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PUBLIC school classes for mentally defective children were opened as early as 1867 in several German cities. In Prussia since 1880 these special classes have been obligatory in cities of twenty thousand or more inhabitants. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France and Switzerland have made similar provision.

In England a class for defective children was established in London in 1891 in accordance with the suggestion in the report of the Royal Commission of the Blind, Dumb, Deaf, etc. Afterwards other classes were opened in Leicester, Bradford, Birmingham, Bristol, Nottingham, etc. General interest in this subject was awakened by the remarkably able reports of Dr. Francis Warner in 1889 and 1894 concerning the mental and physical condition of one hundred thousand school children, which showed among other things that at least one per cent of these children were so deficient mentally as to need special instruction.

The report to Parliament in 1898 of the "Committee on Defective and Epileptic Children" discussed the question in great detail and recommended certain definite legislation, which finally crystallized into the Parliamentary Elementary Education Act of 1899 which provides power to determine what children are defective; provides for an extra grant of money for the maintenance of special classes or schools for defective children; provides for compelling feeble-minded children to attend these special classes and generally provides for the management of these schools by the local school boards.

A few quotations from the admirable 1898 report will illustrate the sharp distinction made in England as to the use of the term "imbecile" and "feeble-minded.'

Throughout this report the word 'feeble-minded' denotes only these children who are not imbecile and who cannot properly be taught in ordinary elementary schools by ordinary methods."

"That children exist who, on the one hand, are too feeble-minded to be properly taught in ordinary elementary schools by ordinary methods, and, on the other hand, are not so feeble-minded as to be imbecile or idiotic, is assumed in the terms of reference to us. With this assumption we are in entire agreement. From the normal child down to the lowest idiot there are all degrees of deficiency of mental power; and it is only a difference of degree which distinguishes the feeble-minded children, referred to in our inquiry, on the one side from the backward children who are found in every ordinary school, and, on the other side, from the children who are too deficient to receive proper benefit from any teaching which the school authorities can give. The great majority of the thirteen hundred children whom we have seen in special classes have been tried in the ordinary schools, and have been shown to be incapable of receiving any proper benefit from the instruction, having for the most part learned little or nothing beyond certain habits of discipline. On the other hand, these children show themselves capable of receiving considerable benefit from the individual attention and the special instruction given in the special classes. By the age of thirteen or fourteen they may sometimes arrive at a stage of elementary instruction, equal perhaps, to that attained by ordinary children of eight or nine years of age, and they often show themselves capable of being trained in some manual occupation. Thus there is a fair prospect, that, with favorable surroundings, they may take their place in the world and may not become inmates of workhouses, asylums, or prisons."

"Though the difference in mental powers is one of degree only, the difference of treatment which is required is such as to make these children, for practical purposes, a distinct class. Public feeling would revolt, and rightly, against the permanent detention of these educable children in institutions, and therefore it is better that they should not be sent to institutions during their childhood, but should become familiar with the world in which they have to live, and should, if possible, by individual teaching and suitable training be put in the way of making their living. They would obviously take harm from association with low-grade imbeciles and ought to associate with ordinary children as much as is consistent with their receiving the special and individual care and training which they require. Feeble-minded children should therefore be considered a distinct class from those imbeciles whose mental deficiency is such that their seclusion for life in institutions is highly to be desired in the interests of society as well as in their own. The treatment of low-grade imbecile children requires to be directed, not towards enabling them to take their place in the world, but towards making them as happy as their affliction permits. They do not suffer from association with other imbeciles, and the individual teaching which is required for feeble-minded children would be wasted on them." * * *

"Thus the feeble-minded children referred to in our inquiry exist as a distinct class from imbeciles; they are not, in fact, certified as imbeciles; they are not provided for as imbeciles: they are not classified as imbeciles by most scientific authorities; and they differ, both from ordinary children and from imbeciles, in the treatment which they require during their school life."

In England the institutions for mental defectives supported from the public funds, like Darenth, make provision for the legally "certified" idiot or imbecile, but not for the feeble-minded. It is felt that it would be a great injustice to "certify" a merely feeble-minded person. With the exception of several large schools like Earlswood and the Royal Albert Asylum and a few small homes for the feeble-minded, all supported largely by private benevolence, for many years there was practically no provision in England for the education and care of the class of mental defectives above the grade of the "certifiable" imbecile. Indeed, so far as I was able to judge, there is now in England very little public sentiment in favor of state care and support for the merely feeble-minded boy, girl or adult.

