pieces 


ibs : 


i 


aN 
































1 ratios 


Education of the mental defective, 


the blind, the deaf and the 



























AS = 4 
= 


\ oo SS JAZ 
SSG Se wre 
M.C. MIGEL LIBRARY 


AMERICAN PRINTING 
HOUSE FOR THE BLIND 











; Education of the 
MENTAL DEFECTIVE. 
the BLIND, the DEAF 

| and the CRIPPLED 

fe in the : 


Public Schools 
y 


: : ' A Report Prepared for the N. E. A. Commission 
» on the Revision of Elementary Education 


TDN LEE ae 
ra 
Pd ¢ 


eR TYP Se SONNE He A are, 
ee 








ALLL 


Naee (D A: Pu oMneae 


ry 
x , . 
RY gh mo AREKEEED EY ie y My, " 

« oy a* Ang ty om % : 

7 ~ of 5 t e [7 
& ,; a « 5 * 

SS ae ‘, “at ? 

a ga © me « % ; 

SA Ce hl ae lie 
in reels, ae ie) OLE 

=. Cee J” Vie SF ree ; 

ae as “ ? eS. .: , oS \ 

? 5 <> @ Pr ek 
eh tee & }oy ; 
oy vj j M £ pF ia \ gz 
%. ¥ 4) ee ? fof ' hae: 

A - ‘ ? ! 

BOG AE SORE ~ me he 

Cf, 7 U! tr f / , 9 ’ ¥ : i 
Vr « ed = ty f 

“) le a ee ate 

Uy) (7s \ ae :% BR te ie 

- Hire (ith 7 ? ‘ ak 









(Sigs > whet! 2 Petes n Gaoabeeee 


Eo besa ‘pASh ed 4 aes 
. of 

















FOREWORD 


The nature of this report upon education in public schools of the Mental 
ctive, the Blind, the Deaf and the Crippled, and a statement of the experience 
the distinctive work of those that have contributed to it, are set forth in a 
ace by Anna Laura Force, a member of the Committee on Revision of 
entary Education. The introductory chapter by Clara Harrison Town out- 
briefly, but with sufficient fullness to make clear every:salient feature, the 
lems of such education and of the methods that have been applied in various 
tts to solve them. The report itself is of such value to the study of these 
ortant branches of our public school system, as to amply reward careful con- 
ration of all interested in education whether as citizens or as philanthropists. 
It is therefore submitted with confidence that it will not only increase the 
esteem in which are already held those that compiled it, but prove one of the 
t instructive contributions yet made to a subject to which so much earnest 
ght and painstaking work has been given by some of the foremost masters 
authorities in the educational world. 
MarGARET S. McNAuGHrT, 

Chairman of the Commission on Revision of Elementary Education. 





PEED it BES 














a9 Te otal. ale Ti pio OiRs a rea iRBebs is "punter ane ie 
ites sorhiadtions ot 2) daattea eos hie Fatt mses eS Ti sitters ii 


ik ~ “gipivittioe soo oi5 oF a hones ee ee eee By peafiie y 
te tf ear Mr ie Hite: cibROR es pies it B ene, se 
| tS ieee meh) eae caro ean “ia “Aah 
i? ; OS pls), 1600! Ree 6, ne a mre ser eh git ppt 
re BOOP) cde bn cP pe tedalatens ih Sb tie ga aia es ae ‘ta ee ee | 
a. REGIE Poole att OL GLC: Haseena y cite sles Bera es | ALES ated iti ; 
ie) a amon Tiefarsty itr evden ies Wot aha iy A q 
etn KOUMEL) Catan PAbS De / ore Ul tae Bis) BS aha bie! 

wR. Salictec iiss ie TUY, ro te taba Ye, R® Iiealailias z 
; Osis raw ouiin and Js: Be} THT tent Pept hic “uM ot oe oa 


: —e ‘. oe b3 a ae A Ap. oom < 
P sooth ti F FAL is , Ps ney oe 5 aahie PJ Such pth ; 


4 aa fr Le 
inne ears a an 


. 
Ws 





SCsthUR MD Meera Ae — pe a 
Oreste seg thor? cP CHAT ANES ore cupilap sath 





PREFACE 


The following report upon the education in the public schools of the Mentally 
Defective, the Blind, the Deaf, and the Crippled was prepared by specialists who 
have done outstanding work in these special fields. This study was begun in 
1918 under the direction of the National Education Commission on the Revision 
of Elementary Education. 

It has been the aim of the committee to present the best type of organization 
and method of procedure for classification of pupils according to results of mental 
and physical tests. Recommendations have been made in simple and direct language 
so that superinténdents, supervisors, and teachers interested may classify and 
organize their schools upon a psychological and pedagogical basis. 

The Table of Statistics is the result of a careful survey through questionnaire 
returns and reports. It presents to the student a picture of progress made and 
possibilities for further study by those interested in the scientific aspect of this 
problem. 

Dr. Clara Harrison Town as chairman deserves the credit for assembling 
the material and especially for the exhaustive report upon the education of the 
Mentally Defective in the public schools. 

As a member of the Commission on the Revision of Elementary Education 
and as responsible for this report, I take this opportunity to thank the contributors 
_ and all school officers who have responded so generously to questionnaires. I also 
wish to express my indebtedness to the members of the committee who by their 
splendid co-operation have made this report possible. 

Respectfully submitted, 
ANNA LAuRA FOorCE, 
Member of Committee on Revision of Elementary Education. 


qa 





REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON THE REVISION OF THE 
EDUCATION OF THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE, THE BLIND, 
THE DEAF AND THE CRIPPLED IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 


(Submitted February, 1922.) 
The Committee was appointed by the Commission on the Revision of 


Elementary Education of the National Educational Association in 1919. 
Anna Laura Force, 





Member of Commission in charge of investigation 


Denver, Colorado. 


MEMBERS OF COMMITTEE 


Clara Harrison Town, Ph.D., Psychologist, Children’s Aid Society, Buffalo, 
New York, Chairman and Writer of Final Report. 

Francis N. Maxfield, Ph.D., Director Bureau of Psychology, Department of 
Public Instruction, State of Pennsylvania. 

Donald G. Patterson, A.M., Professor of Psychology, University of Minnesota. 

S. Alice Russell, Psychologist and Director of Special Schools, Denver, 
Colorado. 

Clara Schmitt, Ph.D., Psychologist, Child Study Department, Chicago Public 
Schools. 

Arthur H. Sutherland, Ph.D., Director Department of Psychological and 
Educational Research, Los Angeles City School District. 

Robert W. Woolston, Superintendent of the Illinois School for the Blind, 
Jacksonville, Illinois. 

Josephine E. Young, M.D., Director Orthogenic Clinic, Rush Medical College, 


Chicago, Illinois. 



























ai : rey WORM. ae Hes Shenae 
LS: AT VITAE, VAL Cyteite pr: 
rie 1GOnDe ah RUDE f ter Vit iiss a te bi 


cen 7? 


(Sati ee ac hagt brs late e. 


as 


Mi hr tt et eee Ca oA cory hee 
RIy ‘th Vous hr axis 4 ig? Yetideaiel pst ¥ oe “al on " aT 


wee: Seth BLA “Hee gut gArgy reat ie CH one 
: > vig! ie ee ‘ ft 


Ae meal i tad oe ee i 


ettige tke. Sere, a4 ei ita eh ee a 
ne tes ae REARS Si enes mies 
AN Fest heotge tee) eat als eR eeTL j aera. Ceaet Ray 
ey Rees Pt ee iis Bere ‘eee 
eptrinderyt Dr ry ts ee ein wits my its: 7G HORS pit ee 
week Stine ne $e 1% yond otis lef on he oe 


here 
44 ‘ =P 


vit ‘gat A ae Ie we ies cay fe oh 3} Nib ae ne 


tne ha tat, Y) Se. srydeg hts oe i i¢ 
te “adhe ene i names 
bai “a wi iene spiedgatst: “Her, Sia «3 
bel | tes 5 ange ih 
hy rea "aguas at Biss fe pat 


4 
2 


: 4 yi aes, | 
ae ee A ore Bs i at Gre rae 
ti Habe Maye et re “il 
ss ; “), 2° e yy row Pat ~ ‘oP Sl oe Se 
| : Ts bot bce A ae ty ai ae : 
ty '’ Cea ke a = 
ene Rober oe. TSS + BG iia a par 59 
e. : Ft ‘ ‘ é seit Rane at as 5 Ze im ‘ bas 






ay Fb fie 
a) Ae ' be ek 
4 oy os a 






INTRODUCTION 


We do not have to turn back many pages in the history of public education 
in the United States to find the day when the function at the school was. fulfilled 
if the children were exposed to a certain set educational régime. Today the 
requirement is quite other than this. It is to provide for each individual child 
the educational aids necessary to its fullest possible development. 

Individual differences in the original endowment of children are now recog- 
_ nized and with this recognition comes the realization that if children vary in 
endowment so must their school work vary in kind and in amount. It is now 
required of the schools that the curriculum be flexible and that it be adjusted or 
changed entirely to fit the needs of each and every pupil, whatever may be his 
peculiarities, his inferiorities, or his superiorities of endowment. 

‘The children who formerly, on account of mental inability to cope with the 
regular school work, dropped out of school or lingered indefinitely in the lower 
grades, are no longer allowed to drift. They are gathered together in small groups 
-and given special training adapted to their needs. The children, who formerly, 
on account of superior mental ability found themselves bored and idle in the 
regular grades, are no longer allowed to waste their time and form habits of 
mental laziness. They are given work adapted to their abilities. The deaf, the 
blind and the crippled children, who formerly found no place in the public schools, 
and who, did they wish an education, were forced to seek it at a residential school, 
are now especially provided for in the public schools. 

Not in all school systems has this special education of atypical children been 
introduced. In the larger and more advanced school systems it has for some 
time been an accomplished fact, and the example set by these systems is rapidly 
being followed in all parts of the country. Each year more and more cities establish 
special education for the mentally defective, the blind, the deaf, and the crippled. 
Ten States have made statutory provision for public school instruction of the 
mentally defective, eleven States have made such provision for the deaf, nine 
States for the blind and five States for the crippled. In several of these States the 
statutes go so far as to make mandatory the formation of special classes: in all 
‘school districts in which a specified number of children who require it are discov- 


9 


ered, and to provide for a liberal contribution toward the support of such classes. 
Such State action is necessarily followed by the inauguration of the work in large 
numbers of cities. Wisconsin’s list of twenty-four cities supporting classes for the 
deaf is a good example. 

At present we have records of classes for the mentally defective in one hundred 
and eighty-two cities, of classes for backward children in seventy-four cities, of 
classes for the blind in twenty-two cities, of classes for the deaf in seventy-eight 
cities, and of classes for the crippled in fourteen cities. 

The organization and conduct of these classes and schools for the mentally 

defective, the blind, the deaf and the crippled entails many difficult problems, 
problems nct only difficult on account of their novelty, but intrinsically difficult. 
The picking out of the mentally defective children, the analysis of the mentality of 
these children in order to arrive at a knowledge of their various abilities and 
disabilities, as a basis for their pedagogical training; the securing of treatment for 
their many and various physical defects and disorders; the organization of classes; 
the equipment of classes; the arrangement of curricula; the training of teachers; 
the salary of teachers, all are problems concerning which school systems inaugurat- 
ing special education are eager for guidance. 
‘This report is an effort to put at the disposal of such school systems the 
fruits of the accumulated experience of their precursors in the work. It is an 
effort to present as succinctly as 1s compatible with the nature and the number of 
the subjects discussed, the salient problems involved in each subject, together with 
tried and practical methods of meeting these problems, 

If it proves to be of practical assistance to superintendents in the organization 
and in the conduct of special education for the mentally defective, the blind, the 
deaf and the crippled, it will have fulfilled its fundamental aim. 

If it succeeds in leading some readers to a realization of the importance to 
society at large of the public school work with the mentally defective, and in 
leading these readers to the sobering reflection that as yet no public school system 
has used its unique knowledge concerning the feebleminded children in the com- 
munity to induce more adequate State aid for the feebleminded, it will have 
fulfilled another aim. 

If it succeeds in leading some readers to a keener realization of the necessity 
for thorough individual psychological analyses as the basis for individual peda- 
gogical training of the mentally defective, the deaf, the blind, and the crippled, it 
will have fulfilled still another aim. | 

Finally, if it succeeds in raising to a higher level the special education depart- 
ments of our public schools and so makes living for these pitifully handicapped - 
children a fuller, richer, and happier experience, it will have fulfilled its chief aim. 


CLARA HARRISON Town. 
10 





REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE REVISION OF THE 
EDUCATION OF THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE, THE BLIND, 
THE DEAF, AND THE CRIPPLES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 


The committee appointed to prepare recommendations concerning the revision 
of the education of the mentally defective, the blind, the deaf, and the cripples 
in the public schools concluded that such recommendations could be intelligently 
made only on the basis of accurate knowledge concerning what was already being 
done for these classes of children in the schools throughout the country. It 
therefore determined to send inquiries to all State departments of education, to 
all State boards of charity, and to superintendents of all city school systems of a 
size sufficiently large to be likely to contribute some methods of value. The purpose 
of this investigation was not so much to collect statistical information in regard 
to the quantity of work being done for the various defective classes, as to ascertain 
exactly what methods were in use for their selection, classification and subsequent 
training. 

The work of obtaining this information was apportioned among the committee 
members and questionnaires, in most instances accompanied by personal letters, 

were sent out. The information furnished by the replies is presented tabulated 
under cities' and also under States.? In addition are presented separate compila- 
tions concerning : 


1. State laws concerning and State aid providing for public school classes 
for defective children.* 

2. Varieties of industries used fir the training of mentally defective children.* 

3. Professional requirements for teachers of classes of mentally defective 
children.° 


As the demand for teachers to teach classes of mentally defective children 
is far in excess of the supply, inquiries were sent to the universities and the better 
known colleges concerning courses offered in preparation for this type of teaching. 
A list of universities and colleges and a few other institutions offering such covurses 
is presented. In some instances the courses are briefly described. Universities 
and colleges offering clinical aid to public schools are also listed. 


The returns indicate that :? 
182 cities support classes for mentally defective children. 
74 cities support classes for backward children. 
10 cities support speech corrective classes. 
22 cities support classes for the blind. 
41 cities support classes for the deaf, 
14 cities support classes for cripples. 
157 cities use psychological tests in the selection of mentally defective 
children. 
98 cities depend upon teachers for the mental testing. 
54 cities employ psychologists to make mental examinations. 
6 states employ psychologists to classify children and to establish special . 
classes in the smaller school systems. 


Psychological aid is in many localities offered to the public schools by univer- 
sity, state or local clinics. 





1Statistical Table I, Page —. 4Appendix, Page 85. 
2Statistical Table II, Page —. 5Appendix, Page 86. 
_ 8Appendix, Page 83. SAppendix, Page 88. 


11 





RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF 
THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 


The recommendations concerning the education of the mentally defective 
in the public schools are presented in the two following sections: 

The first section discusses : 

1. The fundamental aims underlying the organization of the work in the 
schools and the methods seemingly best adapted to the securing of these aims. 
Other methods of organization which have been tried and found inadequate are 
also described for the purpose of saving school systems the delays and disappoint- 
ments inevitably connected with their try out. 

2. The relation of public school work with the mentally defective to the 
larger social problem presented by the feebleminded. Opportunities for service 
and means for meeting them. 

3. Methods of classification and examination of children for the purpose 
of discovering those who require special methods of instruction—the feeble- 
minded and those having special mental defects. 

4. The psychological examination of individual cases. The necessity for 
and means of obtaining it. 

5. The psychological clinic, its organization, personnel, equipment, records. 
Co-operation of clinic with social agencies. Co-operation of clinic with school 
departments of health, hygiene and compulsory education. 

6. Clinical examination. Its scope. Guide for physical, pedagogical, and 
mental examinations and social investigation. Diagnosis. Classification of chil- 
dren for the purpose of school training. Type of children brought to clinic. 
Varieties of training required. Speech training. Registration and after care. 

The second section discusses : ; 

1, School organization. Single class. Group of classes. Special building. 
Visiting teacher. 

2. School training. Training of the feebleminded—academic, speech, man- 
ual, industrial, and physical. Industrial plant for feebleminded who have com- 
pleted school training. Equipment. 

3. Teachers’ qualifications and training. 


13 






















Nah ae yaa ' , 
te “4 em alge)? ‘ ee hay ay “ 
FS Paoy ut Wee 


Bho tage we > Le a Sa 
SMU ah 


a 





SOS a te 



















a“ 
a, ‘ 5 ; Y aye 
he are. é ‘ 
ih are Ri Cia s vy ati 
4 4 
‘ 44 
A 
4 
' 
7 : 
ye OFT Sy ies ba 
vos ¢ * 
x - ‘ 
eee, . . he A 
tae eh ’ 
. ‘ © ee i Wy a Gy . 
> ; Ne ‘ i - b : aa oer eh . We 
i Ap t 7 + ; } “¢ A . yy ray) (Mr * 
I F) q ‘ ¢ 4 Piha Je 2 hat a 
an : ese 3 . a : : a <1 )) so hem) “ie 
: r . ' ’ hey 
= . f . i A 
> ey “ . ay ’ ¢ ‘ o- 5 a ee oe 
ere ee Ae waht 71 a’ { ’ ° 7 } PT v6) ps ? at F, r ‘ Lee 4 th 3 
2 - * : A (HAAS 
¥ iew 
« . ag : 
7“ ape phy it ey Pay 
; : ‘ i> ¥ i 5 Ab ve | ye “1? 1406 
\ : , ‘ 
. 4) ‘« 
- “4 ~* es i a 
. ees 4 , ite 1, ay ‘ t tiene ‘ gist ,* 
Te he, 3: a ies +4 L pace roo fey Boia CRM 20d Tene 
c ss > 4° ’ 
, } 
3 ans ‘ } + , ‘ os , 
3i4 ger® ey 4 Pi ei @ *% “ . r ‘ amas 
Aa ae f of DN D9 LEAR DOP ke EE pte Peter 
1 *.% 
, 4 
i ’ 
, ’ 
d . 
, : Li eG 
‘ * cal 
‘ t 
P e > 5 wal ) 
i 3 4 .F% PL reht Lh Bt) Ske > ‘ ins 
‘ . y 
* - ? . 4 > ca 
be - ' rt ‘ 
Si 52 Pe ee wee ests : : ib 1 tf, PR Lap f 
« 7 ai] 
‘ ~ vad ‘ ‘ . 
ta BG id re) 4 > 
. 4’ 
+ g - 
y 7 ry : a el £ 7 f 2 ae 
oe « 7 mie, 5 a7 ; a. j os si*a.e a 
ne Vidura 2. arn whol oti S os Par Be! * +e ei: B Pfu t 
, “ 
- | 4 hy 
4 e ~ rats 
. CSW Teeee 
, ' 2 ae eeu 
~ q t« » «4 cS 
ts - 7 * - FP " - * 
: 7 f " 
- Ap Wd 4 . é fis? f pF Ba | 
. ‘s * * ‘ 
c + e : 4 ‘ 
Ae _- vr wt ‘ ‘ ; , odes. 
4 i% 
< , , f 
™ - ‘ "i P 
; a ‘ " 
: EY * +a ’ : { - RATT) ’ 
. » x 
E . . * 4 a ‘ 
* b . < 
4 - ~ + AY f a . 
f 
wt 
y = on bake 
; a ee vad 2 .¢ : ry are 4 1% | 3 ee Aw 
r ; Ws . end - i 
. ® ¥ r 
y on ri ree tha" 4 Micke . 
e Puan d - Peel auf Z : 
e vi; 
. ; 
rl A 
oy > ‘ 
[a .s 
Ry ve he bie Se gr ty DE -; Wy tng i? inf 
* a ee * * ¢ w ? * 
sat a Le ee Loh 5 en Rea? file 
7 f 5 
va 3 ne ke’, Bb Ouse : 
"8 4 4 -* aia ‘ 7 =}- 4 eee 
t ea a arg er a 
rere la Kod 9 bai ree Peal y ak ¥ ; . oe en 
‘ > : et bee. , : : 
3: mate bed Ee RTS Re ed Bee meets Brae 
, a j aed. ings i” ‘< 


SECTION ONE 
Aims and Methods of Organization 


In formulating and developing a plan for the education of the mentally de- 
fective in the public schools, it is necessary to bear in mind two distinct aims: 


1. The improvement of the school system as a whole. 
2. The adequate training of the mentally defective. 


From the standpoint of the professional public school educator the specialized 
instruction of the mentally defective is important as one phase of a much larger 
problem—the classification of all children according to their capacity for school 
progress. Such classification is desirable because the more nearly the members 
of a group approach each other in ability the less time is lost by individuals and 
the greater is the progress made by the group as a whole. That portion of a 
class which is incapable of comprehending the grade work not only fails itself to 
profit by the instruction but prevents the other portion of the class from adequately 

_ profiting therefrom. The usual response of any individual to an intellectual appeal 
beyond his comprehension is inattention, and when the appeal is long continued, 
relief is sought in some other activity. With school children this “other activity” 
is apt to be of a kind which distracts those who would otherwise profit by the 
instruction, and thus the element of disorder is introduced and class efficiency is 
reduced. On this account the removal of the mentally defective children from 
the regular classes results in improved opportunities for the average and the brilli- 
ant child as well as for the mentally defective child. 


There are certain critics who hold that the mentally defective child is now 
receiving an undue share of attention and that the superior child is in comparison 
neglected, when logically the latter should receive maximal attention on account 
of his superior ability to render society a return in service. These critics appar- 
ently overlook or underestimate the fact that the removal of the mentally defec- 
tive from the regular class rooms results in probably a greater advantage to the 
children remaining in the classes relieved of their presence than to the defective 
children themselves. If these critics would observe the work of classes contain- 
ing three or four defectives, and the work of the same classes after the removal 
of these defectives, and would also observe the work of the defectives while in 
the regular class and later in the class made up of defectives alone, they would 
probably reach the conclusion that the greater relative gain was made by the 
regular classes. A comparative study of the accomplishment during six months 
of a class containing three or four defectives and of the accomplishment during 
the following six months of the same class relieved of its defectives would be a 
convincing manner of presenting the situation. All must admit that in forming 
classes for the mentally defective we are separating the normal from the defective 
just as surely as we are separating the defective from the normal. Indeed in 
many school systems the movement is initiated solely by the desire to improve 
conditions for the normal children and not by any wish to help the defective ones. 
Therefore there is warrant for holding that segregation of the mentally defective 
in special classes is a measure for the benefit of the average and the superior 
children as truly as it is a measure for the benefit of the mentally defective 
children, and warrant for contradicting the statement that in providing for the 
separate instruction of the defectives the schools are spending more than a just 
proportion for the benefit of this class. The fact is the expenditure is for the 
benefit of all the children. | 


Aim 1.—The Improvement of the School System as a Whole.—In the form- 
ulation of plans for the segregation of the mentally defective childern in separate 
classes, the securing of finer conditions for the normal children should always be 

* kept in view as a guiding principle. It is quite possible and indeed quite usual 


15 ; 


to organize special classes in such a way that they fail entirely to accomplish 
this result. The children for the special classes should be so chosen that the 
benefits to the regular classes would be striking and above all permanent. This 
can never be accomplished by making up the special classes of children culled 
from many grades and groups on account of continued and conspicuous failure. 
Such a method helps a few discouraged teachers for a short time but is of no 
lasting benefit to the system. On the contrary, certain classes, or if the work 
is conducted on a large scale, certain schools, should be relieved of all their’ 
defectives and given the opportunity to demonstrate the effect on class work. 
Moreover if the work is conducted on a small scale (as it usually is, even in 
large cities), the classes first relieved should be the first year classes. The reason 
is that the little defectives have a long school life before them, and if not placed 
properly at the beginning will be a burden to many successive classes, whereas 
the places of the defectives removed from the higher grades, which they have 
reached in complement to age and size, will soon be filled by other defectives 
coming up from the lower grades in never ending procession. By keeping the 
lower grades free from defectives we relieve the lower grades and also the 
advanced grades of the near future. As a result in the course of a few years 
the whole system is demonstrably benefited, and the work with defectives is 
established on a firm basis owing to its intimate relations with the welfare of the 
system as a whole. Miss Alice Russell, the much lamented organizer and super- 
visor of the education of defectives in Denver, Colorado, was very strongly in favor 
of the plan here sketched and in the course of correspondence concerning this 
report stated that her experience in Denver had convinced her of the wisdom of 
such a method, and that had she again to organize such work she would adhere 
strictly to this plan. 


Failing to appreciate these facts certain school systems have formed their 
first classes for defectives of boys and girls of fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years 
of age who have failed to progress satisfactorily, and after a couple of years’ 
trial have abandoned the special class work entirely. This is very likely to occur 
in the smaller towns where psychological assistance is difficult to secure. 


Aim 2.—The Adequate Training of the Mentally Defective-—Vhe other aim 
which must guide in the formulation of plans for the special training of the 
mentally defective is the provision of adequate training for the defective children 
themselves. In the above discussion we remarked that the natural response to 
an intellectual appeal beyond the hearer’s comprehension is inattention. If a child 
remains for hours each days in a class room in which the instruction is too 
complex for his small intelligence he soon ceases to make any effort to attend 
and develops the habit of paying little or no attention to anything the teacher 
says or does. The mind thus denied the usual school room stimulus to activity, 
grows more and more inactive and sluggish, and less and less capable of attention 

or effort of any kind. If a mentally defective child has occupied a seat in a 
_ regular class room for four or five years the task of training him to respond to 
the simplest school room instruction is gigantic because it must overcome years 
of enforced inertia. Much more hopeful is the attempt to train the little defectives 
who have not been subjected to this deadening influence. If they can be trained 
at all the appointed time to begin training is extreme youth, and if the public 
schools hope to be successful in the training of defectives such training must 
start at the very beginning of their school careers. Miss Russell was strongly 
of this opinion. Indeed from the standpoint of the psychology of the individual 
and from the standpoint of the education of the individual there could scarcely 
be a contrary opinion. It has been solely from the standpoint of expediency 
in school administration that the attempt has been made to supply the older 
defectives with special training at the expense of the little ones. We have 
endeavored in discussing the first aim to point out that this is a short sighted : 


16 


policy from the standpoint of school efficiency; that it relieves some special 
situations but only at the expense of the permanent strengthening of the system. 


The two aims—improvement of the school system as a whole and the adequate 
training of the mentally defective children—are therefore at one in dictating the 
policy that the special education of defectives should be begun at the earliest 
possible hour of their school life. 


Social Problem Involved 


In the consideration of the training of the mentally defective in the public 
schools one finds involved a most serious social problem. We know that the 
United States, in common with all civilized countries, carries the burden of a vast 
host of feebleminded persons, by conservative estimate at least one to each three 
hundred of the population, or in round numbers three hundred and fifty thousand 
persons. We know that but a small proportion of these defectives, in round 
numbers thirty-nine thousand, are cared for in both public and private institutions,* 
and that many of those not so cared for swell the lists of dependents, delinquents 
and criminals cared for periodically in poor farms and penal institutions of 
various sorts. We know that such a life is for those feebleminded who live in the 
community without adequate home supervision, inevitable, on account of the 
inability of even the highest grade of feebleminded persons to resist the suggestions 
of their companions. We know that it is impossible to train them to the point of 
ability to make independent moral judgments. The aims and ideals which teachers 
strive to instil are perhaps retained verbally but have no weight against a strong 
personal appeal to act contrarily. So long as the companions of the feebleminded are 
of the righteous sort all will go well, but unfortunately they are not always of the 
righteous sort. It is therefore useless, worse than useless, socially vicious, to 
attempt to train the feebleminded of any grade for a free life in society. When 
schools discover that pupils are surely of.a feebleminded grade they should make 
every effort to secure for them a life apart from the general public, sheltered in 
some institution which will supply healthful activity and at the same time shield 
from vicious companions and the possibility of perpetuating their weakness in 
families of feebleminded children. It is too true that it is at present difficult, indeed 
usually impossible, to place children in such institutions, owing to the inadequacy 
of institutional accommodation in all parts of the country; the Boston school 
system being perhaps the only large city system which is able to place anything 
approaching an adequate number of children in institutions. 


