DEFICIENT
CHILDREN

§1. History of the Interest in Mental Defectives

LIBRARY

MENTAL deficiency has existed and has been recognized as such since the earliest times. We find it mentioned in the legends and historical writings of the most ancient peoples. In those far away times we find that individuals of weak intellect were treated very differently in different nations. Among the Orientals, the Brazilians, the North American Indians and in many parts of Ireland and Brittany, the feeble-minded were considered to be under the special protection of deity, and consequently were treated with all respect and consideration. The Greeks, on the contrary, took the opposite point of view; the mentally weak as well as the physically weak were left to die from exposure.

During the middle ages we find scattered records which seem to show that in some monasteries and nunneries of Europe a few feebleminded children were cared for in a common sense way. Bonnet and Péreire in their treatment and care of the deaf-mutes were the forerunners and gave the inspiration to those who were interested in the mental defectives. It is not until the nineteenth century, however, that we find either scientific research and inquiry in the field of mental deficiency or any literature at all valuable.

The first publications worthy of note are from the hand of Itard, a French physician. About 1800 some soldiers passing through the forests of Aveyron discovered a boy, more animal than human, whom they brought to Dr. Pinel, of Paris. Upon examination, Pinel pronounced the boy to be an idiot and therefore incurable. Itard took the opposite point of view and contended that the case was not beyond hope. To prove his diagnosis Itard undertook the treatment of this young savage and in 1801 published his pamphlet, De l'Education d'un Homme Sauvage which was followed in 1807 by another. These are virtually reports of Itard's methods and theories of the treatment and education of this idiot. We know of the failure of the physician's plans, but his work and suggestions for the methodical treatment of like cases gave the impetus necessary to further work in this same field, and from this time on we find that the education of the feeble-minded attracted much attention in France.

From the reports of the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Hartford, Conn., it seems that in 1818 several idiots were received at that institution and subjected to the same treatment as the other inmates; with some hopeful results. In 1824 Belhomme published his views concerning idiocy, which were in brief that it was possible to ameliorate the unfortunate condition of idiots and to furnish them with a sort of education, the degree to which they were capable of benefiting by this education being dependent upon the degree of idiocy. This view was put into execution four years later by Ferrus, who organized a school for idiots at Bicêtre, in connection with the asylum there. In 1831 Falret undertook the same task at the Salpêtrière. In 1834 was opened a private school for idiots in Paris by Voisin. This lasted for only a few years; but Voisin there gained some of the experience which later led to the publication of his book, De l'idiotie chez les enfants. In 1837, with the help of Esquirol, Itard began a series of experiments upon an infant idiot and reported his results from time to time.

It is to Edward Seguin that the honor belongs of having created a real method, the 'méthode medico-pedagogique,' for the treatment and education of idiots. In 1866 Seguin published his theories and method in a book entitled Idiocy and Its Treatment by the Physiological Method. This method as outlined by Seguin in this work is still followed in general in the education of the feeble-minded.

The essentials of this method are embodied in the following extracts. The necessary conditions for the improvement of imbeciles are that "the treatment be not only hygienic, but moral; that the education be not the putting in action of acquired faculties, which is the education of the common schools, but the development of the functions, of the aptitudes, of the faculties, and of the instructive and moral tendencies." These powers are to be ascertained by physiological and psychological examination of each case, and the process of education then followed is: "(1) The motor power, (2) The senses, (3) The perceptive faculties, (4) By gymnastics of comparison, (5) By gymnastics of invention, (6) Excitement of sentiments and instincts by normal necessities, (7) Special excitation of the faculty of spontaneousness, (8) Incessant provocation to regular action, to speaking and to the exercise of the faculties then developed. The aptitudes thus created are then applied to different specialties, according to the fortune, age or position of each indi vidual, care being taken to choose in every case an occupation which will keep in activity the muscular system as well as the mental faculties."

IKYBA

Contemporary with Seguin, Saegert, in 1842, opened a school for idiots at Berlin, and in the same year Guggenbühl established in Abendberg, Switzerland, a school for the education of crétins. Both these men followed the physiologic line of training mentioned above. Guggenbühl went still further and in his plantation near Interlaken foreshadowed the colony plan of the large institutions of to-day.

This work at various places on the Continent stimulated interest in England, and in 1846 Miss White opened a school for defectives at Bath. In the course of the next few years, physicians in Londor became interested in her efforts, and several schools were opened in that city.

In America, attention was attracted to this new field of work by the interest shown abroad, and in 1847 the state legislature of Massachusetts took up the question for debate. In 1848 an experimental school for idiots was established under Dr. Howe. Three years later, after having achieved valuable results, the school was made permanent and became the Massachusetts School for the FeebleMinded, now at Waverley, Mass. A similar institution was opened by the State of New York in 1851. Several states followed the lead of these two and established state institutions for the care of these unfortunates. Private schools also were opened under the control of eminent physicians. Thus interest has gone on increasing until in 1901 there existed in this country twenty public and twelve private institutions of importance for the education of idiots.

