungry this morning," the visitor began, looking at the tray.

The soldier shook his head, but made no reply.

"Well, it's hard to eat when you're not feeling just right," continued the woman. "Were you able to eat any supper last night?"

"Not much," the soldier replied.

"I'm not surprised," said the visitor. "Most men don't like to take their meals in bed. Why don't you ask the landlady to put the tray on the table over there?"—pointing across the room. "Then you could sit up. It would give you more of an appetite."

"I couldn't," replied the man; "I'd be afraid."

"I know," said the social worker understand-


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 ingly; "you'd feel as if you were going to topple over any minute."

"Yes."

"Especially out on the street, when you're alone. I've had the same feeling myself."

"When you were waiting for the trolley car?" inquired the soldier.

"Yes," answered the social worker, who it happened had had a nervous breakdown. "I used to feel as if I were going to drop. I used to have all sorts of queer feelings."

The soldier showed that he was interested. The tears had stopped.

"What did you do?"

"Just grit my teeth and kept on waiting until the car came."

"What happened?"

"Nothing. After I had stuck it out for a while, the feeling didn't come back." Then, taking a turn at questioning, "Do you find it worse in the morning or at night?"

"Won't you sit down?" the soldier interrupted with a nod toward the chair near the foot of the bed. "It's worse in the afternoon, I always feel weaker then. I guess I get tired by the work at the vocational school. I always feel faint."


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 "Perhaps you haven't been eating enough for lunch. That's a poor way of economizing—unless one has to," suggested the social worker.

"My Government allowance hasn't been coming regularly," explained the soldier.

Allotments and allowances during and after the war were a subject of interest to every soldier. In answer to a few questions, but largely without suggestion, the young man told when the payments had stopped, how much he had received, how long he had been sick, and when he had been disabled.

"So you see, I haven't always been able to afford lunch," he concluded.

"That's probably a good part of your trouble," the social worker replied. "Three hearty meals a day would make you feel differently. I'll have the landlady send up some hot coffee—I'm afraid this is cold—and some toast. And I'll have her arrange a good lunch and dinner for you. Then you'll feel more like yourself. To-morrow you come and see me and we'll try to do something about your compensation."

The next morning the soldier appeared at her office. The talk had been enough to enable him to master, at least for a time, the neurosis from


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 which he was suffering. Of his own accord, in connection with the plans for obtaining compensation, he remarked that he was sorry not to be able to send money home, and then the fact that he was worried about not being able to support his wife was disclosed, as well as many another fact about himself. Building on this knowledge, the social worker was able to help the soldier to make the adjustments that restored him to health and family.

So it is with most people in difficulty. They want to tell about the things which are worrying them, and if they are only approached in the right way they will disclose their secrets. Trouble seals the lips of few. Usually it compels revelation. Human beings must share their lives with others. Joy is too exquisite, sorrow too bitter, to be endured alone.

"I remember a man," wrote Mrs. Piozzi in her "British Synonymy," "much delighted in by the upper ranks of society in London some twenty years ago, who, upon a trifling embarrassment in his pecuniary affairs, hanged himself behind the stable door, to the astonishment of all who knew him as the liveliest companion and most agreeable converser breathing. 'What upon earth,' said one


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 at our house, 'could have made hang himself?' 'Why, just his having a multitude of acquaintance,' replied Dr. Johnson, 'and ne'er a friend.

Most people want to unburden themselves of the things that are troubling them. The person in difficulty may share his secret in part here and in part there, or he may select some one to whom he reveals the whole story. In one way or another he will seek to relieve himself of the load he has been carrying. All he asks is that his confidant be a person who will understand him and with whom he can feel secure.


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matter how fully and freely an individual may reveal his secrets, he is not likely to be able to present himself as he is. He may describe his thoughts and his feelings, but he can hardly hope accurately to evaluate his capacities and his characteristics, or to appreciate the force of the various influences that are playing upon him. He may consider himself to have certain abilities, while his employer would estimate his talents quite differently. His relations with his church or with his family might show him to be almost another person from the individual he thinks himself to be, while employer, clergyman, and family would differ from one another in the pictures they would draw of him.