At the time of my visit to London in the spring of 1901, through the kindness of Dr. R. E. Shuttleworth, the medical examiner of the special classes for defective children for the London School Board, and of Mrs. E. M. Burgwin, the superintendent of these classes, I was given every facility for visiting and observing the classes and for studying the system of management.

At that time there were in London fifty-six special schools, or "centres," for feeble-minded children, with one hundred and twenty-three teachers and a total of two thousand and nineteen pupils. These "centres" are located in populous areas of crowded London, where the defective children selected from two, three or more large school districts are collected into one group or "centre" of two or three classes. These day classes generally receive their instruction in a detached building adjacent to one of the regular school buildings.

By vote of the Council on Education. the school-rooms for these classes must be constructed and arranged in accordance with certain definite requirements in order to obtain the special money grant. The premises must be approved by the education department. There must be twenty square feet of floor space for each pupil. There must be suitable playgrounds, drill rooms, lavatories, school-rooms and entrances, all for the exclusive use of the children in the special class. All rooms must be on the ground floor. Each child must have a separate desk. The cost of the new school-rooms, constructed as above, has been about one hundred dollars per pupil.

The selection of the pupils for these ''special classes" from the various schools, and the organization and management of these "special centres" are in accordance with exact regulations laid down by the London School Board under the special Act of Parliament cited above.

The defective children are formally designated by the teachers in the ordinary schools if unfitted for promotion after two years in one grade. No child is so nominated under seven years of age. They are then examined by a medical expert who certifies to the mental defect and the need for instruction in the special schools. Children so certified are excluded from the regular school classes.

Proper records must be made at the time of admission and afterwards: --

(a) As to the child's capacity, habits, attainments, and health.

(b) As to the family history of the child.

(c) As, to the progress of the child in the special school or class.

The children must, from time to time, be inspected by a medical officer appointed for the purpose, and records of such inspection must be kept. Provision must be made for the examination, from time to time, of every child, in order to ascertain whether he has attained such a mental and physical condition as to be fit to attend an ordinary class in a public elementary. school. Such examination must be made on request of the parent. In such cases the decision of the board is not to be appealed from. Provision is also made for excluding children unfit for these classes.

The school authorities are empowered to compel a child's attendance at a special class, where available, up to the age of sixteen.

Every special school or class must have managers specially appointed who visit the class from time to time.

The children must not for any lessons be mixed, with the children of the ordinary elementary schools.

Each class has a separate 'teacher. There are generally three teachers and classes in a "centre." The principal teacher, at least, must be a certified teacher. Only female teachers are employed. The teachers receive a larger salary than the other teachers. His Majesty's Inspector must annually approve of all the teaching staff. At present they receive no special training to fit them for this work. It is suggested, however, that the equivalent of the following training would help to qualify a teacher for the work, viz:-

I General school training and kindergarten methods.
II A course of physiology and school hygiene.
III Gymnastics, or some rational system of physical training.
IV Instruction in atticulation and voice production.
V Sloyd and other manual occupation.
VI Two month's work under a qualified teacher in a special class.

The prescribed course of instruction for the pupils provides for: --

I Instruction in the elements of reading, writing and arithmetic.
II Singing and recitation.
III Object lessons.
IV Drawing.
V Needlework for girls.
VI Physical exercises.
VII Manual instruction, not less than six hours weekly to each child. For the older girls practical housewifery, needlework, machine sewing, cooking and laundry work are the forms most in use. No class for this manual training may have more than eight pupils.

FORMS OF MANUAL INSTRUCTION

(a) Suitable for younger children:
Paper mat-making.
Clay-modeling.
Macrame-work and various other forms of string work.
Pricking, coloring, and kindergarten sewing.
Basket-making.
Paper-folding.
Bead-threading.
Paper-cutting and mounting.
Building with cubes.
Worsted-work.
Needlework.

(b) Suitable for older boys:
Wood-work of various kinds.
Shoe-making.
Basket-making.
Modeling in pasteboard (the German pappé work).
Chair-caning.
Mat-making.
Tailoring.
Gardening and Farm-work.

(c) Suitable for older girls:
Cookery.
Laundry-work.
Practical housewifery.
Needlework.

N. B. -- Out of the minimum six hours per week of manual instruction not more than two hours may be devoted to needlework.

The number in average attendance in the special class must not exceed twenty for each class, except if there are more than two classes in a "centre" there may be an average attendance of thirty in each class after the first two.