A further definite step in advance has been made in this field since 1899. For years the public schools have been hampered by what we have called 'backward children,' and the method of treatment of this class of children has offered the material for many a dispute. In London, in 1899, this question was brought before the school board, and a committee was appointed to investigate the conditions as existing at that time in the schools. Their report was that at least ten per cent. of the children attending the public schools needed special instruction. These children, many of them not defective enough to warrant the placing of them in an institution, were yet so defective as to be unable to profit by ordinary school instruction. Not only do the children of this type gain very little benefit from the school work, but their presence in the class prevents the normal children from gaining the most from the instruction. In an investigation conducted among California children, W. S. Monroe reached the same conclusions.

Acting upon the report of the committee, the London School Board established 'special classes' in connection with schools in vari

ous parts of the city to which the backward children between the ages of seven and sixteen could be sent. Special programs were provided for these classes, and the number of children in each was limited to twenty. In this and in every other way the work was adapted to the intellectual deficiencies of the pupils. Some of the children sent to these classes, after having attended for some time, were sen back to the regular school work; others were given up as practically hopeless cases and sent to the institutions. In June, 1899, Londo had 43 centers comprising 85 such classes with an average attend ance of 1,289 children. Philadelphia, Providence, Boston, and i 1903 New York also, have followed the example set by London an provide for children needing special and unique instruction in th public school system.

Besides these special classes inaugurated by some of the larg cities, all the civilized countries have by this time undertaken t care of the feeble-minded in a more or less efficient way. In 190 France had 4 institutions for the care and treatment of defective Germany, 25; Denmark, 5; Jutland, 1; Sweden, 33; Norway, Russia, 1; Holland, 1; Austria, 4; Switzerland, 18; Belgium, Italy, 7; England, 13; Scotland, 3; Ireland, 1; Canada, 1; Austral 2; Japan, 2; and the United States, 30.1

§2. Definition and Classification

As this investigation is of an experimental character it is necessary to go deeply into the literature on the subject, which rather extensive and of a purely descriptive character. The sta point reached by investigators in regard to definition and classif tion may, however, be mentioned.

The following are samples of the definitions given:

Lord Coke-"An idiot, or natural fool, is one who from nativity, by perpetual infirmity, is non compos mentis."

Old English law defines an idiot as a person of non-sane mem It says, "It is sufficient to find him so if he has not any use of son; as if he can not count 20 pence; if he has not understandin tell his age, or who is his father or mother."

Bourneville-"Idiocy consists of the arrested development e congenital or acquired of the intellectual, moral and emotional f ties, which may or may not be accompanied by motor difficulties perversion of instincts."

Esquirol-"Idiocy is not a disease but a condition in which lectual faculties are never manifested or have never developed 1M. W. Barr, Mental Defectives, pp. 71–77.

ciently to enable the idiot to acquire such amount of knowledge as persons of his own age and placed in similar circumstances with himself are capable of receiving. Idiocy commences with life or at that age which precedes the development of the intellectual and effective faculties, which are from the first what they are doomed to be during the whole period of existence."

Seguin "Physiologically he can not; intellectually he knows not; mentally he wills not."

Blackstone-"An idiot or natural born fool is one that hath no understanding from his nativity and therefore is by law presumed never likely to attain any."

Clouston-"Idiocy and imbecility are conditions of mental enfeeblement resulting from want of brain development before birth or in childhood. The mental faculties were never there, their organ being unfit to manifest them."

Voisin "The idiot is an individual whose intellectual, sensory and motor faculties are not developed or are abnormally developed in a defective manner or are arrested in their evolution before or some years after birth to a degree which they can not overcome in consequence of chronic lesions of the brain.”

Maudsley-"A defect of understanding by reason of some natural incapacity-which no education will overcome."

Eichholz-"General lack of progress is accepted as the cardinal sign of mental deficiency in Germany."

Ireland-"Idiocy is mental deficiency or extreme stupidity, depending upon mal-nutrition or disease of nervous centers occurring either before birth or before the evolution of mental faculties in childhood."

A Report on the Physical and Mental Condition of the Feeble Minded, London-"It manifests itself through a defective or diseased organization, for even when there are no visible defects, the mischief has presumably begun in the brain matter itself. It is frequently indicated by outward physical abnormalities, or an imperfect general conformation of the body with usually shortness of stature."

Lippestad-"All children who are partially or wholly unfitted to profit by the teaching of ordinary schools may safely be classed under the title of Abnormal."

Osborne-"Perhaps the most noticeable characteristic of the truly feeble-minded child is the very childishness or immatureness of its acts, its expressions or its demonstrative desires. In the majority of cases there will be found to exist some physical abnormality, blight or peculiarity that will give a clue to the retarded development of brain and mind."