Volume 4 Number 3
May 1965

Karl Menninger

DO YOU KNOW who I am and do I know who you are? I know that you are people, who, like myself, are interested in a special aspect of education—education of a people to whom education has not always been the highest objective.

I know what that means because I come from a group of people in Pennsylvania who considered it sinful to go very far in education. People in my mother’s family broke the rule of the community, went off to school and were regarded as wicked for exposing themselves to temptations of the devil and the world. That wasn’t the right thing to do at all, according to this group of people.

Fortunately, my mother met a man from a different township; this would be almost like meeting someone from a different tribe. He said education was a good thing; and he was going to teach school in the vicinity, which he did. Because of this, my mother became interested in education and she also became a school teacher. She came out west, as they called it, to Kansas, which was pretty far in those days, and there she met my father.

My father was one of those people who is "foolish" enough to be a teacher and think there were better ways to teach and that nothing was more exciting than teaching. He was going to teach and teach he did.

So you see how I grew up—in a family where education is considered important, and the teacher is a very important person. Not only that, but I grew up in a family where my mother couldn’t understand how some of the old people didn’t think it was so important. Not just because they were stupid, because they weren’t, but because they didn’t see its usefulness. Therefore, I grew up with the simple fact that not everybody thought education was as wonderful as my family thought it was.

Now I have told you something about myself. You have heard my introduction and now you know a little bit more about who I am. But do you know who I am yet?

One of our best psychiatrists is now a great teacher at Harvard. He doesn’t do much individual counseling any more because he is teaching, but I am glad he is where he can reach many important people. For several years, he traveled as a guest with some friends. First, he visited the Sioux, then the Dakotas, and later was with some of the Pacific Coast tribes. He was interested in the childhood of all of us, and our children. Why did some of our children have difficulties later in life? He returned with the conviction that the most important thing in all children’s lives is to establish with a kind of certainty what their own identity is—just who they really are. He said the American Indians, or at least many of them, have trouble with this. They don’t know whether they are Arizonans or Hualapais or Republicans or Democrats or something else. This becomes more confusing for them if they have had more outside contact.

We psychiatrists see many people who are not sure of their identity even after they are married and have children of their own. You may think we psychiatrists just see people who are out of their mind and are very crazy indeed. But this isn’t so. We see many people who are just a little mixed up. We see some adolescent kids who are just mixed up. Sometimes they make a lot of noisy demonstrations to act as if they didn’t know and only show that they don’t know.

So, I want you to think a little about identity.

I suppose people know me as a doctor, and as a teacher. Maybe they know me as a friend. I have some friends. They know I’m Bob Roessel’s friend. These are my friends: Fred Kabotie, Helen Peterson, Clarence Wesley. A whole lot of people. Yes, I know them, they know me. But still that’s my identity. I’m that fellow from Kansas who is kind of interested in problems of the Hopis, Navajos, the Senecas and many other tribes. But still they don’t see me very often. I don’t see you very often. I don’t even know the names of some of you, so my identity is still a little obscure, isn’t it?

Shall I tell you a little about the mental health program in Kansas, our state hospitals and our Menninger Foundation? I get to thinking about this, perhaps most acutely this way-people say, Why are you so much interested in the problems of the American Indians? It is because they are inventive and ingenious, have a great concept of beauty and a wonderful philosophy and great dignity, and for other reasons. Those are nice reasons, but why specially?

Now, I gave a lot of thought to that, and I decided it was because I’m interested in the American Indians because in a way I am one. To explain that, I mean in this manner of identity.

As I said, our family began in Kansas, where I grew up, went to school with other Kansas kids and then I went away to college. When I went to college, I went 500 or 600 miles east, and when I arrived there, the fellows would say: "Who are you? Who is this guy?" I told them, "I’m Karl Menninger."

"Menninger, that’s a funny name. I never heard that name before."

"No, I don’t think you did. There is only one family of the Menningers."

"Well, that’s a very funny name. I never heard of the family," they said. "Who are you? Besides, Menninger sounds like ‘vinegar.’"

