When a child tells on his classmates, he is usually either over-conscientious or out of sympathy with them. Miss Field might quietly have accepted the paper, and thus have avoided increasing the estrangement between Sigrid and her classmates. She should then have set about finding the cause of Sigrid’s isolation, and devised ways of making her one of the group. She should have known that Sigrid’s pitiful paper was a bid for the approbation and love which her isolation denied her; it was the blind feeling for common ground with another human being, which Sigrid missed because her relations with the other children were not healthful. COMMENTS It is usually the out-of-the-set child who tattles; when his relations with the set are normal, he will not practice tale-bearing. Tattling which grows out of pure love of mischief or pure malevolence is very rare. ILLUSTRATION (EIGHTH GRADE) [Sidenote: Visiting Poolroom] Several boys from the London eighth grade were reported to be frequenting the poolroom. The question was who planned and led the fellows in breaking the school rules and the State laws. The teacher easily ascertained that three particular boys were in the company, but there were others and the chief offender was not yet named. Superintendent McMadsen took hold of the situation. He met the three boys and said: “Now we are not planning any sort of punishment, even though the law permits it. We want everybody to speak frankly and talk the matter over freely. You boys are old enough to be summoned as witnesses and made to tell who was with you in the poolroom. But that isn’t the best way. “The proper thing to do is for you and me to come to an agreement as to what we should do about this matter in the future. Then I want you to tell the other boys also to come to me and talk the matter out.” The matter lay for a week before the last boy appeared. The talks were brief, but the moral victory of individual action on the issue was worth the patient delay. CASE 120 (EIGHTH GRADE) Portia Armstrong attended the moving picture show one evening and said to her teacher next day: [Sidenote: Proposes Joy Rides] “Ben Sawyer and some of the boys sat just behind us girls and said, ‘Say, girls, let’s steal out and take a joy ride like that some night.’” “O, Portio, what did you let him talk to you for? Never repeat anything such a boy says. I think it’s ridiculous the way girls and boys talk nowadays. I simply don’t want to hear of any such foolish going-on.” Portia took her teacher at her word. She told her nothing of what the boys said to the girls after that. CONSTRUCTIVE TREATMENT