To approach an understanding of an individual and his problems one must view him from as many


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 as possible of the major relationships of his life. The chief of these is usually the home. It is here that again and again the answer will be found to many of the difficulties in which a person finds himself. It was in the home that the handicaps which were affecting the adjustment of Martha, the little girl who was silent in school (described in Chapter II), arose, and it was in the home that the solution of the trouble of Mark Sullivan lay.

He had been one of the first men to be discharged when, under the stress of an industrial depression, the F. & M. Company began reducing its force. At one time he had been a capable and an efficient workman, but during more than a year he had been steadily deteriorating. He was sluggish and dull in the performance of his tasks, and he was almost never prompt in arriving at the shop in the morning. It was not surprising that he should have been dismissed.

The social case worker whom Sullivan consulted called at his home. She found it in disarray and confusion. Mrs. Sullivan evidently was a poor housekeeper. It developed that the meals were seldom ready on time and that frequently her husband had been obliged to prepare his breakfast in the morning, pack his lunch, and assume


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 the responsibility for the appearance of dinner on the table at night. No wonder his effectiveness as a workman had been impaired.

One source of difficulty seemed to be Mrs. Sullivan's health. A physician was consulted. His diagnosis pointed to the need of an operation. It was performed, but, although Mrs. Sullivan's general condition showed an improvement, she continued to be as listless and as delicate as before.

Then the social worker became acquainted with Mrs. Sullivan's mother who made her home there. She was an elderly woman, too feeble to be of any assistance in the housekeeping, but not too weak to have a most unfortunate influence upon Mrs. Sullivan. She was one of those people who delight in the discussion of symptoms and who take pleasure in anticipating the worst possible event when any crisis is at hand. It was this characteristic which, with the best of intentions, she had applied to her daughter's state of health. Did Mrs. Sullivan develop the slightest suggestion of a cold, her mother was sure to remark that this was just the most undesirable time of the year to have anything the matter with one; there was so much influenza, or there was so much pneumonia,


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 or there was so much of some other kind of disease about. A slight loss of color, or quite as readily, a slight heightening of color, would remind the old lady of the way in which the woman next door had begun to go down hill the winter she died of tuberculosis. A stomach ache suggested cancer. A headache always contained the possibility of mastoiditis. There was scarcely any change in the bodily condition of Mrs. Sullivan which did not bring to her mother the message of serious illness.

In such an environment it would truly have been a strong will that could have resisted the temptation to be delicate. It was suggested, therefore, that a place in a home for the aged be found for Mrs. Sullivan's mother. This advice was followed, and Mrs. Sullivan, freed from the ever-present suggestion of ill-health, began to take an interest in other things. She regained her strength. Her housekeeping correspondingly improved, and her husband was able successfully to meet the requirements of the new job which he had obtained. Neither Mr. Sullivan nor Mrs. Sullivan had sensed the cause of their trouble, and the social worker herself had not discovered it until she had become intimately acquainted with


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 the life of the family. The key to the problem lay there.

Many similar experiences might be cited as testimony to the importance of the home and the people living in it as a means of developing an understanding of an individual and his adjustments. It is toward the home and the family that the earliest steps—usually the first—should be taken in seeking an acquaintance with the person in trouble.

Our efforts should not end there. A man's other associates should be consulted. The importance of this is illustrated by the unsuccessful way in which at first the predicament of Esther Hansen was approached and the method by which later an understanding of her difficulty was obtained.

Miss Hansen had asked the father of one of her former schoolmates to lend her three hundred dollars. She was the only support of her parents, both well advanced in years, and of an invalid sister. At a time when houses were difficult to rent, she had been compelled to buy her home or lose it, and now the problem of meeting the interest upon the mortgage had become too great. She had no negotiable assets and no one among her


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 immediate acquaintance to whom she could turn. Very shortly her salary would be increased and the margin which this would yield would enable her to clear her debt in two years.

