Read Online Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich? by Charles Raw, Bruce Page, Godfrey Hodgson - Free Book Online
Book: Do You Sincerely Want To Be Rich? by Charles Raw, Bruce Page, Godfrey Hodgson
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head of B'nai B'rith says: 'Bernie worked with us as a group counsellor among middle class children.' Cornfeld's job was to lead a programme of religious, social, cultural, athletic and philanthropic activities. Another thing which is clear is that Cornfeld was already feeling the fascination with mutual funds which was moving bright young men all over America. Sol Kaslow, who was then a lay officer in B'nai B'rith, recalls: ‘I had just moved from an insurance business into a brokerage office when Bernie arrived. He asked a lot of questions about mutual funds, about how they should be presented, how the investments worked, and so on.'
Cornfeld had acquired considerable qualifications before he arrived in Philadelphia. After his brief return to seafaring, he decided to push ahead with his psychological studies, and in February 1952 he had signed up at the Columbia University
School of Social Work to take a master's degree in a new field which was then called 'group study'. This was a natural development of his completed, formal studies at Brooklyn, and of his continuing informal studies with the Adlerian circle he had brought together around the Beechers.
The essential feature of the group study system is the communal analytic session, in which the psychiatrist goes into a room with several patients at the same time, and prods them into expounding their own, and each other's problems, motivations, weaknesses, shortcomings and the like. The Columbia group study students did some practical work with groups of patients at the Yale Psychiatric Institute, where Cornfeld acquired a reputation for great sensitivity, and for interest in his patients. While working at the Yale Institute, he used to bring patients and fellow students back to Brooklyn on occasion and introduce them to the Beechers. 'He thought it was his duty to bring us as much business as possible,' recalls Willard Beecher, who was a little startled by the gesture.
Cornfeld cut a considerable figure as a postgraduate student, driving around town in a yellow Chevrolet, with a much-prized Siamese cat perched on his shoulder. Ever since his youth, when early operations as a lollipop seller at Coney Island developed into a part-interest in a guess-your-weight stand, Bernie's friends had been impressed by his ability to get cash together. The first car, however, seems to have been a product of his discovery of the credit system. Hubert Cornfield, who was then living in Greenwich Village, remembers Bernie bursting in with the news that he had just bought a car by an ideal system, which required no capital outlay. 'For some reason,' said Hubert, 'he just would never put oil in that car. Sometimes he just could not get round to doing the smallest material things.' However, the yellow Chewy did get as far as Philadelphia, where it was eventually abandoned in a snowdrift.
With the Chevrolet, and subsequent cars, Cornfeld habitually acquired extraordinary numbers of parking tickets. In Philadelphia he used to carry a cigar box crammed with tickets. Seymour Blau, a B'nai B'rith executive, used to puzzle over Cornfeld's attitude. ‘I couldn't see who he was fighting.'
Cornfeld was not elegant in those days. 'Today you'd probably call Bernie a hippy,' says Steve Adelman, who knew him then. 'To us he was a Bohemian. I can see him now-always in a red checked shirt and a black suit. He had some kind of black string tie hanging round his neck, but he never did it up properly.' And the first function he organized, the Purim festival in March 1954, was something of a break with the staid existence of B'nai B'rith in Philadelphia. 'In past years,' says Seymour Cohen, 'the carnival had been modestly organized -dancing, that sort of thing. Well I asked Bernie to look after it that year. It was the biggest thing that ever happened at Purim. At the end of the festival we had several thousand dollars collected, instead of a few hundred.
Cornfeld had acquired considerable qualifications before he arrived in Philadelphia. After his brief return to seafaring, he decided to push ahead with his psychological studies, and in February 1952 he had signed up at the Columbia University
School of Social Work to take a master's degree in a new field which was then called 'group study'. This was a natural development of his completed, formal studies at Brooklyn, and of his continuing informal studies with the Adlerian circle he had brought together around the Beechers.
The essential feature of the group study system is the communal analytic session, in which the psychiatrist goes into a room with several patients at the same time, and prods them into expounding their own, and each other's problems, motivations, weaknesses, shortcomings and the like. The Columbia group study students did some practical work with groups of patients at the Yale Psychiatric Institute, where Cornfeld acquired a reputation for great sensitivity, and for interest in his patients. While working at the Yale Institute, he used to bring patients and fellow students back to Brooklyn on occasion and introduce them to the Beechers. 'He thought it was his duty to bring us as much business as possible,' recalls Willard Beecher, who was a little startled by the gesture.
Cornfeld cut a considerable figure as a postgraduate student, driving around town in a yellow Chevrolet, with a much-prized Siamese cat perched on his shoulder. Ever since his youth, when early operations as a lollipop seller at Coney Island developed into a part-interest in a guess-your-weight stand, Bernie's friends had been impressed by his ability to get cash together. The first car, however, seems to have been a product of his discovery of the credit system. Hubert Cornfield, who was then living in Greenwich Village, remembers Bernie bursting in with the news that he had just bought a car by an ideal system, which required no capital outlay. 'For some reason,' said Hubert, 'he just would never put oil in that car. Sometimes he just could not get round to doing the smallest material things.' However, the yellow Chewy did get as far as Philadelphia, where it was eventually abandoned in a snowdrift.
With the Chevrolet, and subsequent cars, Cornfeld habitually acquired extraordinary numbers of parking tickets. In Philadelphia he used to carry a cigar box crammed with tickets. Seymour Blau, a B'nai B'rith executive, used to puzzle over Cornfeld's attitude. ‘I couldn't see who he was fighting.'
Cornfeld was not elegant in those days. 'Today you'd probably call Bernie a hippy,' says Steve Adelman, who knew him then. 'To us he was a Bohemian. I can see him now-always in a red checked shirt and a black suit. He had some kind of black string tie hanging round his neck, but he never did it up properly.' And the first function he organized, the Purim festival in March 1954, was something of a break with the staid existence of B'nai B'rith in Philadelphia. 'In past years,' says Seymour Cohen, 'the carnival had been modestly organized -dancing, that sort of thing. Well I asked Bernie to look after it that year. It was the biggest thing that ever happened at Purim. At the end of the festival we had several thousand dollars collected, instead of a few hundred.
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