e essays. I
called out a word, and we started to write. Wolodia began to talk
loudly.

"Stop it, man," I said impatiently, "you're spoiling our essay."

He grinned and went on talking.

"Oh, shut up!" cried Joy.

"Shan't!" he snapped, and he went on talking.

Diana rose with a determined air.

"We'll chuck him out," she said grimly, and the class seized him and
heaved him out. Then they barricaded the door with desks. Wolodia
made a big row by hammering on the door, and as a result we could not
proceed with our writing.

"Let him in," I suggested.

The class protested.

"He'll sit like a lamb for the rest of the period," I said.

They took away the desk and Wolodia came in. He went to his seat . . .
and not a sound came from him during the rest of the period. This
incident impressed me greatly; my complaint, Joy's complaint did not
affect him, but when the gang was against him he was defeated. It was
a beautiful instance of the force of public opinion.

Cases of stealing should be treated by analysis. Moral lectures are
useless; the cause lies in the unconscious, and the moral lecture does
not touch the unconscious. Nor does punishment affect the root cause
of the delinquency. The teacher must dig down into the child's
unconscious in order to find the cause.

An illuminating book for all teachers and parents to read is Healy's
_Mental Disorders and Misconduct_. He shows that stealing is very
often a symptomatic act. The mechanism of many cases is something like
this: a child has been punished for sexual activities; later he breaks
into a store and steals an article. Sex activities and thieving have
this in common, that they are both forbidden, but the boy has found
that much more ado is made about sex activities than about stealing.
So when he is actuated by a sexual urge he dare not indulge it; but his
sexual wish finds a substitute; it goes out to the associated forbidden
thing . . . the article on the store counter.

We see the same sort of mechanism in the neurotic patient; she fears
her own sex impulses, and because she dare not admit her sex wishes
into consciousness she projects her fear on to dogs or mice or rats.
All phobias--fear of closed places, fear of open places, fear of
heights--are displaced fears; the sufferer is really afraid of his own
unconscious wishes.

I do not say that all juvenile stealing is due to repressed sex.
Stealing may mean to a boy a method of self-asser