The hours during which a special class is opened must not exceed two and one half in the morning and two in the afternoon. An interval of at least an hour and a half must be interposed between morning and afternoon sessions.

Boys and girls under fourteen are taught in the same classes. No pupil under seven is received. Pupils may be kept in these classes until sixteen years of age.

Corporal punishment is used "when necessary."

Pupils who live at a distance from the "centre" are often provided with a conveyance or "guide" to and from school at the expense of the school funds. A large majority of the children are able to go to school unattended, but several accidents, one of which was fatal, are recorded as having happened to the children on the way to or from class. Certain pupils not otherwise provided for are "boarded out" near the special classes at public expense.

Parents who are able are expected to pay a certain sum for the special instruction of their children.

In some of the poorer districts the children are provided with a substantial midday meal or a glass of milk midway of the morning session.

The act of 1899 makes provision for the institutional care and training at public expense of certain feeble-minded children not otherwise provided for, in certain "certified" schools, similar to the training homes for feeble. minded girls associated with the Society for Promotion of the Welfare of the Feeble-Minded. I believe there are no training homes of a similar character for feeble-minded boys.

In this connection the following quotation from the 1898 Report is of interest: --

"Generally speaking we do not consider that large institutions are the best form of provision for the education of feeble-minded children. Dr. Walmsley in his evidence has referred to some of the improved cases in Darenth and to the disadvantages of retaining them in such a place; and these disadvantages apply only in less degree to the system of retaining feeble-minded children in institutions by themselves. Mr. Colvill has well expressed the disadvantages of institution life when applied to children who will have to try to earn a living in the country. Defective children in the country are better fitted for their future by living at home in family life, and seeing all the sides of rural life and labour among their own people than by being drafted away to an institution necessarily very different in its arrangement from the ordinary rural home. In the institution all the manual work is of a more specialized type and under constant supervision, and the child is returned after a few years to things which have become unfamiliar and to people who have ceased to be his friends."

"Moreover, when once school authorities begin to set up institutions for feeble-minded children, there is a risk that the line of discrimination may be drawn too low, in other words, that they may send to such institutions children who are not merely feeble-minded but imbecile, and may thus under-take work which lies outside their province, and may interfere with provisions made for imbecile children by other means. There are, however, cases of children admissible to the special classes as feeble-minded for whom an institution may be for a time preferable by reason of bad general health, or unsatisfactory home surroundings: or, again, by reason of some disabling physical defects, which prevent a child from attending day classes."

In the schools I visited the school-rooms were well lighted and ventilated and decidedly cheery and attractive. There seemed to be a good supply of appropriate school material for object teaching, manual training, apparatus for special sense training, pictures and picture books, etc.

The teachers had evidently been selected with great wisdom. As a class they impressed me as superior teachers well equipped for their work, with enthusiasm and zeal and great personal interest in their pupils. The teachers keep in touch with the homes of the children and try to secure the co-operation of the parents.

I was told that the prejudice and disfavor toward the special classes, which is almost universally shown at first by the parents, usually disappeared when the child began to show improvement. As a rule, the classes are assembled and dismissed a few minutes before or after the classes for normal children in the nearby schools. There seemed to be an entire absence of any teasing or any other interference with the pupils on their way to and from school. although the popular name for the special class is the "silly class.''

In the schools that I examined the pupils seemed distinctly inferior, both mentally and physically, to the pupils found in the school departments of the American institutional schools for feeble-minded. I saw very few pupils of the same degree of intelligence as the brighter school classes at Elwyn, Syracuse and Columbus; and the standard of nutrition and bodily vigor seemed decidedly below that of pupils in American institutions or in the English institutions.

From the records of individual cases and the admirable school reports it was evident that a good deal of mental and physical development was obtained with the majority of pupils, but here again I could but feel that the tangible results were no more satisfactory or practical than those we expect and generally obtain by institutional school training.

I made many inquiries as to how large a proportion of the pupils trained in these special classes became self-supporting or earned regular wages after leaving school. In the annual report of 1899 the special classes for mentally and physically defective children, Mrs. Burgwin reports that "ninety-two children have left the classes, being over fourteen years of age and have found some kind of employment; fifteen girls as general servants with an average weekly wage of sixty-two cents; six girls work as laundresses; twelve work at home; one is a dressmaker's apprentice (doing well); eight boys are regularly employed as errand boys; six flower or fruit sellers; eight van boys; eight in factories; one cabinet maker; two harness makers; one wood carver; one in brick field; two in iron works; one printer; one cigarette maker; one milkman; one farm laborer. The highest wage for boys is two dollars per week and the lowest sixty-two cents."

