EDUCATION OF FEEBLE-MINDED OR MENTAL DEFECTIVES. In the classification of children of this type it is neces sary to distinguish the mentally retarded or backward child from the feeble-minded or men tally defective child. There is a large percentage of the children in attendance upon school who. are behind the grades in which children of their ages should be found in school work. There are legitimate reasons for many of these chil dren being behind their proper grades. Some are foreigners and were not able to use the English language when they entered school. Others started in school late. There are those who have poor sight or defective hearing or who are suffering from some other physical defects as adenoids, poor health, etc., which in terferes with the performance of their school work. When there is no apparent reason for a child being three years below his proper grade or when he fails to make progress after the removal of such physical defects as he may have had, the probabilities are that such child is feeble-minded. When the mental develop ment of such child is so arrested as to render him unable to advance in his school work, he is regarded as feeble-minded or mentally defec tive. It is, therefore, a serious matter to classify a child as feeble-minded. Such classification places a stigma upon the child which may be unjust and from which he may never recover. The average classroom teacher or school prin cipal should not, therefore, undertake to deter mine that a pupil is feeble-minded. The study of the mental development of children by per sons scientifically trained for that purpose has resulted in the establishment of certain tests which are now quite generally accepted as the measure of a child's mentality. No child should, therefore, be classified as feeble-minded who has not been examined by an expert and found to be of such type. If any question of doubt exists the child should be given the bene fit of that doubt. By the application of these tests it may be found that a child 12 years of age has the usual mental development of a child of four; or a man of 40 years of age may have the mind of a child eight years of age, etc. The feeble-minded are, therefore, classi fied as children of various ages. From these tests three general classes have been established. These are the idiot, the imbecile and the moron. The idiot is the lowest in the scale of intelli gene, the imbecile is the next higher and the moron is the highest.
The importance of the subject of feeble mindedness will be appreciated by considering the number of feeble-minded in the country. There has been no general census in Europe or in this country which reveals the exact number of feeble-minded adults or children. Various studies and surveys have been made, however, under government direction and by reliable or ganizations interested in the subject which show the number of feeble-minded persons within a given area and a specified population. From
the information which has been obtained through these investigations and surveys, it is possible to make a fairly accurate estimate of the number of feeble-minded people and also the number of feeble-minded children in the country.
The Royal Commission of Great Britain made surveys in several sections of England, Ireland and Scotland and gave the subject care ful thought for four years. Its report was made in 1909 and showed that, on the basis of its study, 1 in every 217 persons in England was feeble-minded. Surgeons of the United States Public Health Service completed a survey of the feeble-minded school children in Porter County, Ind., in 1915, which showed that .955 per cent of all the children in that county were feeble-minded. The same authority made a survey of Newcastle County, Delaware, in 1916, which showed that 1.3 per cent of all the children examined were feeble-minded. A sur vey made by the Nassau County Association assisted by the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, the United States Public Health Serv ice and the Rockefeller Foundation, in Nassau County, N. Y., in 1916, showed that on the basis of its study, 1 person in every 183 of that county was feeble-minded. The investiga tion by the Massachusetts Society for Mental Hygiene in that State in 1914 indicated that there was one feeble-minded person in every 278 of the population. The estimates made by such experts as W. E. Fernald, H. H. Goddard and E. R. Johnstone place the number of feeble minded in the United States at 1 in every 250 persons. Applying these figures and the esti mate of the Committee on Mental Hygiene and the New York Committee on Feeble-Mindedness to the population of the United States, we should have in this country about 400,000 feeble minded persons and about 100,000 feeble-minded children. The presence of this large number of feeble-minded children in the country at large is a condition which demands that every effort possible be made to educate and train as many of these as may be possible in order that they may be self-supporting. It is estimated by Mr. George Hastings, secretary of the New York Committee on Feeble-Mindedness, that about tone-third of the feeble-minded break the law and nearly one-third of the law breakers are f eeble-minded.D About 1850 the States began to give consid eration to the education of the feeble-minded child. State institutions were organized and the care and education of this type of child has received extended consideration since that time. Many State institutions and several private in stitutions have been established for the care, education and training of children of this type.