Happily, however, I think it can be demonstrated to your complete satisfaction that your son is not bad—so far as this particular offence is concerned, anyway—and that this stone-throwing business is a perfectly natural thing for a perfectly normal boy to do.
To start with, let us suppose that I have placed on your back fence, side by side, a brick and a bottle. I then hand you a little target-rifle and invite you to try your skill at shooting. Now, which will you aim at—the brick or the bottle?
The bottle, of course. You answer more quickly than I can write it.
And why the bottle?
Just think that over a moment, please. Why the bottle?
Meanwhile, let us go back to the boy and the window.
The desire to see a physical result from any personal effort is deep-seated in every human being. Where is the author who does not take secret and real pleasure in scanning the achievements of his pen in the public print? Where is the architect who would forego the pleasure of seeing the finished structure, the lines and masses of which he has dreamed over and designed? The desire to see the result follow the endeavour, the effect follow the cause, is strong within us all.
It may seem a far cry from art and letters to the boy and the broken window, but the psychologic principle involved is one and the same. The boy, sauntering along the street or the roadway, has been amusing himself by throwing stones. He has sent one against the side of a barn with no effect other than the sound of a hollow thud as it struck the boards. He has heaved one at a telegraph pole, and the pole didn’t even quiver. Then he spies the vacant house.
It is obviously deserted and abandoned. A pane already shattered in one of the windows starts the idea. It is far enough back from the street to make the throw a test of skill. If he misses there’s no harm done. If he hits there’ll be a noise, a crash, a shower of flying glass and—Enough! Up goes the arm, away goes the stone with fateful accuracy and the deed is done. It was the act of a sudden impulse. Before the conscience within him could assert itself the missile had struck; and that innate human ambition to produce a visible result was gratified.
The deed is done, and the boy doesn’t know why he did it. But returning to the hypothesis of the brick and the bottle, perhaps you, madam, can explain why you would prefer to shoot at the bottle.