This report was made before the physically defective were separated from the mentally defective and there are no means of determining how many belonged in each class: It should be understood that in England the scale of wages for normal workers is much lower than in America. The specific inquiries which I made of the teachers in 1901, when only the mentally defective were considered, did not make so favorable a showing. I was told of only a few cases earning more than a few pence a day, and these cases seemed to be mostly employed in washing dishes or scrubbing floors in restaurants, running errands or some other precarious form of the lowest sort of unskilled labor.

The fact that in England labor-saving devices and machinery are used much less than in America, makes it comparatively easy to obtain this kind of work. It should also be considered that the standard of living of the poorer classes in London is much below that of similar classes in America, so the few pence earned daily by those boys and girls may go a long way towards furnishing the food and shelter which would satisfy their requirements. When these classes have been in operation for a longer period and a much larger number of children have been graduated, more definite information on this point will be available.

From all the information that I could gather it seemed to me that the nearly ten years' experience with the special classes have not proved that a large proportion of feeble-minded children can be so educated and trained in the special classes as to be able to support themselves by their own efforts and wages; or that they become wholesome or desirable members of a modern community.

I believe that careful observation and study of the life history of large numbers of these specially trained pupils will show the need of life-long protection and assistance.

One result of the existence of these special classes has been to make evident to the teachers themselves the need of much more extensive institution provision for the feeble-minded people past the school age.

The history of the treatment of the mentally defective in America differs in many respects from that in England and on the continent. In America custom has gradually sanctioned the popular use of the term "feeble-minded" to include all degrees and types of mental defect from that of the simply backward boy or girl unable to profit by ordinary school instructions to the helpless idiot, a hopeless, speechless, disgusting burden. This inaccurate use of the term "feeble-minded" is largely in deference to the popular prejudice towards the harshness of the terms "idiot" and "imbecile."

The cardinal features of idiocy and imbecility, the inferior physical organization, undeveloped special senses, defective muscular co-ordination weak will, feeble power of attention and observation, moral obtuseness and obliquity, all of these are as truly the essential condition of mere feeble-mindedness as of imbecility or idiocy. It is a difference of degree and not of kind.

The causes of idiocy and imbecility are the causes of feeblemindedness. The pathological conditions found in idiocy and imbecility differ only in degree and extent from those found in the brain of the feeble-minded.

Practically all of the American institutions for mental defectives were organized as strictly educational institutions. In one of his earlier reports Dr. Howe said, "It is a link in the chain of common schools, the last link indeed, but still a necessary link in order to include all the children in the State." From the beginning in 1848 to the present time, in nearly, if not all, of these schools in admitting new pupils, preference has been given to the cases with lesser degrees of mental defect as offering greater opportunity for useful development.

The admission and retention of low grade idiots and imbeciles to these institutions and custodial care of adults in large numbers came about slowly and gradually.

There has been a general belief that even the slightly feeble-minded could be successfully trained and educated only under institution conditions, where not only the proper school instruction could be given, but where the child's whole life could be controlled and regulated. At the same time it has been recognized that in institution life, notwithstanding the many advantages not to be obtained elsewhere, there is more or less loss of the opportunity for profiting by the teaching of experience obtained in normal family life in the home and in the outside world. It is possible, however, that on the whole the child gains more than he loses.

"In a well regulated institution the child's life is carefully supervised; he is told when to get up in the morning, what garments to put on, when to go to meals, what articles of food he shall eat, how much he shall eat, and he is kept from danger of all kinds; his daily duties, conduct and even his pleasures are plainly indicated and prescribed, and finally he is told when to go to bed at night. This guardianship is absolutely necessary, not only for his immediate welfare, but that he may acquire proper habits of life. But we try to accomplish all this in such a way that the child's personality shall be developed and brought out, and not lost sight of and extinguished. We spare no effort to bring into each child's life and experience that knowledge of common events and familiarity with the manners and customs of ordinary life that are just as essential parts of the real education of normal children as the usual instruction received in the school-room."

The hopes of some of the earlier leaders in this work that a large proportion of the higher grade cases could be educated to the point of supporting themselves, have not been realized, although each year a certain proportion of the trained cases leave these institutions and lead useful, harmless lives, supporting themselves by their own efforts. Of the great majority of these trained cases it has well been said that they may become "self-supporting but not self-controlling."