It must be borne in mind, however, that the public school system is the only 
organization which has the power to discover the feebleminded at an early age; it 
is the only organization to which all children must report at school age. The school 
system alone has the power to secure the actual facts which will give force to a 
demand for greater institutional provision. Other organizations produce general 
statistical evidence, but the schools alone have the power to collect the facts which 
would enable them to say: “Here is a list of children of school age, who have 
been studied by competent authority and pronounced feebleminded, and who require 
institutional protection. A large proportion of these children, if now neglected by 
the state, will later demand attention of a much more costly kind from courts and 
penal institutions.” It is probably unreasonable to expect adequate institutional 
provision for feebleminded children until the public schools make the extent of 
the need known. It is of interest in this connection that the London schools are 
required by law to report all imbeciles and idiots and all feebleminded who, having 
attained the age of sixteen (the upper age limit for special class children) are unfit 
socially and in need of institutional care. Unhappily our public schools have been 
particularly slow in recognizing the whole problem of the feebleminded committed 
to their care, and so far there has been no well-planned demand from the schools 








: *Annual census of the insane, feebleminded, epileptics, and inebriates in institutions in the U. S. Jan. 1, 
- 4918, Pollock and Furbush. 7 
1 


for institutions. At present the school administrators, in the multiplicity of interests 
demanding their attention, are too apt to consider the feebleminded problem as one: 
that may be postponed, as rather distasteful, hopeless and outside their regular 
jurisdiction. They perhaps send several letters to the state, institution requesting 
care for some cases which seem particularly to require it, and after receiving cour- 
teously worded replies to the effect that the institution 1s overcrowded and that 
there is a waiting list of several hundred, they are content to let the whole matter 
rest. Some superintendents state plainly and positively that they consider the 
school’s interest in the feebleminded should be limited to their instruction in the 
schools, and that coOperation in the state work of their institutional care, even to 
the extent of advising the parents, is unwarranted. Such an attitude on the part 
of the schcol administrators proves them to be asleep, either to the actual feeble- 
minded situation and the part in it which the schools alone can play, or to that 
larger conception of the function of the public schools which extends their province 
of education to include the whole community in which they are situated. If the 
superintendents of those city systems which support classes for mental defectives 
realized the social menace of retaining the feebleminded in the community and the 
inadequacy of any training a school can offer to fit the feebleminded child for a 
self-directed life in the world, they would surely have initiative enough to at least 
keep files of their feebleminded pupils and at the end of a school year see that such 
files were submitted to the state legislature as incontrovertible evidence that greater 
institutional provision is required. There is little doubt that such evidence would 
meet with more consideration from legislators than statements of the estimated 
number of feebleminded persons in the community. The fact that nine states have 
made provision by statute for the special instruction of the mentally defective in 
the public schools has already forced attention to the situation and the prospect is 
good for a much wider appreciation of the problem in those states where such 
education is mandatory. Efforts to educate the feebleminded in groups will soon 
prove the statements of those already familiar with the type that no amount of 
training will make even of the higher grade feebleminded person a morally respon- 
sible individual. In districts where this is discovered a realization will grow that 
some sort of supervised life is essential for such persons, and once this fact is 
widely recognized a demand strong enough to secure results will follow. | 


This problem is most important in its bearings upon the adequate training of 
the mentally defective children in the schools. Fortunately the mentally defective 
children are not all feebleminded, are not all of institution type. The sort of train- 
ing required by them depends entirely upon two conditions—their type of: mental 
defect and the life they are destined to lead after leaving the school. The feeble- 
minded, and they comprise all those who are incapable of being trained to the point 
of a self-directed life in the community, should be trained for institution life, and 
the schools should hold them only until more adequate provision can be made. A 
detailed treatment of the subject of their training will be found in the section 
dealing with school training. Other children with a less profound type of mental 
deficiency than feeblemindedness or with some discrete mental defect rather than 
low-grade intelligence must be trained with a view to community life and according 
to their individual idiosyncrasies. A detailed treatment concerning this type of 
training will be found in the section dealing with school training. The training 
appropriate for the feebleminded group is absolutely different in all essentials from 
the training appropriate for those who are to take a place, however humble, in 
society, and the success of the public school special classes depends largely upon 
the adjustment ‘of training to differential diagnosis. 


Classification 


‘The first problem which confronts the school system which introduces the 
special instruction of the mentally defective is classification. How shall the 
mentally defective be separated from the great mass of children? Our question- 


18 


naire returns show that the first selection is allowed to rest sometimes with the 
‘grade teacher, sometimes with the school physician, or the school nurse, and 
sometimes with the teacher of the special class or the supervisor ‘of the special 
classes. Often the final decision is made by a committee comprised of superin- 
tendent, principal, and teacher; or principal, teacher, and physician; or superinten- 
dent, teacher, principal, and nurse; or principal and supervisor. 


Repetition of grades, excessive age for grade, special defects or disabilities, 
and misconduct have all been used as a basis of separation, but these methods are 
now very generally supplemented by mental tests. The. questionnaire returns 
show that mental tests are used as a basis of separation in 157 of 182 cities which 
support classes for mental defectives. Fifty-four of these cities employ a psycholo- 
gist to do examining, and in ninety-eight cities it is done by teachers. 


Mental Tests—Mental tests were first used to discover the mentally defective 
in the schools by Dr. Alfred Simon in Paris in 1908. Psychological examinations 
had already been much used in both Europe and the United States in the study of 
difficult and puzzling children, but no comprehensive attempt had been made to 
use mental tests in the classification of school children. Binet presented a well- 
organized system of testing, well organized both from the point of view of making 
the tests and of the subsequent determination and summing up of the child’s ability. 
This system of testing was introduced into the United States by Dr. H. H. Goddard, 
and as it supplied a conscious need it attracted immediate attention, and is now in its 
various American adaptations much more widely known than in France. 


Under existing school conditions testing all the children by the Binet system 
is impossible on account of the enormity of the task. To be of diagnostic value the 
Binet tests must not be given in haste nor be given by persons untrained in psycho- 
logical testing. Fortunately it is entirely unnecessary to test individually each child 
in a school system; it is enough to test those children who do not progress satis- 
factorily. These children are usually chosen on account of repeating grades, of 
being over age for grade, of having special defects of some kind, or on account of 
difficulties of discipline. During the last few years, however, mass mental tests 
have been much used for this purpose. As a whole class may be tested at once, 
this is a very practicable method, especially as picked teachers may be trained to 
make the tests. The method seems to be proving successful in making the first 
rough separation, and the prospect is that the mass method of testing will be 
developed to much greater perfection and be very widely used. There are already 
a number of mass tests which have been used quite extensively—the Otis, the 
Pressey, of which there are several groups suited to varying ages and to different 
test purposes; the Haggerty, one series for little children and several for older 
children, the picture game test for kindergarten and first grades (Town) and the 
National Intelligence Tests, prepared under the auspices of the National Research 
Council by M. E. Haggerty, L. M. Terman, E. L. Thorndike, G. M. Whipple, and 
R. M. Yerkes. 


The scores obtained from a class subjected to a mass test are arranged in 
rank order and the lower five or ten per cent of the pupils are given individual 
psychological examinations. Still better, group tests may be used for which per- 
centile ratings for the various grades have been established from a tabulation of 
scores obtained from many parallel grades. Individual scores may then be 
compared with these percentile norms rather than with the single class norms. In 
practice we find that when norms derived from many classes, from large numbers 
of children are used, the number of children in a given class whose scores fall below 
the ten percentile of the norms will be considerably less than the lower ten per cent 
of said class. 

There is one danger in this method of testing against which one must guard 
. by considering the age of each child examined. It is quite possible for a mentally 


19 


defective child who is retarded several years in school grade to make a score well 
above the ten percentile rating of his grade. In all cases in which a child is much. 
over age for grade his score should be compared with an age. percentile norm 
rather than with a grade norm, or if age norms are not obtainable, with the grade 
norms of children of his age. The true retardation of the child will then be 
revealed. Such children are the very ones whom teachers are apt to overlook 
when questioned as to the intelligence of their children; being capable of doing the 
class work, and attracting no attention by initiative or originality, such children 
fail to make an impression of any kind upon the teacher. 


In order to find all the children who require special aid, it is well to supple- 
ment all of these rather mechanical statistical methods by asking the teacher to 
designate the children who are experiencing great difficulty with the class work, the 
children who are falling behind the average child in achievement. There are 
children who at six, seven, and eight years of age show little if any quantitative 
deficiency in intelligence, who are nevertheless mentally defective. Some of these 
children are actually feebleminded, but the arrest of their development is just 
beginning to be evident. Whatever may be the fact in normal individuals, we have 
many data to indicate that in feebleminded individuals mental development does 
always progress at a regular rate. The same child may possess seventy-five per 
cent intelligence at six years and fifty per cent intelligence at ten years. Such a 
child would be an imbecile at six years, just as truly as at ten years of age, and 
should be eligible to a special class for defectives at six. As illustration, at the 
Lincoln State School and Colony several years ago there were two sisters, eight 
and twelve years of age, respectively, both of whom by the Binet-Simon intelligence 
scale showed an intelligence level of six years; the younger girl, therefore, had 
seventy-five per cent. normal intelligence and the older girl fifty per cent., and 
yet both were undoubtedly imbeciles. At the same institution there were two 
brothers, eight and eleven years of age, both of whom had the same degree of 
mental development—an intelligence of seven years. The younger, then, had 
eighty-seven per cent normal mentality and the older sixty-three per cent, but 
both were imbeciles of the same type. There were also four brothers, aged six. 
nine, twelve, and fourteen years, respectively; the intelligence level of the six-year- 
old boy was five years, and that of each of the other boys was seven years. The 
percentage of normal intelligence reached by the youngest boy was eighty-three. 
that reached by the nine-year-old boy was seventy-seven, that reached by_ the 
twelve-year-old boy was fifty-eight, and that reached by the fourteen-year-old bov 
was fifty. Yet these boys were undoubtedly all imbeciles. The cases cited are not 
exceptional; they are chosen because all the members of these family groups are of 
school age, while the youngest members are still young enough to show a high 
percentage of intelligence development by a quantitative rating. Were these 
children public school pupils, in justice to their mentality they should all be 
eligible to special class membership, but if the examiner limited himself to any 
form of the Binet scale as a means of diagnosis four of these children would be 
excluded from such advantage for several years until they would show a quanti- 
tative deficiency of intelligence great enough to indicate feeblemindedness. This 
is plainly wasteful, and is besides quite unnecessary. Such children are discover- 
able by a clinical psychologist who has a knowledge of and experience with the 
‘various forms of abnormal mental conditions, and also means of diagnosis other 
than quantitative intelligence scales. They are also very apt to be detected by the 
grade teacher who, though unable to diagnose the trouble, feels sure that certain 
children are not as children usually are. Perhaps she asks that such a child be 
given an intelligence test; the test is given by someone trained in the technique of 
Binet testing but not in the psychology of abnormal mental states, with the result 
that the teacher is told that the child is not deficient. If a psychologist is available 
the selection of such children by the teacher is a great aid in finding the defectives, 


20 


In addition there are little children who are not feebleminded and who show 
“no quantitative difference in intelligence who have grave qualitative defects which 
often prevent them from learning to read and write under ordinary class-room 
methods, and therefore effectively prevent school progress. Nevertheless these 
children possess intelligence, and if the cause of their difficulties be discovered 
early enough there is a possibility of remedying or compensating for the defects by 
special pedagogical training. There is a chance of developing in these children 
average efficiency, whereas if they are deprived of special aid in their early years 
they fail entirely and finally, as a result, take places among the mentally inferior. 
Such children profit more by special training than any other type of child, and 
their training is a greater asset to the community. Such children are not discover- 
able in the first grades by any form of intelligence scale. The teacher knows of 
the class-room difficulties, and the clinical psychologist is able to analyze them. 
The Binet tester, on the contrary, is baffled. 


To overlook such children in the special class work is a grave error. That 
there is a tendency to overlook them at the present time is probably due to the 
fact that while quantitative differences of intelligence have been popularized by 
the psychologists, the qualitative differences have not, and so such differences 
remain unknown to many educators. The result is that the statutes of several 
states—New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts—and the boards of education 
rulings of several other states are couched in terms of quantitative differences of 
intelligences. The states mentioned provide for the special training of all children 
three or more years retarded, and state boards are ruling that the special classes be 
made up of children of intelligence ratings between certain set percentages of 
normal intelligence for their ages. These rulings certainly make impossible much 
of the benefit that might result from special class work. Possibly the guiding 
thought in these rulings is to limit the special class ‘work to individuals absolutely 
feebleminded—those persons who are incapable of being trained to the point of 
adequate self-direction in community life. From the point of view of the 
efficiency of the school system this seems to be a very short-sighted, a very limited 
policy. Another motive for these rulings may be a desire to guard against mistaken 
diagnoses by Binet testers. We think the better way to guard against mistaken 
diagnoses is to place the final diagnosis, at least, in the hands of a well-trained 
psvchologist, and not to cripple the policy of the system in order to safeguard the 
diagnoses of persons not sufficiently trained to be entrusted with more authority. 


Psychological Examination 


The first rough discrimination made and the difficult children ready for indi- 
vidual testing, we have reached the stage of careful examination and analysis. In 
order to train a defective child, it is necessary not only to know the fact of mental 
deficiency and its degree, but also to know the character of the defect which is 
responsible for this mental deficiency. In order that mental analyses be made 
which are of real service to the teacher as a guide to the training of the children, 
it is essential that a clinical psychologist be available to make the final examina- 
tions. 

In city school systems this fact is sometimes recognized by the administrators, 
but more frequently it is not. The grade teachers are more often alive to the need, 
and frequently on their own initiative travel with some difficult child to the nearest 
university, which may be fifteen or twenty miles distant, in order to gain an insight 
into the child’s difficulties. Perhaps the greatest progress toward an efficient 
handling of the problem has been made by those systems which have established 
public school clinics under the direction of a psychologist. Schools in university 
and college towns often have access to well-established university clinics which are 
willing to assist in the public school work. Co-operation of this sort may prove to 
* be the better way of meeting the situation; the psychological work of the schools 


21 


f 


being at the same time university work may conform to higher standards than if . 
totally divorced from university influence. Moreover, being in the schools and yet * 
not of them, the work may escape some of the impediments of public school 
administration. 


The state universities and colleges are also making an effort to assist the 
smaller towns of the commonwealths. This method is capable of great expansion, 
and it has the advantage of carrying university procedure and standards into the 
schools in a way that is rarely possible for an employe of a city system. Eighteen 
universities and colleges are now giving more or less clinical assistance to schools. 


The newest movement of all is that inaugurated by the state departments of 
education ef New York, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Penn- 
sylvania, which have added to their equipment a psychologist whose function it is to 
visit the smaller cities of the state, examine the difficult children, and establish 
special classes for defectives. The potentialities of this movement are enormous. 
Of course, if more than a scratch on the surface of a state situation is to be made, 
a corps of psychologists instead of one must be appointed. 


On the whole, there is much in favor of extending the psychological work 
through the agency of the state universities. It is in the universities that the new 
methods are developed, and. it is to the universities that we must look for the 
guardianship of the scientific integrity of method which alone makes a psycho- 
logical examination of value. The details of such a system must be worked out 
to meet the local conditions. The Colorado State Teachers’ College at Greeley 
developed a plan by which the college supplies the psychologist, paying the salary, 
and the city supplies the equipment and pays the traveling expenses of the psycholo- 
gist. The plan involves the division of the psychologist’s time between several 
cities, to each of which would be devoted a set period of time each month. The 
work has been started but has not been very fully developed. 


The facts that eighteen university clinics and five state boards of education are 
assisting schools with their clinical examinations demonstrate that ways are being 
developed to extend the use of psychological methods to the small communities 
which would find it difficult to develop clinics of their own. A beginning has been 
made which promises great developments in the near future. In the larger cities, 
where the number of children to be handled is very great, the movement now is 
toward the establishment of psychological clinics as integral parts of. the system. 
Whether stich clinic be a part of the school system or not, its assistance is certainly 
indispensible to an adequate handling of the situation. 


Public School Psychological Clinic 


Personnel.—The personnel of the most modest public school clinic should 
comprise a directing psychologist, an assistant psychologist, a social service 
assistant and a record clerk. In school systems where no provision is made for 
medical examinations there should also be a physician. In some school systems 
like that of Newark, New Jersey, where there is a highly developed medical 
clinic this would be useless duplication. The clinic must have at its disposal, 
however, a record of the physicial condition of the children examined. The 
business of the clinical psychologist is to secure a complete picture of the child’s 
abilities and needs, and this includes not only a mental analysis, but a physical 
and social picture as well. It must always be remembered that the capacity of 
any child is the point product of the three aspects of his life—mental, physical 
and social, each mingling with and determining the others. ‘This fact makes the 
results of an examination by a physician and the results of an investigation by a 
social visitor indispensable to the data on which the psychologist must base his - 
judgment of the case. It is sometimes possible to obtain both of these reports 
through correlated agencies. As the social visitor is always needed for taking 
children to medical clinics, as well as for visiting homes to gain the parents’ ' 


22 , 


. consent to take them there, it is essential that she be a member of the clinic 
* personnel. She should be in more intimate touch with the clinic work than a 
person working primarily with another agency could possibly be. The successful 
follow up work with the children depends largely upon the training, and the 
wisdom of this visitor, and great wisdom is demanded of the director of the 
clinic when he makes choice of this assistant. 


Cooperation of Clinic with Social Agencies—In large cities it is always 
possible to add much to the social visitor’s findings by cooperating with existing 
social agencies. In cities where there is a social service register such as exists 
in Chicago and other large cities, it is often possible to ascertain through a simple 
telephone conversation from whom and at what time the family of the child 
being studied has received assistance of any sort. ‘This information may be 
followed up by inquiries to the agencies mentioned as giving aid and much 
valuable family history gained in the minimum of time. The social agencies 
are always glad to co-operate and in turn the psychological clinic should 
be ready to assist them in the diagnosis of difficult cases. The clinic should 
also be in close codperation with the school nurses who may often be. working 
with the same cases in a way that will supply all the home history that is 
necessary. The attendance department is also one with which the clinic should 
be in close touch. This department is apt to be in possession of much information 
‘concerning family situations of school children, and it can also often call 
attention to mentally defective children whom it is handling from a different 
angle. In Kansas City, for example, as a result of new rulings concerning 
continuation schools for young people of school age who had not finished 
minimum school requirements and yet were working, a number of working 
children who were actually feebleminded were discovered and sent to the psycho- 
logical clinic. Unfortunately nothing could be done for them as no institutional 
care was available, but the machinery for discovering these older cases was in 
‘motion and the names and addresses of these children with their mental diagnoses 
are on file in the clinic. 


Equipment.—The clinic should be installed in two or three rooms and should 
be well equipped with apparatus for mental testing of all kinds, for making 
anthropometrical measurements and for testing vision and hearing and examining 
nose, throat, heart and lungs. If the medical examinations are made at the clinic 
some additional apparatus will be needed for blood tests, etc. 


We append a list of clinical apparatus which has proved of service. This 
list is of course merely tentative and would vary with the preferences of the 
psychologist in charge. In addition to the usual office furnishings there should 
-be a laboratory table, a filing case, a case for apparatus, a low table and several 
primary chairs for little children, and a typewriter. In one room there should 
be running water that the children may wash their hands before touching the 
apparatus which so many other children subsequently handle. This is essential. 


Records——One important item in the conducting of a psychological clinic 
is the recording and filing of the results of the examinations. We find the use of 
minutely itemized forms, for the majority of the records, unsatisfactory. Such 
forms are apt to lead to mechanical methods which defeat their own purpose by 
frequently failing to secure the individually important items which the form 
fails to suggest. There are, moreover, on all such forms, many items which are 
irrelevant to the case being examined which occupy space which could be used 
to better advantage. We favor limiting the itemized forms to the blanks for 
the anthropometrical measurements and to that for the Binet test record, for 
which the items are of course invariable. To aid in securing a history of the 
child we prefer a guide which may be kept at hand for reference during the 
* examinations, the items secured being recorded on blank sheets with printed 


23 


a 


subject headings. Many mental tests are provided by their publishers in the. 
form of blanks, and as the tests used vary with the requirements of the child, ~ 
forms for recording set series of mental tests involve much -waste and some 
confusion. For a research concerning certain tests as tests such forms are useful, 
but for individual examinations in a clinic the need is a different one. 


It is convenient to have blank record sheets prepared, with headings desig- 
nating their purpose. These should be of letter size, and it adds much to facility 
in consulting files if different colored sheets are used for each phase of the 
examination, for example—white sheets for the mental examination, pink sheets 
for the physical examination, blue sheets for the history record, yellow sheets 
for the pedagogical examination, and green sheets for the summary and recom- 
mendations. There should be a separate folder for the records of each child, 
labelled with his name or serial number. The summary blank is indispensable 
and a duplicate of this should, as a rule, be sent to the principal of the school 
which the child attends. We append a sample series of blanks, adding a guide 
which has proved useful in obtaining the history of children, and a guide for 
the physical examination. 


In addition to the record sheets it is necessary to keep a card index of the 
children examined. The most important items concerning the child are recorded 
on the card—name, address, age, school, grade, summary of examination findings 
(brief), diagnosis, recommenations. The reverse of card should be used for 
a record of subsequent happenings, for example—Jan. 6, glasses provided by 
Dr. Feb. 4, adenoids removed, Dr. Mch. 8, More attentive and 
controlled (mother). April 1, Can pronounce “th.” Less monotony of tone 
(teacher). It is well to add a second card to the file for each child transferred 
to a special class, and to record quantitatively and at set intervals, his progress 
in each activity pursued in the school. By the use of colored metal markers it is 
easy to indicate the cards of feebleminded children, of mongolians, of epileptics, 
of those children suffering from physical defects or any other group of children 
which is of especial interest. 








Codperation between Clinic and Classes for Defectives—The discussion of 
records has assumed an intimate relationship between the clinic and the special 
classes for defectives. The work of the clinic must be closely correlated both 
with the establishment and supervision of these classes. The task of the psychol- 
ogist is only begun when he makes the diagnosis. To be of service this diagnosis 
must be followed by the sort of training designed to relieve or correct the diffi- 
culties which it has revealed. In order that this may be effected the psychologist 
must be in intimate touch with the teacher of the child and he must strive to 
make her understand the child’s needs and to help her in planning her school 
regime. 


One method of securing the desired relations between the psychologist and 
the special class teachers is to make a member of the clinic staff, an assistant 
psychologist, supervisor of these classes. The special classes should be considered 
as an arm of the clinic, an arm reaching out into the schools, just as the social 
service division of the clinic is an arm reaching out into the homes. The 
psychologist will add to the effectiveness of the special class work if he meets the 
teachers as a group once every week or perhaps every two weeks and talks to 
them in relation to phases of their work in which they may need help, analyze 
new cases, presents new methods, etc. 


In some cities at present there is the loosest possible connection between the 
special classes and the psychological clinic, and in consequence much of the work 
of the psychologist remains unproductive of results. In other cities the organ- 
ization and supervision of the special classes and the clinical examinations are all 
in the hands of one person without adequate assistance, which means that neither 


24 


: the class supervision nor the clinical work receives the attention essential to the 
best results. Such administrative mistakes are, perhaps, inevitable during the 
first years of clinical and special class work in the pubtic schools, but they should 
not be perpetuated, and repeated, and it is hoped that the work of this committee 
will make them less frequent. 


Clinical Examination 


Whenever possible it is of advantage to have the child brought to the clinic 
by the parents. When the psychologist himself has an interview with the parents, 
not only is his appreciation of the child rendered more profound thereby, but 
he gains the opportunity to help the parents to a realization of the child’s needs, 
which frequently leads to correction of physical defects and correction of errors 
in the general regime of the child’s daily life. Such interviews also bring the 
clinic and the special class work into rapport with the homes. The parents then 
understand that a special effort is being made to help their children, that they 
are receiving even more attention than is the average child, and they lose the 
idea which is prevalent in many places where special class work is attempted, 
that their children are being deprived of the training in reading, writing, and 
arithmetic to which they are entitled. 

Each child sent to the clinic should bring with him a copy of his school 
record, which should contain dates of entry into the various grades and number 
of absences during each term. He should also bring a statement by his teacher 
concerning his school work. The items for the history are gleaned from this 
school record, from the interview with the parents and the investigation of the 
social service assistant. 

The clinical examination of the child may well begin with tests of strength 
and lung power as with these it is usually easy to gain his interest and codperation. 
These should be followed by tests of vision and hearing, because if there is a 
defect in either of these senses the mental examination must be adjusted to the 
difficulty caused thereby. 

The mental examination, made by the psychologist, first seeks to determine 
the grade of the child’s general intelligence, a quantitative statement in terms of 
years of general mental development. This is usually accomplished by the aid 
of some form of Binet Intelligence Scale—either the Goddard Revision, The 
Stanford Revision, the Binet Revision, or the Yerkes Point Scale. In many 
instances from such an examination a psychologist is able to determine both 
that a child is feebleminded and his degree of feeblemindedness, in others the 
diagnosis remains doubtful, and further examination and perhaps protracted 
study during subsequent visits or in the school room is necessary in order that 
a diagnosis be made. Difficulties in making diagnoses sometimes result from 
the complex nature of the defect, and sometimes from the emotional attitude 
of the child during the examination. Extreme reticence, fear or stubbornness 
defeat the examination; it is essential to gain the confidence of the child. 

Often so many physical defects are revealed by the examination that the 
psychologist attributes much of the mental deficiency or abnormality to physical 
limitations or physical strain and stress, and final diagnosis is postponed until 
the child’s physical condition is improved by surgical interference, medical care, 
change of diet, change of sleep habits, or adequate physical exercise and fresh 
air. Indeed physical defects, to a greater or less degree remediable, are found 

‘in from eighty to ninety per cent. of children brought to a clinic. This at once 
proves the necessity for a physician’s aid in diagnosis. In the larger cities the 
schools have the advantage of the medical clinics of the great medical schools 
and hospitals, but in smaller towns the problem is a different one. As school 
systems in these towns are often innocent of even the most superficial medical 
inspection, if a psychological clinic is organized it is essential that a physician 


25 


be employed if not for all for part time, to make the physical examinations. We :; 
append a guide for the physical examination which includes the essential points 


No matter of what grade intelligence the child proves to be, unless the 
remediable physical defects are corrected it is useless to expend intensive effort 
in pedagogical training. Such child has encountered pedagogical difficulties or 
he would not have arrived at the clinic. If we leave a discovered defect uncorrected 
it is probable that he will continue to encounter these difficulties in spite of 
improved pedagogical conditions. With a clinic system which coordinates the 
efforts of the home, the clinic and the school, through a familiarity of the psychol- 
ogist with the school, with the teachers, and with the parents, and a wise 
strengthening of these contacts by the clinic visitor, it 1s possible in many cases 
to accomplish all that is required for the child’s welfare. Some state boards 
of education make the correction of remediable physical defects a condition. for 
acceptance to membership. in a special class. Whether this will prove to be a 
wise procedure is questionable. The fact that in some communities it is even 
impossible to enforce a vaccination ruling makes its possibility of enforcement 
seem quite doubtful. The ideal manner of securing the correction of the physical 
defects of the children is, of course, through codperation with the parents, the 
only objection to this method is that in many cases this cooperation is not secured. 
But it is questionable whether there will not be as great difficulty when the 
attempt is made to force the parents to allow medical care. 