The presence of the woman, her evident culture, and her anxiety impressed the man. He sent a representative to visit her at her home. Here Miss Hansen made a further explanation of her financial worries. Her parents and her sister and the appearance of the household seemed to substantiate her story, and the loan was made.

After two years Miss Hansen asked the man for a second loan, although she had repaid only a few dollars of the first. A social worker who was consulted decided to talk with those with whom Miss Hansen was associated. The woman was the breadwinner of her family. She had numerous relatives. She was the patient of a physician. She was a governess. She was a subscription agent for a periodical. She had borrowed money from a loan office.

The loan office told a story of money advanced and not repaid. The circulation manager had been greatly annoyed by the complaints he was constantly receiving from persons who had subscribed through her for his magazine and then had


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 received no copies. She had given him neither their money nor their names. The family where Miss Hansen had been employed as a governess reported that she had been away on sick-leave for nearly six months, and even when working she would often appear in the morning and then not return in the afternoon. She was frequently absent without giving any advance notification. The substitute governess said that she had been obliged to go over again with the children whatver ground Miss Hansen was supposed to have covered, for they had learned absolutely nothing. Her physician stated that he had felt justified in defining her trouble as "nervous exhaustion." From the first time he had seen her three years ago, she had been erratic and often irrational. He ascribed her condition to her personal difficulties. She was highly nervous and had a tendency toward hysteria and melancholia.

A visit to Miss Hansen's home had previously disclosed the fact that her mother had died a few months before without having had a physician called. The house had fallen into a state of the wildest disorder and filth. The family possessions were strewn about miscellaneously. Mr. Hansen was a refined but impractical sort of man, well


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 advanced in years, who seemed to be utterly incapable of grappling with the situation. From what he said—and this was later confirmed by the relatives—Miss Hansen's mother had been of unsound mind. The invalid sister had never developed fully either physically or mentally.

The social worker now persuaded Miss Hansen to visit a psychiatrist, who reported that she was suffering from a manic-depressive form of mental disease in which in all likelihood heredity was a factor, and that probably her mental abnormality had been progressing slowly and steadily.

The relatives who were consulted said that they had been puzzled about Miss Hansen and were deeply interested in her. She had never taken them into her confidence, although she had often asked them for money and had always received what she requested. One of the relatives was a lawyer. He immediately offered to take charge of her legal affairs, which were exceedingly involved. He and the other members of the family were eager and willing to help her and her familyfamily. [sic]

Each of the persons who had been associated with Miss Hansen knew only his or her part of the story and was ignorant of the other aspects of her life. Miss Hansen herself had never realized what


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 her financial condition was. She said she had never had the courage to 'face herself.' Nobody, in short, knew the perplexed woman and her difficulties until the social worker, by talking to every one concerned, brought the isolated facts into a connected whole. Had this been done previously, Miss Hansen might have avoided much anxiety and a vast collection of petty debts. The children might have been spared her ineffective teaching, and the relatives might have been rallied immediately to the support and supervision of the household until the time when the two sisters could be admitted to an institution for chronic mental diseases.

The people who were consulted about Miss Hansen occupied a variety of relationships toward her. There were, for example, her physician and the psychiatrist who made possible a better understanding of her mental and nervous condition. Almost everybody has among his associates some one who stands in a professional relationship to him. Most of us if asked about our health could suggest a doctor who would answer this question better than we could. The same thing would be true of our legal affairs, of our relationship to the church, and, with children, of


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 their relationship to school. As with Miss Hansen, so with many other people, it will be found helpful to turn for advice to one or more or all of those who occupy what might be called a professional relationship to the person in trouble.

