Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/542

 �Healey's Instruction Box

This wooden box is modeled after the principles of a safe. Oral instruc- tions are given as to the method of opening the door. This can be accom- plished only if the steps in the procedure are accurately followed, one after the other. Mechanical manipulation, memory, and the ability to follow in- structions are involved in the per- formance of this test. It may also be suggestive as regards the vocational aptitudes of the subject being tested

��A YOUNG man of eighteen and a com- panion entered a tenement building. They seemed to be peddlers. They knocked at a door and entered a flat. Within was an old man, confined to a chair, helpless, and stone blind. One of the two peered about to find out if the old man was really alone. The other — the eighteen-year-old youth — took a hammer and knocked the old man senseless. Then the Hat was looted. The two robbers were caught as they fled.

Why was such violence nec- essary? Couldn't the blind old man have been restrained without cruelly beating him ? These are the ques tions of any normal, intel

��What Makes a Criminal?

Reaching the minds of those who habitually rob and kill

By Dr. L. E. Bisch

Dr. Bisch is one of the leading authorities on abnormal psychology in this country. He occupied a chair in Columbia University. His work in connection with the establishment of the psychopathic police laboratory of New York city is we'.l known. He is now on his way to France in order to study for the Government the psychological effects of war on our soldiers. — Editor.

ligent being. But these two criminals were not normal. At the Psychopathic Laboratory of New York Police Headquarters the eighteen-year-old thief was found to be mentally about six years old. And that is why he used violence when violence was unnecessary.

Hundreds upon hundreds of such criminals are arrested each year. In New York city alone it has been estimated roughly that each day there fall into the hands of the police between twenty-five and thirty persons who are mentally below the normal to such an extent that they should be examined by experts and placed in proper institutions for life. Only thus can society ever rid itself of a tremendous burden of crime.

No Hope for the Feeble-Minded

Feeble-minded individuals never were normal and never will be normal. All are potential criminals. Be- cause they cannot reason, because they have no moral stan- dards, because they cannot conduct them- selves like respec- table members of the community, they fall an easy prey to dishonest minds. What

���The Mirror-Drawing Test for Accuracy

The subject is asked to trace a design which he cannot see directly because of the cardboard placed between his e"C3 and the design but which he can see very clearly by means of its reflection in the mirror. Here "practise makes perfect." The test in general reveals the subject's learning ability and brings to Jight many special characteristics

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