Special Types of Clinic Cases-——Among the children examined at a clinic 
there are always some who prove to have an average amount of intelligence although 
they bring school records which show them to be at a standstill pedagogically. 
From the psychological and pedagogical standpoints these are the most interesting 
of all cases, and unless the school failure can be directly traced to severe naso- 
pharyngeal obstruction, defective vision, impacted teeth, or other physical defect 
or disorder, the psychologist’s best. skill is required to discover the underlying 
cause of the child’s failure. If he succeeds in reaching a true analysis of such 
a child’s mental abilities and disabilities, and succeeds also in giving the special 
teacher a just appreciation of that which must be done in the school room to 
meet and counteract the existing difficulties, a task of absorbing interest for 
psychologist and teacher is begun, a task which will mean for the child intensive 
effort, but which may mean the substitution of success for failure in school and 
in life as well. 


The psychological examination of such cases must be carried much further 
than the examination of general intelligence. A thorough psychological analysis 
must be made, one that is fine enough to admit of the discovery of not only 
deficiencies, but anomalies of sensation, perception, memory, volition, emotion, 
coordination, language, etc. The tests used for such an examination will depend 
upon the type of child to be studied and upon the discretion of the psychologist 
making the study. The essentials to the success of such an examination do not 
reside fundamentally in the tests employed, but in the psychologist’s ability to 
use advantageously the many available methods of analytic testing, and in his 
power to observe and interpret the child’s behavior. 


Pedagogical Examination.—lIt is practical to base the pedagogical examination 
on the subject matter of the school work. Sets of questions and problems testing 
ability in the work for each grade in each subject of the curriculum should. be 
prepared in the form of blanks and used for the routine examination of each 
child brought to the clinic. These, of course, would differ with different school 
systems. A child should first be given the questions prepared for the grade which 
“he is attending, if he fails in that the tests for the lower grades should be used 
until his level of achievement in each branch is reached. If his ability seems to 
exceed that required for the passing of his grade tests, he should be given the ~ 


26 


‘opportunity to demonstrate his maximum ability. Standardized educational 
tests, such as the Courtis, the Thorndyke and the Thurstone have not proved 
very satisfactory for these individual examinations. They are designed rather 
to test class progress than individual abilities. 


Diagnosis——The psychological diagnosis rests upon the total information 
concerning the child obtained from all examinations and investigations—psycho- 
logical, physical, pedagogical, historical and social. When the diagnosis is made 
a brief summary of findings and conclusions with recommendations should be 
prepared. 


Classification for School Training—On the result of such thorough clinical 
examinations the classifications in the special classes should rest. The final 
summary of the case should always be accompanied by advice as to the dispo- 
sition of the child in school. If special class training is indicated the class best 
suited to the child’s needs should be mentioned. The child should then be trans- 
ferred to the class designated after which the psychologist should hold a conference 
with the teacher concerning the special requirements of the child. 


The fineness of the classification of the children in the special classes depends 
somewhat upon the size of the system and number of classes available. There 
are a few guiding principles, however, to which one should always adhere :-— 


1—The type of training given to feebleminded children—that is, children 
who are incapable of developing ability to independently govern their own activ- 
ities—must be different in character from the type of training given to children 
who are not feebleminded in the above sense, but who are handicapped by special 
mental defects. 


2.—The younger children should on no account be placed in the class rooms 
with the large boys and girls, even though the latter may have the same degree 
of intellectual development. Among the little ones we find many who are handi- 
capped by some special defect or weakness which we may hope to relieve, or 
for which we may hope to compensate by special pedagogical training. Such 
children if neglected later swell the group of the permanently defective, but if skil- 
fully trained from the beginning they may possibly attain to a life of approximate 
normality. In these classes for the youngest defectives the attention must be 
trained and there must be expert speech training and language work. The 
teaching is individual and very intensive, and the teacher’s entire time and her 
undivided attention are required to carry such a class through the day at the 
desired level of effort. The permanently defective require an entirely different 
regime, and if they are trained in the same classes with the little ones a division 
of the teacher’s interest is called for which necessarily detracts from the value 
of her work. 

In schools in which several classes for the youngest defectives are formed 
there is a better chance to separate the hopeful cases from those which already 
at five, six, or seven years of age can be definitely diagnosed as feebleminded. 
For a teacher to attempt to train these children as she should train the more 
hopeful cases, who possibly have the same intelligence rating though very different 
mental abilities and possibilities, is a waste of time and a strain against insur- 
mountable difficulties. The young feebleminded children should be placed in 
separate classes if possible. If a small number of classes prevents this, the teacher 
should be informed of the diagnosis and should pursue a different and much less 
intensive form of training with the feebleminded little ones. 


We are of the opinion that those cities are wise which exclude from the 
special class work all children ranking below the kindergarten grades of men- 
tality—the five year level. Idiots and low grade imbeciles have no place in public 
school classes, they are not subjects for teaching but for nursing, and nursing 


has not as yet been recognized as a function of the public schools. It is only. 
during these present years when there is inadequate institutional provision that’ 
the schools should attempt to train even the high grade feebleminded, and we 
do not believe that this obligation should be extended to include those feeble- 
minded who are incapable of profiting by the simplest types of school training. 
On refusing such children, the schools should register their names and addresses 
and their mental diagnosis and should endeavor to secure for them adequate care 
elsewhere. If public schools are for any reason compelled to care for children 
of so low a grade of mentality it is useless to attempt more than nursery and 
playground training, which could be as well handled by women not trained in 
teaching. 


3.—In school work with feebleminded children over twelve years of age 
the sexes should be segregated. This is better for two reasons: 1.—lIt is unwise 
to facilitate intercourse between the older boys and girls as their lack of moral 
ideas and moral stamina, coupled with a normal development of physique and of 
_ instincts, is apt to lead under such conditions, to most undesirable sexual com- 
plications. 2.—The desirable industrial training for boys and girls of this age 
and type is quite dissimilar, and a better organization can be secured when the 
training is conducted separately. 


Special Types of Children Requiring Special Training. Speech Cases.— 
Among the children brought to a clinic for examination are some who are not, 
properly speaking, subjects for special class teaching, but who need individual 
training in order to overcome some special difficulty. Among these are the very 
numerous cases of stammering and stuttering. It is very essential that these 
boys and girls be helped, for if not corrected the speech difficulty will certainly 
prevent full efficiency. For instance, one boy reached high school age and grade 
retaining an infantile stammer which made his speech absolutely unintelligible to 
those who were not accustomed to it. He could not be passed on to high school 
with this defect. Intensive speech training resulted in the correction of the 
defect. This success was gained only at the expense of enormous effort on 
the boy’s part under the guidance of a teacher not connected with the school 
system. One little boy in a first year class was reported by his teacher as speaking 
no word but his own name. A clinical examination revealed the fact that the 
child had a severe infantile stammer, that much fun had been made of him in 
an effort to shame him to greater effort, and that he had taken refuge in 
complete silence when with strangers. This examination was unproductive of 
results because there was no pedagogical aid supplied by the school system. 
The mother was greatly interested in the examination, was anxious to do all in 
her power to help her child and did have an eye defect corrected by glasses. She 
felt, however, that the school was unjust to recommend special speech training 
and not to provide the same. In this city the clinical examinations were the work 
of a university and the school side of the problem had not been well developed. 
There were in the system two classes for defective children, but they were 
made up entirely of boys and girls of ages between thirteen and sixteen, the 
little ones of this system being entirely neglected. 

Fortunately an increasingly large number of cities are recognizing the necessity 
for corrective speech work, and are assigning special teachers for speech training. 
In various localities special classes are held several times each week, and to 
these classes are sent from the neighboring schools all those children who suffer 
from speech difficulties. 


It is quite possible to develop this speech work through the teachers of the 
special classes for defectives. It is absolutely necessary to have a teacher trained 
for corrective speech work in any group of special class teachers. Such a teacher 
might well be assigned to speech training alone, and devote part of her time to 


28 


. speech classes made up of children sent from the regular classes. Indeed this 
is, perhaps, the most satisfactory manner of developing the work as it results 
in greater uniformity in the corrective speech training. The organization and 
supervision of these speech classes may well be the function of the organizer and 
supervisor of the special classes for defectives. 


Disciplinary Cases. —There is a large and interesting group of children which 
finds its way to the clinic. It is composed of children who though keen. intel- 
lectually and quite up to the average in school grade are in continual difficulty 
on account of misconduct of various forms. Such children should be welcomed 
to the clinic, which should use all its resources in the effort to discover and remedy 
the causes of the conduct disturbances. Often some physical irritation such as 
that caused by impacted teeth or adenoid vegetation is the basis of all the trouble, 
often it is a question of unwise daily routine, unhygienic living, late hours and 
constant mental excitement from low grade moving picture shows, substitution 
of coffee or other stimulants for nutritious food, etc., often it is due to a lack of 
parental discipline and control. It is the function of the clinic to make these: 


causes clear to the parents and to teachers and to advise concerning the subsequent 
treatment of the child. 


Registration and After Care-——A function of the clinic which must not be 
overlooked is the after care of the children who are sent to it for help. It 
can not be stated too often that examination and diagnosis are of little practical 
value of the knowledge thus secured, if not utilized in the guidance of the child’s 
life. While the child is of the school system the social visitor should at regular 
intervals survey conditions and determine whether the child is receiving the 
required care. At fourteen or sixteen, however, the child drops out of school, 
and is usually lost to view. There should undoubtedly be a continuation of the 
supervision begun by the school. A complete file of all the mentally defective 
children examined-must of course be preserved at the clinic, but for both practical 
and statistical purposes these records should be kept up to date throughout the 
life of all feebleminded persons. An immense amount of data concerning the sort of 
lives lived by these persons in the communities would be collected, which would 
be of untold value in securing provision for their care. The Juvenile Protective 
Association in Chicago traced the subsequent careers of many children who had 
attended the special classes of the publica schools of that city, and prepared charts 
of the careers of several which they considered typical. These charts present 
graphically the journeyings of the boys and girls from juvenile court to criminal 
court, from juvenile corrective institutions to jails and prisons, with intervals 
at home long enough to get into some new trouble, which sent them back to the 
courts. Continued supervision is also necessary in order that when institutional 
provision is ready, we may know where those children are whom we have striven 
in vain to place under protection several years before. 


That this continuation of supervision should take place is quite clear, that 
the public schools should undertake it is not quite so clear. But as the schools 
alone know of the pérsons to be supervised, the obligation surely rests with them — 
to see that such supervision be accomplished, at least to the extent of ‘keeping the 
registry of addresses up to date. Such after care may well be made a very 
profitable field for public school research, as from the data collected concerning 
the subsequent lives of the pupils may be derived explicit information concerning 
the occupations which they follow and their successes and failures in the same. 
This knowledge could then be used as a guide in planning the occupational training 
to be given children of parallel mental endowment. 


Such supervision might well be the function of the state department which 


has supervision of the institutions for the feebleminded, or in large cities the 
function of the city department having supervision of similar institutions. If 


29 


such supervision is undertaken by these departments, the public schools as well 
as all the other social service agencies which come into contact with the feeble-: 
minded, should report the names of all feebleminded persons known to them to 
the departments. In Ohio state registration of the feebleminded has begun. The 
public schools of Toledo place the names of their feebleminded on the Institution 
waiting list, while those of Youngstown register theirs with the Children’s Service 
Bureau. 


Dr. Francis Maxfield is of the opinion that it would be well to legally 
commit all cases of feeblemindedness to the State Department of Public Welfare, 
or analogous department, as this would make it possible to supervise all cases 
under the parole system, and to later send to institutions those for whom such 
care proved necessary, without further commitment. This appears to be an 
excellent‘and very practical means of accomplishing both registration and super- 
vision. | 

It must always be borne in mind that much more than supervision through 
inspection by a visitor is desirable for the actually feebleminded persons, and 
this for two reasons,—first—the feebleminded function effectively only under 
constant direction and guidance, and their work without such guidance is rarely 
of a quality to gain for them an income sufficient for decent living. This is not 
true in all communities for instance in the beet fields of Colorado it is quite 
possible for a boy of imbecile grade to accomplish work which commands a good 
wage. One boy succeeded there who could not distinguish whether he was given 
the wage he was promised; second—the feebleminded sare totally lacking in 
strength of purpose, in governing ideas; they are therefore at the mercy of those 
who wish to govern their actions, and though they are not naturally vicious, 
they are likely to commit all kinds of crimes and misdemeanors. The Colorado 
imbecile who made a good wage in the beet fields, failed to keep himself out of 
jail. We can no longer state that feebleminded persons cannot be self supporting 
without guidance, we have discovered that under many existing conditions they 
may be, but we do state that this fact does not constitute them of a calibre fitted 
for a life unprotected in the community, witness the Colorado boy above cited. 
Institution life of some description is the real solution of the problem, and the 
systems of outside supervision already discussed are but inadequate temporary 
measures designed to meet the present almost unmanageable situation. 


Their inadequacy is no argument against registration and supervision, which 
are both quite essential under present conditions. But we must not in accom- 
plishing these, lose sight of the more adequate provision to which these are but 
the stepping stones. This is, we believe, segregation of the feebleminded in 
suitable institutions, in which their limited abilities may be exercised and in 
which full opportunity to live a happy and varied life will be provided, in which 
in short, they can be happy and useful among their peers, rather than idle and 
discontented among their superiors. Our institutions have not yet worked out 
how to do this to the best advantage. In the section of this report dealing with 
industrial work in the public school classes for defectives we have sketched a 
procedure which we consider possible to develop through a well planned public 
school policy for the instruction of the feebleminded. One institution under the 
Metropolitan Asylum’s Board, London, England, has taken a great stride in 
advance. Its organization is that of an industrial plant, and every child in it is 
a worker. Those who are of too low a mental grade to be trained to any form 
of industry are cared for in a custodial institution. A receiving institution cares 
for the little feebleminded children and passes them on later to the sort of 
institution best fitted to the needs. 


30 


Apparatus for Clinic Equipment 


Poca: 
Stadiometer. 
Head Calipers—Porteus. 
Calipers—Vernier. 
*Anthropometric tape metal. 
Smedley dynamometer. 


Spirometer—wet. 
500 wooden mouth pieces for spiro- 
meter. 
*Stop watch. 
Time clock—Whipple. 


For Vision 


*Snellen letter chart. 
*Snellen E. chart. 

McCallie test cards—illiterate. 
*Trial frame. 


*Blank trial lens. 
*Maddox rod. 
*Holmgren color blind test. 


For Hearing 


Tuning fork. 
*Two telegraph snappers. 
McCallie audiometer. 
*Steadiness tester (s). 
*Tracing board (s). 
*Tapping board (s). 


1 Base board and 100 target blanks 


(shy 

Scott’s dexterity apparatus (s). 
*Large size peg board and colored pegs. 
*Colored cubes. 

Form boards, A, B and C (s). 
*Seguin form board. 

Instruction box (s). 

Porteus maze tests (s). 


Pintner Patterson performance tests 


(s)2 
Healy picture completion No. 2 (s). 
Mirror with support and 100 stars 
CS}. 
*Healy-Fernald A (s). 
*Healy-Fernald B (s). 
*Binet cubes (s). 
*Suggestion weights (s). 
*\ebinet-opject card’ (sy. . 
*Envelope of Binet material (s). 


*] Aussage test (s). 
1 Bogardus factory test (s). 
1 Construction ability test—Kelly (s). 
*1 Portable tachistoscope (s). 
*6 Dry cells. 
1 Controlled association (s). 
1 Genus-species (s). 
1 Opposites (s). 
100 Controlled association (s). 
1 Analogy (s). 
1 Immediate memory test A and B 
(s). 
1 Sentence memory test (s). 
1 Picture memory test (s). 
1 Fable chart (s). 
100 Substitution blanks (s). 
1 Heilbronner test (s). 
100 Trabue completion test (s). 
1 Kraeplin test and key (s).- 
1 Constant increment test (s). 
100 Thurstone reasoning tests (s). 
100 Linguistic invention (s). 
100 Directions test (s). 
100 Motor co-ordination (s). 
1 Verbal directions test A and B (s). 
1 Comparison of line test (s). 


The items starred are those which we consider absolutely essential. 
The others have proved useful. Those marked (s) are procurable at C. H. 
Stoeling & Co.’s, Chicago, Illinois. The McCallie audiometer is sold by Mr. 
McCallie, Trenton, New Jersey. The other items may be procured from various 
firms. 


Note. 


31 


GUIDE FOR EXAMINER. : 
HISTORY 
(a) General 


Name. 

Address. | 

Name of Parent or Guardian. 
Address of Parent or Guardian. 
Occupation of Parents. 

Order of Birth and Number of Sibs. 


« 


Date of Birth. 
Place of Birth. 
Date of Birth. 
Place of Birth. 


\ (b) Developmental 


Prenatal Factors: 
Health 
Mental Depression 
Habits 


Natal Factors: 
Instruments and Anesthetics 
Birth Injuries 
Asphyxia 


Postnatal Factors: 
Physical Conditions at Birth. 
Height. 
Weight. 
Difficult Breathing or Nursing 


Infancy or Childhood: 


Diseases and Disorders: 
Malnutrition 
Rickets 
Meningitis 
Convulsions 
Scarlet Fever 
Diphtheria 
Measles 
Whooping Cough 
Typhoid 


Defects: 
Physical and 
Mental 


Growth: 
Age of walking, talking, teething 
and puberty 


Peculiarities : 
Of Speech 
Of Movement 
Of Appetite 


Habits: 
Alcohol 
Tobacco 
Tea 
Coffee 
Drugs 
44 


Occupation 
Any unfavorable condition 


Full Term 
Other Factors 


Specific Disease 
Vitality 
Deformities 


Tuberculosis 

Rheumatism 

Chorea 

Thyroid Defects 

Hypertrophied Tonsils or Ade- 
noids (note whether disease 
left child with any defects’) 

Teething troubles 

Scurvy 


Manifested at Puberty and During 
Menstruation 


ex 

Sleep, hours of, night terrors 
enuresis 

Other habits 


“Behavior: 
Cruel 
Destructive 
Sullen 
Obstinate 
Seclusive 
Listless 
Moody 
Sneaky 
Dishonest 


Attitude Toward: 
Praise 
Blame 


Delinquencies : 

Associates : 
Age 
Character 


Other Factors: 


Schools Attended, with dates. 


Repetition of Grade or Grades. 
Present Grade and Class Standing. 
Special Abilities and Disabilities. 


Behavior: 
Cruel 
Destructive 
Sullen 
Obstinate 
Seclusive 
Listless 


Attitude Toward: 
Praise 
Blame 
Commands 


Truancy or Delinquency. 


Juvenile Court Record. 


Condition of Home: 
Neighborhood 
Income 
Rent 
Food budget 
Number of rooms 


Egotistic 

Emotional 

Quarrelsome 

Gregarious 

Obedient 

Timid 

Excitable 

Generous 

Selfish 

Commands 

Punishment 
(c) Pedagogical 
Egotistic Excitable 
Emotional Moody 
Sociable Sneaky 
Timid Dishonest 
Obedient 
Quarrelsome 

Punishment 

School companions and their atti- 

tude toward him. 
(d) Environmental 


Bathroom and inside toilet 
Cleanliness, ventilation and light- 


ing 
Clothing 


Kind and preparation of food 


Regularity of meals 


Noon meal—character 


time allowed for. 


of and 


33 


Number of 
(itemized ) 


persons 


in 


family 


Number of other persons in home. 


Moral condition of © 
Parents separated 
Peaceful or otherwise 


Amusements furnished for chil- 


dren 
Intellectual influence 
Religious influence 
Industrial influence 


Outside amusements and companions. 

Where does child spend evenings and spare time? 
Outside employment and money earned. 
Appreciation of money earned. 

Church habits. 


Guide for Physical Examination 


Skeletal development. 

Muscular development. 

Skin and appendages. 

Glands. 

Respiratory system: Upper respiratory tract. 
Rate of respiration. 

Chest: Inspection 


Palpation Auscultation 
Percussion Von Pirquet when indicated. 
Circulatory system: 
Pulse rate—standing and sitting Veins 
Regularity of beat Heart 
Quality of beat Blood 
Arteries 


‘“Genito-urinary : 
Examination of urine—sugar, albumin, indican, acetone. 
Sexual abnormalities 


Nervous system: 
Sense organs 
Deep sensibility: nerve trunks, muscles, sense of position and passive move- 
ments, tension. 


Co-ordination: 
Tremors, tics, automatisms, chorea, convulsions. 
Reflexes: superficial, deep. 


Vision : 

Right eye : Leit eve 
Audition : 

Right ear Left ear 


34 


Name 


PUBLIC SCHOOLS “ORG SHe. ea et 3. 
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 


Cele MOL Bee Kee | Oo) wy. "6. Teste fe Og Se Fe: 


History 


35 


O80) 19) ee Oy Uy, 16) ea, 0. Ae 


.PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF................ 
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 


Physical Examination 


+ 


PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF................ 
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 


Physical Examination—Anthropometric 


Name 


Height standing 
Height 


Index of stature 


Sitting height to shoulders 


Index of shoulders height—height 


Span 


Span—height index 


Chest circumference 
Vital index 
Width of chest 


Depth of chest 


Index 
Weight 


Height—Weight index 


Head—maximal length 
Head—maximal width 
Cephalic index 


Circumference 


Cee te ee ee ee ee ee oe ee ee ea 


e.e © © © © oO we wo ee ww 


DUR 


Zi: 


. Weights. 


‘PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF 


eoeeeeee eee we ee @ 


PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 


Binet Scale—1911 Revision 


I-II 


. Eye follows Dip te torg het caay ae: Sienltels nae 


Block is grasped and handled.......... 
Suspended cylinder is grasped.......... 
Candy is chosen instead of block....... 


. Paper is removed from candy.........- 
. Obeys commands; imitates movements. 


Il 


. Touches eyes, nose, mouth; objects from 


pictures 


inte @) 8 “ORV 6 68 we BD One Cle & 90) s seam, eee, 


. Repeats sentence of six syllables....... 
Repeats two numerals 7. Giicies en a 
. Names familiar objects in picture...... 
‘Gives family natiesia. .vnwa se eoere ee ose 


IV 


EMO W Ss OWbL SEN ta eee. seaiaiaiee< ayers 
. Recognizes key, penny and knife........ 
{Repeats three numerals?) ck a. eee. « 
. Tells which is longer of two lines...... 


V 


S*and wi2 eras; Deane 15 


grams 


a.6) 5 8.6 66. 6 £'O.6 6S 6 8 8 8. 6101S Se see ee 6 us te 


Capes, Sauates tae. a's ky Meemeee tie 
. Repeats sentences of ten syllables...... 
* Cotints foi Benntes oor PS eae cae os 
. Rearranges 


COTOS ii 5 ke oe tre 


VI 


Time, forenoon or afternoon........... 


22. Defines (use) fork, table, chair, horse, 
CATIA hse ae te eo ee ee 
23. COIs » GianiOnd = sie oveneelex oe te toe 
24, wounts thirteen “penmes-ay'F.n bs. ck a eee 
25. Distinguishes pretty from ugly faces. . 
Vil 
26. Points to right hand and to left ear.... 
200 DESCribes. (pictut Os. = pigiee wktne ee Oneaee 
28. Performs three simultaneous commis- 
SIGHS Vic ab ence tis on rep teas oR 
29. Gives® value of- stamipesseeers . cee aa ee 
30. Names red, green, blue and yellow...... 
VIII 
31. Differences. Paper and_ pasteboard. 
Wood and glass. Fly and butterfly.. 
32. Counts backwards, 20. to 0, in. -seconds 


. Points out omission in pictures 
» Givesday -andmdaterts sr. one eee 
. Repeats five numerals 


Ce Ji Ce Ue 


S970 3 «6 vs wp ee eLules 3 


UXial te wer he-te Tahha, Wewee @) 8 ete Se he ca Tete fon Oia va, 6 Sa Ae He-Ne. 16 


o@ (OO ee .erre."e "ee © (618 6, 0 Ferws, 970) By 16 siyi8, 107 8 


. Makes changes......-..+...0s00sseeeee 
. Definition in terms superior £0) A1Seiaee os 
. Names different coins in forty seconds. . 


39. Names months in order in fifteen sec- 
OLICS ... ove wie om sw vo de aldo ie 
40. Comprehends. Missed train. Broken 
object. Struck by playmate...... ao 

xX 
Al. Arranges “weights:< os... ase ee 
42, Draws design from memory............ 
43. Detects” incongruities: .o., «ous eee 
44. Comprehends. Late for school. Im- 
portant undertaking. Judge by deeds. 
Impulsive and deliberate wrong acts. 
Opinion of stranger... .\.27eae ae ee 
45. Uses three given words in one or two 
SENTENCES. oo ase rede wate ate koe pee ee 

XII 
46. Resists suggestion siya oa» (ee 
47. Uses three given words in one sen- 
POMC Ey: 25 es 8 sist aoe aint ee 
48. Utters sixty words in three minutes... 


. Defines charity, justice and kindness.... 


50. Rearranges shuffled words of sentences. 
XV 
51. Repeats seven numerals......... Ae 
52. Words that rhyme with “money.” (three 
411 MINUte) oie vs wv a'n wile 2 ie ee 
53. Repeats sentence of twenty-six syllables. 
34. Interprets: pictures ../....2..e5e eee 
55. Infers facts from given circumstances... 
ADULT 
56. Images and draws result of cutting 
folded papers. a. 32... se 
57. Images and draws new form composed 
from. two pieces of ¢atd.:.  jictaeeee 
58. Discriminates between similar and ab- 
Stract. Terms’? 253k sole eet «eee ee 
59. Difference between president and a king. 
60. Gives sense of selection once read to 


eoseeer eee eee ee ee ee ee eee ee ee eee Hee HE eo ww 


him 


creer eee eee eee eee were eee eee ee eenense 


C8 © 6 © 2 © as ab @ © ce 6 60 © @ aie Cle te see & 8) mw) ee elle Silene ee 


Ce 


ee ec 


Co ry 


Alt. 


Alt. 


Jaded ba Khel Calg BL) Sines) ae nis eee cata 


PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 


BPN Ne deo og AE tie, Bae Soy Lae 
MEET IN ihn ow) lds ea ed ooo enee 
hy 
1. Points to eyes, nose, mouth, hair....... 

* 2.’ Names key, penny, knife, watch........ 
3. Names familiar objects in picture...... 
BS UR OWEN GEIS eels ca 5 coke oe bina PRA 
Pere eMer toy TAME 2. su. ee Mecca seas 
6. Repeats sentence of six syllables........ 


Repeats 6-4-1, 3-5-2, 8-3-7.........4.. 
IV 


Sevomits, to, tonver of two. lines*.>. 2.2... 
MRLasSCTIIMMIALCS> LOLITIS ss 4 vole facta es hss 
Be eIITItSsLGUL.. PENNICS «Yee oh hdiale bev es 
Bue OTes Squares ( pencil) cfs ataw ce sss 
: ae what to do when sleepy, hungry, 
co 
. Repeats 4-7-3-9, 2-8-5-4, FEDS AEA Fe: | 
Repeats sentence of twelve syllables. . 


V 


1. Tells which is heavier of two weights 
UCM ESATA G od ak’ ss. ces ae eee a sk oe 


ee 


ON nB& WhO 


2. Names red, yellow, blue and green. 

3. Distinguishes pretty from ugly faces. 

4. Defines (use) chair, fork, doll, pencil, 
Pers Cmmteee ree Ae hos shah oR davis, 

Se carraueesis Catidss s+ cook eas on see wees 

6. Performs three simultaneous commis- 
SIG Me Phe ttle 64.09 Ge REM ee ps bd a 

Alt. Knows own age Pear Beas se sis. 


