This story, told to a group of ten-year-old boys at a Hallowe'en party in 1926, no doubt made a lasting impact on their minds. For many of them, it must have been their first conscious impression of an "insane" or "crazy" person -- a person who is mentally ill. Since then, those boys have been bombarded with many others. From the newspapers, they have gained the impression that all mental patients are "sex maniacs" or "dangerous lunatics." From the movies has come the suggestion that all patients are either amnesia victims or defiant, homicidal paranoids. Family and friends have passed on to them the idea that mental patients are horrible creatures, something less than human, to be avoided at all costs.

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In a way, the boys who heard the above story were fortunate. The "raving maniac" who only wanted to play tag is a much more accurate characterization of a mental patient than can be had from the papers, the movies or most uninformed people. Even this characterization is woefully inadequate, of course.