Closely allied to them are his associates in business. With Miss Hansen this meant the woman who employed her as governess, the loan office, and the circulation manager of the magazine for which she had been selling subscriptions. With another person a different group of people might be consulted, but usually it will be wise to include those who can interpret the vocational and the economic sides of an individual's life.

Even more important are a man's personal relationships, not only his immediate family, but his relatives and his friends. The relatives of Miss Hansen helped both by contributing to the social worker's appreciation of the woman's problem and by assisting in its solution. Sometimes our friends know us more intimately than our kin and are better able to advise us.

There is another source of understanding which in this particular situation it was not necessary to use but which frequently becomes helpful, namely, documents—marriage certificates, burial per-


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 mits, wills, birth records, deeds of sale. Again and again, when human beings have failed to supply the explanation, the written page has pointed the way to an understanding of an individual. The verification or the non-verification of a marriage may contain the explanation of much that before had not been appreciated, and many a human mystery has been revealed in the ponderous phraseology of a mortgage or the forgotten pages of a will.

It was Miss Hansen herself who told the social worker what persons were touching her life, and she did this in the first interviews that the two women had together. Obviously the earlier one learns about the professional, personal, and business relations of an individual in trouble, the sooner one will be able to help him. Miss Hansen eagerly assented to the suggestion that the social worker make the acquaintance of her associates and see what advice and help they might give. She had confidence in the social worker and understood the point of view from which her difficulty would be considered. Both of these things are important. We must always remember that we are acting for the person in trouble and that the task is far more delicate, far more complicated than a mere gather-


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 ing of information. One consults other people in order to obtain their advice, in order to learn how they can be of help to the man in difficulty, in order to obtain their position upon the question which is moot, and in order to present the point of view of the individual in trouble. It is out of this manifold service, this entrance into the interplay of relationships that an understanding of the man, of the nature of his adjustment and the circumstances accompanying it is gradually obtained. Let the person in trouble appreciate this attitude in the person who is helping him and he will forward every effort toward communication with those with whom he has been associated.

The friend who seeks to advise a friend has at the outset the advantage of acquaintance and is spared many a step that the stranger must take, but whether friend or stranger, this method of learning to know a man through his family, and through those who stand in a personal, professional, or business relationship to him will be found to be applicable and essential. Sooner or later if one desires to help wisely he will want to consult those whose privilege and right it is to be consulted, and who may both aid in making a


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 way out of difficulty—and in developing that understanding of the man in trouble—which, coupled with his own revelation of himself, is essential to the solution of his problems.


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surest way of overcoming trouble is to face it, squarely and without evasion, is to appreciate what it involves, to recognize it as it is. The worse the predicament, the more perplexing and disturbing, and the more one dreads it, the more important is it that one should reduce it to its elements, that one should analyze and evaluate it. It is the uncertainties, the unknown, the things we do not comprehend, that cause the greatest anxieties. The first step in extricating one's self from difficulty is to determine precisely what the nature of the difficulty is.

Not everybody succeeds always in doing this. As we draw closer to an understanding of the in-


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 dividual in trouble, through the processes described in the preceding chapters, we realize how often there is justification for that homely diagnosis, "he doesn't know what he's up against."

Many people have not enough knowledge of life and of men to grasp the meaning of the events and relationships which are affecting them. They need an interpreter. Indeed, the degree of success or failure with which an individual passes through an experience can almost be determined by the quality and the manner of his preparation for it. This is illustrated by the way in which two girls met a peculiarly difficult situation. Both were fourteen years of age, the daughters of widows. Both widows were about to be confined, and in each instance the baby would be born out of wedlock.

Esther Boardman went to stay with relatives some time before her mother entered the hospital. The words with which the child was welcomed became the text of the conversation during her visit.

"This is terrible. We are all disgraced. Your mother is a bad woman. We're so sorry for you."

Now, whatever distress the relatives may have


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 felt, their attitude showed a complete failure to deal with actuality. The baby that was about to be born was a fact which no amount of indignation could obviate. No matter what the woman had done, she was still Esther's mother, and the girl would be obliged soon to return to a daily and intimate association with her.