VI 
. Shows right hand, left ear, right eye.. 
mindicates Omission in pictures: Jos... .: 
Brrouuts thirteen Peninieg n'a. tf 


. Names nickel, penny, quarter, dime... 


1 

2 

3 
4, Answers questions—rain, fire, train. 
m5 

6 






Alt. 
Alt. 





. Repeats sentence of eighteen syllables. . 
Morning or afternoon. 


VII 


Peele number of fingerss.. tia oc.s os. 
MEIGREP DCRR ICCUITE hin js vtec Seek oa ce 
. Repeats 3-1-7-5-9, 4-2-3-8-5, 9-8-1-7-6.. 
Petter WW-KnOt: 2. cas idee ok sce des 
. Differences—Fly-butterfly, 
CE, Ses a eR eS Ca ae 
Copies diamond (pen) SA RCRN GRD otic eRe, 4c: ae 
Names days of week in order........ 
Repeats reversed 2-8-3, 4-2-7, 5-9-6... 


EL ET 


ON mBWHe 


11. Ball and field (inferior plan).......... 
2. Counts backward 20—1 in... 


seconds.... 


ee 


39 


Alt. 
Alt, 


3. Answers questions—Broken something. 
faray, Unintentional taiury «.<. ce... 
4, Similarities—Wood-coal,  apple-peach, 
iron-silver, ship-automobile 


eee eco e reese 


5. Defines balloon, tiger, football, soldier 
(ANGVeORMSEUre Aco nes @ | Sete acne 
6. Defines twenty words in list........... 
Alt. Names dollar, half-dollar, quarter, 
GNNGLy NICKEL NeAny: Mp eR hares ak 
Alt. Writes from dictation—See the little 


boy 


Srepiepiene, (seks, ane S)7e)'e ts) S (6628) Mee Beye Fe lio.(e! (< 


Pee Civesatlate nee trot ed otis cede ise 
2. Arranges ‘weights in Order. . 2.0.0.3 0.4 
3. Makes change without coins 10-4, 15-12 
and 25-4 ..... Tr ote gle Sate ita 

4. Repeats reversed 6-5-2-8, 4-9-3-7, 3-6-2-9 
5. Sentence made from three given words 
(oral) 
6. Gives three rhymés for day, mill, spring 
Names months of year in, order—- 
seconds 


eoeree eee eee eee ee ee eee ee see eee 


Cr | 


x 


Peehmnes  LMrivie WeLusein JIS... suie oi a cake 
. Detects absurdities—Road to city. 

gineer, Girl killed. Accident. 

cycles 8 . 
30 Draws designs tf Pith mem ey. ealch. 25.403 
a Repeats . paragraph—fire............... 
6 


| OMe 


CC 


. Answers questions—I mportant acts. 
Judge by acts. Opinion of stranger.. 
. Name 60 words in 3 minutes........ ERP 


Alt. Repeats 3-7-4-8-5-9, 5-2-1-7-4-6....... 
Alt. Repeat sentence of twenty-two sylla- 
Ne isi er ers he ee ae 2 
XII 

ieoDenines forty! words*OP list... (au ..h ees «ts 
2. Defines pity, revenge, charity, envy, jus- 
TAC CL tae Ares hy SOA te ae more ion 
Ballandsbield (superior) <27.-3 20 ones aes 


. Rearranges shuffled words of sentences. 
. Interprets fables (score four) 


CONI Anpw 


Repeats reversed 3-1-8-7-9, 6-9-4-8-2, 
LARS ES) elegant) Cae ead, ee. Se 
CEETILCE DIELS) “{ICEULes cay coais: eaehs shame ice 
. Similarities—snake, cow, sparrow. 
Book, teacher, newspaper. Wool, cot- 


ton, leather. Knife- blade, penny, wire. 
Rose, potatowtreer lowe ee Se, a ted 


rome ee Ate ade = 


Alt. 


+6. 
Alt. 
Alt. 


XIV 
Defines fifty words of 


FES aI GA Sc ie Pe se hak om he Bo Walon Sa eat be hg age nei 


Induction: test. .. Rule at sixth ‘sheet. src s asia een ie Ce ee se: CR ee 


Three differences between president and king......... PEE re en LN 


Infers facts from circumstances: 


Hanging; visitors; 


Indians. PiSidal 6k Ucn SOR CVE Bibs vale ee ee 


Problems: “savings << pencils. claps) & ons ates eh eae ee Ae err Si 
Reversing hands of: clock 26122-8280): 2 246.0 hla cae 0a oe sk See aves Wi oe 


Repeats; 2-1-8-3-4-3-9 ; 9-7-2-8-4-795.. 0. vee e eee ccc ere eases ssiaaing ante ee a 


AVERAGE ADULT 


Defines sixty-five words of list.............0.006- wis sha a Bear aleke & so cal F RTOs ae Ve 


Interprets: fables.) (Score’ eight)i.. Se. ie ae ee Te ee ON hae 


Differentes: laziness—idleness ; 
evolution—revolution ; poverty—misery ; 
character=—reputation’ ¢ Sei cies wien: ree ck cia tae no Ghar cca lene aL hijex.” Raped eee 


Problem—enclosed boxes.......... Ae'e is Sal elveP Ole @ a dbase k Eeablet ee ee %y 


Repeats reversed: 4-7-1-9-5-2; 


5-8-3-2-9-4; 7-5-2-6- 


Code: come quickly. 


= . 
3 8 © 2 66 6.0.9 € 00 © © es 6: 0's 66 0 6 6 km Or 0 6 02 D6 6 8 TLE SB Bue aio ee pees we es eigen ee 


Sse eee SCmhe ate PS ees e en signs ese Wee 66 6 HSCS 6 016 6 64 OWE OS We we be) oe eee Renee 


Repeats sentence’of twenty-eight: syllables... oc... S22 ee. ka je ue sons s + Ua 


Problems :. cannon. ball;"fish;) target shooting vi. vcore reve ov s aap eel ee ee 


SUPERIOR ADULT 


Defines. seventy-five: words - Gf -list, 0. ci lac aide ces lw execs vice oly arbi & ol pene 


Paper cutting test.... 


eee og ew Oe 8S Fle emis OK epeee Ces wots euvumetb teenies 6 eres 6 0 0 & em ee 6 Sle le eee ae 


Repeats: 7-2-5-3-4-8-9-6; 4-9-8-5-3-7-6-2 ; 


8-3-7-9-5-4-8-2 .... 


oo )e we 6 "e Qe eR @ Tae le 


Repeats ‘thought ef: passage heard.:, tests; life: . .. oss 20925545 508 od se oe le 


Repeats reversed: 4-1- 


6-2-5-9-3 ; 


3-B-2eGnbe DoS 20-4: SPB So7 2053. velgensh bie oe eM Cray Spill elec pette aie ae 


Problems—water jars 


o ap avére 6 6 2 '6 ow Oe 6 0 0 8 Blew Be 6 © © 6 07 b).6 O lel 6 6 2 a 6. 6. ce p46 Sik De Be ee meus oe & et @uelee © een 


40 


PUBLIC SCHOOLS OP wii estes ss 
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC _ 
Binet Scale Report 
PV rene Tie ee oe bet ERGMN EVE ro kee takers RT Lat Neg | 


41 





PUBLIC. SCHOOLS Ghoti 4 ee. 
PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 
Mental Examination 


Name. tS oe ee oe. ee E SOMME «ae ee on ee Later >. 223 eae 


42. 


PUBLIC: SUHOOLS. OBR ie eres ten 


. PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC 
Summary and Recommendations 
VAT WROTEON vs Sake'd Swen’. EAA shige tie Nae oor aes Datei ee te Shane 


43 


SECTION TWO 
School Organization 


The first problem involved in the establishment of school work for the 
mentally defective children, who have been selected by one of the methods 
already described, is one of organization. Four methods have been more or 
less frequently employed. 

1, The defective children of one regular school, old and young, boys and 
girls, feebleminded and children with special mental defects, are collected in 
one room and placed in charge of one teacher. This teacher is expected to 
give to each child of the group the type of work best suited to his needs, a task 
from which the best trained teacher might well shrink. Some such groups 
number as many as thirty children, a number large enough for a homogenous 
group of normal children. The failure of such a class is predetermined by 
the conditions. Reducing the number of children to fifteen improves the 
situation, but even with such a limited number the heterogeneity of the group 
is a serious handicap. | 

2. A second method, and a far better one, is the formation of centers of 
at least three rooms in the regular schools, the children being drawn if necessary 
from several schools. Such an organization gives the opportunity to separate 
the boys from the girls, and to separate the older, definitely feebleminded . 
children from the younger, more hopeful cases. In a word, it makes classifica- 
tion possible and with it appropriate training. A certain amount of departmental 
training is then possible, one of three teachers might handle all the speech 
training, another all the woodwork and weaving, another the housekeeping, etc. 

3. A third method is the establishment of special school buildings accom- 
modating five, eight or more groups, the children to be drawn from a large 
district. In such units a finer classification is possible—the boys and girls may 
be separated, the feebleminded may be separated from the children with special 
mental defects, and departmental work may be more effectively developed. In 
some cities such units are a part of a large special school plant which houses 
also units for the blind, the deaf and cripples. In London, England, this type 
of organization is much favored, the first floors being reserved for the cripples 
and the blind, and the second and third floors for the deaf and the mentally 
defective. Each unit is’a. distinct organization under its own director. 

4. A fourth method of dealing with defective children leaves them in the 
regular grades and employs a visiting teacher who devotes certain periods each 
day to their special training. Speech defect cases are quite generally reached 
in this manner. 

Some school systems employ all four varieties of organization. The forms 
adopted in each instance are usually determined by the rooms or buildings which 
are available. School systems of the larger cities, being pressed for room, have 
too often used small, badly ventilated rooms, which have been abandoned for 
regular school work. Into these rooms they have crowded twenty-five or thirty 
children of various ages and types, failed to provide special equipment, and 
placed the group in charge of a teacher without special training. The principal 
prides himself upon introducing special education for defectives, when in truth 
all he has done is gather together a large group of difficult children and delegate 
a teacher to undertake their training under conditions which would not be 
tolerated for a similar group of normal children. The regular classes have 
been relieved of their dullards at the expense of these dullards, while it is 
inferred that the latter are receiving special attention. It is very wise to 
relieve the regular classes of their dullards, but why at the expense of the 
mentally defective, when a different procedure would result in the benefit’ of 
both? When a particularly difficult group of children is to be handled it is 


44 


Y 


certainly not wise to add to the inherent difficulties of the task by discarding 
‘the physical aids to school routine which are considered indispensable for regular 
class work. If fresh air and sunshine, room to move about freely, to play and 
to dance, are essential for groups of average children, how much more essential 
are they for those who must make an extra effort to accomplish the least result. 
It should be understood that both plant and equipment must be such as to lend 
aid and inspiration to both teacher and pupils. 


If a single group for defectives is organized in a school, the room assigned 
it must be large and airy and bright, because it must house many sorts of 
activities. There must be good, well lighted blackboards. The tables and seats 
must be movable that the room may be cleared for physical exercises. If the 
class is for boys there should be space for several work benches, and perhaps 
a loom or two. If the class is for girls it must have a long table for sewing 
and cutting out garments, a sewing machine, a loom, a cook stove, a kitchen 
table, cupboard, sink, washtubs, dining table, etc. If the group is to be composed 
of young children it is important to have plenty of space for games and dances, 
and also to make it possible to shift the position of the seats and separate the 
children one from another. The work being necessarily largely individual and 
thus distracting, better work can be done under these conditions. On no account 
should large girls and boys be placed in the same group, both on account of 
disciplinary problems involved, and the fact that it is not practical to use the 
same industries for the two sexes. Boys and girls may be capable of doing 
the same things, but woodwork is of little use to the adult girl, and housekeeping 
is likewise unimportant for the man. If the group is designed to accommodate 
various ages it is well to supply chairs and tables of five heights, three of each. 
The chairs should be twelve, thirteen and one-half, fifteen, sixteen and one- -half, 
and eighteen inches high, respectively, and the tables twenty-two, twenty-four, 
twenty-six, twenty-eight and thirty inches, respectively. It is a good plan to 
have tops of tables of such size that they may be nested when not in use and 
thus leave more free floor space. If the tops for the five heights of tables given 
be made twenty-six by eighteen, ‘thirty by twenty, thirty-four by twenty-two, 
thirty-eight by twenty-four, and forty-two by twenty-six, respectively, the tables 
may be put away in three nests. 


‘In larger school units a better arrangement can, of course, be made. One 
room may be equipped for woodwork, brush making, chair caning and similar 
industries, another for loom weaving of various kinds, basketry, lace making, 
bookbinding and leather work, another for sewing and dressmaking, another 
for cooking and laundering, another for games and exercises, and still others 
with the materials necessary for sense training, drawing, reading, number work, 
elementary manual training and motor training necessary for the little children. 


Many persons consider that all work with the mentally defective should 
be carried on in the open air, or at least in open-window schools. ‘There can 
be little doubt that better results will be attained if such class rooms can be 
provided. We strongly recommend them. 


Dwelling houses are sometimes utilized for special schools for the mentally 
defective, but this experiment can hardly be pronounced a success. Large, 
cheery, airy rooms, with plenty of floor space are indispensable. These are 
necessary for the looms, the woodwork benches, the housekeeping and the 
sewing equipments. Desks or tables should be movable, the set aspect of a 
schoolroom giving way to a more flexible, homelike arrangement. All this is 
possible only in very large rooms. To secure these conditions in a dwelling 
house is practically impossible without radical remodeling, and usually impossible 
even then. In dwelling houses the rooms are much too small for the equip- 
ment; in one such school a valuable equipment lay idle on this account. The 
large rooms of a regular school building are much better adapted to the work. 


45 


Sometimes a small annex to a regular school can be admirably adapted to the 
purpose. The best plant of all is, of course, one especially built for the purpose, : 
but unfortunately this is rarely possible to secure. ; 


From the point of view of classification and also from that of departmental 
training the special building is undoubtedly the best form of organization. 
Three objections are raised to it: 


1. The line drawn between the defective and the normal children is more 
in evidence. This is painful to the parents and frequently leads to their oppo- 
sition to the proper placing of their children. 


2. It separates the defective children entirely from the normal children, 
and this is considered detrimental to their mental development. 


3. There is great difficulty in transporting the children from a distance, 
as many of them have not sufficient intelligence to care for themselves en route. 


In answer to the first objection we would say that the line drawn between 
the defective children and the average children, though perhaps more evident 
to the parents when these children are grouped in special school buildings, is less 
evident to the children themselves. The line drawn between the mentally detec- 
tive children and the normal children is not an arbitrary line. Unfortunately, 
it is a fact inherent in the situation that the defective children draw attention 
to their differences whether they are in regular classes, special classes, or special 
schools. They are more conspicuously unlike others and are made to feel the 
difference more keenly, the more normal are the children who surround them. 
It is recognized by all who know them that mentally defective children are 
happier when among children who are doing things which they themselves 
can do; they then develop an interest in work and a belief in their own abilities. 
The objection to complete segregation may be withdrawn even by the parents 
when they visit the schools and observe the advantages of classification and 
equipment offered by the larger centers, and the consequent superior training 
which their children enjoy. 


A method of combatting the aversion of parents to placing their children 
in special classes or schools for defectives is to avoid calling either schools 
or classes “special,” “Binet,” “orthogenic,” or other significant name. It is 
better to keep the names of such units neutral, meaningless, just as are the 
names of regular schools—Belleview, Lincoln, Logan, etc. The teachers and 
those concerned alone should hold the key to the character of these classes and 
schools. If it 1s deemed better to make the character of the classes known in 
order to educate the public to the recognition of the necessity of adapting the 
subject-matter and the methods of education to the abilities of the children to 
be educated, the word “orthogenic,” used in Philadelphia and Kansas City, is 
perhaps the best of all names for these classes. This because the word ortho- 
genic expresses the aim of the training—right development—and not the defect 
of the child. 


The second objection to complete segregation is that it is a disadvantage 
educationally to be deprived of intercourse with normal children. It is held 
that because many of these children are destined to pass their lives among _ 
normal persons, it is well to make the adjustment as early as possible. If such 
adjustments could be made through mingling with normal children this objec- 
tion would be shared by all who are interested in the defective children, but 
experience teaches us that no such adjustments are made. ‘The defective chil- 
dren conform no more successfully in the playground than they do in the 
schoaqlroom. They are ignored and neglected by the average children and are 
practically deprived of all social intercourse and companionship because they 
are surrounded by persons occupied in pastimes which they cannot share. On 
the contrary, when they become one of a mentally defective group they for the 


46 


first time are given the opportunity to develop the ability for social intercourse 
which they possess, for the first time they play with other children on an equal 
footing, and they develop a self-respect and a self-reliance which is impossible 
under other conditions. Even with this training to build upon when they go 
out into the world they rapidly drift toward those. of their own mental level, 
failing entirely to hold their place among the intelligent, even as they had 
already failed to do in school. In this they are entirely human; do we not all 
drift toward our peers and live our lives at the level of our capacities? 


The third objection that concerned with transportation deals with a real 
difficulty. The low mental level of many of the children makes it entirely unsafe 
for them to travel alone on the street cars. In cities it is easy to supply the 
money for carfare, but much more difficult to supply the caretaker. In some 
cities the situation is met by supplying school buses, which pick up the children 
at their homes or some nearby point. In others it is met by detailing employees 
to gather certain groups of children and accompany them on the street cars. 
In some cities both methods are used. Individual cases may be dealt with in 
special ways. Often a member of the family is able to accompany the child, 
especially if the carfare for both is paid. It is generally recognized that when 
a child is placed in a school distant from its home, the responsibility for and 
the expense of bringing the child to and from school must be borne by the 
school. Methods must be worked out by each school to suit the local situation. 
The difficulty of the school bus system lies in the great distances between the 
homes of children all due at school at the same hour. It is also a very expensive 
proposition. For the cripples the school bus is the only possible method of 
transportation, but it often proves more convenient to arrange other methods 
for the mentally defective. 


All the objections to the separate school building for the mentally defective 
are, we think, outweighed by the superior opportunities it affords for a fine 
classification, for complete equipment, and for departmental teaching. In cities 
where other systems of organization are already well established the initial. 
expense might be prohibitive, but cities beginning the work will find that the 
expense is no greater, as much duplication of equipment is avoided, and the 
time of special teachers (speech and physical training) is not lost in traveling 
from school to school. 


Finally, whether the organization be a separate building or a unit in a 
regular school, there must be adequate room to install industrial equipment, there 
must be separate class rooms for the large boys and the large girls, and there 
must be separate class rooms for the younger children suffering from defects 
which are possibly remediable. No group of, children should exceed fifteen’ in 
number. 

These are the minimal requirements for successful work. 


School Training 


The nature of the school work will necessarily vary with the type of chil- 
dren composing the group. In planning courses two conditions should be borne 
in mind—the abilities and potential abilities of the children, and ways in which 
these limited abilities may be trained to serve a useful purpose. The abilities 
and potentialities of each child should be discovered as fully as possible by the 
psychologist and discussed thoroughly with the teacher. On this basis they 
together should work out an adequate course of training for the child. It is 
frequently possible to discover at once that a child has not the intelligence 
to learn to read and to write, and it is then possible to save the teacher and the 
child months or years of painful and useless effort. It is now established that 
children of the imbecile group (Binet classification) cannot learn to read and 
write, and that children of the Moron group (Binet classification), though they 


47 


succeed, after years of effort, rarely develop sufficient intelligence to actually 
use these accomplishments to communicate ideas. 


+ 


Training of the Feebleminded 


Potentialities for Training—We have now gained sufficient knowledge of 
the abilities of the feebleminded group. to plan for them a practical training. 
We have discovered the impossibility of developing in them the power of intel- 
lectual abstraction, the power of planning and initiative and the power of adapt- 
ing themselves to new and complex conditions. We have discovered, on the 
other hand, that they are supremely suggestible, that, therefore, it is essential 
to keep them occupied, for being without resource, they will follow the most 
evident lead, be it bad or good, that they are easy to interest in manual tasks 
which do not entail much effort, that they are creatures of habit, capable of 
learning quite complex and intricate manual operations and repeating them with- 
out boredom for an indefinite length of time. This last trait is important, for 
it makes a usefully industrious life possible. The feebleminded are fitted by 
this incapacity for being bored for tasks which are deadening to an active mind. 
The matron in a custodial home for the feebleminded in London informed 
us that twelve high-grade feebleminded girls delegated to her as helpers from 
the industrial institution for the feebleminded, and placed to work with twelve 
hired helpers in laundry and linen room, accomplished as much work as twenty- 
four hired helpers would accomplish in the same positions. That is, twelve hired 
helpers and twelve high-grade feebleminded girls, working together, accom- 
plished as much as thirty-six hired helpers would have accomplished. She 
attributed this astounding result to the fact that their minds being sluggish, 
the feebleminded girls did not stop to chatter and to so relieve the tedium. 


Academic Training.—The f1rst characteristics (deficiencies), cited above, 
indicate what to leave out of a training plan. The last group of characteristics 
(assets) indicate what to include in it. As it is impossible to train to abstract 
thinking, it is useless to attempt to teach reading, writing and arithmetic. This 
is now recognized in most schools to the extent of limiting the time devoted 
to academic work to one-third or one-half of the school day. We recommend 
a drastic reduction in the time spent on reading and writing and number work. 
It is well to familiarize the morons with a few words that are necessary for 
safety in cities, such as, “stop, look and listen,” “danger,” “keep out,” and the 
like, and with simple number combinations and making change. We would 
stress oral language work to a much greater extent than is now done, both 
in respect to the understanding and employment of words and sentences, and to 
their pronunciation and articulation. There should be much drill in simple 
activities with accompanying verbal descriptions, there should be much directed 
conversation, recital of incidents, description of pictures, always with stress 
on the formation of the sentences and on the pronunciation. Much of the 
information ,which it is essential that the children acquire, and which other 
children glean from books should be given them in these conversations, informa- 
tion concerning health care, hygiene, foods, trees, flowers, people and _ places, 
conduct, etc. 


Articulation —The training in articulation should be in charge of a specially 
trained teacher. If there is no such teacher ‘available, the teacher of the grdup 
should endeavor in every way to fit herself for this important part of her work. 
She will find much help in the books cited on this subject in our list of refer- 
ences given below. It may perhaps be useful to state here that in order to secure 
correct articulation it is necessary to lead the children to assume the correct 
position of the lips, tongue, and jaws, and that this is best secured through 
imitation; verbal instruction is of little avail. A good plan is to use a looking 
glass and have the child observe in it the teacher’s mouth and his own at the 


48 


* 


same time and endeavor to make them look alike. It is also useful to pronounce 


_ the words thus learned without sound and have the child guess what is. said, 


This compels the child to notice the position and movement of the lips; 
it may be made into a game, and the child be given a turn at pronounc- 
ing the word while the class guesses what he says. Breath control and the 
placing of the voice should be worked out through such exercises as those 
given in Blanton’s Speech Training. Singing should be taught both with object 
of voice placing and as training in sight singing. Contrary to the opinion of 
some educators, we find this quite possible. A class of feebleminded boys at 
the school at Asniers, near Paris, sing the most difficult intervals at sight and 
still better, sing a four-part harmony at sight. These boys were taught by a 
system of “phonomimie,” which employs a certain hand position to represent 
each tone, using these as additional signs while employing also the regular 
written staff. A similar method is used in teaching spelling at this and many 
of the French schools for mental defectives; a certain position of the hand and 
fingers represents each letter sound, and this position is shown whenever a letter 
is pointed to or spoken. The idea is to train the children to use this manual 
alphabet in addition to the other alphabet signs, thus utilizing the kinzsthetic 
sensations and adding another avenue of association. Many school teachers 
claim the method has proved very successful, though of course there is a 
divergence of opinion among them. Sight singing doubtless is a valuable disci- 
pline for developing the attention. 


Habit Training.—As it is impossible to develop the power to plan and to 
initiate and the power to adapt to a new environment, it is useless to try to 
develop a self-sustained, self-reliant character which will withstand tempta- 
tions through force of ideals. For this we must substitute the formation of 
useful habits, of habits that are essentfal to comfortable living, courteous inter- 
course, and the accepted conventions ‘of society. 


Manual and Industrwal Training.—The facts of character noted above as 
positive assets—suggestibility, ready interest, ability to acquire manual habits, 
and a capacity for boredom, should be our guides in mapping out a course of 
manual and industrial work for feebleminded boys and girls. The elementary 
manual training includes all sorts of training designed to produce manual dex- 
terity—touch training, through the handling of various surfaces and _ solids, 
stringing of beads, straws, spools and rings, tracing on paper, paper folding 
and cutting, pasteboard work, weaving of papers, rafia, and of wool, drawing, 
coloring and play modeling, handling of simple. tools and elementary woodwork. — 

This training prepares. for toy making, cabinet making, brush making, chair 
caning, rug weaving, sewing, knitting, crocheting, pottery, bead chains and bag, 
rafia and reed work, bobbin lace making, housekeeping, gardening, etc. All 
these industries have been found practical in class work with the feebleminded. 
It is well to have a variety of industries and not at all necessary that all the 
children in a class be trained in all the industries offered. The aim should rather 
be to train each child to the point of expertness in at least one money making 
industry. It is sometimes well that classes for older children specialize in some 
one industry. One school with which we are familiar gained a reputation for 
making very pretty woven rugs, another for making good brushes. A number 
of pupils from the latter school worked in brush making establishments on 
Saturdays and holidays. | 

Plan for an Industrial Plant—lIt would be quite possible for a city school. 
system so to specialize and perfect its industrial work with the feebleminded 
that it could turn out, after a few years, boys and girls each capable of produc- 
ing a salable article of some variety. It would be quite possible to solve the 
after-life problem of many of these children by providing industrial plants as 
continuation institutions into which the children could be graduated from the 
schools. The same industries would there be carried on, on a commercial basis, 


49 


and each would be directed and supervised by persons understanding the type 
of persons employed as workers. Regular wages should be paid. /There should 
be associated with such a plant a residential home where those workers who 
had not desirable homes would live. Those who had responsible parents and 
good homes could be allowed to go to them at night when the day’s work was 
over. Being regularly occupied during the day, all would be kept out of mischief, 
and busy at something with which they had been well habituated to doing, they 
would produce good work and be happy and proud in the knowledge that they 
earned their living in so doing. Such industrial plants may well turn out to 
be a practical method by which cities and counties may care for their higher 
grade feebleminded persons of more than school age. 

London already has an industrial institution as an integral part of its group 
of institutions for the feebleminded. It is entirely successful, and is a proof 
of the practicality of such a scheme. This institution is not, however, affiliated 
in any way with the industrial departments of the public school work for defec- 
tives. Our idea is to make such a plant the crown of our public school industrial 
work, the institution into which the public.schools for the feebleminded would 
graduate their capable workers. Such a plant might include all the industries 
cited above and more. It could provide for weaving of all sorts, hammock 
making, net making, chair caning and repairing, basketry, brush making, toy 
making, cabinet making, sewing, knitting (both hand and machine), crocheting, 
bread and pie making, cake making, candy making, fine laundering, etc. There 
might be opposition from trade unions, but as Dr. Goddard remarks in making 
a suggestion for the payment for work done in the schools for the feeble- 
minded, “Any labor union that considers it necessary to be afraid of the com- 
petition of the feebleminded is deserving of the ridicule that it would surely 
receive.” ; 

Industrial shops for blind workers have long been established. Industrial 
plants for cripples have lately proved entirely successful. We describe elsewhere 
“Le Jouet de France” and the English work with diamond cutting, and we 
venture to predict that nothing but a well organized trial, following the above 
plan, is. necessary to prove such plants a practical, humane, and economical 
method of caring for the high-grade feebleminded persons after they leave the 
public schools. As this high-grade type of feebleminded person (the moron) 
is the type most difficult to reach through institutions, and is in addition the 
type causing more trouble in the community than any other type of feebleminded 
person, such a method of keeping them happily and profitably employed while 
at the same time feeling independent and being constantly supervised should be 
given a thorough trial under the most favorable circumstances. 


