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Public School Classes For Mentally Deficient Children

Creator: Lydia Gardiner Chase (author)
Date: 1904
Publication: Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction
Source: Available at selected libraries

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BY LYDIA GARDINER CHACE, PROVIDENCE, R. I.

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As interest in child study has increased, educators are beginning to see that one course of study and discipline cannot be fitted to all pupils found in our public schools. Even to-day children unable to keep up to grade are not infrequently accused of indolence or laziness, when the backwardness is due to some mental or physical defect. For many years in this country efforts have been made to care for those who are too defective to be in school, but it is only recently that attention has been given to those who are mentally and physically subnormal. Perhaps none have been more misunderstood than the mentally deficient. Through neglect, these children will degenerate into the ranks of the defectives and the delinquents; through individual training, some can be saved for the social body and the condition of all can be improved.

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While it is agreed to-day that the institution should, in most cases, care for the idiots and the imbeciles, there are many with slight defects who need not be removed from the home environment. From the study and investigations of medical experts, it is estimated that one per cent, at least, of our school population is mentally deficient, and needs individual care and attention.

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The close relation of the mental and the physical life of the child is now generally recognized; those with mental defects are almost without exception more or less abnormal physically. There are cases, however, of children thought to be mentally deficient, where the defect is really a physical one. Deafness, errors of refraction, growths in the nose and throat, faulty nutrition, may have to answer for what seems to be mental trouble. An examination by a medical expert will, of course, prevent a wrong diagnosis.

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It has been said that "the causes of feeble-mindedness from a medical point of view are difficult to classify owing to the many kinds of deficiency and the variable states of intelligence which are grouped under this one heading, many of which have nothing more in common than a mere negative quality -- the inability to learn. At the same time some attempt has been made to refer these forms of subnormal development to certain pathological antecedents. According to Dr. Muller of Augsburg, heredity is said to claim seventy per cent of the whole, which means that feeble-mindedness in the child is largely the outcome of evil habits and preventable disease in the parent. The remaining thirty per cent are to be referred to illness arising after birth, especially the febrile diseases of childhood, to malnutrition, to starvation and neglect." (1)


(1) Report of the Congress on the Education of Feeble-minded Children, held at Augsburg, April 10-12, 1901, In Special Reports on Educational Subjects, v. 9. Education in Germany, p. 596.

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FOREIGN COUNTRIES.

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Certain foreign countries have advanced further than the United States in the care of mentally deficient children, in special day classes. In Europe, Germany was the pioneer in 1867. Norway followed her lead in 1874, and England, Switzerland and Austria in 1892. In Prussia, since 1880, the establishment of classes or schools, for defectives, has been obligatory upon towns of 20,000 population. Particular attention was paid to this line of work. Their special classes are "intended solely for children of inferior brain power who yet possess sufficient intelligence to be amenable to the discipline of their own homes, and who are capable of benefiting by instruction sufficiently to enable them to pass out of school at the limit of school age with a probability of being able to earn their own living." It is felt that those who are apparently imbecile should be placed on probation in the special schools, and if the deficiency is found to be too severe, they should be sent to an institution. On the other hand, if children make sufficient progress after attending the special classes, they are to be returned to the ordinary schools, but it is claimed that a child "when properly selected will in most cases need the care of the special school till the limit of school age."

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Germany. (2) At the Congress on the Education of Feebleminded Cchildren -sic-, held at Augsburg, Germany, in April, 1901, Germany cares for these children either in special day schools or in auxiliary classes in ordinary schools. In April, 1901, there were ninety-eight day schools and in all 326 classes. There were 7,013 children in attendance, and it was estimated that there would have been 60,000 if complete provision had been made.


(2) Special Reports on Educational Subjects, v. 9, pp 595-600.

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As a rule, the children who are admitted to the special classes must have shown, through an attendance of one or two years in the ordinary school that they are unable to make satisfactory progress. After they are visited in their own homes by the head of the special school, they are admitted on probation for a few weeks; at the end of that time, they are brought before a committee consisting of the inspector, the school doctor, and their teachers.

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