All this the relatives failed to appreciate, and instead of clarifying the situation they only beclouded it with prejudice and rancor, so that when Esther came home she could not tolerate either her mother or the baby. Not for months was she able to reconcile herself to what had happened, and it was only after the death of her little sister a year later that her affection for her mother once more expressed itself.

The second girl, Mary Culvert, happened to spend the period preceding and during her mother's confinement in the home of a woman of rare understanding and discernment. Both in her attitude and in what she said this woman tried to help Mary to face the situation as it was.

"The baby will need you more than most babies would," she explained. "It won't have a father as you had when you were little." She spoke of the difficulties confronting the mother


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 and how she would want the affection of her daughter. There would probably be criticism. It was the more important that Mary should show her mother that no matter what had happened she loved her.

What the woman said helped the girl to appreciate the situation. When she returned home, she exhibited a loyalty to her mother and the baby that was only increased by the unpleasantness of the neighbors, and the difficulty which might have been a means of separating daughter from mother became a bond that drew them closer together.

While in the helping of people out of trouble it can never be said with assurance that any single cause has effected any given result, certainly it was more than a coincidence that in these two histories success should have followed a facing of the facts, and failure a refusal to recognize them.

Various factors entered into the preparation of the second girl for her experience, perhaps the most important of which was that accompanying the explanation of her problem was the description of her mother's need of sympathy and support. There was an appeal to the child's instinct to defend and to protect.


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 Seldom are the elements in a situation so simple that the bare statement of them is sufficient to enable an individual to face them. Usually much depends upon the manner in which they are revealed. The issue may be determined, as here, by the mood in which the facts are presented or, as with Mrs. Gordon, by the way in which they are ordered and arranged.

Mrs. Gordon had been deserted by her husband. Having followed him to the place where he was now living, she had had several unsatisfactory interviews with him. He had been indifferent and evasive. A social worker sought in vain for a basis upon which the family might be reunited. Mr. Gordon was not to be moved. He regarded his separation from his wife as permanent and his actions more than supported his words.

Inasmuch as the family could not be reëstablished, it was important that Mrs. Gordon should recognize this and begin making the necessary adjustments. For months she had been living a kind of tentative existence, all her plans being unsettled by the possibility, ever present in her own mind, that her husband might rejoin her. The children had now reached an age at which, for the sake of their education, a degree of perma-


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 nence in residence was necessary, and they needed interests to take the place of those which under ordinary circumstances their father would have supplied. For their sakes as well as for her own, Mrs. Gordon needed to perceive the situation with which she was confronted.

The social worker set about helping her to do this in an interview which Mrs. Gordon began by saying that she was at a loss to account for her husband's behavior. For two years he had not supported his family. During a large part of this time, to be sure, he had had difficulty in obtaining work, but still he had not even written to her. Her friends felt that there was nothing good in him, but she believed that there must be an explanation. Sometimes it seemed as if the Arthur Gordon she had once known had disappeared.

"Perhaps the best thing to do," the social worker suggested, "would be to start at the beginning and see whether that won't help us to decide what to think."

She already knew much of what Mrs. Gordon would tell her, but she wanted Mrs. Gordon to provide a basis from which her past might be interpreted to her. And so, with the help of a few sympathetic questions, Mrs. Gordon, beginning


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 with her early life, told her story up to the time of her husband's desertion.

She had had a loveless and unhappy childhood. Both her parents had died before she had reached her sixth year and she had been brought up by an aunt who regarded the task as an unwelcome obligation and did not forget to impress this upon her niece. Having lived for a time in the city, the aunt moved to a village where there were no amusements and nothing which interested the girl until Mr. Gordon appeared. He was on a vacation, a good-looking, dashing sort of fellow, apparently ambitious, and with more of an education than Mrs. Gordon had had. He began an ardent courtship. It was the first time since her mother's death that any one had shown her affection. She fell in love with him, and after she had accepted his proposal of marriage he seduced her. She was ignorant of the significance of what she was doing, for she had only the most rudimentary knowledge of the physiology of sex.

