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teachers will be those who have had experience with the healthy mental type of pupils. Teachers of defectives should have special powers of adaptability and insight. They should be sympathetic. The state should license them and should in some way manifest a complimentary recognition of their skill or fitness for this special work. Such recognition would encourage first-class teachers to seek positions in schools for subnormal children. Boards of education and superintendents should improve every opportunity to determine the best methods and devise the most effective means for educating those who may be assigned to these schools. Every problem of the special school should be dealt with in a practical way. The machinery of the entire public-school system should be available for the support of the special school or department in its important mission. Every reasonable effort should be made for the immediate amelioration of the sad condition of these unfortunate children, and for its ultimate extirpation. From the work of the special department will come a demand for endowed schools and endowments for the support of investigators in the interest of defective classes. The work of the special department in a system of public schools will be the means of making every teacher more thoughtful as regards the welfare of subnormal children. It will be the means of directing a more careful study of every child on the part of teachers and parents. The most prevalent causes of defectives will be discovered and remedies suggested and applied. It will stimulate greater effort to prevent the impairment of one or more of the child's senses, thus removing or reducing the prevalent causes, such as tuberculosis, alcoholism, rickets, adenoids, infectious diseases, and malnutrition to a minimum.

These special schools will create a demand for custodial schools. Many a so-called dull and backward pupil who is now inclined to leave school early in his educational career, more or less discouraged, will, through the kind offices of the special department, be induced to remain in school. The special school will be the means of saving many a so-called dull and backward child, who is not mentally defective, but only seems so because of a defect of his sight or hearing, or because of a lack of nutritious food, rather than a defect of the mind, from a life of sadness and failure to a life of happiness and usefulness. It is indeed true that the cause or seat of the trouble does not always readily appear to the unprofessional observer, but the trained teacher and the medical official quickly discover it by simple tests.

Even in the absence of a special department or a special class for defectives much may be done by the small city, through its schools, to alleviate the condition of defectives and to retard the increase of subnormal children in the community. The entire corps of teachers may be directed in a careful study of the causes of this sad condition and how to remove them, and also of the best methods of treating the feeble minded. The interest of the school in these matters will soon enlist the co-operation of the home and the community.

"Physicians may safeguard the sanitary interests of the community, the state, and the nation; in just the same way the teachers of our land may stand as a great bulwark of strength and protection between the American people and the threatening dangers resulting from inherited mental and moral weakness and disease. Just in proportion as they realize the importance of their mission and are suitably equipped for carrying it out, just in that proportion will the number of really efficient men and women increase and the number of inefficient and incapable decrease. It seems that it has been reserved for the schools of today to take up questions pertaining to subnormal children-those that come into the world handicapped by mental and moral deficiency, and solve them, not only in the interest of the deficient, but for the welfare of the community at large. Scientific methods must be employed. "Science thought is human progress itself."

DISCUSSION

GEORGE A. FRANKLIN, superintendent of schools, Austin, Minn.-In the discussion of this subject I can only hope to emphasize some of the points so well set forth in the very

complete presentation to which we have just listened. Having worked for twelve years in a city in which were located three state schools-for deaf, blind, and feeble minded— and observing the excellent results obtained in each-I naturally believe that, for those children defective to a considerable degree, such schools are the best. I doubt if even the large city can so successfully care for its defectives as can the state.

But we are interested in that class of defectives who are able, under proper care and guidance, to make some progress in our public schools, without interfering with the rights of the normal children. We must analyze the question from two standpoints, as has been suggested by Superintendent Dietrich: (1) How can we deal with the causes which produce defectiveness? (2) How can we deal with the child himself, so as to make of him a self-supporting, honest citizen?

