Page:1954 Juvenile Delinquency Testimony.pdf/132

120 illness in children to the organizations devoted to those particular problems.

Therefore, when I appear here today upon invitation by your com- mittee connsel, to report on the viewpoint of our association on the subject of comics, I inust emphasize that our concern has not been with the relation of comic hooks to delinquency in general.

Rather, out of our longstanding work in the field of children's reading. our children's book corsmittee has given attention to the coneern of individual parents with the comics reading of therr own children—to allow or prohibit them, how to guide their chotees, prob- lems of management, et cetera.

Thes, naturally, has been our area of interest, since we are not an agency organized for sociological and psychological research, nor a pressure group organized for social acuion and reform.

in offering guidance to parents, (he absence of any definitive studies of the effects of comics reading on children's emotions and/or behavior hes been a serious handicap to us as to everyone dealing with this problein.

We heave, therefore, depended upon the judgment of individnals whose experience and professtonal standing should make their opin- ions significant.

As vou know, these opmions have differed widely, In this area, therefore, as in other arers of child psychology and edneation, we have found our function to be that of sorting out what seems to us the most authoritative and useful advice from responsible and reputable sourees, and of making this available to parents for thei giudance.

Against this background, 1 wonld like toe state brielly what we actually have dene in (his field. Our activity began in 1937 when the edneaiional consultant to our children's book committee, in a bool whout children's reading, discussed eoimic-strip reading, referring to ihe Sunday color supplements.

Mr. . Who is that?

Mr. . Miss Josette Frank. Ter background is an expert in children's reading. She recently celebrated her 30th anniversary with us as an ednealional consultant. She is un educator.

Mr. . Not a psychologist?

Mr. . No; Miss Frank, not Dr, Frank, as a result: of this discussion a few yeurs later, one of the large publishers of comes Inagazines invited this staff member to serutinize its cones magazines and make suggestions for improving and safegaurding them for children's reading.

Subsequently, she was retained by this publisher as an educational consulfant.

T world like to say parenthetieally, Miss Frank 1s only part time on our steth,

She was asked along with other people from the edneational and psychiatric fields, to help work out and maintain a code of practices for the euidance of their editors. This was in 1941.

In 1943 the Child Stndy Association set about making a survey of all conde magazines, through its children's looic committee, in order to be better able to guide parents who sought our advice in this connection.

Our original intention was to offer some selected listing of suitable magazines in various categories. But because of the fluid nature of