A little while later, when the doctor whom she consulted told her that she was pregnant, she believed that she had committed the unpardonable sin. All the background of her religious training


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 seemed to draw in about her and she felt that she was cursed of God.

When Mr. Gordon consented to marry her, she saw him stooping down to lift up a fallen woman and save her from disgrace. Wholly overlooking his greater responsibility, she ever after felt toward him a sense of gratitude which blinded her to his many failings.

After their marriage they went to a city in the Middle West where Mr. Gordon began selling automobiles. Another baby closely followed the first, and, either by reason of her pregnancy or the necessity for taking care of the children, Mrs. Gordon was unable to take part in the social life of her husband, who soon developed a large acquaintance. He told her little about his business, except to say that it frequently necessitated absences from town. Accordingly, she did not worry when he was away from home for a week at a time. At first he had made a point of celebrating the anniversaries of their married life with gifts to her of flowers, or candy, or jewelry. This made an impression upon her that enabled her to overlook many lapses in conduct.

Once a rumor came to her that he was having an affair with one of her friends, but when the


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 woman assured her that the gossip was without foundation Mrs. Gordon was glad to be able to believe her.

Then, Mr. Gordon's sales began to decrease and the finances of the household went from bad to worse. Mr. Gordon suggested that he go to a neighboring city and see whether business would not be better there. As soon as he had saved some money, he would send for his wife and children and they would reëstablish their home. That was two years before. The rest of their experiences the social worker knew.

The story as related here was not the story that Mrs. Gordon told. Hers was simply a chronological recital of events. She did not attempt to evaluate her history. This the social worker now undertook to do for her. She began by taking Mrs. Gordon back over the story which she had just told.

She explained the connection between Mrs. Gordon's loveless childhood, her ignorance about sex, and her seduction by Mr. Gordon. She showed her the part her aunt's insistence had played in Mr. Gordon's willingness to marry her, the insincerity of her husband's absences from home while he was still nominally living with his


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 family, and how the woman who had denied any entanglement with him had deceived her. Then she helped Mrs. Gordon to see the significance of her husband's silence during the two years of his desertion.

The social worker was simply interpreting to Mrs. Gordon out of her own words the experiences through which she had gone. It was Mrs. Gordon who made the diagnosis. There seemed to be no other explanation, she said, except the one that her husband no longer cared for her. The social worker pointed out that perhaps he did not have the capacity for real affection. This might be either a temporary condition or a permanent handicap. It was also possible that there might be some one else whom he loved.

The ultimate fact, that Mrs. Gordon could not hope to be reunited with her husband and that upon her would fall the responsibility of making decisions for her children, was not mentioned, although, of course, it was present by implication. It would be enough for her to start by considering whether or not her husband loved her.

Mrs. Gordon then had an interview with Mr. Gordon which showed how much she had profited by the discussion of her problem. She said that


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 she had never realized that she could talk so frankly with him. They had gone over things together from the beginning, just as she and the social worker had done.

Mr. Gordon told his wife that he would lie to her no longer. He admitted that his love had never been anything but physical. He said that she "would have to go on without him except for financial support" which he realized he must supply. Thus, he himself confronted his wife with the adjustment which she must eventually make.

Neither this interview nor the one with the social worker was alone enough to cause Mrs. Gordon to accept the possibility of a permanent separation from her husband. The great revolutions in life are not so easily gone through with as this. These two interviews were just the beginning of her recognition that her home would have to be built upon a different basis. It required many weeks and the continued indifference of her husband to establish the inevitable finally in her mind and in her plans; but it was the revealing interview with the social worker that supplied the foundation for an understanding of what her life had been and the nature of the adjustment she must make.