We have just heard how alarmingly the percentage of subnormal children has increased during the past sixteen years. Much of this is beyond our power to remedy, either directly or indirectly. We can do something. We should do all we can for the betterment of the home-the home of today and the home of the future—and of public sentiment. The home is the most potent influence exerted upon the child. Many of the physical and mental, and most of the moral, defects are directly traceable to the home. Neglect, poor food, irregularity, unhappiness, and often cruelty and vice are the home companions of the young. Ignorance is often the cause. We should try by parents' meetings, through the public press, and by private interviews to raise the sentiment of the parents to a better understanding of what the child needs. We must interest them in our plans for their children and create a helpful sympathy. Much may be done in this way in our smaller

cities where the teacher is personally known and is one of the people.

The child himself.-The ungraded room and special department are profitably employed. When these are not possible for any cause, and sometimes when they are at hand, a greater elasticity of our gradation is desirable. Many of these subnormal children are deficient in certain lines. With the comparatively few cases to deal with, it will cause very little confusion to have the children go to two or three rooms to recite. I have sent pupils to two or three grades below the room in which they sat to pursue the study or studies in which they were the most deficient. This enables them to associate with pupils of more nearly their own age and with whom they have much in common. They are not so much discouraged and often make more rapid progress. The teachers may at first object, but soon fall in line and like the plan. We cannot afford to be too rigid in our adherence to our system-to our perfect gradation-not only for the sake of our subnormal but also for our normal children.

Industrial work should be freely employed in all our schools. The time has come when even the smallest cities recognize that our educational system is incomplete without manual training and domestic science, and they are rapidly finding that the cost must not stand in the way of their introduction. Not only for the normal child is this work needed, but for the backward pupil, who often discovers that which he can do well and with sustained interest. This success stimulates his mental activities, makes him happier, more self-respecting and self-reliant. In the case of the morally deficient child I have known cases where the transformation was marvelous.

In the domestic-science department the backward girl sometimes finds her sphere of interest and usefulness. It is here that I look for the greatest hope for the home of the future, and the removal of much of the cause of deficiency. If our girls are trained in the home arts as well as in the academic branches they will be able to make true homes. They will help make the husband's salary provide for the wants of the family, and as a result health, contentment, and happiness-the best foundation for uprightness-will possess the home.

But it is for the morally defective that I would especially plead. In a paper read before one of our Minnesota Teachers' Associations this year, Superintendent Whittier, of the State Training School for boys and girls, told the following incident:

"Just before the State Fair, one of the advertising pictures of the famous pacing horse, Dan Patch, found its way into the State Training School. It represented the horse coming straight toward you with its excited eye, dilated nostrils, and wonderful stride, and made a picture almost startling in its vividness. It was, by some of the boys, tacked to the wall in the engine-room. Under the picture was printed in bold type, 'The fastest horse the world has ever seen.' Some boy wrote immediately under this, "The fastest world the horse has ever seen.' As I stood looking at it for the first time, one of our inmates came along, looked at the picture and read what was printed and written, and with an expression of sadness and regret, added, "Too fast for me. That is why I am here.'"

We must do more for the child in this fast world in which he is living. In our public schools we must employ, more than we are now doing, the methods used in our trainingschools and reformatories, and practice the principles of Judge Lindsley and others of the Juvenile courts. We must be taught that while the harsh measures may produce the quickest results, they do not reach the root of the evil. How often we punish a boy for what his parents are to blame. True, one generation must suffer for the sins of the preceding ones, but our treatment of the bad boy or girl, whose parents are arrayed against justice and truth and against the school authority, must be tempered by mercy, kindness, and love-that love which perhaps the incorrigible is so much in need of. He sometimes thinks no one cares for him, is unhappy and desperate. It is the happy person who does right easily, and the unhappy one finds it almost impossible to do right.

All have some good qualities. We must recognize and cultivate these, show the child we have interest and confidence in him and lead him to see that he can fill an important place in this “fast world." Many a child dislikes school and with good reason. Little will be accomplished in such an atmosphere. In the smaller cities we may be able to do more than in the larger ones to make the school surroundings attractive, or substitute a teacher who will. The poor teacher must be sacrificed for the school, the perfect machine for the individual needs of the pupil.