So for the first year in college I was called "Vinegar." That was a fine start, wasn’t it? Well, I’m not vinegar, whatever I am. They kept saying, "Where are you from?" I’d say, "From Kansas." They’d let out a whoop at that, "Kansas! Now ain’t that something! Where is that place anyway?" They were teasing me; I didn’t know it and it hurt my feelings. I would reply it’s a fine state. They would say, "What’s fine about it?"

"My gosh, it’s a good state to come from, isn’t it?" But there was one worse state in the nation and that was Arkansas. I said that Arkansas was a fine state, too. "Oh, well," they said, "you people out there on the plains don’t know what anything beautiful is. Now come and look at our lovely lakes here." I said the lakes were nice but kind of smelly. Their reply was, "That’s because you are from Kansas, and what do you expect from anyone from Kansas?" You see, I was a little green and I didn’t quite know my own identity. They had caught me, and they laughed at me.

I had done some amateur dramatics in high school, and I thought I’d try a little dramatics in college. I tried out but wasn’t accepted. I thought it was because I was from Kansas, but of course, it was really because I wasn’t a good enough actor. Then I thought I’d write for the school newspaper. I tried that, and didn’t make it, and again I thought it was because I was from Kansas. They didn’t take me into any fraternities and I knew why: I was from Kansas.

Then I began thinking: Why should they take me in? What have I done? What have I got to be proud of? So I said to myself, I’ve got to have something to be proud of myself, and not just rely on the fact that back home everybody in high school knew me. What am I? Well, I’m a citizen of a great big complicated country, that’s one thing for sure. It is full of all kinds of people and there is some advantage in being from Kansas: there’s not so many of us. I am more of a rarity at college.

It was kind of an honor to be called "Kansas." (They called me Kansas after they quit calling me "Vinegar.") Then I thought, "I’ve got to do something other than just being from Kansas, or my identity will stop there."

The next thing I began to realize was that there were a lot of people in college who were rarer than Kansans. Some fellows at the university were from China. I became acquainted with one whom I liked very much. I joined the International Club and became acquainted with some fellows from Peru and a couple of Germans. This was before World War I. There had been some rumblings about war in Europe, and one night the fellows from Germany and France had a big debate about it. It opened my eyes to the fact that every person had a different background.

We got together and tried to get further acquainted in order to identify what the differences in background were, and in what ways we could exchange ideas with one another and still stay friends. As I remember, this was during 1914, the first year of the war, but these Germans and Frenchmen were still friendly because we belonged to the International Club and were talking it over. Some of us sided with the Germans and some with the French.

* * *

I think of these conversations when I remember the hardships my grandparents and parents went through in coming from Europe. I should be proud of my parents. I never did brag about them much, but I wasn’t ashamed of them. When I was in college, I thought, well, they are back in Kansas, and Kansas doesn’t rate very high here. So I didn’t say much about them. Yet, have I given as much credit to my parents as I should have?

Maybe Kansans have other qualities that I don’t have. Maybe I don’t have to be so ashamed of Kansas. Maybe I can begin to see some good in Kansas. In fact, I’m kind of proud of Kansas. I told myself that there were many good things about Kansas, things that these jokers at college don’t know—they are just ignorant.

And I got to thinking of Kansas at a distance and remembered it as rather beautiful. I kind of wished I was back there. Maybe this poor, ridiculous place I came from is better than I thought. I began to brag about Kansas. For a while they teased me. Then they began to hush up. They said, "Well, you know, he is proud of Kansas, and maybe he’s got something."

I said, "What other state in the nation is right square in the middle? No other state but ours. It is the same distance west of the ocean as it is east of the Pacific, and the same distance north and south to another country. I think it is a unique state, and I believe I’ll go back there."

Now, a lot of my friends said they were not going back home when they graduated. "Are you?" they asked me. I said that yes, I am. "Oh, we’re not," they said. "Why, we live in a fine state just south of here, but we’re not going back there. The people are too dull. Don’t go back home. Let’s go to New York—that’s the thing for us young people to do. The opportunity is in New York."