Physical Training—Any plan for the training of the feebleminded must 
include provision for physical training. The codrdination, posture, and walk of 
the feebleminded are notoriously bad. Shuffling gait, stooping backs, and 
awkward movements are quite general among them. All this makes much 
exercise and corrective drill, active games and dancing more necessary than with 
average children who organize sports on their own initiative during their play 
hours. A good Victrola is a great asset for this phase of the work. It allows 
the teacher freedom to guide the class and relieves her of the necessity of a 
knowledge of piano playing. 

To summarize, the school day of the feebleminded should be devoted to 
drill in oral language (in the course of which all sorts of general information is 
imparted), articulation, singing, drawing, and manual work and physical exer-_ 
cise. The girls should all be trained to cook, to arrange the table, to wash 
clothes, to make beds, to sweep a room, to wash windows, in short, to do all 
manner of housework in the right way, and also to sew. All the other forms 
of industrial work mentioned except brush making, toy making and cabinet 


50. 


making are suitable for both girls and boys. The boys should all be trained 
in elementary woodwork. Toy making, brush making and cabinet making are. 
their special prerogatives as are housekeeping industries and sewing the girls’. 
In some schools the boys share the girls’ industries and the girls the boys’. We 
do not consider this either desirable educationally or very practical in the school 
routine. It is much to be desired that boys and girls of low intelligence be 
trained separately after they reach the twelith year, and the divergence in the 
industrial training makes this separation the most natural course to follow. 


In classes for the younger children there should be much drill in sense train- 
ing games and exercises, and those developing manual dexterity. Much time 
should be given to speech drill and drill in articulation and in singing. A great. 
deal of the sense training as well as the physical training is best given informally 
as games, and many good suggestions are given in the books listed below. An 
ingenious teacher usually collects much original material. She should have the 
use of a mimeograph in its preparation. The periods of work with the little 
ones must be short, frequent periods of play, song or dance must be interspersed 
through the day to keep them bright and happy. 


Children. Under Five Years in Intelligence-—We have elsewhere stated that it 
is better for public schools to exclude children whose intelligence ranks below the 
five-year level, for the reason that they are incapable of profiting by school training 
of any sort. If, for any reason, a school finds itself obliged to admit children of 
such a low mental grade, nursery classes should be formed, in which the effort 
should be solely to train in habits of personal neatness and obedience, and to keep | 
the children happily active. Such classes do not require the care of highly trained 
teachers, the demand is rather for women who love children and who at the same 
time have force of character enough to dominate the probably unruly group while | 
they keep the children cheerful and happy and inculcate desirable living habits. 
Such children are in reality not a public school problem, they are institutional in 


type. 


Class Routine.—In all types of class there should be daily drill in all the 
sorts of training offered. Constant repetition to form habits is the key. to success 
with this training. To the manual work should be devoted at least two-thirds of 
each day. The program should be quite flexible. When fatigue is shown by inat- 
tention a short period of exercise in the open air or with all windows open is 
advisable. It is well for each child to have some form of handwork close by that 
he may resort to it without help from the teacher during those moments after one 
task is completed and the teacher is elsewhere occupied. As much of the work is 
individual, such periods are of frequent occurrence. One class of boys is so well 
supplied with individual pieces of work which hold their interest that one rarely 
sees a child looking around for some novel form of mischief. Instead, the unoccu- 
pied moment finds them. hastening to a partly caned chair, a hammock hanging 
from its wall hook, or a bead chain in the process of making—all quiet processes 
which can be pursued without annoyance to anyone. 


Equipiment—The equipment for these classes is largely dictated by the forms 
of industries chosen. We have already advised tables and chairs rather than desks. 
There must be cabinets for storing the supplies and also for keeping the finished 
articles. There should be a Victrola, a good one with the repeating device. For 
the boys there must be the work benches, tools and wood, for the girls the house- 
keeping and sewing equipment. For both there must be some simple gymnastic — 
apparatus. 


For the younger children there must be the usual sense training material— 
color devices of various sorts, whistles and bells, tuning forks and varieties of 
sounding objects, bottles containing odorous substances, rough and smooth sur- 
faces, and objects variously shaped for training perception of touch and form. 


51 


Form boards, sliced pictures, games for improving manual dexterity, attention, 
alertness and concentration. Beads, blocks, peg boards (large size), plasticine, 
clay, crayolas, and materials for all the elementary manual work listed above. 


In addition must be provided the equipment for all the industries introduced. 


Training of Children Having Special Mental Defects 


The education of those little children handicapped by mental defects though 
not permanently mentally defective calls for the most skillful sort of teaching. For 
each child the school program must be based upon his particular abilities and dis- 
abilities; it must be based upon the findings of the mental analysis made by the 
psychologist, the psychologist and the teacher conferring together and deciding 
upon the methods which best suit the special needs of the child. Under such a 
program the mentality of the child will reveal itself and its needs more and more 
fully, and the work will progress not along logical lines,following the subject 
matter of any prescribed course, but psychologically, following the child’s develop- 
ing needs. 


Equipment.—The equipment for such a class consists of the sense training 
material, the form boards and the other didactic material used for the younger 
feebleminded group, and in addition later, word, sentence and number cards, 
and games for instruction in reading, writing and number work. 

The oral language and articulation is very important for these classes. The 
work should be given in short periods, and should be intensive within these periods. 
There should be frequent periods of active play, song or dance to relieve the ten- 
sion of the school day. Manual work of an elementary kind is valuable not only 
for training to manual dexterity, but also for training in attention and concen- 
tration. 

‘The number of children in such a group should never exceed fifteen; twelve is 
a better number. 

A highly trained teacher, one with a bright and cheery disposition, energy and 
initiative is absolutely necessary for any real accomplishment with such a group. 
A training in corrective speech work and primary methods is desirable, as well as 
a knowledge of child and abnormal psychology. 


Qualifications for Teachers 


Teachers of the mentally defective should have special preparatory training, 
in addition to the usual teacher’s requirements. As the training of the mentally 
defective is based upon the mental peculiarities of the children rather than upon 
the subject matter taught, the foundation of the teacher’s special training should 
be a rather comprehensive course in child psychology and the psychology of 
abnormal conditions, supplemented by observation and practice work in the teaching 
of mental defectives. It is essential that there be a thorough course in primary 
methods, training in speech correction, sight singing, physical training, dancing, 
athletic games, in many sorts of manual work and in a great variety of industries. 

If a teacher is to handle alone a heterogeneous group of mental defectives 
training along all these lines is desirable. If the work is conducted in centers of 
three or more groups, it is not necessary that all the teachers have such a compre- 
hensive training; their training may be more narrowly and intensively specialized. 
One teacher may handle the speech work only, or possibly speech work in connec- 
tion with singing, another may be delegated to various sorts of industrial 
work, and another to physical training. 

For the younger feebleminded children and for the children with special 
mental defects the training in primary methods is important, and for all the teachers 
the training in child and abnormal psychology is indispensable. 


Specialists in industrial arts and in speech training who have not worked 
52 


with the mentally defective often make good teachers in the departmental type of 
school, and when it is necessary to draw teachers from the regular school force in 
which there are none who have been trained for this type of work, it is well to 
draw them from these two types of specialists and from the most efficient and 
resourceful of the primary teachers. The primary teachers would of course be 
delegated to a group of younger children, and the industrial arts teachers to the 
industrial training of the larger feebleminded children. 


If teachers without special training are used it is wise to arrange in some 
way for supplementary training which will help them to understand the special 
problems cf the type of children they are teaching. Lectures on the psychology 
of the abnormal mental conditions and the teaching of mental defectives might 
be offered on Saturday mornings. 


At present there is a great shortage of ieabhoed for special teaching. There 
are certain universities, normal schools and institutions for the feebleminded which 
offer special courses preparatory for the teaching of mental defectives, but they do 
not as yet turn out enough graduates for their local communities. Some public 
school systems wisely send to these training schools, bearing all expenses so 
incurred, teachers whom they deem fitted temperamentally and intellectually for 
the work. Such foresight and expenditure is amply justified in the superior results 
obtained by these teachers in their subsequent work. 


In another place we present a list of schools where preparatory courses for 
teachers are offered. 


In some states the statutes, in others the regulations of the departments of 
education require special training for teachers of classes for mentally defective 
children. Some boards of education define just what such special training shall 
be. Some states which allow an annual sum toward the maintenance of each class 
for defectives allow it only on condition that a specially trained teacher be 
employed. Such action on the part of states not only encourages the formation of 
classes for the defectives, but also encourages a finer grade of -teaching in those 
classes. It is much to be commended and desired. It should do much to counteract 
the unfortunately too general tendency to use for this type of teaching inferior 
teachers who cannot be utilized elsewhere in the system. 


Teachers’ Salaries——To interest teachers in this type of teaching, the usual 
plan is to offer a slightly higher salary——one, two, or three hundred dollars more 
per year—than is paid to the regular primary teacher. One system increases the 
bonus yearly by one hundred dollars until it reaches five hundred dollars. The 
state grants for this work make the bonus system easy to carry out, and at the 
present stage of the work it seems impossible to secure teachers in sufficient 
number without this financial inducement. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 


1. Mental Deficiency 


Binet-Simon—The Development of Intelligence in Children. Trans. by E. S. Kite. 
Vineland Training School, Dept. of Research, No. 11, 1916. 

Binet-Simon—The Intelligence of the Feebleminded. Trans. by E. S. Kite. 
Vineland Training School, Dept. of Research, No. 12, 1916. 

Binet-Simon—Method of Measuring the Intelligence of Young Children. Trans. 
by C. H. Town. Chicago Med. Book Co., 1915. . 

Bianci—Psychiatry. 

Bronner, Augusta F.—The Psychology of Special Abilities and Disabilities. 
Boston, Little, 1917, | 

Crafts, L. W.—Bibliography of Feeblemindedness in Its Social Aspects. Mon. 
Supplement, Jour. Psycho-/¢sthenics ,Nos. 1 and 3, 1916. 


53 


Crafts, L. W—A Bibliography on the Relation of Crime to Feeblemindedness. 
Jour. Amer. Inst. Crim. Law and Crim., 1916, 7, 544-555. | 

Doll, Edgar A.—Clinical Studies in Feeblemindedness. Richard Bader 1917, 

Frenkel, H. S.—Tabetic Ataxia. Blakeston and Sons, Phila., 1902. 

Goddard, H. H.—Feeblemindedness, Its Causes and Consequences. New York, 
1914, 

Goddard, H. H—Kalakak Family. New York, 1913. 

Goddard, H. H.—Psychology of the Normal and the Subnormal. Dodd, Mead 
or SLU 1o: 

Groszmann, M. P. E.—The Exceptional Child. Scribner, 1917. 

Healy, William—Mental Conflicts and Misconduct. Boston, Little, 1917. 

Healy, William—The Individual Delinquent. Boston, Little, 1915. 

Hollander, Bernard—Abnormal Children. Dutton and Co., 1916. 

Hollingsworth, Leta S——The Psychology of Subnormal Children. Macmillan, 

og, 1920, 

Holmes, Arthur—The Conservation of the Child. Lippincott, 1912, 

Miner, Tames Burt—Deficiency and Delinquency (Bibliography). Warwick and 
York, 1918. : 

Seguin, Edouard—lIdiocy and Its Treatment. Columbia College, 1907. 

Tredgold, A. T.—Mental Deficiency. New York, 1914. 

Terman, Louis—The Measurement of the Intelligence. Houghton Mifflin, 1916. 

Terman, Louis—The Intelligence of School Children. Houghton Mifflin, 1919. 

Wallin, J. E. W.—Problems of Subnormality. World Book Co., 1917. 

Woodrow, Herbert—Brightness and Dullness in Children. J. B. Lippincott, 1919. 

Young, Meredith—The Mentally Defective Child. P. E. Hoeber, 1919. 


2. Child Hygiene 


Cornell, eb Mane PATE and Medical Inspection of School Children. Phila., 1912. 
Terman, Louis—The Hygiene of the eoirol Child. Houghton, Mifflin, 1914. 


3. Special Class 
Anderson, Meta—Education of Defectives in the Public Schools. World Book 





Co., 1917. 
Bridie, M. *.—An Introduction to Special School Work. Longmans, Green and 
GonslOle ) : 


Holmes, Arthur—Backward Children. Bobbs Merrill, 1915. 

- Holmes, W. H.—School Organization and the Individual Child. Davis Press, 
1912. 

Gessell, Arnold—Exceptional Children and Public School Policies, being a 
mental survey of the New Haven elementary schools. New Haven, Yale 

| University Press, 1921. 

Goddard, H. H. —School Training of Defective Children. World Book Co., 1915. 

Mitchell, David—Schools and Classes for Defective Children. Survey Committee, 
Cleveland, 1916. 

Morgan, B. F.—The Backward Child. G. P. Putnam, 1914. 

Nash, A. M., and Porteus, S. D—Educational Treatment of Defectives. Train- 
ing School Bulletin, No. 18, 1919. | 

Special Class Teachers: The Boston Way. Rumford Press, 1917. 

Witmer, Lightner—The Special Class for Backward Children. Phila. Psycho- 
logical Clinic Press, 1911. 


4. Speech Training 


Blanton, M. G., and Smiley—Speech Training for Children. Century Co., 1919. 
King, Samuel A.—Graduated Exercises in Articulation. Small, Maynard and Co., 
1907. 


54 


Mott, F. W.—-The Breath and Voice in Speech and Song. Harper Bros., 1910. 
Scripture, E. W.—Stuttering and Lisping. Macmillan, 1912. 


5. Sense Training and Games 


Adsit, Ruth-—Sense Training and Games. 

Bancroft, Jessie H.—The Posture of School Children. 

Bancroft, Jessie H—Games for Playground, Home and School. Macmillan, 1913. 

Wrightson, Hilda—Games and Exercises for Children’s Development. Caustic- 
Claflin. | 

Wrightson, Hilda—Games and Exercises for Mental Defectives. Caustic-Claflin, 
1916. 





6. Journals 


Journal of Applied Psychology. 
Journal of Educational Psychology. 
American Journal of Psychology. 
Psychological Clinic. 

Pedagogical Seminary. 

Training School Bulletin. 

Journal of Psycho-A¢sthenics. 
Ungraded. 

British Journal of Psychology. 


55 


~RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF 
THE BLIND IN THE PUBLIC: SCHOOLS" 


Education of the Blind in Public Day Schools 


The education of the blind in the United States has until very lately been 
entirely conducted, in special residential schools, owing perhaps to the very 
obvious difficulties involved in sending blind children to and from school and 
in handling them in conjunction with large classes of seeing children, The 
opinion has grown more and more pronounced among leaders in the educational 
work for the blind that a school life spent among blind persons exclusively does 
not tend to develop the self assurance and the self reliance necessary for a later 
life of companionship and competition with the seeing. 

From time to time the experiment has been made of sending pupils who 
have spent several years at a residential school and finished successfully the 
elementary training there given, to high school or to college. At the residential 
school these pupils have acquired a certain amount of confidence in finding their 
way alone and have developed facility in the use of embossed print. They are 
able to take notes by using the type slate and to prepare their assignments on 
the typewriter. It is necessary to employ a person to read to them in preparation 
for class requirements, both because the necessary books are not always obtainable 
in Braille and also because the reading of embossed print is a comparatively slow 
process. New York State appropriates $300 per. year for each blind person 
attending a higher institution of learning, for the purpose of supplying the 
necessary reader. The Pennsylvania Legislature of 1921 made an appropriation 
to cover the expenses of blind students attending colleges and universities. For 
the higher education of the blind this method seems more satisfactory than the 
establishment of special schools. 


From these experiments in higher education has developed a somewhat similar 
method of educating blind children in the elementary grades of the public schools. 
The supplementary assistance for blind children in the elementary grades must 
of course be much more extensive than that given to high school students. It 
must include instruction in reading and writing embossed print, in the use of the 
type slate, the Braille writer, the typewriter and also other forms of training 
essential for blind children. . 


The method now favored by the public schools is to maintain in a regular 
school a special class room in charge of a specially trained teacher for not more 
than ten blind children. These children take the regular grade work in math- 
ematics, history, geography, English, etc., in the regular class rooms with the 
sighted children. The written instruction for this work is transcribed into Braille 
by the special teacher, and the assignment is prepared in the special room with 
her assistance. In this special room the blind children spend the periods devoted 
by their grades to drawing, penmanship, and other hand work, learning to read 
the embossed print, to use the type slate, the Braille writer and the typewriter. 
They are also, during these periods, led to develop ideas of form through drawing 
with tacks on pillows, through modeling with clay, and through the study of 
relief maps. Without this special training progress with the regular grades 
would obviously be impossible. Manual work and physical training are also 
largely handled in the special room. 


The duties of a teacher of such a special class are necessarily very heavy as 
they include transcribing into script for the regular class teacher the mathematical 
calculations and the embossed recitations and tests of the blind children, and 
the transcription into Braille for the blind children, of the class written instruc- 
tions and also of much book material. This last because the text books used by 
the regular classes are frequently changed and it is not possible to have them all 


56 


printed in embossed type. For these reasons it is essential to limit the number 
of pupils assigned to one teacher to ten; seven or eight being even more desirable. 


There is another method of organizing the instruction of the blind children 
which does away with much of this transcription. This method creates totally 
segregated units of blind children and places them entirely in charge of special 
teachers. The necessity for using exactly the same texts as are used by the 
seeing children under these conditions no longer exists, and it is possible to 
choose texts which are available in Braille. Another point in favor of this 
type of class is that it is quite possible to place a blind teacher in charge. This 
is obviously impossible with the first type of organization described. The children, 
however, lose the constant drill in companionship and competition with seeing 
people, and thus the method defeats the main purpose for the organization of the 
work in the public schools. In London this method is used. The children are 
gathered together in special centres, accommodating several classes and the work 
is in charge of a group of teachers all but one of whom may be blind. Sir Arthur 
Pearson who did such splendid educational work for the blinded soldiers during 
the late war, believed that the blind derive special inspiration, hope and confidence 
from a blind teacher. The pupils feel that such a teacher must realize their 
difficulties and will not expect of them the impossible, and they feel that her 
success makes theirs possible. 


With the partially segregated system such as we are developing in American 
cities, if we organize centres comprising several groups of children brought from 
extended districts, blind teachers may be used for teaching manual work and 
music. Cleveland at the present time employs a blind teacher as a piano instructor. 
The only way of combining the desired contacts with seeing children with the 
inspiration derived from witnessing the efficiency of a blind teacher seems to be 
by organizing the public school work in centres made up of several groups, to 
place these centres in the regular schools, to use the nonsegregated mode of 
instruction in the regular classes, combined with special assistance and instruction 
by seeing teachers trained for this work, and instruction in manual work and 
music by blind teachers. 


Our report shows that twenty-two cities now have public school classes for 
the blind. The number is steadily increasing and they seem to be filling a need. 
Thirteen States make statutory provision for public school instruction of the 
blind, and six States contribute toward the support of such classes. 


The wisdom of sending blind children to day schools for their early education 
is doubted by some educators, who hold the opinion that it is better to give this 
training in a residential school, to train the child there how best to care for and 
manage itself in the home and on the street, and only later to send it to the 
public school. The blind are apt to develop awkward habits and mannerisms 
which seriously handicap them in their social contacts. The training to prevent 
these should begin very early, the Cleveland educators consider that the eighth 
year is almost hopelessly lost. If children are not sent to a residential school 
it is well to have a home-visiting teacher who will help them before they reach 
school age. Such teachers also render valuable aid by leading the family of 
the child to wiser methods of dealing with it. In districts where there is a good 
residential school it is, therefore, sometimes thought best to leave to it the 
elementary teaching of the blind, and to confine the public school work to children 
with partial vision. In districts where there is no residential school there is of 
course great need for the public school classes for the totally blind. The 
tendency to carry on the education of the blind in day schools is undoubtedly 
in line with the current tendency to try to keep all children in their home environ- 
ment rather than in institutions and therefore it seems destined to become more 
and more firmly established. 


57 : 


The transportation to and from the schools has always been considered a 
difficulty, though it is not such a problem as that which confronts us in trans- 
porting the crippled children. It is considered better, when conditions permit, to 
use street cars than special omnibuses, in order to establish confidence. Often 
arrangements can be made with seeing children to act as companions and guides. 
Sometimes a member of the famliy is glad to act in this capacity. By 
paying the fare of both pupil and guide it is frequently possible to make satisfactory 
arrangements. For some children it may be found necessary to use the school 
omnibuses as in the case of cripples and imbeciles. The question of transportation 
is, for the blind, an individual problem which must be settled for each child. 


- 


School Subjects 


In determining the special work best suited to the abilities of the blind and 
thus best ‘suited to prepare them for life in the community one naturally turns 
to the highly developed work of the residential schools for information and advice. 
We find that they accentuate four lines of work—academic, physical, manual and 
musical, particularly emphasizing the musical. 


Academic Education.—The academic work differs from that offered to seeing 
children in its special technique for reading and writing. The public schools must 
of course adopt this in its entirety. The child must learn to read Braille, 
to use a type slate and a Braille writer and also a typewriter that he may 
write for seeing persons to read. The typewriters used are of the regular makes, 
a raised spacing scale being substituted for the usual one and an extra guide for 
keeping the paper straight being added. A Braille shorthand has been developed 
and it is therefore possible to train some blind persons as secretaries. Sir Arthur 
Pearson secured good results in this type of work with the blinded soldiers, 
and it seems a useful and practical subject to include in the courses of study for 
the higher grades. The Chicago schools include dictaphone operating in their 
course for the blind and have successfully placed several girl graduates. Telephone 
operating is also a useful industry for the blind. The flash light switch board 
system is of course impossible but the drop shutter system, now often used, is 
admirably adapted to their use. This also may be included in a higher grade 
course. 

Chemistry and physics of a laboratory kind must obviously be omitted from 
the curriculum. Relief maps are used for teaching geography and a sense of 
form must be consciously developed by handling solids, drawing with tacks on 
cushions, modeling in clay, etc. 

The pupils must be much read to if they are to progress as rapidly as the 
seeing children with whom they are working in competition. 


Physical Education——As blindness is apt to cause timidity and through this 
timidity bodily indolence, blind children are apt to be anaemic and under-developed 
physically, and to acquire nervous motor habits. To counteract these tendencies 
schools for the blind must stress organized physical exercise and active play of 
all sorts. The school must initiate all that activity which is instinctive in a 
seeing child. In no other way will good carriage and good poise be attained and 
physiological functions be adequately stimulated. Much of the exercise will 
have to be given to segregated groups of blind children. At the general recess 
it is well to place each blind child in the care of a seeing child who will assist 
him to participate in the general games. It is also considered wise to arrange for 
a period of physical exercise after the close of the regular school session. This 
work might well be in charge of the school’s physical. training teacher, or, if the 
centre for the blind is large, in charge of a special assistant. for the physical 
training of the blind. 


Manual Education.-—Mr. Burritt, the. Superintendent of the Overbrook 
: 58 . : 


School for the Blind, reports that about seven of each ten of his pupils do equally 
well in manual and in intellectual work. He considers the training of the hand 
fundamental to the education and the intellectual growth of the blind. 


Much of the regular kindergarten work is adaptable for work with the little 
blind children. Paper cutting and folding, weaving with slats, with heavy cord 
and with paper ; stringing beads, berries and seeds; sewing with shoe lacers through 
holes in shoe leather and through roughened holes in cardboard; winding of raffia 
on cardboard to form napkin rings and frames; clay modeling; drawing with 
upholsterers’ tacks on cushions filled with excelsior and covered with denim are 
all valuable for training the hands of the little children and should occupy one- 
third of the school day. 

After the hands have become capable through. the elementary training, the 
manual work takes the form of useful industries. For. the girls, cooking, house- 
keeping, plain and fancy sewing, crocheting and knitting; for the boys, woodwork, 
chair caning, broo mand brush making, mattress making, shoemaking and repair- 
ing; for both girls and boys, loom weaving, rug making, basketry, hammock 
making, bookbinding, massage, poultry raising and gardening. Massage was par- 
ticularly successful in Sir Arthur Pearson’s work with the soldiers, as was also 
poultry raising. No center would introduce all these industries, but they are 
listed as industries which have been successfully taught in blind schools and which 
are therefore practical for use with the blind. All of them are money-making 
industries, though broom making is no longer very remunerative and is not highly 
recommended. 

After the elementary manual training the time devoted to manual occupations 
varies with the individual pupil. Rather less time is apt to be devoted to it in the 
intermediate grades, and more, even as much as one-half time, after the pupil has 
reached the higher grades and is interested in perfecting himself in a money-making 
industry. 


Musical Education.—The residential schools have particularly emphasized the 
musical education. Music occupies an important place in the curriculum; not only 
is instruction in piano, organ, violin and voice offered, but the children live in a 
musical atmosphere, they are constantly hearing fine music, and learn to under- 
stand and to love it. This is not because the blind are especially gifted musically, but 
because music is an art which is available to them. The inspiration of beauty can 
reach them through two channels only—music and poetry; these two arts must 
make up to them for the loss of the glories of sky, trees and flowers, pictures, 
statues and cathedrals. In an effort to bring to their darkened lives as much 
of beauty as is possible, music has been rightly accentuated. 

This musical atmosphere is not provided by the regular public school. It is 
necessary to make special provision for the musical instruction of the blind if the 
public school hopes to offer as full a training as does the residential school. Visit- 
ing teachers in instrumental and vocal music are therefore employed, who instruct at 
the school during the regular school session, in a room set apart for that purpose. 
These teachers are often chosen from the blind. An effort is made to supply the 
children who study piano with an instrument, or at least to secure for them the 
opportunity to practice on a neighbor’s piano. The musical taste may be cultivated 
through the use of a good victrola and records of the best compositions produced 
by noted performers. 


Cleveland Schools.—In Cleveland, where the public school ae with the blind 
is established under especially good conditions, under the able superintendence of 
Mr. R. M. Irwin, who himself is blind, the school day is increased from five to six 
hours in order to accomplish the extra work necessary to make progress with the 
sighted children possible. In addition, the chorus work, manual training and 
gymnastics are conducted largely outside of school hours.. This appears to be a 


59 


very heavy program, but when one realizes that much of this extra work is of a 
nature which sighted persons would naturally consider recreation—choruses and 
gymnastics--it is perhaps not harmful so to extend the school day. 


The Cleveland schools support a visiting music teacher, a blind one, to instruct 
in piano playing; they also conduct a class in piano tuning. 

The teachers of the blind groups in the Cleveland schools regularly visit the 
homes of their pupils, and in addition a special home visitor is employed who acts 
as councilor to the family and starts the training of the blind children of pre-school 
age. There is also on the staff a vocational guidance worker, who studies the 
abilities of the blind pupils who are approaching the age when they must leave the 
school, and also the industrial opportunities of the district, seeking to make suitable 
adjustments and to secure positions for the children when they leave the school. 


Much effort is made in Cleveland to cultivate social capacity, to adapt the 
child to actual life and to make for it real contacts. The seeing children are advised 
as to the attitude they should take toward the blind children, the advice being 
given that they treat them to as great an exent as is possible exactly as they treat | 
each other. The blind children mingle with the seeing children in play, one seeing 
child accompanying each blind child in the capacity of unobtrusive guide, who helps 
only when necessary. Many friendships are thus formed, and not only the blind 
profit, for the seeing children increase in gentleness and in thoughtfulness for 
others. The play is made as free as possible, supervision being ready when 
needed, but held off until the need is urgent. Boys are told about the Scout 
organization, and if the desire to join awakens they are placed in the regular 
troop of their neighborhood. They are encouraged to try for clubs whose mem- 
bership is based upon scholarship. In short, every effort is made to develop 
strength of character, poise, independence and sociability. 