J. W. KUYKENDALL, superintendent of schools, Ft. Smith, Ark.-In considering what the smaller cities should attempt for the education of defective children, I think we will do well to consider them in two classes. In the first class I would include those whose defects are so marked as to necessitate special schools or asylums, as the blind, the deaf mute, the imbecile, and the depraved. Such special institutions form no proper part of the public-school system of a small city. The care of these unfortunates may be more properly undertaken by the county and state.

But the other class, whose deficiencies are such as to render them less helpless, but nevertheless to unfit them for doing the ordinary work of the schools, presents a problem for the consideration of the school authorities of a small city. In this class, we may include (1) those children whose eyesight, hearing, or speech so hampers them as to impede their progress in school, (2) those dull, backward children who constantly fall behind their classmates each year, becoming a residue of each promotion, until discouraged they disappear from the schools, (3) those abnormal children who develop an aptitude for certain lines of thought but seem hopelessly deficient in others, and (4) those occasional children who manifest a tendency to kleptomania or other moral diseases.

How shall the small city meet its manifest obligation to these "misfits," so universally found in our schoolrooms? If a proper place for these deficient children can be found within the possibilities of our small cities, a blessing will not only result to these sub-normal children but also to the normal children, to whom the presence of these "misfits" is a constant impediment. I believe the only practical solution lies in the establishing of special rooms and special schools, where the most skilful teachers may be assigned, each to take charge in limited number of these children and give them that individual care which alone can supply their several needs, and where needed medical attention may also be supplied.

That there are difficulties in the way of establishing these rooms and schools goes

without saying. The first difficulty that will present itself is a financial one. Most small cities need better school facilities for their normal children and school authorities will hesitate to spend their meager revenues upon the sub-normal. I shall not stop to discuss this phase of the question, but, leaving each one who realizes the necessity to meet this problem in his own way, I shall pass to the most serious difficulty that is to be found in establishing these special schools. This is the very natural opposition offered by parents to having their children taken from their accustomed places in the schools and sent to these special schools. If these schools partake of the nature of asylums for the infirm, physically or mentally, a parent may very justly object to placing upon his child the stigma of having been an inmate therein. This, at first thought, seems to destroy at once the usefulness of these special schools, and to make their establishment unwise.

In order to avoid this source of opposition, these special schools should not be asylums or schools for the unfortunate, and they may be made to partake of an entirely different nature by enlarging their scope. In addition to the classes named above, we have another class of children to whom a well-managed special school would prove an unalloyed blessing, the child who is several years behind his fellows of the same age. At this meeting one year ago the attitude of these children in the regular classes was shown by Miss Richman, District Superintendent of New York City, in these words, "Let me say right here that the first-year classes are meant for babes, and the second-year classes for those a bit older; and the child of ten or eleven or twelve or older has no place in the regular classes of the first three years, no matter how ignorant he may be of reading, writing, or arithmetic. Such a classification of the older boy has a bad subjective influence upon him, and a correspondingly bad objective influence upon the child for whom the grade work was planned."

This class of over-age children is made up of many elements. It includes nearly all the "bad boys" whose deeds of misconduct are usually the outgrowth of idleness and of lack of harmony with their surroundings. Our foreign-born children contribute their quota to this class. I recently observed a Syrian boy of sixteen in a first-grade room, who within three months was able to advance as many grades. Lack of early opportunities for attending school is a fruitful source of backwardness. The surrounding rural communities annually contribute a large number of such children to the schools of a small city.