The one great deduction from the sixty years' experience in the education of the feeble-minded, is that under the best conditions only a very small proportion even of the higher grade cases become desirable members of the community. They need protection and care and the family and community should be protected from their certain tendency to drift into pauperism, prostitution and crime.

Notwithstanding the opportunities for the instruction of feeble-minded children in the existing American institutions, there are certain reasons justifiying -sic- the organization of special classes in the public schools of the larger cities of this country.

It has been fairly well proved that Dr. Warner's estimate holds goad here, and that at least one per cent of the children in the public schools under fourteen years of age are defective mentally.

I can readily understand that a parent with a refined, comfortable, well-regulated home, would greatly prefer the special classes to an institutional school. One of the greatest benefits would be the relief which these classes would afford to the normal children in the public schools, who are annoyed and hampered by the presence of defective children.

Every child has the right to receive education suited to his need and capacity.

It is a great hardship to the child and parents to send a child of tender years away from home to a distant institution to be cared for by strangers.

In spite of the great advantages to be obtained in the institution the child is deprived of normal home life, the moral and social influence of the mother and the wholesome relations with the community. As a rule the pupil would be put under special training much earlier if such classes were available. Many pupils would receive training who would not be sent to an institution. Under present conditions many cases are entirely deprived of opportunity for education.

The suspicion of pauperism would not be felt in the special classes.

These special classes can be quickly and easily organized and increased in number, making a very flexible system of providing and extending opportunities for training defectives. They do not involve the expenditure of large sums of money for construction of buildings. The actual expense of such teaching is directly assessed upon the community receiving the benefit.

It is a striking fact, however, that the reason for the great majority of the applications for the admission of pupils to our institutions is quite as much for the relief of the mother or the family or the neighborhood, as for the benefit which the child himself is expected to receive. A feeble-minded child is a foreign body in a family or modern community. Countless loving mothers have been worried into nervous breakdown or insanity by the ceaseless anxiety and sorrow caused by the presence of the blighted child in the home. Many fathers have been driven to drink and daughters to the street to get away from the unnatural and unpleasant home conditions caused by the defective one.

Unfortunately a very large proportion of the feeble-minded children come from homes where the class training would not be supplemented by the good hygienic conditions and the desirable moral and intellectual influences which are quite as necessary as the strictly scholastic training.

Another practical obstacle would be the unwillingness of the average American parent to publicly admit the fact that his child was mentally defective, when the defect seemed slight. The tendency is to blame the teacher for the lack of results.

It is doubtful if the few hours per day under school instruction will accomplish satisfactory results with the average defective pupil. The necessarily small classes or groups of classes do not afford the opportunities for desirable and important classification of the pupils according to age, mental ability, etc.

It should be remembered that under the most favorable conditions hitherto, a very large proportion of feeble-minded persons, even of the higher grades, eventually become public charges in one way or another. No one familiar with the physical and mental limitations of this class can believe that any plan of education will ever materially modify this fact. Any relief as to public support to be obtained from public school training can be only temporary. Feeble-minded children may be tolerated in the community, but it is a great responsibility to inaugurate any plan on a large scale which does not withdraw from the community the defective adults. The feeble-minded are powerless to resist the physical temptations of adult life and should be protected from their own weakness.

"The brighter class of the feeble-minded, with their weak will power and deficient judgment, are easily influenced for evil, and are prone to become vagrants, drunkards and thieves. The modern scientific study of the deficient and delinquent classes as a whole has demonstrated that a large proportion of our criminals, inebriates and prostitutes are really congenital imbeciles, who have been allowed to grow up without any attempt being made to improve or discipline them. Society suffers the penalty of this neglect in an increase of pauperism and vice, and finally, at a great increased cost, is compelled to take charge of adult imbeciles in almshouses and hospitals; and of imbecile criminals in jails and prisons, generally for the remainder of their natural lives. As a matter of mere economy, it is now believed that it is better and cheaper for the community to assume the permanent care of this class before they have carried out a long career of expensive crime."

"The fate of the average feeble-minded girl out in the world is only too well known. A feeble-minded girl is exposed as no other girl in the world is exposed. She has not sense enough to protect herself from the perils to which women are subjected. Often bright and attractive, if at large, they either marry and bring forth in geometrical ratio a new generation of defectives and dependents or become irresponsible sources of corruption and debauchery in the communities where they live. There is hardly a poorhouse in this land where there are not two or more feeble-minded women with from one to four illegitimate children each. There is every reason in morality, humanity, and public policy that these feeble-minded women should be under permanent and watchful guardianship, especially during the child-bearing age."