Classification 


The desirability of a careful classification based upon a study of mental 
ability exists as with seeing children. It is necessary to adapt the methods of 
testing used with seeing children to the testing of the blind. Professor Samuel 
Hayes, of Mount Holyoke, has developed an adaptation of the Binet intelligence 
tests and of certain other psychological tests, which are now being used at the 
Overbrook School for the Blind. There are among the blind, as among the 
sighted, a certain number of feebleminded children whom it is most important to 
find before they are subjected to the intensive educational methods used with the 
normal blind children. There seems to be little in favor of placing the mentally 
defective biind children in a special class for the blind. The methods employed in 
the special instruction of the blind are not adapted to the needs of a feeble 
intellect; neither the residential schools nor the special classes for blind in the 
day schools are prepared to handle the feebleminded blind children. The educa- 
tional methods employed in these schools are all adapted for use with 
children of a mental endowment far above that possessed by a mentally 
defective child of whatever grade. These doubly defective children—both blind 
and mentally defecttve—must be placed with the mentally defective group. Such 
children are best cared for in an institution, and when they find their way to a 
public school center, either for the blind or the mentally defective, every effort 
should be made to secure for them institutional care, unless the parents are them- 
selves capable of handling the problem of their care. We consider it most essential 
that all blind children should on application for admission to a public school class 
be subjected to a thorough psychological examination, a thorough clinical examina- 
tion such as that described in the first section of this report. 


Teachers’ Requirements 


Just as it is necessary to turn to the residential schools for suggestions for 
the curriculum and methods of teaching, so is it necessary to turn to them for 


60 


teachers. It is necessary to secure teachers especially trained in teaching the blind 
and the residential school is the place to find them. Lecture courses concerning 
the blind are now being offered at Harvard, Columbia and the University of Penn- 
sylvania. ‘hese aim to give a good general knowledge of the blind, their abilities 
and their disabilities, and the work that is being done for them now and that has 
been done in the past. 

The salaries paid to teachers of the blind are usually higher than those paid 
to other teachers. Philadelphia adds three hundred dollars to the regular salary of | 
an elementary teacher. In six states the payment of higher salaries is made easy 

by state contributions toward the support of all special classes.. 


Equipment 


The school equipment must include embossed print text books, type slates 
for each child, Braille writers, typewriters and special paper for embossed writing. 
The equipment for manual work will depend upon the age of the children taught 
and the industries chosen. Much of the equipment of the regular manual depart- 
ments may be utilized. For geography relief maps are required. There should be 
a Victrola and many fine records, also a piano. If a well-trained teacher be secure: 
she should be given the opportunity to choose the equipment suited to her special 
charges. For the little children much of the kindergarten equipment may be 
utilized. Sand tables and modeling clay are useful, also the brass-headed uphol- 
sterer’s tacks for pillow drawing. Wooden blocks of various shapes and sizes 
are useful, also hand looms for weaving. Books and music scores in embossed 
print may be obtained from the libraries for the blind, which mail books on 
request, the United States government having made this possible by carrying all 
reading matter for the blind through the mails free of charge. The best known | 
libraries arc the Philadelphia Free Library, the California State Library, the New 
York State Library, the Library of Congress, the National Library in Washing- 
ton, D. C., the Carnegie Library in Pittsburg, the Cincinnati Public Library, the 
Chicago Public Library, the Detroit Public Library, the Cleveland Public Library, 
the Enoch Pratt Library in Baltimore, and the Library of the Perkins Institution 
in Boston. There is also a monthly magazine in embossed print which is sent to 
any blind person on request. 


Public School Classes for the Partially Blind 


The public school work for the totally blind has led to the establishment of 
classes for the partially blind, generally known as “sight conservation” or “sight 
saving” classes. The children eligible to these classes have too much vision to profit 
by using the Braille system and too little to succeed in the regular classes without 
strain on their eyes and injury to their eyesight. Some cities, Philadelphia among 
them, have found it necessary to establish such classes, though classes for the 
totally blind have not been organized. The totally blind children of Philadelphia 
are offered so many advantages at the Overbrook residential school that it has not 
been deemed wise to introduce classes for their training into the public schools. 
The partially sighted are clearly not a type who profit by the methods of the 
residential schools; they persist in using their eyes to read the Braille, and this is 
perhaps even a greater strain than would be their use for reading ink print. 
Their education seems to be a proper function of the public schools. 


Equipment.—The equipment for these classes consists of especially printed, 
very large type books and charts. Penmanship must be on a very large scale 
also, and typewriting should be used instead of long hand whenever possible. 
Each room should be well equipped with typewriters. When the child must 
write script, he must do so with his eyes focused straight ahead and head upright. 
This is accomplished by having desks with tops which can be adjusted to a vertical — 
position or to an angle of forty-five degrees, and placed on a level with the eyes. 


61 


The head should never find it convenient to droop in the characteristic pose of 
myope.- In the London classes much of the writing is done standing before the 
blackboard in order to assure the correct head. position. In the London sight 
saving classes the curriculum is arranged with a view to discouraging the love 
of reading. The myope naturally tends to become a reader because he sees but 
little of the world that is not directly before his eyes and is therefore not distracted 
by and attracted to other things. As the love of reading tempts him to read small 
print and so injures his vision, he is purposely led away from his interest in 
books to an interest in manual activities. He is diverted from books by interesting 
occupational work. In our schools, on the contrary, the effort to compete with 
the seeing children encourages the desire to read and for this we must compensate © 
by much reading aloud on the teacher’s part. The necessity to remember what 
has been heard for recitations and tests in the regular grades stimulates the 
attention and concentration, which often becomes trained far beyond the usual 
attainments of seeing children. 


For text books 36-point type is recommended and for writing non-glazed 
paper and very soft pencils. After the fifth grade the typewriter should certainly 
be used. A series of specially printed elementary texts is now available, for 
which the schools are indebted to Mr. Irwin, superintendent of the Cleveland 
public school work for the blind. 


Manual Work.—The manual work must be carefully chosen, with a view to 
saving eye strain. Some forms of hand work adapted for the uses of the totally 
blind are harmful for the partially blind, who will strain their eyes in an effort 
‘to see. Sewing is not a wise choice. Knitting and crocheting with yarns are 
good occupations. Reed and willow basketry are also good as are some forms 
of rug weaving and hammock making. There is too much eye strain involved 
in wood work, but the painting and enameling of toys made by other classes is 
possible. 


Organization.—The organization of the sight saving classes is usually similar 
co the organization of the classes for the totally blind. The regular work is 
carried on with the normal children and special assistance is given to the small 
segregated group by a teacher assigned to them alone. Much more of the manual 
work and of the gymnastic work may be done with the sighted children. The 
special room must be very well lighted, the window space should be at least 
20% of the floor space. The necessity for careful saving of eye strain throughout 
the day’s work inclines some persons to the opinion that it is better to conduct 
the entire school work of the partially blind in a room apart where conditions of 
light and of size of print may be kept constantly correct. If the London idea 
that it is wise to discourage the love of books in the partially blind is sound, 
the position of these educators is considerably strengthened. | 


In considering the work that has been done for the blind, it occurs to us 
that amazingly little use has been made of the phonograph. Why not substitute 
phonographs for the now indispensable and expensive human reader? Why not 
substitute phonographic records for the cumbersome volumes of the embossed 
print classics? David Copperfield, for instance, in Moon type, fills 23 volumes, 
why not read it once for all into a phonograph and later give it out in records to 
thousands of listeners? School texts could be made available in this way, just 
as are the texts of the Cortina foreign language series. | 


We are told that this idea has been discussed by educators of the blind but 
that it was abandoned on account of the expense involved. When we think of 
those elderly people who become blind too late to learn to read the embossed 
type, and of their many desperately lonely hours we feel that the largest investment 
in book records. would be none too large for the return it would bring in happy 
hours to thousands of lonely suffering people. Surely there is among our wealthy, 


62 


= 


_ public spirited countrymen some one who would gladly start such a project by an 
* adequate endowment. 


Bibliography 


Best, Harry—The Blind, Their Condition and the Work Being Done for Them 
in the United States. Macmillan, 1919. 

Burritt, O. H.—The relation between manual dexterity and mentality. Reprint, 
82nd annual report, Penna. Inst. for the Instruction of the Blind, 1914. 

Burritt, O. H—The Inauguration of Research Work at Overbrook. Reprint, 
84th annual report, Penna. Inst. for the Instruction of the Blind, 1916. 

Burritt, O. H.—Co-education of Blind and Seeing. Reprint, 79th annual report, 
Penna. Inst. for the Instruction of the Blind, 1911. 

Patterson, Janet G—Education for the Blind Child in the Public Day Schools. 
Outlook for the. Bhnd, Vol.15, No.1, 1921... 

Pearson, Sir Arthur—Victory Over Blindness; How It Was Won by the Men of 
St. Dunstan’s, and How Others May Win It. Doran, 1919. 

Perkins Institution and Massachusetts School for the Blind, Boston Annual 
Reports. 

Outlook for the Blind—A Quarterly Record of Their Progress and Welfare. 
Baltimore, Md. 


63 


RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF: 
THE DEAF IN THE PUBLIC DAY SCHOOLS. 


The education of the deaf, like that of the mentally defective, of the blind, 
and of the crippled, had its beginnings and its substantial development in resi- 
dential schools. 


’ Since the founding of the first permanent residential school for the educa- 
tion of the deaf in 1817, at Hartford, Conn., the movement has grown until 
now there are sixty-four public residential schools, with an enrollment of 11,232 
pupils; nineteen private and denominational schools, with an enrollment of 715 
pupils, and a National Residential College at Washington, D..C.,°at which “23 
students are now registered. 


The first public day school was organized in Boston in 1869. Today there 
are public day schools in seventy-eight cities (twenty states), and eleven states 
make statutory provision for such classes. (Such provision is made for the 
blind in nine states, for the mentally defective in ten states, and for the crippled 
in five states. 


Public Day School Versus Residential School 


The public day school for the deaf is thus shown to be rapidly growing 
in favor. The consensus of opinion at present seems to be that all mentally 
normal children are better off in their own homes than in an institution if it is 
at all possible to keep them there, and at the same time to assure to them 
adequate care and attention. This opinion applies to the blind, the crippled and 
the deaf just as it does to other children. Perhaps it applies even more espe- 
cially to the deaf, because if the deaf are to learn to use spoken language they 
need the constant demand for spoken language supplied by family life, in order 
to counteract the tendency of their kind to mingle exclusively with one another 
and to use the sign language when so doing. 


If the deaf are to be trained for later life in hearing communities, so urgent 
is the necessity for constant contacts with hearing people that some educators 
of the deaf hold that even a large day school restricted exclusively to the deaf 
is undesirable and that the special classes for the deaf should be scattered 
throughout a city in the regular schools, and the children encouraged to mingle 
with the hearing children. In some public schools, after the deaf children have 
become fair lip readers, they are sent-to the regular classes for the grade work, 
returning to the special room for supplementary training and language work. 

On the other hand, the extreme difficulty of educating the deaf, the neces- 
sarily long and tedious process of building up language concepts and an adequate 
vocabulary makes it impossible to give the deaf child in a five-hour school day 
the amount of language and of industrial and physical training provided for 
them in the best residential schools. These schools allow twelve years for 
primary education and to prepare a child for entrance to a regular high school. 
To accomplish this they find that four or five hours per day of academic work 
is required. In these schools industrial and physical training is given in addition 
to this five hours of academic training. Such an arrangement of time is possible 
in a residential school. Can it be achieved in a day school? 


It is not impossible to lengthen the day for the public school classes for the 
deaf. In Cleveland the classes for the blind are given a six-hour day, and 
chorus work, manual training and gymnastics are conducted after this six-hour 
school day is accomplished. Such a programme may see.n heavy, but physical 
training at least is legitimate as a pastime at any hour of the day, and manual _ 
training is so utterly different from language drill that it would not probably 
be found too taxing. 


The public schools must expect special education to exact radical changes 
from the regular school procedure, and if such changes include the lengthening « 


64 


+ 


: of the school day as well as the provision of a special equipment and the adop- 
tion of special methods of teaching, the schools must be ready to adapt them- 
selves to the situation and arrange for the altered school day. 

So far the majority of the public day schools have met the problem. by 
giving a minimum amount of manual and industrial work. As the deaf are 
particularly in need of this sort of training, not being able to pick up information 
as are hearing children, this practice is to be deplored. 

Many educators of the deaf believe firmly that the public school is attempt- 
ing a task which can be better done by the residential schools. They feel that 
all the advantages derived from home life and from home and school intercourse 
with the hearing, are overshadowed by the benefits of the constant intelligent 
supervision and training possible in the residential schools. 

Without doubt it is true that a school has a better opportunity to mould a 
child if such child is not played upon by outside influences; especially is this 
true when the effort is being made to build up new and difficult habits of speech, 
but we doubt that such moulding to pattern is of such paramount importance 
as to make worth while the loss of the humanizing influence of the home. 


The relative merits of the residential and the day schools can be tested in two 
ways. One way is by a study of the subsequent careers of the graduates of 
both types of school. As far as is known, such studies support the contentions 
of the advocates of the residential schools. 


However, excepting in Boston, the day schools are young. New York’s was 
founded in 1908, Chicago’s in 1905, Los Angeles’ in 1899, while Philadelphia’s 
are less than two years old. It may well be that when methods of work in these 
schools have become better developed the pragmatic test will, after all, be in 
their favor. 

The second way of putting the matter to the test is by actually testing the 
mental capacity and educational equipment of the pupils in both the residential 
and the day schools. This has been done by Dr. Janette Reamer, who examined 
the children of fifteen state schools and of eleven public day schools, 2,172 
children in all. 


She used mass tests, one set comprised of non-language mental tests, and 
a second set comprised of educational tests involving a knowledge of written 
language. The results obtained show that the day school children pronouncedly 
surpassed the residential school children in the mental tests, and outdistanced 
them so enormously in the educational tests that the superiority of mental 
capacity indicated by the mental test results can by no means account for it. 
As far as their evidence can be depended upon these results leave no doubt that 
the day schools included in this study are accomplishing more for the children 
than are the residential schools included in the study. 

It is scarcely fair, however, to attribute the difference in results achieved 
by residential and day schools entirely to their character as residential and day 
schools. It may be due largely to differences in methods used in these two types 
of school. The method used in the majority of public residential schools, forty- 
nine of the sixty-four listed in the Annals of the Deaf, is a combination of the 
manual and oral methods, while all the day schools, with the exception of three, 
use the oral method exclusively. Dr. Reamer does not tell us in which schools 
her tests were made, and it is quite possible that the results may measure the 

_ relative merits of methods of instruction as well as the relative merits of resi- 
dential and day schools. 
Methods of Instruction 


There are two methods of conversation used by the deaf, and on them are based 
_ the two methods of instruction. One, called the manual method, uses signs and 
‘a finger alphabet; the other, called the oral method, uses oral speech and lip read- 


65 


ing. A variation of the manual method, called the “alphabetic,” discards the sign . 
language but retains the finger alphabet. A variation of the oral method, the ~ 


“auricular,” makes an effort to preserve and develop residual hearing through 
practice. All methods make extensive use of reading and writing. 


In the schools in the United States there has been a gradual movement away 


from the manual method, through a combination of the manual and oral methods, 
toward the purely oral method. There are only two residential schools listed as 
using the manual method exclusively. Forty-nine of the public residential schools, 
six of the private or denominational residential schools, and three of the public day 
schools use a combination of the manual and oral methods, while twelve of the 
public residential schools and twelve of the private residential and seventy-five of 
the day schools use the oral method alone. The combined method is still the most 
in favor with the residential schools, but the day schools almost unanimously favor 
the oral method. 

The Pennsylvania Institution for the Deaf and Dumb at Mount Airy has 
lived through the complete evolution of method during the administration of its 
present superintendent, Dr. Crouter. Starting as a manual school, it has passed 
through its combined period and now stands as an oral school. Dr. Crouter has 
thus had an unusual opportunity to observe all methods and to judge of their 
results. He is of the opinion that the oral method cannot be used to its greatest 
advantage in a school using manual methods also. The full success of the oral 
method, he believes, depends largely upon daily intercourse with those who use 
speech only. 


The oralists hold that deaf children should be trained to mingle with hearing 
people and to speak their language. They are convinced that this can be accom- 
plished if the manual language is never resorted to. The drill necessary to learn to 
talk is very great, habits must be slowly built up, and there must be no lapsing into 
the sign language if the training is to be successful. That it is possible to develop 
speech in the deaf to the point of practical usefulness is proven by the achievements 
of the oral schools, and by the subsequent careers of those of their graduates who 
later attend high schools, and even colleges, for the hearing. 


The “combined schools” very generally depend upon the manual alphabet for 
the more advanced instruction. They teach the little children to speak and to read 
the lips, but they fail to practically use these developed abilities of the children in 
the higher-grade courses. The principal of one school considers it impossible to 
develop oral speech and lip reading to the point of application to advanced school 
work. It seems to us scarcely consistent to teach with great labor deaf children 
to speak and to read the lips, and then to make no use of the results of the labor. 
Many educators of the deaf claim that the great majority of the deaf can never 
learn to speak with sufficient clearness, nor to read the lips with sufficient accuracy 
to enable them to communicate successfully with hearing people. They insist that 
the oral method is successful only in rare instances—with individuals who have 
lost their hearing after the age of five or six years, with individuals who are only 
partially deaf, and with individuals having an exceptionally fine mentality. These 


educators claim that the manual language is an easier means of communication 


between the deaf, and the written language is a more satisfactory means of com- 
munication between the deaf and the hearing than is oral speech. 


This controversy, like that concerning the relative merits of residential and 
day schools, can only be settled by a study of the results achieved by the two 
methods. These results may be tested in two ways: by a study of the subsequent 
careers of the students, and by a study of the actual mental and educational 
status of the pupils. 


The first test method was applied by Binet in Paris and reported in an article. 
entitled “Can Speech Be Taught to Deaf-Mutes?” He found in Paris thirty-three ° 


66 


‘graduates of the National Institute for Deaf-Mutes, Paris, and seven graduates of 


the Departmental Institute at Asnieres, who were reported as being congenitally 
deaf, and normal mentally, as well as having profited by the oral instruction of the 
schools. ‘These forty persons were interviewed, and it was found that not one of 
them made practical use of oral speech; even in the homes oral speech was supple- 
mented by gesture and writing. To judge of the value of these findings it is 
necessary to know something of the methods used in the French schools. We have 
seen that the best results with the oral method were not attained in this country until 
certain schools confined themselves strictly to oral work. We have no assurance 
that the French schools were oral schools in our understanding of the term. The 
writer visited the institution at Asnieres in 1921 and found a system of phonetic 
finger alphahet in use as an aid in teaching both oral and written language. This 
system “phonomimie” has been used in France since 1866 and is even applied to the 
instruction of the mentally defective, on the principle that it adds one more sensory 
(kinesthetic) approach to language concepts. It may be that such a combined 
system makes easier the development of oral speech; on the other hand, it may 
complicate the process by distracting the attention from the vocal organs. It is 
certainly questionable whether Binet’s findings have any application to conditions 
in this country. 

Dr. Crouter sent a questionnaire to the past pupils of the Pennsylvania Insti- 
tution, two questions of which refer to oral speech. Two hundred and twenty-two 
of two hundred and fifty-eight persons reported that speech and lip reading 
had helped them in their work, and 198 of 258 reported that they were able to 
talk to strangers by means of speech and lip reading. Dr. Crouter states that he 
has been impressed in several instances by the great improvement in oral speech of 
pupils who had left the school and entered business life. 


Miss Adams, principal of the Horace Mann School, a day school in Boston, 
states emphatically that past pupils do make use of oral speech. She states that 
some among them learn the sign language in order to be sociable with the deaf, 
but that they use speech when they converse with hearing persons. 


The sccond method, the testing of the mental capacity and the educational 
equipment of the pupils taught by the manual and by the oral methods, has been 
used by Dr. Reamer in the study already quoted. Dr. Reamer presents the com- 
parative scores attained by the orally trained and by the manually trained groups 
and shows that the average orally trained child is superior in all the tests to the 
average manually trained child. Dr. Reamer attributes this superiority of the 
orally trained child to the fact that the brighter children are selected for oral 
training. ‘This, of course, could only be true in combined schools. It is to be 
regretted that Dr. Reamer did not present another grouping of the orally taught 
in combined schools compared with the orally taught in pure oral schools. 


The success of the oral schools in the United States seems to justify the 
use of exclusively oral methods with children of average mentality. It is not so 
clear, however, that the oral method should be used with children of lower grade 
mentality than average; with them the finger alphabet may be more effective in 
developing the intelligence. With feebleminded deaf children it is futile to attempt 
oral instruction, as oral work exacts at least normal mentality. It follows that a 
thorough examination of each deaf child entering school must be made before any 
educational regime is adopted. Binet’s study led him to this same conclusion; not 
only does he advise an initial examination but subsequent periodic ones. 


Classification and Organization 


As mental analysis and classification of children is so essential as a basis for 
- pedagogical work with the deaf, it is fortunate that several psychologists have 
_ been devoting their attention to the problems concerning them. Dr.Pintner and 
’ Mr. Paterson and Dr. Reamer have all published results of experimental studies. 


67 


They have adapted numbers of mental and educational tests to use with deaf: 
children, and have thus pointed the way for further work. Pintner and Paterson 
have contributed a series of very valuable, individual, non-language tests. Dr. 

Reamer’s tests are all mass tests, and her educational series requires a knowledge 
of writing. The examination of a young and untrained deaf child is an exceedingly 
difficult procedure, and it must always be supplemented by prolonged observation 
in the class room. 

We consider it most essential that every deaf child who applies for admission 
to a public school be subjected to a thorough psychological examination, to a 
thorough clinical examination, such as that described in the first section of this 
report (that concerning the mentally defective). This examination should be 
followed by a conference between the examiner and the future teacher in order 
that she may know as much as possible concerning the child’s mental endowment. 
With this knowledge she will be able to adapt her teaching to the capacity of 
the child, and will be saved the wasting of hours and of strength in trying to 
teach a child that which he has not the capacity to learn. 

The process of developing a knowledge of language in‘a deaf fica is very 
intensive ; normal intelligence in the child is a pre-requisite of success. If the 
clinical examination reveals the child as defective mentally he should be eliminated 
from the regular classes for the deaf and placed with a mentally defective group. 

As the manual methods have proved useful in training the dull deaf children, 
it would seem wise to create small centers for the mentally defective deaf where 
the sign language may be used as the means of communication. Such centres 
might be organized in the State Schools for the Feebleminded. At the present 
time there seems to be no place for the feebleminded deaf child, he is out of 
place in the schools for the deaf, and he is miserable in the schools for the feeble- 
minded because no one in these schools is familiar with the sign language. We 
do not advise that the public schools undertake the problem of teaching these 
doubly handicapped children, but we do advise that a fine classification eliminates 
them from the public school classes and that the schools recommend the consid- 
eration of their problem to the state authorities. 

The public school classes are kept small, eight to ten children is considered 
a desirable number. In only two of the seventy-eight cities schools do the classes 
number more than twelve children each. 

Single classes or groups of two or three classes in regular schools is the 
rule. There are, however, several large centres. New York City has gathered 
its 366 deaf children into one building, Chicago has 119 children in one school 
and 140 in another, Detroit has a school numbering 168 pupils, Cleveland one 
of 157 and Milwaukee one of 102. These are the only schools in which 100 or 
more deaf children are gathered together. 3 

The large centre makes possible a finer classification of pupils, a greater 
specialization of the teaching force, and a more extensive industrial equipment, 
all of which are distinctly advantageous. The large centre, however, segregates 
the deaf children from the hearing children and this is a serious handicap in 
the development of oral speech and lip reading. The small group in the regular 
school is most practical in small cities. In the larger cities there is opportunity 
to try out both organizations. With the small group in the regular schools it 
has been found possible after the children have learned to read the lips, to send 
them to the regular classes for the grade work, and to use the special class 
periods for language instruction and supplementary work. 


Kindergarten 


New York and Los Angeles have established kindergartens for the deaf. | 
This is wise as the training in speech should be begun at as early an age as will | 


68 


t. 


. permit of insistence on careful articulation. This entails concentration of rather 
“a high order, and it is probably a mistake to expect such concentration before 


the fifth or sixth year. There are residential schools which begin speech training 
at three or even at two years of age, but the results obtained seem to be open 
to question, and are by many teachers severely criticized. 


Equipment 


The school room should be furnished with movable tables and chairs. These 
should either be adjustable or of several sizes. The question of the selection 
of desks and chairs for small special classes is discussed in the section dealing 
with the mentally defective, and we refer the reader to that section. There must 
be a special equipment for teaching language. Each child must be provided with 
a hand mirror for use in learning the positions which his lips, tongue and jaws 
must assume for the production of various words. There must also be a standing 
or wall mirror, about one yard square, in which the child may view the teacher’s 
mouth and his own at the same time. Wooden tongue depressors are necessary 
for the articulation work. 


Each class should be provided with a set of articulation charts ; those published 
by the Clark School at Northampton, Massachusetts, are very fine and are quite 
generally used. The same school publishes story charts and a manual which 
are very useful. 


Each Teacher Should Be Provided With: 


The Formation and Development of Elementary English Sounds—Caroline A. 
Yale, Principal of Clark School. 


The Barry System—Gowdy Printing and Engraving Co., Colorado. 


Language Stories and Drills, Manuals 1 and 2—G. ee M. James, M. Pratt, 
Vermont Printing Co., Brattleboro. 


First Lessons in English for the Deaf, 1, 2, 3, 4—Caroline Sweet, American 
Society for the Deaf, Hartford, Conn. Each. child should be, provided with 
a copy of “Language Stories and Drills,” the manuals for which are noted 
above. 


There must also be numerous objects and pictures for use in teaching nouns, 
materials for sense training, etc. 


A grand or an old fashioned square piano should be provided. The piano 
has been found of great use in developing the sense of rhythm and in placing 
the voice. The children lean on the piano and feel the vibrations. The classes 
in Kansas City, Missouri, use the piano with great effect. Any method which 
will aid even a little in placing the voice of deaf children should be used. 


The equipment for the manual training, the industrial training, and the 
physical training differs not at all in kind from that used for the same purposes 
with hearing children. 

Teachers 


Fortunately for the cause of the education of the deaf, it is so evident 
that the teachers must be specially trained that rarely is the attempt made to 
place untrained women in charge of a group of deaf children, as is done too 
often with groups of mentally defective children. The special training includes 
courses in the history of the education of the deaf, courses in special methods 
of teaching the deaf, a course in the psychology of the deaf, courses in the 
physiology of hearing, the mechanism of speech, and methods of teaching articu- 
lation and lip reading. This special training should, of course, supplement the 
usual normal training course. 


The special training may be obtained at the Clark School, Northampton, 
Massachusetts; at the Pennsylvania Institution for Deaf and Dumb at Mount 


69 


Airy; at the Pennsylvania State Oral School for the Deaf, at Scranton, Penn-. 
sylvania; at the Institution for the Improved Instruction of* Deaf Mutes, at’ 


904-922 Lexington avenue, New York City; at Ballaudet College, Washington, 
and at several other residential schools. 

Now that the teaching of the deaf is becoming more and more largely a 
function of the public school it would seem incumbent upon the normal and 
teachers’ training school to offer special courses in preparation for this teaching. 
Doubtless they will soon be forced to such action by the scarcity of teachers. 
The time seems ripe for one or two of the colleges of education in the larger 
universities to specialize in such training courses. 