My plea, then, is for the establishment of ungraded rooms or schools wherein each abnormal child, each "misfit," may receive the instruction most suited to his needs. I urge that these schools be made attractive by remoying from them the character of asylums for the unfortunate, and by including in their course of study a large element of practical, concrete work. Sloyd, basketry, weaving, woodworking, and domestic science should be the leading features. The essentials, reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, etc., should be well taught. But the one essential of the curriculum should be its elasticity, so that each case may be treated according to its individual needs. The child who is assigned to such a school should be kept just so long as is absolutely necessary to fit him to return to the regular classes or to fit him to be a self-reliant, self-sustaining member of society. No standards of promotion or graduation, which may be ever so admirably fitted to the normal child, should be permitted to stand in the way of the proper disposal of such a student. Such schools would not conflict with the standards of the regular school system, for the reason that their patronage is only of those who never complete the work of the grades, but who soon fall out of school to become the large army of hopelessly dependent, to enter the workshop or factory, or to swell the number of street gamins, the embryo criminals.

Reverting to the question of cost, the failure to provide the means where by these classes may become self-sustaining citizens is the most costly economy that our cities, large or small, can indulge. What right can the community claim to tax all the property for public education on the plea of the public weal, while it neglects to provide for those in greatest need, for those who are its greatest menace?

THE RELATION OF THE PHYSICAL NATURE OF THE CHILD TO HIS MENTAL AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT

GEO. W. REID, SUPERINTENDENT CITY SCHOOLS, MONROE, LA.

Mental activity has its foundation in physical activity. Nervous action is the result of a certain stimulus upon a certain physical organ; hence the mental activity is influenced by the nervous action.

We are told that the nervous system is made up of neurons, and that each neuron consists of a cell and a fiber. The fibers extend in all directions throughout the body, permeating every tissue, dividing and subdividing, until they end in the periphery of the organs. Although these neurons run side by side, cross each other, yet the impulse received by one is never influenced by that of another, except by the process of induction. A great number of impulses may be received at one time. By induction the impulse of one neuron may influence the impulse of another neruon which it crosses; at the same time it may be influenced by the impulse already there. From these impulses, somehow, mental states or conditions arise. As the physical body of the child develops, new and varied impulses are received which change the physical nature. Since there are three general periods of development in the physical child, there ought to be, at least, three general periods in the development of the physical nature.

Only a small part of that period of the development of the child from two years to seven comes under the direct supervision of the teacher. We know that the body and the brain have developed rapidly up to and including seven years. So rapid has been the development of the brain that at the age of eight it has almost attained its full size. During this period the body is attacked by the infectious diseases common to early childhood. Nervous diseases are quite common, convulsions, bad dreams, stammering, squinting, etc. I have observed that where a child at this age has strabismus its physical nature is more reticent. It does not seek companions. Its mental development is somewhat slower. Where strabismus is the result of some spinal affection during the first years of infancy, the mental development is slower than in the child where strabismus is caused by some visible defect, as in the lens or a muscle.

Oftentimes the hearing of the child is defective and the fact is unknown both to the parent and the child. This is often due to what is known as risings in the ear during early infancy. While defective hearing does not affect the physical nature of the child, at this age, as much as defective sight, the teacher will soon discover that his mental development is slower, and that special arrangements must be made for him.

During the second period of development, from eight to eleven, there is noticeable a great change in his physical nature. This is a critical period of the child's life. The brain grows slowly; the vascular system is at a standstill, while the muscular development leaps forward in great strides. Because of these conditions physical fatigue manifests itself, and not only physical fatigue but mental fatigue with all the nervous accompaniments, otherwise unaccountable. The child is able to do less work at the age of eight than at the age of seven. One of the first symptoms of this period is the seeming appearance of laziness. He is now in the third-grade work, and we as teachers demand more work than the year previous, while parents are calling for more and better results. What must be the effect upon that nature mentally and morally, that is constantly being nagged by teachers and parents, when it is now doing its very best? He is peevish, irritable, and has little ambition to accomplish anything. He is subject to all diseases, somatic and nervous, of the period just passed and those of early childhood. Fortunately for him the fatigue part of this period lasts but a few months, but sometimes it may extend over two years.

One of the most common diseases of this period is that of adenoid growths. It is claimed that about 37 per cent. of our children have these growths to some extent. We have all seen the dull, listless, stupid expression on the child's face; the staring eyes,

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