closet with supplys for the class. I see pigons flying all over the school. I see old freght trains through the fence of the school yard. I see pictures of countryies hanging on the wall and I see desks with wrighting all over the top of the desks and insited of the desk."

Another child began simply:

"I see lots of thinings in this room. I see new teachers omots every day. . .” This was one more:

"I see pictures in my school. I see pictures of Spain and a pictures of Portofino and a pictures of Chicago. I see arithmetic paper a spellings paper. I see a star chart. I see the flag of our Amerrica. The room is dirty The auditorium dirty the seats are dusty. The light in the auditorium is brok. The curtains in the auditorium are ragged they took the curtains down because they was so ragged. The bathroom is dirty sometime . . . The cellar is dirty the hold school is dirty sometime . . . The flowers are dry every thing in my school is so so dirty."

Of course the drabness and the ugliness are not only in the physical surroundings. They are present also in the minds of many teachers and in the attitudes of many administrators, even within a brandnew, modern school. Probably it is these attitudes-whether wholly conscious or only partially so-which constitute the most alienating and most brutalizing factor in the daily school-life of a ghetto child.

Schools in Boston, for example, lay great emphasis on teaching children to respect authority. But it is difficult to teach a black child to respect a white man who does not like him, or a white lady who pities and cuddles him in his infancy but looks with untold fear upon the threat constituted by his growing body. I think of one rough teacher in my school who referred to the black people of Mississippi as "the niggers Down South." I am not sure how you ever can teach children to respect people who are not worth respecting or whether you should try.

I think of a teacher in a public school operated in Boston for boys who are considered discipline problems. I was sent there once as a substitute teacher, without advice or warning, and the first advice I received came from one of the white teachers: "If you wanted to teach, you'd better go somewhere else. This place isn't a school. It's a zoo. And those are the animals." I suggest that a school system which thinks of troubled children as animals will rapidly make them so. I think. as well, of a member of our 5-man School Committee in the City of Boston who went on record some years ago in words so clear and obvious that nobody, even a child of the Third or Second Grade, could fail to get his meaning: "We have no inferior education in our schools," this gentleman said. "What we have been getting is an inferior type of student."

When people know that they are hated (and who, hearing the words that I have just read, could doubt that something very much like hate was involved?) it seems to me that they are likely to hate ten-fold in return. I do not wish this statement in any way to justify violence on the part of children, or to exonerate those who commit truly serious crimes. Nor do I intend this as a blanket indictment of the teachers in Boston, or of teachers any place else. What I do hope, however, is to make clear precisely where the roots of a child's violence may start. It seems obvious to me that a society which does not like children will create children who do not like society. Schools which live by fear, enmity and conflict will perish by them, too. What we need is a new kind of school in America, a new tone, a new feeling, a new brand of pedagogic thinking. I would like to make five concrete suggestions:

First, and most minor, I would urge-for the dignity of teachers and children alike that corporal punishment of any variety whatever, whether by the "stick" (as in Boston) or the "paddle" (as in other areas) be forbidden except in cases of extreme and obvious self-defense.

Second, I urge that an entirely new philosophy of teacher preparation, teacher recruitment, and in-service teacher training be encouraged. I suggest that teachers spend far less time in acquiring and memorizing antiquated and generally inappropriate "methods and materials" and become immersed instead in courses of cultural anthropology, of psychology, and of contemporary and multiethnic literature. I would urge, as well, in the case of ghetto systems, that when in-service training programs are financed by Federal money, they be placed as much as possible beneath the governance, not of abstract theoreticians or academicians, but of outstanding leaders of the Negro neighborhoods themselves. I would suggest that these courses take place not in university lecture halls, but

in the homes, churches, meeting-places of the immediate communities. If they do nothing else, they will at least allow black parents and white teachers to sit down side by side at the same table.

Third, I urge that psychiatric counselling and intensive treatment be made directly available to troubled children—without absurd delays—and within their own school buildings. In Boston, a city noted for its leadership in medical training and in mental health, children of the ghetto have been obliged to wait for months, at times for years, before they could obtain anything like serious treatment: in many cases, tragically too late. According to a study made by the Boston Globe there were, two years ago, approximately one pupil adjustment counselor to every 4000 children in the Boston Public Schools. Surely a city which has produced so many expert psychiatrists for the families of the wellto-do can provide something better for the black children in the slums.

Fourth, as long as many schools remain segregated, I would recommend that Federal funds for urban education carry with them a stipulation that ghetto neighborhoods be given a direct voice in the nature of curriculum and in the operation of their schools. I know this is not a popular viewpoint, but it seems to me to be the only conceivable way to bring fresh air into these classrooms and to forestall what will otherwise be unnamed disaster. The books must admit the realities of the neighborhood-and the doors of the schools must open and admit those realities as well. I do not believe that the school system I have seen in Boston knows how to do this on its own: I believe that it needs the inspired help of the Negro community. But I do not believe that it will invite that kind of help without great pressure.

Fifth, in the planning of curriculum changes for urban systems, I would like to suggest that a far greater priority be given to wide-open and vigorous disagreement in the classroom. The present insistence within far too many systems on the rigid acceptance of a uniform, factual diet leaves little room, if any, for the crossfire of opinions on the parts of pupils. If teachers could be induced to surrender some portion of their authoritarian defenses, if they felt less threatened by excitement of fast music, of contemporary folk songs, of new kinds of slang and styles, perhaps then the children would not be compelled so often to look upon their school-house as an intellectual prison and upon their teachers as intellectual police. Perhaps, if children were invited in the classroom to challenge a white authority system vigorously and with unhesitant words, they would no longer feel the need to do it after school with bricks and bottles.