Mental Capacity of the Deaf 


In planning a course of study for the deaf it 1s very necessary to base it 
upon their peculiar mental abilities and disabilities. The deprivation of the sense 
which is most intimately of any sense involved in the development of language, 
and therefore in the development of ideas, has its effect upon the mentality, and 
this must be taken into account when planning a course of training. 

Psychologists have not yet built up an extensive literature concerning the 
mental traits of the deaf. Dr. Jeanette Reamer, as an introduction to a report 
of her own experimental investigations, gives a resumé of the most important 
psychological contributions to the subject. She notes that Dr. MacMillan, of 
the Chicago schools, used a series of visual and motor tests to determine the 
normality of deaf children. He found the deaf inferior to hearing children of 
the same age, and described the inferiority as immaturity, not as a permanent 
inferiority. Taylor compared the spelling ability of deaf and hearing children 
and found that the deaf were the better spellers, and Mott compared deaf and 
hearing by means of memory and observation tests, finding no difference in 
ability. Pintner and Paterson have made the most extensive and with the 
exception of Dr. Reamer’s, the most recent contribution. They found a general 
mental inferiority in the deaf as a group, and startling deficiencies in their ability 
to comprehend and use printed and written language. ‘These findings were the 
same in groups taught orally and groups taught manually. Their results indicate 
that the average deaf child, irrespective of age, length of period of instruction, 
or method of instruction, possesses a language ability equal to that of a hearing 
child of seven, eight or nine years of age. ‘These results demonstrate the enor- 
mous handicap a deaf child carries in his efforts to acquire language. These 
authors find that the average deaf child of sixteen, after ten years of training, 
reads and comprehends the matter read as would a nine-year-old hearing child 
after three years of training. Fortunately forall performances not involving 
audition and speech, they found the handicap much less great. It is for the deaf 
child of sixteen a matter of from two to three years. 


Mr. Paterson considers these results as indicating lack of potentiality for 
progress along language lines and thinks that they would justify a radical change 


in the curricula of the schools for the deaf. He thinks that the greater part | 
of the time now devoted to language training should be devoted to industrial 


training, and that academic training should be subordinated to the work of 
developing the deaf child’s chief asset, his motor ability. He holds that all 
academic instruction should be related directly to his industrial problems, and 
that English instruction should be stressed only so far as it will equip the average 
deaf child for simple social and business intercourse. 

Dr. Reamer in comparing her results obtained from deaf children with 
standards for hearing children, found the average deaf child to be three years 


retarded mentally and five years retarded educationally. These results might | 


me construed to indicate that the mental endowment of the deaf children would 


permit of higher educational development than has been achievd for them by . 


70 


{+ 


the schools. However, as Dr. Reamer’s tests were all mass tests, we must be 
‘slow in drawing far-reaching conclusions from them. Mass tests are very useful 


for rough classification, but as a basis for a serious judgment on the mentality 
of an individual or a group they are hardly trustworthy. 


There seems to be a general agreement among all educators of the deaf 
that the deaf are retarded perhaps two, perhaps three, perhaps four years. The 
residential schools by their use of twelve years for primary training, graduate 
their pupils with an educational retardation of about four years. That some of 
these graduates are capable of further progress in high schools, and even in 
colleges, is demonstrated by actual successes. Miss Adams, at the Horace Mann 
School, reports that about fifteen of their past pupils have graduated from high 
or other secondary schools; that three totally deaf pupils later graduated from 
Harvard, and that two pupils, also totally deaf, later graduated from Gallaudet. 
One member of the faculty at the Wisconsin School for the Deaf, at Delavan, 
a graduate. first of that school and later of Gallaudet, has been very successful 
as a teacher, and also as a business man, without ever learning to speak or to read 
the lips. These are merely examples of many similar successes, and they entirely 
negative the idea that deafness in and of itself prevents a mental development 
compatible with the higher education. 


Curriculum 


If the public schools are to provide for the deaf a training equal to that 
offered by the best residential schools, they must offer a full primary education, 


fitting for a subsequent high school course for the hearing. More years than the 


usual eight must be allowed for this elementary training, for in addition to the 
courses required of the hearing children, speech and language concepts must be 
developed and lip reading learned. The experience of the residential schools is 
that twelve years are required for the elementary school course. As in the past 
the great majority of deaf children have terminated their school careers with the 
completion of the primary course, only the exceptional pupils having passed on to 
high school and college, it seems quite unwise to limit the courses offered the deaf to 
those leading to high school work. 


The public school should base each deaf child’s instruction upon his individual 
capacity as revealed by a thorough clinical examination and extended observation. 
Many deaf children are doubtless better fitted for industrial work than for the 
intensive concentration necessary for preparation for high school. The curriculum 
should be flexible enough to allow for variation to suit the abilities of these pupils. 


This necessity for a varied course makes it necessary that the industrial 
department shall be highly developed. There should be manual and pre-vocational 
work of many kinds, and this may well be followed during the last three years of the 
school course by truly vocational work. If a twelve-year course is offered the 
finishing age will be about eighteen; many pupils cannot afford to spend more 
time in preparation for life, and it will be of great advantage to them to leave 
school efficient in some trade or industry. 


The public schools have not generally developed | ae manual and industrial 
phases of education for the deaf. They have found the short school day only long 
enough for the necessary speech and academic drill. The solution seems to be a 
longer school day. » This is perhaps justified by the fact that much of the school 
time of the deaf must be devoted to learning things which the hearing child gains 
from his playfellows during recreation hours. As the residential schools insist, the 


deaf do require a longer supervised day. Cannot the public schools so adjust their 


courses for the deaf that they may have the benefit of this longer supervision and 
at the same time of their family life? 

The industrial work in the residential schools is very broad in scope; some 
eighty-six occupations are listed in the “Annals of the Deaf” for January, 1922, 


71 


as being taught in the various schools. These include all sorts of carpentry, wood-. 
work and building trades, printing, engraving and linotyping, bookbinding, farm-— 
ing, horticulture, ‘floriculture, dairying, poultry raising, metal and machine work, 
auto repairing, weaving of all sorts, sewing and embroidery, knitting and crochet- 
ing, millinery and lace making, domestic arts of all sorts, bookkeeping, library 
work, photography, and many more. As the deaf child is, according to the tests 
of Pintner and Paterson, only about two years behind the hearing child in manual 
ability, the choice of industrial and manual occupations is almost limitless. 


The physical training of the deaf is important. There is a natural slouchiness 
of carriage and walk which is very noticeable with the deaf and which must be 
overcome by much formal drill. In addition, the very intensive oral work for the 
deaf should be frequently interrupted by a vigorous physical exercise in the open 
air. Much more is accomplished by such a ‘method than by long uninterrupted 
periods of work which should be intensive to accomplish results and which cannot 
be continuously intensive during long periods of time. There is no reason why the 
physical training should differ in kind from that given the hearing children. 


The kindergarten course is growing in favor, but the children should be at 
least five or six years of age before beginning. 


The language work includes oral speech, lip reading, reading, writing and 
composition. The methods used in the best oral residential schools should be 
employed. For this work the articulation charts and manuals published by the 
Clark School, and the ‘Barry System’’ of composition are indispensable. Under 
“equipment” we have noted the supplies necessary for this work. 


Voice placing is an important element in oral speech training, and much may 
be accomplished by the aid of a piano on which the children rest their arms while 
the teacher leads them to follow with their voices variations in pitch, which they 
sense through vibrations. 


A great opportunity is now open to the educators of the deaf in the “visual 
education” methods which are being used to such great advantage in the schools 
for the hearing. The schools for the deaf have apparently not realized as yet how 
tremendously the visual education films simplify educational problems. We 
strongly recommend their adoption by the public schools. Not only would they be 
of service in teaching history, science, and industries, but they could also be 
adapted to the teaching of lip reading and oral speech. 


In addition to their work with deaf children, some public schools are holding 
lip reading classes for adults who have lost their hearing late in life.. In the 
William Penn High School, Philadelphia, evening classes for the adult deaf are 
held, which are well attended and which are accomplishing a very useful piece of 
work in restoring to their pupils the power of conversation with hearing persons. 


In conclusion, we are inclined to the opinion that many of the differences of 
opinion concerning the educational problems of the deaf will resolve themselves 
when it becomes the practice to base the pedagogical procedure upon the mental 
abilities and needs of the children as revealed by thorough individual psychological 
examination. Each method will then probably find its sphere of usefulness, and 
industrial work gain a more prominent place in the curriculum. 


References 


1j-4-Best,, Harry.(he Dest, ali Yurawelstar 10142 


2. Binet, A., and Simon, Th. Peut-an enseigner la parole aux sourds-muets? 
(Can speech be taught to deaf-mutes ?) L’année psychologigue, Vol. 15, 1909, 
373-396. Translated in Amer. Annals of the Deaf, Vol. 15, 1910, 4-33. 

3. Pintner, R., and Paterson, D. G. Some Conclusions from Psychological 
Tests of the Deaf. Volta Review, Vol. ZO No ean CTLs: 


“2 


4. Pintner, R., and Paterson, D. G. A Scale of Performance Tests. D. 
Appleton & Co., N. Y. 1917. 
5. Reamer, J. Mental and Educational Measurements of the Deaf. 


Psy. 
Review Monograph, No. 3, Vol. 29. Psy. Review Co., Princeton, New Jersey, 


1921. This contains references to most of the important psychological articles 
dealing with the deaf. 


6. Standardization-Efficiency-Heredity. Report of Committee appointed by 
Conference of Superintendents and Principals of American Schools for the Deaf. 
Johnson, Richard Otto, Chairman. Burford, W. B., Indianapolis, Indiana, 1920. 


Periodicals 


7. The American Annals of the Deaf. Gallaudet College, Washington, D. C. 
8. The Volta Review. Volta Review, Washington, D. C. 


73 


RECOMMENDATIONS CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF 
THE CRIPPLES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS. 3 


Education of Crippled Children in the Public Schools 


From the standpoint of education the cripped children differ less from the 
normal children than any group discussed in this report. The handicap being 
physical and not involving a sense organ the mentality is not necessarily affected 
thereby, and the children are intellectually capable of following the prescribed 
academic work for the regular grades. | 

There are several reasons, however, why it has been found wise for the 
public schools to segregate the cripples and to educate them as a group apart. 
First :—Although the deformities and disabilities of the crippled children do not 
necessarily involve the mentality they are very apt to lead to conditions which 
warp the emotional nature. In the home a crippled child is usually treated with 
marked attention and care, he is a being set apart about whom the household. 
revolves, he becomes imperious, self centred, accustomed to have others wait 
upon him and to pity him. If he later attends a regular school he is again a 
being set apart, but now instead of being the centre of his little world he is 
stared at, neglected on the playground, and made in every way to feel his 
disabilities. The result is often a morose super-sensitiveness which makes of the 
child, temperamentally a person with whom it is quite difficult to deal. On the 
contrary when a child finds himself with many children, handicapped perhaps 
more severely than himself, the unfortunate home experience is coun‘eracted and 
he gradually ceases to expect the special consideration he has received and to 
make more effort to help himself. When he hears all sorts of deformities talked 
about quite freely, and plans made for their alleviation or correction. he begins to 
lose his peculiar sensitiveness. When he observes other children patiently 
learning to use all sorts of appliances to help them overcome their handicaps, 
he gains courage to attempt that which the teacher assures him he can learn 
to do. Second :—It is a matter of general observation that when crippled children 
attend the regular classes, the physical strain of the school regime is more than 
they can bear. In addition to his special disability, the crippled child suffers 
from lowered vitality, a lack of endurance, which necessitates frequent rest 
periods. These rests cannot be taken in a regular class without interrupting 
class activities, and this discourages the child and complicates the teacher’s 
task. When crippled children are gathered together in small groups, the work 
is made largely individual and it is possible to arrange rest periods conveniently. 
As the majority of the children making up such a group require this same care, 
discouragement and self consciousness are avoided. Third:—To make crippled 
children comfortable and so better able to stand the strain of school work, a 
special equipment of desks and seats and physical training apparatus is necessary, 
and specially constructed buildings are desirable. Many children wear braces 
on one or both legs and are therefore very uncomfortable when sitting on 
ordinary chairs. There are chairs constructed the forwards part of the seats 
of which are made in two sections and hinged so that either side of the seat 
may be lowered independently of the other side, to allow room for the stiff 
leg. The backs of these chairs are also adjustable and the heights may be 
varied. There are desks which are not only adjustable as to height but which 
have tops which slide forward and back. Writing tables which fit over wheel 
chairs are provided for the use of children who cannot leave their chairs. The 
equipment must include apparatus for corrective gymnastics of all sorts. This 
is most essential as it is frequently possible through its expert use to develop 
the power to walk or to use the arms and hands of children who have never 
hoped for such abilities. Gymnastics are also essential to the physical well being 
of cripples who miss most of the exercise which comes to the normal child in 


74 


free play. Equipment for kitchen and dining room is also required. As difficulties 

‘of transportation make it necessary to keep the children at school during the 
noon recess, it has been found necessary to provide a hot meal at this time. 
Crippled children are below the average in physical endurance, and they should 
not be required to apply themselves to school work in the afternoons, unless 
they have had a hot noon meal. In some schools a lunch of hot cocoa or milk, 
and eggs is given on arrival in the morning, and in one school this is also given 
in the afternoon when they have finished the day’s work. Cots or lounges for 
the rest periods of the weaker children are also required. The type of building 
used is most important. The rooms should all be on the ground floor, unless 
elevators or inclined planes are provided. With the latter facilities a two story 
building is by some preferred to avoid the too great distances of a one floor 
building. There should be no door sills and the floors should not be slippery. 
To prevent slipperiness floors are sometimes covered with cork or rubber carpet, 
or strips of this material are placed where the children walk. A low hand rail 
following the walls is useful for the partially paralyzed children. Rooms must 
be large to allow for the free movement of wheel chairs and the children who 
use crutches. The school should provide class rooms, industrial rooms, a 
gymnasium, a play room, a rest room (this should be open air if possible), a 
surgeon’s examination room, a dining room, a kitchen, and toilets conveniently 
placed and constructed. Special care must be given to fire escapes. In the 
Spaulding School, Chicago, which was especially constructed for a school for 
cripples, inclined planes lead from each end of the second floor to the ground. 
It is essential to have particularly good ventilation. This is usually attained 
by using open window rooms. Some schools for cripples provide open air rooms 
for children suffering from tubercular joint disease. 

These many special requirements for the physical and mental well being of 
crippled children mark them off as a class for whom special educational provision 
is desirable. Partial segregation such as is recommended for the blind is not 
successful with cripples, because while constant contact with sighted persons 
adds to the confidence and emotional well being of the blind person, constant 
contact with the sound in body drains the courage of the crippled child and leaves 
him embittered. | 


School Plant 


Complete segregation decided upon, the next question to be discussed is that 
of location of classes. A specially constructed building will doubtless meet best 
all the desirable features listed above. It will be safer and better adapted to the 
needs of the children. To erect such a building is often out of the question and 
it is quite possible to adapt rooms on the ground floor of a regular school building 
to the purpose. This is the manner in which most -school systems begin the 
work. In London, as we have mentioned elsewhere, large three story buildings 
are constructed for purposes of special education, the first floors are devoted to 
cripples and the other floors to other types of defectives, each floor being a 
distinct entity, under separate directorship. 

Chicago, in the Spaulding School, demonstrates what may be done in a well 
appointed day school for the care and education of cripples. The building is a 
two-story structure, on the first floor are eight class rooms, three industrial rooms, 
a kitchen and a dining room, a play room, a nurses’ room, a rest room with beds, 

_ a bath room, a doctor’s examining room, a dental office, an assembly room, a gym- 
nasium and the office. An incline leads to the second floor, and two inclines one 
hundred’ feet long lead from each end of the second floor to the ground. The 
school is purposely placed near the Home and Hospital for Crippled Children 
that co-operative work may be carried on. Children living in the Home who are 

., able to attend the school do so, and those who are confined to bed are taught by 


75 


4+ 


a teacher delegated from the school force for the purpose. On the other hana 
there is daily service at the Hospital by surgeons, free to all pupils of the school. ° 
The children are accompanied to the hospital by the physical training teacher who 
has charge of their corrective work. There are five physical trainers employed 
and all the corrective work is given under the direction of an orthopedic surgeon. 
Children with tubercular sinuses are taken to the Municipal Tuberculous Sani- 
tarium for treatment and the Sanitarium provides nursing service. The Visiting 
Nurse Association also co-operates with the school. In fact it may be said that 
all social agencies which can in any way contribute to help the children are always 
ready to do so. The parents have largely overcome. their fear of surgical care 
in witnessing the great relief which has been given to so many children, and at 
the present time so much confidence is felt that nearly all the pupils are receiving 
expert surgical care. From a private fund parents are assisted in buying the 
necessary appliances which are obtained for them at minimum rates. Wheel 
chairs are furnished by the school. 


Muscular re-education work is emphasized not only in the gymnastics but 
also in the industrial department. One boy of fifteen who had failed to learn to 
walk without crutchers did so through operating a scroll saw which was run like 
a bicycle. Long unused muscles were brought into play and that was accom- 
plished which had been thought impossible. The chief aim of the industrial de- 
partment is just such muscular re-education. It is not vocational. 


Many wheel chair cases are taught to walk with crutches and crutch cases 
to walk without them. This work is of course absolutely individual, each child 
requiring treatment based on the special complications from which he suffers. 
A kiddie car induced one little fellow to make his first attempt to use his partially 
paralyzed legs. One girl, who at nineteen had not learn to walk, learned first 
to use crutches, and finally to walk without support. The experience of seeing 
others abandon chair or crutches has itself a great effect. A boy in a Philadelphia 
class, a victim of the infantile paralysis epidemic of 1916, who had failed to learn 
to use crutches and who had to be carried from the bus to the school room, gained 
confidence to try the crutches after three days’ watching of other boys similarly 
afflicted. A few weeks later this boy was attempting to mount stairs by their 
aid. 

At the Spaulding School, for amputation cases treatment is given for the 
preservation of the stumps, and much help by physical trainers in the formation 
of habits of usefully manipulating the artificial limbs. Spastic paralysis cases, of 
which there are many, are treated by massage, physical exercises and various 
sorts of industrial work. 


The witnessing of all this effort, punctuated by many slips, but finally bring- 
ing improvement and the hearing of the frank discussions regarding all manner 
of deformities, creates in the children a wholesome point of view toward their 
afflictions, and develops self-reliance and courage. 


This sketch of the Spaulding School is given to emphasize the need for in- 
cluding in any plan for starting classes for crippled children, rooms and equip- 
ment for surgical work and physical training. Second only to these require- 
ments are the need for plenty of food, relaxation, and fresh air. Dining room, 
kitchen and rest room must not be omitted nor the open windows neglected. 


Where it is necessary to adapt existing conditions to the special needs of 
cripples it is possible to secure results by all sorts of combination of functions— 
one room may be used for gymnasium and dining hall, halls may be utilized for 
physical training, couches may be placed in the gymnasium, in the dining hall, 
or even in the school room. The important thing is that whether the school be 
an entire building or a portion of a ground floor, it must provide for all the special 
physical needs of crippled children—surgical care, exercise, food, rest and fresh . 


76 


,air. At the Widener Memorial School for Crippled Children at Philadelphia, 
‘one is told that a child rarely loses a school day on account of illness, and this 
is attributed to the fact that the children have plenty of good food, fresh air, 
exercise and sleep. 


This program may seem to some school administrators who are planning 
to begin the work for cripples like a very large and expensive undertaking. They 
are entirely right, it is. However, it is usually possible to secure the necessary 
surgical aid at public clinics, the nursing help through school or district nursing 
organizations, and much of the special apparatus, equipment and food from 
public spirited citizens or associations devoted to social work. 


Size of Centre. Whether the school plant be a special building, or im- 
provised quarters on some ground floor, it is better to organize six or eight 
classes in one centre, than to form several smaller centres. The chief argument 
for small centres in many schools is the greater convenience in reaching them. As 
it has been found necessary to transport the cripples in school buses even from 
homes quite near the schools, the distance of school from home, in these days of 
automobiles, is not such an important factor after all. A large centre makes 
possible departmental teaching, it is possible to provide specialists in corrective 
gymnastics, in speech correction, and in industries, for the centre alone. When 
small groups are placed in various parts of a city, it is necessary to send such 
specialists from school to school and much time is lost. A large centre also 
makes possible a much more intensive development of the surgical and physical 
training department. When one equipment instead of several is bought it can be 
made much more complete and therefore much more valuable for the same outlay 
of funds per pupil. Better supervision is possible with large centres, it is easier 
to train new teachers’ for the work, and the classes are not left so badly handi- 
capped by one teacher’s absence. From the point of view of classification the 
large centre is undoubtedly the better plan. To sum up, the large centre is supe- 
rior both from the educational and the economic points of view. 


Classification. The chance for better classification is more important than 
it at first appears. There are among the crippled children as well as among the 
physically sound a certain number of feebleminded children. These children are 
as a rule very badly crippled and it is necessary to place them in some centre for 
cripples, because there only can they have the requisite surgical and physical care 
and transportation. They should not, however, be added:to the groups of cripples 
who are normal mentally and capable of average progress under favorable condi- 
tions. These small special groups of cripples should not be made to suffer a 
handicap which has proved too heavy for a normal group of physically sound 
children. If these children are cared for by the public schools, there can be no 
doubt that they should be segregated in special classes for “mentally defective 
crippled children,’ and that these special classes should be placed in the centres 
for crippled children, where they can be given the physical care and assistance 
which they require. In the Spaulding School, in Chicago, this practice is followed: 
the school reports that ten per cent. of its children are classified as mentally 
defective and cared for in special classes. At the present time, owing to poor classi- 
fication and lack of definite school policy, many classes for cripples are made up 
largely of mentally defective children. One class in New York City reports as 
many subnormal as normal children, while Dr. Cornall, of Philadelphia, classifies 
twenty-three of one hundred and forty-three children in orthopedic classes of that 
city as mentally defective. This is not as it should be. It is a condition rather 
worse than the old one of leaving the mentally defective children in the regular 
grades, as it is fastening doubly handicapped children on an already handicapped 
group. 

Some educators are of the opinion that all crippled mentally defective children 


77 


should be cared for at residential institutions. This opinion we consider sound,. 
but to accomplish this end we feel that classes for the mentally defective cripples ' 
should first be formed in the public school special centres for cripples, and then 
the effort be made to accomplish their transfer to more suitable schools. 


The proportion of mentally defective children among cripples is variously 
estimated. There is no exact information on the subject, in fact there is no 
exact information on the proportion of cripples in the community. A California 
_ survey of 2,000 crippled children only found twenty-three of the number or slightly 
more than one per cent. mentally defective, while a psychological examination 
made at the Phalin Park Hospital by Miss Maude Merrill discovered ten men- 
_ tally defective in a group of eighty crippled children, or twelve and one-half per 
cent. Twenty per cent. of this group were especially well endowed. 


Transportation. ‘Transportation is an important item in arranging for the 
education of cripples. Auto-buses are now universally used for the purpose. It is 
necessary to employ an attendant for each bus and a man to lft the children. 
The buses must be well heated and well ventilated, for in most places the distances 
are great and some of the children must necessarily be called for early and remain 
in the bus while the others are collected. ‘The expense is great, in Chicago each 
bus costs $32.50 per day. It has been suggested that this expense be reduced by 
fitting the buses with removable seats, and using them for trucks during the hours 
of the school session. Seven buses are used for the Spaulding School alone, the 
enrollment is between three hundred and three hundred and fifty children. In 
Baltimore, Maryland, and in Cedar Rapids, Michigan, an arrangement was made 
with the police department by which the schools were allowed the use of the police 
ambulances. In Baltimore the department was even kind enough to cover the sign 
“ambulance” with one reading “School Bus” during the hours when the conveyance 
was serving the children. The children were so grateful to the officers, who 
accompanied them on their rides, that they made them little gifts, and finally the 
officers invited the children down the river for a holiday. Such co-operation as 
this with all sorts of agencies marks the public school work with cripples, and it 
has made much splendid work possible. 


Classes. The classes are usually limited to twenty on account of the necessity 
for much individual attention for adjustment and also because the children vary 
greatly in age and in grade and therefore in pedagogical needs. This latter 
condition is greatly relieved when large centres are formed composed of several 
hundred children, but when one or two small groups make up the centres it is 
inevitable. The school day is in some places shortened by one hour. This is done 
because as stated above, cripples are as a rule lacking in physical vigor and 
endurance. Deprived of many of the usual means of employing themselves, how- 
ever, they are apt to become much absorbed by their school work, and frequently 
accomplish as much in this shortened day as regular pupils do in their longer one. 


Teacher's Salaries. In some cities the salary paid to the teachers of the classes 
for cripples is one, two or three hundred dollars per year higher than the regular 
salary for teachers of elementary grades. 


Equipment. In choosing school furniture it is well to remember that the 
types of cripples to be provided for will vary considerably. Infantile paralysis 
cases are numerous; in the Chicago classes it is estimated that they amount to 
about fifty per cent. of the cripples. ‘Tubercular cases there number twenty per 
cent., and the remaining thirty per cent. is made up of congenital conditions and 
injuries. The furniture which suits one child will be impossible for another ~ 
to use. Many can not leave their wheel chairs, and writing boards made to fit 
these chairs should be provided. The regular orthopedic chairs with adjustable 
backs and drop section seats described earlier in the report, are excellent for 
children who wear leg braces, but they are needlessly complicated and needlessly - 


78 





expensive for other children. It is well to have a few chairs of this variety, but 
‘the greater number of the seats may well be of a simpler design. They should be 
of size and shape to assist correct posture, and preferably movable. It is well to 
provide three sizes, small, large and medium. The adjustable desks with sliding 
tops are very good. It is essential that the sliding top be properly adjusted; in 
some schools this is supervised by the physician to insure good results. There 
should be a special study of each child in reference to seat and desk, and if it is 
found that a child is unable to secure comfort in the type provided by the school, 
it should be possible to provide especially for its needs. 


For academic work the equipment should be exactly like that for the regular 
schools. The course of study varies not at all in academic subjects. It should, 
however, provide for special speech corrective work, as speech defects are frequent 
and severe in connection with the paralyses. The schools for cripples usually 
provide for the eight elementary school years. In some cities the pupils are 
allowed to remain longer and special arrangements are made for more advanced 
work. This additional work is usually industrial. 


There seems to be no fundamental reason, resident in the crippled condition 
itself, for terminating the academic work with that of the elementary grades. 
Cripples are, as a rule, good students, largely because they are cut off from so 
many of life’s distractions. It would seem reasonable to take advantage of this 
and to train them for intellectual work whenever possible, especially as it is 
desirable to save them from forms of work which entail bodily strain and fatigue. 


The equipment for the gymnasium should include all regular apparatus 
excepting the giant stride, and it should be possible to buy special pieces for 
corrective work when indicated for any child. 


The equipment for the industrial work must be largely determined by the 
personnel of the classes. It is in these classes that the handicap most interferes, 
and the teacher must adjust the craft to the child and also the child to the craft. 
It is thought well to provide a wood-work equipment for the boys, a house keeping 
equipment for the girls and materials for reed and raffia work and weaving for 
both boys and girls. Book binding, leather work and brass work are much used. 
In many of the day schools the industries are taught mainly for the purpose 
of training in co-ordination and for strengthening the muscles. Weaving 
strengthens arms and legs, toy making develops co-ordination in hand movements, 
cobbling is useful for the same purpose. Toy making is, however, valuable as 
a trade also, and the same may be said for weaving, but not for cobbling. A certain 
amount of vocational work is attempted in the schools for cripples. The Spaulding 
School offers a course in printing. 