I said, "I don’t think there is opportunity in New York, but I think there is in Kansas."

"Don’t be so green. You’ve got to go to New York where everyone is lively. That’s where big things are going on."

"Is it really?" I asked.

In later years I was in New York awhile, and I was glad I made the choice I did.

I went back to Kansas and said to myself, "Well, maybe there are some things to criticize about this place, but right or wrong, I am a Kansan, and I always will be a Kansan. Now I began to have as an identity: "I’m the young fellow from Kansas."

Kansas has been good to us. I belong to it. Like the song, Oklahoma! "The land we belong to is grand, and we belong to the land." And the land belongs to us. Well, Kansas doesn’t have as nice a song as Oklahoma, but we have the same idea. At least I did. I said, "There are some things wrong in this state and I’m going to try to improve it a little."

After many years, Kansas has improved. What Kansas can do, you can do if you want to. Kansas became the leading state in psychiatry, and I’m proud of that, too. And I’m identified with that.

The point I wish to make is that one can find one’s identity and be proud of what one is and be proud of the people one came from, and be proud of one’s past and of one’s future. Because once an identity is established, I think one will be proud of it. I think every Hopi ought to be proud of the Hopis. I’d be proud just to associate with the Hopis. Whether, because of their wonderful philosophy, art or ceremonials, I’d be proud to be a Navajo. No one else can make such beautiful things as the Navajos do. I’d be proud to be a kind of distant or associate relative of the Navajo, too. I’d be proud to be a Hualapai. I’d be proud to be whatever I was, just like I’m proud to be a Kansan.

I know some bad spots in Kansas. I’m not going to tell you about them. We’re trying to improve them. I don’t say it’s perfect, but I’m still proud of it. I think we’ve got to be proud and I think we need to combine pride in what we have with recognition as to what we don’t have. But the recognition of what we do not have should not depress us: it should inspire us and make us feel responsible for a change.

You have to have some hope. You know, hope is a precious feeling. Look in the Encyclopaedia Britannica and you’ll find all about love. You remember St. Paul talked about faith, hope and love. You’ll find a lot about love, and you’ll find a lot about faith. But you won’t find one word about hope. Why do you suppose that the Encyclopaedia Britannica, which we used to think was pretty authoritative and had everything in it, doesn’t mention hope? What’s a world without hope? But look in history books and you’ll find a peculiar thing: For many centuries hope wasn’t considered nice. It was considered an evil. In the old Greek plays, hope was a kind of nuisance; hope was something that fools indulged in. The wise people knew there wasn’t any hope. Everything is already settled by fate.

You know, the Jews are the most hopeful people in the world. Despite all the disasters which have happened to them, and all of their people who have been exterminated, no group has survived as many misfortunes as have the Jews. The eternal hopefulness of the Jews is perhaps one of their greatest assets. Without hope, what’s the use of teaching? What’s the use of anything we do if we don’t have hope? Now you say, hope gets to be a kind of dreamy expectation that something will happen? No, that’s not hope. Hope has more substance than that. Hope is something positive. Hope is an asset in every treatment that every doctor gives, in every lesson that every teacher gives. It is the idea that it is possible that things can be better.

This is all summed up in very simple English and in the words of a song which I heard recently on television when a new version of "Cinderella" was presented:

It’s impossible for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage. It’s impossible for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage. And four gray mice will never be four white horses. Such fa la and fiddle dee dee is of course, impossible. But the world is full of zanies and fools who don’t believe in sensible rules, and won’t believe what sensible people say; because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes, impossible things are happening every day!

But it is possible, says the other, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage. It is possible for a country bumpkin and a prince to join in marriage. And four gray mice are easily turned into horses, Such fa la la and fiddle dee is, of course, quite possible. For the world is full of zanies and fools who don’t believe in sensible rules, don’t believe what sensible people say; and because these daft and dewy-eyed dopes keep building up impossible hopes, impossible things are happening every day.