Finally, although it now seems an old-fashioned recommendation, I would like to see Negro children such as those in Boston integrated with as much speed as possible into outlying suburban school systems. Presently, with Federal funds, five hundred children are being bussed each day from the Roxbury ghetto to schools such as the one in Newton in which I am a teacher. Two of those children are now in my Fifth Grade. They are excited, they are doing well, and they do not seem to suffer (as so many people predicted) from a 20-minute busride. If the numbers of those being bused to our suburbs were 5000 rather than 500, I think it is entirely possible that there would not have been a riot in Boston on that tragic week-end of last June. The suburban school systems are not all of one mind, but a sufficient number seem to believe in democracy to make a vast expansion of the busing program both possible and feasible. My own experience, both within and outside the ghetto, leads me to recommend this.

In closing, I would like to appeal to you once more to think for a moment not of millions of urban children in their various statistics but of the individual child in my own Fourth Grade in Boston who suffered so greatly for the selfishness and unwise economy of a shabby school system, and who ended by turning, first, to acts of delinquency, then to illness.

He might, with proper care and help and insight, have been saved at a time when his problems still were moderate. He was not helped. He was beaten, brutalized, insulted. Today, to the best of my knowledge, he lives still in an institution. I hope that the thought of that single ruined child, lost to life and lost to society, will remain in your minds as you shape this important legislation.

Senator CLARK. The committee will stand recessed until 9:30 o'clock tomorrow morning.

(Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee was recessed, to reconvene at 9:30 a.m., Thursday, October 26, 1967.)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY PREVENTION AND CONTROL

ACT

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 26, 1967

U.S. SENATE,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT, MANPOWER AND POVERTY,
OF THE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND PUBLIC WELFARE,

Washington, D.C.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to recess, at 9:30 a.m, in room 4232, New Senate Office Building, Senator Joseph S. Clark (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Members present: Senators Clark, and Kennedy of Massachusetts. Committee staff present: William C. Smith, counsel.

Senator CLARK. The subcommittee will resume its session.

Our first witness this morning is Col. William L. Durrer, chief of police, Fairfax County, Va.

Colonel, we are very happy to have you with us. If you will please take a seat there in front of the microphone.

Colonel DURRER. Thank you, sir. I have two men from my department here-Capt. David Eike, my administrative assistant, and Lt. Kenneth Wilson, deputy chief of detectives.

Senator CLARK. Happy to have you gentlemen with us.

Off the record a moment.

(Discussion off the record.)

Senator CLARK. Back on the record.

Colonel, we are very happy to have you with us. I have had a chance to scan your statement. I will ask to have it printed in full in the record. Senator CLARK. As you know, the problem of this subcommittee is to consider a bill on juvenile delinquency which has been passed by the House of Representatives in conjunction with a bill which was submitted by the administration, and to try to determine as a matter of legislation which of these two bills we should recommend to the Senate, or whether we should write our own bill.

Your statement is extremely valuable, and I want to commend you for it, as a background of what the problems are in a suburb and county such as Fairfax. It will be a very valuable part of our record. I wonder, however, if you, or either of your associates, have had an opportunity to consider these two bills and are in a position to make recommendations to the subcommittee as to what we should do.

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STATEMENT OF COL. WILLIAM L. DURRER, CHIEF OF POLICE, FAIRFAX COUNTY, VA.; ACCOMPANIED BY CAPT. DAVID R. EIKE, ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT TO CHIEF; AND LT. KENNETH R. WILSON, DEPUTY CHIEF OF DETECTIVES

Colonel DURRER. Mr. Chairman, as pointed out in my prepared statement, we point to several areas, problem areas, one being parental responsibility and control over the children.

Senator CLARK. Not too much we can do about that in this committee. Colonel DURRER. No, sir. However, there are certain lacks lack of recreation facilities-that we can see, that are desperately needed in Fairfax County, or a county such as ours.

We have a big county. We have a lot of small communities almost within themselves. We find

Senator CLARK. Rapidly growing, too, isn't it?

Colonel DURRER. Yes, sir-about 20,000 per year.

We find that there is a definite lack of facilities for recreation, such as dancing, for the young people. We have 30,000 people in our schools, high schools-107,000 total school population.

We find that when a dance is organized, for instance, at a church, American Legion, Elks Lodge, that a place can hold 200 or 300 people, we find 700 or 800 young people showing up for a place to carry out this activity.

Senator CLARK. Let me interrupt you there.

What part, if any, do you think the Federal Government should play in remedying that situation? I agree with you as to the need. There are some people who think that is a local or State responsibility, and that the Federal Government should not be spending a lot of money to provide adequate recreation facilities at the local level. What do you think about that?

Colonel DURRER. I think that in studying these bills, it was pointed out that the bills are for juvenile delinquent control. In my opinion, I think some money spent in this regard, for the facilities, or help, on a percentage basis, would certainly be appropriate.

Senator CLARK. What is the old cliche an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Colonel DURRER. Yes, sir. I think recreation is basically a local responsibility. But in a county such as ours, the influx of people we are having, the local people are having a real strain in keeping abreast financially of the facilities.

Senator CLARK. This is largely because they do not have adequate tax resources, isn't it? Do you rely pretty much entirely on real estate tax at your local level?

Colonel DURRER. Yes, we do. This is our basic tax.

Senator CLARK. Tell me if I am wrong, but I do not believe that the State of Virginia gives much attention to the local communities in solving their problems, of the kind that you have been mentioning. Colonel DURRER. No, that is correct, they do not.

Senator CLARK. So then you turn to some extent to the Federal Government as a source of last resort.

Our problem is this, Colonel-I would like to get your reaction to it. The administration has recommended $25 million to continue these sort of demonstration projects, research projects, which were started