Industrial work for cripples has necessarily received much attention in the 
last few years because the war left-so many men maimed and unable to follow 
their former line of work. Volumes have been written concerning the industrial 
reconstruction work with cripples, simultaneously in progress in all the countries 
which took part in the World War. Whereas the aim of the industrial work 


in the schools for cripples has been chiefly educational, the work with the soldiers 


has been altogether practical and vocational. The war workers have collected 
through experience and research much knowledge which should be of untold 
value to those guiding the industrial training of the young cripples in the public 
schools. Even though these schools do not pretend to be trade schools, it is 
wise to have the industrial work pre-vocational in character, it is well to have it 
develop abilities which can later be applied in practical work. Many of the 
private day schools for cripples offer training in trades and continued training 
in the trades after the finishing of the academic work. The Industrial School for 
_, Crippled and Deformed Children in Boston keeps some children on a salary in 
the trade shops which fill 2 MG orders. Printing, sewing, chair caning and 


. 79 


basketry are conducted on a commercial basis. The sewing shop specializes in cross « 
stitch embroidery and children’s dresses and rompers. The Country Home for 
Convalescent and Crippled Children at Wheaton, Illinois, a private institution, 
specializes in toy making of a high grade type, and sells its products which net 
the home a considerable sum each year. The Davis Free Industrial School for. 
crippled children, in New York, allows its pupils to remain in the sewing and 
wood carving classes after they finish the eighth grade. Simple garments, fancy 
articles, and elaborate wood and leather articles are sold at fairs. In the Rhinelander 
Industrial School for Crippled Children, New York, trade classes are held for 
children over fourteen, for girls—sewing, dress making and embroidery, for boys 
jewelry making. Orders are taken for articles and sales held at intervals. The 
Crippled Children’s East Side Free School, New York, runs a very successful 
sewing school and shop. About twenty-five girls are permanently employed. The 
money received pays for salaries and materials, but not for the salary of the 
sewing teacher. Very exquisite hand work is done as well as machine work. In 
addition to these five private schools which are academic as well as industrial, 
there is in New York a Trade School of the Hospital of Hope for the Injured 
and Crippled. It is directed by Dr. Jaeger, an orthopedic surgeon, who is also 
interested in artistic hand work. Men between sixteen and thirty-five are admitted 
and the choice of several industries are offered—jewelry making, mechanical draw- 
ing and sign writing, engraving on metal and wood, cabinet making, and mosaic art 
glass work. Fifty pupils are accommodated. 


There seems to be no good reason why the pre-vocational work in sewing, 
wood-work, leather work, weaving and basket making and cooking, all of which 
is considered educational, should not lead to toy making, cabinet making, rug 
making and cooking. There is no good reason why it should not lead to the 
organization of shops through arousing public interest in well trained groups 
of students, shops in which these students could work together at the industries 
in which they had been trained. Special lines of work could be developed in 
certain schools to such a point of perfection as to create a special demand. Candy 
and cake and pastry making are adapted to such development as well as fancy 
rug weaving, basketry and sewing. 





The American Journal of Care for Cripples, published during the war, is 
made up chiefly of articles concerning the re-education of cripples—detailed articles 
written for the purpose of helping others who were striving with the same problems. 
Two plans were developed in this rehabilitation work with the crippled soldiers 
—one the establishment of industrial plants in which cripples only were employed, 
and the other the placing of the men in industrial concerns where they could 
learn some phase of the work in spite of their handicap. In some instances these 
industrial concerns themselves trained the men, in others it was necessary to 
hold trade schools to train for the industries. The placing of the men in industries 
with the physically sound, necessitated the canvassing of certain districts to discover 
what industries were open to various kinds of cripples, to ascertain what work the 
cripples would be able to do, and also what industries would be willing to employ 
them if they were able. In some instances tabulated reports were prepared listing 
occupational opportunities for men maimed in various ways—for instance, men 
with one arm, men with one leg, men with no arms, and so on through long lists 
of mutilated conditions. To establish trade schools for cripples which will fit them 
for entering established concerns either in times of peace or war, it is essential 
to choose trades in which positions will be available in the district of the school. 
The extensive war data will be very helpful in making such decisions. 


Always keeping local conditions, their possibilities and limitations in mind, 
outdoor occupations are of greater therapeutic value and therefore always to be 
preferred, especially for those cripples suffering from tubercular diseases. Among. 
such industries we find the following listed as practical—dairy farming, poultry 


80 ee 


‘raising, fruit growing, market gardening, vegetable forcing, floriculture, and bee 
keeping. ' | 

Work that can be done while sitting suits many cripples. Among industries 
of this sort are—clock and watch making, jewelry and silversmithing. The large 
jewelry manufacturers in the East are willing to accept cripples as workmen. The 
Widener Memorial School teaches clock making and also orthopedic shoe making 
and brace making. One of the wartime trade schools for cripples states that the 
making of artificial limbs and orthopedic apparatus should be the nucleus of 
every trade school for cripples. It combines leather, wood and iron work and 
can be led up to gradually through the elementary work in the school industrial 
classes. 


. Wireless telegraphy, bookkeeping, stenography, typing, photography, proof 
reading and literary work are all taught in schools for cripples. — 


_ The plan of establishing industrial plants for cripples is in some respects wiser 
than the plan of placing them in competition with sound workmen. As a rule the 
cripple is not strong, and this combined with his special disability is sure to make 
his output of work Tess than that of the average workman. In quantity of produc- 
tion he can not compete with the regular worker, in quality he is not at so great 
a disadvantage. When working with cripples the lack of speed is not so discourag- 
ing, as it is not made evident by constant contrasts. In fact the arguments favoring 
separate classes in schools for the crippled children are quite as appropriate when 
applied to separate industrial plants. 


A good example of such a plant for cripples is “Le Jouet de France,” a toy 
making establishment built on the Island of Puteau, in the Seine between Puteau 
and the Bois de Bologne. This was founded by Francois Cornot, in 1915, for 
the purpose of furnishing employment to crippled soldiers. Twenty per cent. of 
those employed had suffered an arm or a hand amputation, and twenty per cent. 
had suffered injuries still more grave. The enterprise has been a great success, 
and the men do everything from sawing the logs to packing and shipping the 
finished article. Another example is the diamond cutting and polishing plant 
established in England by Bernard Oppenheim, a diamond merchant who was 
also a soldier. This work is hygienic, remunerative and has proved a great success. 
Two thousand men were there employed in 1919. 


There seems no reason why we could not develop in any of our large cities 

“American Toy House” where American crippled boys trained in toy making 
ci: the public schools could earn their livings by making as beautiful toys as those 
made by the French at “Le Jouet de France.” Indeed at Apway Fields, near 
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, a toy shop has already been established by. the Berkshire 
School for Crippled Children. 


Bibliography 


American Journal of Care for Cripples. 1914-1919. Contains much valuable 
information concerning schools for crippled children, and industrial work for both 
children and adults. 

Boate, G. A. Industrial surveys of the leather industries with special reference 
to the employment of the disabled. Amer. Jour. of Care for Cripples. Vol. 8, 
125-160. 

Davis, G. S. The education of crippled children. pegben Jour. of Care for 
Cripples. Vol. 1, 5-13. 

Ferguson, A. D. The Widener Memorial Industrial Training School for 
Crippled Children and its work. Amer. Jour. of Care for Cripples. Vol. 2, 74-83. 
, Fulton, F. C. A survey of crippled children in California. Amer. Jour. of 

are for Cripples. Voli 7,151. 
81 


Hacket, Capt. E. A. Le Jouet de France. Amer. Jour. of Care for Cripples.. — 
Vol. ; 


Jaeger, C. H. Trade training for adult cripples. Amer. Jour. of Care for 
Cripples. Vol. 1, 67-62. 


Lewis, A. E. The toy industry for crippled children. Amer. Jour. of Care 
for Cripples. Vol. 7, 152. 


Merrill, M. Mental examination of crippled children. Amer. Jour. of Care 
for Cripples. Vol. 13, 190-194. 


McMurtrie, D. C. The care of crippled children in the U. S., N. Y., 1912. 


McMutrtrie, D. C. The mentally defective cripple. Amer. Jour. of Care for 
Cripples. Vol. 1, 83-85. 


Redding, H. E. Opportunities for the employment of disabled men. Amer. 
Jour. of Care for Cripples. Vol. 6, 199-229. | 


Rose, A. Jewelry and silversmithing for disabled soldiers. Amer. Jour. of 
Care for Cripples. Vol. 8, 59-64. 


Robertson, Jno. D. Chicago’s reconstruction laboratory. Amer. Jour. of 
Care for Cripples. Vol. 8, 25-29. 


Reeves, E.’ Care and education of crippled children in the U. S. New York 
Survey Asso., 1914. 


Sims, G. R. Training disabled soldiers in diamond cutting. Amer. Jour. of 
Care for Cripples. Vol. 8, 90-93. 


Seligman, M. A shop for cripples’ work. Amer. Jour. of Care for Cripples. 
Vol. 1, 172-174. 


Stein, G. R. Employment bureau for cripples. Amer. Jour. of Care for 
Cripples. Vol. 5, 185-188. 


Treloar, Sir Wm. The vocational training of crippled boys. Amer. Jour. of 
Care for Cripples. Vol. 3, 265-266. 


Thorndike, A. Industrial training for crippled children about Boston. Amer. 
Jour. of Care for Cripples. Vol. 1, 15-20. 


Library of Care and Education of Cripples, 3505 Broadway, New York. 
Federation of Associations for Cripples, New York City. 
Association of Public School Teachers of Crippled Children, New York. 


82 


; APPENDICES 


STATE LAWS CONCERNING CLASSES FOR DEFECTIVES IN PUBLIC DAY 
SCHOOLS—STATE AID GIVEN TO SUCH CLASSES 


States Having Statutes Concerning Classes for Mental Defectives in the Public Day Schoois. 

States Giving Aid to Special Classes for Mental Defectives, Blind, Deaf and Crippled Chil- 
dren held in the Public Schools. 

Ohio. 
The State contributes three hundred and twenty-five dollars for each blind child given 
instruction in a special class for the blind during nine months of the year and a propor- 
tionate amount for each child given such instruction during a shorter period, provided no 
more shall be drawn than is actually expended above the cost of teaching an equal number 
of pupils of normal condition in the same district and grade. 
The State contributes. one hundred and fifty dollars for each deaf and each crippled child 
instructed in a special class for their type during nine months of the year and a propor- 
tionate amount for a shorter period. 
State supervisors are appointed for these classes. 

Wisconsin. 
The State contributes two hundred dollars for each blind child who is instructed in a 
public day school for the blind during at least nine months of the year and one hundred 
and fifty dollars for each deaf pupil or pupil with defective speech instructed in a special 
class for nine months of the year. 
The State contributes one-third of the salary of each teacher of a special class for “ex- 
ceptional”’ persons of school age provided this sum does not exceed three hundred dol- 
lars. “Exceptional” refers to mental defectives. 
The State supports a psychologist who has general supervision of special classes and 
gives special attention to examining, testing and classifying the pupils applying for ad- 
mission to these classes. 

New York. 
Statute adopted May 18, 1917, makes it mandatory for Boards of Education of each 
city and each Union Free District and upon the board of trustees of each school district 
to ascertain within one year the number of children three years or more retarded men- 
tally, and to establish classes for the instruction of such children. Another statute makes 
similar ruling for blind, deaf and crippled children. 
The number of children in the classes for mental defectives is limited to fifteen. 
The State employs a “Physical and Mental Diagnostician,’ and a Supervisor of Special 
Classes. 


New Jersey. 
Statute adopted February 11, 1918, makes it mandatory upon Boards of Education to 
discover all children three or more years retarded in mental development, and all blind, 
deaf and crippled children incapable of education in the regular schools, and to establish 
special classes for the instruction of each type of child in all cases where ten or more 
of this type is discovered. 
The number of children in these special classes is limited to fifteen. 


i pl le uae 
June 22, 1919, a statute was adopted making it the duty of superintendents to report to 
Medical Inspector all cases of blind, deaf or mentally defective children between the ages 
of eight and sixteen years, to establish special classes for the education of such children, 
such classes to be organized under the superintendence of the State Superintendent of 
Education. 
The State contributes one-half of the total eth of such classes. 
The State employs a psychologist. 

Minnesota. 
The Minnesota law of 1915 provides for the establishment of special classes for the men- 
tally defective, for the deaf and the blind children and those children having speech 
defects. 

83 





It contributes one hundred dollars per year per child in schools holding session nine . 
months of the school year. i. 
It provides that the classes must not consist of less than five. 

In the classes for instruction of those children with speech defects, if a child attends 
less than nine months the amount contributed by the State will be proportionate to the 
months of instruction. . 

The method used in teaching the deaf must be the combined system—oral, aural, manual 
and every method known to the profession. 

The State employs a ge fol Sg 


Michigan. 
In 1917 a statute was adopted which provided for day schools for the deaf. 
The State contributes total expense of teacher’s salary and equipment of these day 
schools which are conducted for nine months of the school year, provided this sum does 
not exceed one hundred and fifty dollars per pupil instructed for full time of nine months. 
A proportionate sum is contributed for pupils attending school for a shorter period. 
The State aid is conditioned upon the fact that the teacher be a graduate of training 
school for the deaf by the oral method and that she have one year’s experience as teacher 
in school for the deaf. 
The State employs a psychologist. 


Wyoming. . 
A statute was adopted making it the duty of the State Board of Education to provide for 
the education and training when necessary of all children under twenty years of age, 
who stutter, who stammer, who have defects of organs of speech, whose physical. develop- 
ment is arrested or who have other physical defects, such as infantile paralysis, whose 
mental development is defective, in institutions or special day classes. 
All necessary expense, for investigation, clothing, subsistence, transportation, keeping and 
maintaining shall be paid by funds hereby appropriated. 
The appropriation of ten thousand dollars was made for the two years ending Nitieet, 
1921. The statute was adopted March, 1919. 
A bonus of twenty-five dollars for each month of service is paid to each teacher at the 
end of school year. 
The State employs a psychologist. 


Missouri. 

A statute was adopted June 7, 1919, which made it mandatory in any school district in 
which were found ten or more children who are blind, deaf, or feebleminded, and yet 
capable of instruction, to provide special classes for their instruction, and to provide 
transportation for such children as cannot otherwise attend. 

It also made it mandatory to supply instruction adapted to the varying pie and 
mental handicaps of the children ck shall be determined by, the migte Department of 

« Education, 

It makes it the duty of the Board of Education or Board of PR STOLS in each district 
to ascertain annually who belong to any of the above types. 

The State contributes seven hundred and fifty dollars per annum for each Peon em- 
ployed wholly in the instruction of pupils of such classes, provided the teacher has been 
especially trained for such work and this training is*in accordance with regulations estab- 
lished by State Superintendent of Schools. 


West Virginia. 
Statute went into effect July 1, 1919, which gives State Board of Ratraaticn full authority 
to provide ways and means of educating children who are mentally or physically defective 
or disabled. 


Massachusetts. 
July 1, 1919. Statute was adopted which makes it mandatory that school committees form 
special classes for the instruction of children three or mote’ years mentally retarded in 
all cities or towns containing ten or more such children. 3 


84 
{ , ) 


. VARIETIES OF INDUSTRIAL WORK LISTED AS USED FOR THE TRAINING OF 
. THE MENTALLY DEFECTIVE 


NV ION A DE Ee es Se eee stoke wan vu dws 28 40 

Repairing Furniture 

Toy Furniture Making 

Jointed Animal Making 

Toy Making 

Trays 

Coping Saw Work 
PEI: CNN tet la) opera a ieee ie 7 arn eee po 8 
JASE TNS Ce ny ce: On rea ance On eek a a 15 
Wag POs Sets Seas esenrih« Pile «ita a 4 
Bere mV )T a ee eka (Ns ait dia cor Ale cise” sie hs ei 1 
PRAMAS tate cotenge £40 82s ois re) ciagrae oan clare Se, « i 
Ma reiee Wittig Ah vce tsa e Ree ee eae 3 
ERC TEV Kat RG ies sieves wee ols Sale x e's 8 1 
Pit ler Varese hese RPO, Sd eta es 5 
EWELEY -erea ryt ei Sore Hila. cee ena ne 1 
MENS EE BAR Toa) ko Re ge ee pr AMIE Neteee, 24 

Elementary 

Rugs 
eM Ltt meer BNe alts hab 6k Balas 2 4 16 

PIM EWAN Gees eke siete o g.8 aces em 0» 9 

WA TCM DE WVANIAD, ots ebdelsty Sesds.o 6k bee's 3 


Machine Sewing Power Machine.... .2 


Garments Making! i.) 0. ice cscee ees « ] 

(Bp WT oir Teas IR Oe Ween die at Ph-aet 1 
DSN Gi yar eens onthe wae 3 ER he EE He 1 
CMV PA CUI rater rer pee cian oo 378 ia ord eis! Gasp anges Z 
ROC lie cit Cun ion ar eae Ts Lavy x OR Ne 1 
Davide fie eee tae es nes eee se eee 2 
Hradd ao ACI oar parce ne rs ect a ead a 1 
Hlaramock wlaking: Krotting 7.0.2. or ake 2 
Lek haigy ay eltctie Mew nile eal Nealon RA Rory Sd 13 
(Metal terse. Sikuthe MRS EM eT? ee One aL ce Mey Ba 9 
MDE Eb Ca Ce aioe Seer Oh enien 7 OMe, a? RR 2 Spa ee S 
ice atime = Le Ate os Lay eee oh twee 2 

Stencil iyo Pe SO IG OOS 4 belts 1 

Panermandlasiehoard. Nene 06 At. oes 2 
ey DEVEL we ch one toa: dic eras that acs, od bales a 
MontesOrt ig «eis acetic anion viene cee aah 1 
INT 1S (Clie Baetiics Stee as bite clic Seine nhl S Salt ate 1 
SmiSe smal CIN area ee tba. aceon a Wee » 
Pay sien Wa rales. ise he te tl eRe Be 
CGStRCSA a eect es viata s TRAE tt, Maca A 5 
ES POCGI COLLECTION fawn Hea lie dn ee scateces » ae 1 


Individual. Work: Stressed..c 34.4 ue. ss bee 10 


Several cities note that fifty per cent. of time is devoted to industrial or manual work. 
One city notes that one-third of time is devoted to manual work, one-third to academic work 


and one-third to physical training. e 


Many cities state that they have full equipment for many varieties of hand work but do 


not go into detail. 


85 


PROFESSIONAL REQUIREMENTS FOR TEACHERS OF 
SPECIAL CLASSES FOR DEFECTIVE CHILDREN. 


Minneapolis, Minnesota. 
1. Two years’ training in psychology. 
2. Two years’ training in method. 
3. Two years’ experience in teaching normal children. 


St. Paul, Minnesota. 
1. Normal graduate. 
2. One or more summer sessions at Faribault or equivalent. 
3. Two years’ teaching experience. 


Duluth, Minnesota. 
1. Normal graduate. 
2. Training in instruction of subnormal children: one year training for tWOyeme certi- 
ficate, and one summer training for each additional year. 
3. Two years’ teaching experience. 


Louisville, Kentucky, 
1. Ability to do the work. 


Rockford, Illinois. 
1. Requirements for grade teacher. 
2. Special summer school work or course of training at Lincoln State School for Feeble- 
minded. 
Muskeegan, I\linots. 
Normal graduate. 
Special training for work. 
Flint, Michigan. 
1. Psychological training. 
Buffalo, N. Y. : 
1. Regular State requirements. 
2. One summer term of special training. 


Wyoming. 

1. State certificate obtained through regular channels. 

2. Temporary Special Certificates granted.for two years’ successful experience in teach- 
ing normal children plus evidence of a peculiar aptitude for special class work. 

3. Permanent Special Certificate granted to those who in addition to the above qualifica- 
tions have one year’s successful experience in teachirig subnormal children and one 
year’s special training in an accredited institution in the problems of the subnormal 
child or its equivalent in correspondence courses or in summer schools. 

4. Temporary Speech Certificates for teaching speech improvement granted for two 
years’ successful experience in teaching normal children plus two years’ special train- 
ing in corrective speech work. 


Minnesota. 


1. Special State Certificates issued by Superintendent of Education, which requires : 
1. Professional training required by teachers of elementary grades. 
2. Two years’ successful experience in teaching normal children. 
3. One year’s special training in the problems of the subnormal child, at an institution 
approved by the Superintendent of Education. In lieu of one year’s continuous 
training summer school courses may be accepted for such part of the work as 


they represent. 
New Jersey. 


1. Special Certificate for Teacher of Defective Children, which requires: 
1. Permanent elementary or secondary certificate. 
2. Pass three examinations : 


86 


te 


a. Psychology with special reference to pupils mentally defective, including recog- 
nized tests applied to such pupils. 

b. Elementary manual training for boys and girls. 

c. Physical training with special reference to physical defects. 

Courses approved by State Board of Examiners will be accepted in lieu of these 
examinations, but no course will be so approved unless it is accompanied by 
practice work with classes of defective children. 

Missourt. 

1. Two years’ standard college course or its equivalent. 

2. At least eight hours’ credit in courses especially designed to prepare them for the 
particular kind of work they have been employed to do. 

Courses which will be found helpful: 

a. Introductory courses on feebleminded and subnormal children. 

b. Courses in manumental and industrial training for defectives. 

c. Observation of work in classes for defectives. 

d. Practical intelligence and motor testing of defectives. 

e. Psychology and pedagogy of mental defectives. 

3. Teachers of these classes should be deeply in sympathy with the particular class of 
defectives they are teaching. They should be resourceful and adaptable and should 
be able to get away from the routine method of mass instruction. 

Young teachers who have been doing a strong grade of primary work are usually well 

' adapted to this class of work. 


Stamford, Conn. 
1. Special Certificate : | 
_a. Requirements for grade teacher. 
b. Equivalent of sixty hours’ work in the education of mental defectives, similar and 
equal in kind to that given at New York University and known as the Standard 
Course for Teachers of Mentally Defective Children. 


New York. 
1. Special Certificate. 


UNIVERSITIES, COLLEGES, INSTITUTIONS AND SCHOOLS , 


OFFERING COURSES PREPARATORY FOR TEACHING 
MENTALLY DEFECTIVE CHILDREN. 


UNIVERSITIES AND COLLEGES OFFERING CLINICAL AID TO THE PUBLIC 


| SO oe 


on 


ot 


\o 


Li. 
12. 
13. 


14. 


15s 
16. 
in 


18. 
12 


20. 


ay 
i 


23 


SCHOOLS 


Universities and Colleges Offering Courses Preparatory to Teaching Mental Defectives 
, 


‘University sof Mentana', 92... a6. s7ss Mental Measurements. Extra Summer Course. 

. University of Mimnesota...0..2..56.... Special four-year course. 

Se Hareard |W aivessitys vette cok ee ees Graduate Course with Clinical Work. Summer 

Course—Laboratory and. Clinical, for teachers 

of special classes. : 

“University of Michivatic \. buses > ae Course on Exceptional Child. 

. University af! Oklahomate ai. 00.5: Teaching of Defective Children. “Course also 
given in Extension Department and in Summer 
School. 

“Tousiana State’ University <. csec.«s0es> One Month in a Course in Educational Measure- 
ments. 

University “of Washington. 2..0555.; Psychology of Exceptional Children. Number of 
Courses in Clinical Methods and Mental Tests. 

Leland? Stantord University .4 254,25. 04 Abnormal Psychology. 

iM URIVErSsi€y Ol Wnicaeo yw eeu pees Preliminary Training for Teachers of Mentally 
Defective offered in School of Education. 

a GolutibiaUniversitysutany or. ee Psychological Examining. Methods of Teaching 

Teachers’ College. in Special Classes. Supervision of Special 
Classes. Observation and Experimentation in 
connection with Special Classes. 

NW agian MSO R oe puttin as it a Wa eae Three-Hour Course in Mental Tests. One-Hour 
Course in Abnormal Psychology. 

University of North Dakota............ Mental Measurements. 

Ohio State University........ Se ee The Defective Child. Mental Tests. Abnormal 
Psychology. Genetic Psychology. Treatment 
of Exceptional Children. 

New -Y ork (Uiniversityic.. 5. Oe. eee oe Teacher’s Course one year. Supervisor’s Course 

Department for Training Teachers of two years. Also many Summer School Courses. 

Backward and Defective Children. All of this work discontinued during the war 
and not yet resumed. 

George Washington University......... Mental Tests—Saturday Afternoons. 

University ob Arkdnsas 2eee a. 246 Clinical Psychology. Courses in Summer School. 

University raf: Denver seagus 22s cee Ce Study of Defective Children. Study of Defective 
Children (Advanced Course). 

Cornell aniwersity »\.iarase ast eae od Mental Examination of Children. 

Universityaol -Wantas so. ae vee es ot cee Course preparing teachers to diagnose and ad- 
vise concerning mentally defective children. 

University of Pennsylvania............ Many Courses offered by Department of Psy- 
chology both in winter and summer. 

University (Gt-lowateauerev en were. Clinical Psychology. 

Colorado State Teachers’ College...... Clinical Psychology. Child Hygiene. Additional 
Summer Courses. 

)*Lehigh University :t6 ved ss cee ene Special Summer Course with Demonstration 
Class. 


Note that New York University and University of Minnesota offer Professional Courses ) 


leading to Special Certificates for the Teaching of Defectives. 


88. 












chools, Not Universities or Colleges, Offering Courses Preparatory fo : Defectives 


Y Vinee. raining Schools. 7a. i... ok... Special Training and Scho 
. State School for Feebleminded, 

Hatibanlt, ‘Minnesota 0. ok. Rend. ek Special Training and Class | 
3. State School for Feebleminded, 


Bee AN oN. iPe oct qaatt Bes oh ie sa cies Special Training and Class | 
. State School for Feebleminded, 

Ree NE ch: gece Pas Stage Soa Special Training and Class 
. Lincoln State School and Colony, 


Lathe 2b te MA RCSA Sel aires ts, Se eRe a Special Training and Class 
. Oswego Normal School, Oswego, N. Y. 

. Harris Teachers College, St. Louis, Mo. 

. Michigan State Normal College, 


Bren? potenti. V Mich... 51a. wols Gem ae Summer Course. 
w thiladelphta Normal School. .........: Six Weeks’ Summer Session. 
. Cleveland School of Education..... ....9ix Months’ post graduate course. 


Universities and Colleges Offering Clinical Assistance to the Public Schools 


. Teachers’ College, New York. 
. Yale University. 

. University of Pennsylvania. 

. University of Iowa. 

. University of Kansas. 

. Northwestern University. 

. Princeton University. 

. University of Ohio. 

. University of North Dakota. 
10. Vassar College. 

11. University of Oklahoma. 

12. University of Utah. 

13. University of Washington. 
14. University of Michigan. 

15. Harvard University. 

16. University of Minnesota. 

17. University of Montana. 

18. State Teachers’ College, Greeley, Colorado. 


XO" 6O NJ ON Gh Ss Go 


39 














“Vv “ 4 . 
N SM ey I 
: \ 
’ 
‘ 
. 7 j 4 A Pi a 
’ : * 
, ‘ 
: ob ‘ 
ANE a 
“- 
2 f 
; a 
‘ . 
x , 
re me ? 4 
Hy ten fut fj 
ee 9 My 3 
k th eet 
Bees yaad hee’ “th MR 
Pe rea ia yt ae 
Se! ae f Tah 
Bog Rage 
ape ‘ 
ir 9 
4 
. 
. 
‘ 
- ) 
’ 
« . 
- 
4 
‘ 
i 
e 
4 
‘ A 
5 
7 
= rl 
Oe . 
Bhat ' ' * 
: s ‘ 
; 
nts 
1 M A 
“ i) il 7 









> 








Photomount 
Pamphlet 
Binder 


Gaylord Bros. Inc. 
Makers 
Syracuse, N. Y. 
PAT, JAN 21, 1908 





hs 


a 


te i irae 
Se goatee 


tae 


ea 


cy) iy 


Hr