used in the Columbia Laboratory was followed. The child was told to close his eyes, and the points were pressed in the same order, sometimes 1 and sometimes 2 points being used, upon the same part of the back of the hand, namely, between the thumb and first finger. The results are as follows: Correct four or five times, 27+ per cent.; three, two, one or zero times, 72+ per cent. In the same test, the records from 250 Columbia students are: Correct four or five times, 63 per cent.; three, two, one or zero times, 37 per cent. This evidence supports the theory that the tactile discrimination of the feeble-minded is inferior to that of the ordinary person.

§ 16. Application of the Results to the Subject Matter Used in the Education of Defectives

THE foregoing conclusions offer some suggestions looking toward changes in the psychology and education of the feeble-minded. The difference in 'kind' as treated by so many writers reduces itself to a difference of degree of excellence in certain abilities, or perhaps to a difference in kind of treatment. Just as cripples, consumptives, anemic people, etc., though differing from ordinary people in degree of bodily health or strength and needing special kinds of treatment, are yet considered as belonging to the class of people in general, but as falling toward the lower end of a surface representing the health of all kinds of people, so we must consider defectives as differing from 'normal' individuals in the degree of ability in various fields, though needing, possibly, different kinds of treatment from that required by others. This difference in kind of treatment has been considered necessary by educators of the feeble-minded since the time of Seguin. Most of the emphasis has been laid upon the need of developing and training the physical side of the nature; it has been held that this bodily training is important because of its effect on the mental. Of course it is generally accepted that health of the body and health of the mind are closely correlated, that a poorly nourished body is a drawback to a certain extent to mental growth and development. Indeed, it is upon this theory that the physiological methods for educating the feeble-minded have been based. However, from the evidence as to the physical development of the defectives, presented earlier in this report, it would seem that there is not so much need for this kind of training as has been supposed. If these children are about as ordinary children in their bodily development, then they do not need any more of the physical development than do school children in general. And further, the plea for giving this gymnastic work was that it served as a spur on the

mental side as well. But if it is proven that from the standpoint of bodily health they do not need it-that is, do not need to have it. emphasized-then it can not be much help on the mental side. A further argument in favor of this method has been that it not only developed the body but also increased the motor control and coordination of muscles and so developed mental control. If the seeming lack of muscular control is not so much a matter of muscles as it is a matter of mind, and if the benefit on the mental side from these exercises is gained because of the promptness and exactitude demanded in all class-gymnastic work, and is not a matter of muscular development and coordination, then it may be that this mental development could come just as well through some other means. The defectives probably need gymnastic work and physical training for the same reasons as any other set of children living the institutional life, but not because of any special lack of bodily health or development which is characteristic of them as a class.

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The lower grades of mental defectives probably do need physical training-not for any effect it may have on the mental development, but for its own sake. In many instances the first thing necessary in the training of these children is to gain their attention, to arouse some sort of interest, and to this end the physical exercise offers the best means. Again in a custodial case when the end aimed at is simply cleanly habits and ability to care for himself, the prime requisite is that the defective have control of his muscles at least to some degree-an end reached by physical training. If, as has been suggested, the defectives have a lower temperature than normal, this sluggishness of circulation is the cause of all sorts of skin diseases, ulcers, boils, etc., and especially in winter weather, when outdoor occupation is at a minimum, physical training offers a means of stirring up the circulation through brisk exercise and therefore has a beneficial effect on the whole system. So far the contention has been physical exercise for its own sake, but there is one way in which the physical training may be a direct help on the mental side. Selfconfidence brought about by success is absolutely essential to progress; continual lack of success must result in a static condition and finally in retrogression. The physical field is sometimes the one in which a child may gain his first success most easily-it may be merely the grasping of a dumb-bell, the fastening of a button, the climbing of one rung of the ladder or the keeping step with others. If this is true then it is the first step of progress on the mental side, the foundation-stone upon which self-confidence may be built, the touchstone of the child's ambition no matter how crude or elemental it may be.

To the extent that this is true, to that extent may the physical aid the mental training.

The field for the initial step, however, is not always the physical. It has been found that the social field offers great opportunities for the stirring up of dormant faculties or for the arousing of interests. Hence entertainments of all kinds, dances and displays form a large feature in the education of the feeble-minded.

Idiots seem to be like other children in the small amount of correlation that exists between various traits. Despite this apparent lack of correlation, public opinion insists that some individuals do excel in many ways and that some idiots are inferior in almost all directions. Some normal persons have at once quickness of perception, concentration of attention, wealth of associations and power in abstract and logical thinking in excess of their fellows, just as some of the idiots are far below their comrades in all these abilities. This fact may be explained by the great number and partial independence of the causes making human nature. In the millions of occurrences and combinations of mental and physical traits found among mankind, chance will account for a certain number of combinations of the best of each trait. And so by chance there should exist individuals who do excel in several, probably in many, abilities, and thus we have the genius. The same reasoning will account for all grades of intelligence down to the lowest idiot. Chance may cause the occurrence together of certain traits and the absence of others in such a way that the resulting mentality is that of the so-called feebleminded. However, there should logically be more feeble-minded than 'eminent' men in the world, for disease must help in lowering a man's grade but it seldom helps to raise him in the scale of human intelligence. Among idiots, then, are all sorts of combinations of mental and physical traits just as there are among people in general, but the tendency of that combination is to pull them down to the lower extreme of human ability. As Ireland says, "Idiocy or imbecility comprehends cases quite distinct in etiology, pathology and treatment, which, however, unite to produce the deficiency of intellectual, nervous and muscular power." Perhaps it would be closer to the facts if it read, 'which, however, may unite to produce,' etc. This fact of the lack of definite lines of division among idiots themselves and between idiots and people in general, is realized by many of those who have most dealing with them-those who practically live among them in the institutions. Dr. Fernald, of the Institution for the Feeble-Minded at Waverley, Mass., says "In theory the differences between these various degrees of deficiency are marked and distinct, while in practise the lines of separation are

entirely indefinite and individuals as they grow to adult life may be successively classed in different grades." These lines of division are hair lines and indefinite; if not, why do physicians disagree often as to whether a child brought to them for treatment is an idiot or not? There seems to be nothing peculiar and special which marks an idiot off from people in general and by which he can always be known. The traits of most value from a diagnostic point of view, namely, evidences of the lack of intellectual ability, are those which locate the individual at the fag end of the ordinary curve of distribution and consequently are those least likely to mark him out apart from others. If all the papers of the idiots tested were mixed with those of the school children, there would be nothing to mark them as those of a separate class. Were any one required to pick them out he would have to follow just the same method and judge in just the same way as he would do were he picking out the brightest among ordinary children or the mediocre or the dull. This idea probably comes as a shock to many, for we have used the words 'idiot' and 'feeble-minded' to designate an individual entirely apart from people in general and one so very different from other individuals as to be forever identified. But this is not so. I was very much surprised at the common sense, judgment and thoughtfulness of many of the children with whom I came in contact in the institutions.

This point of view must have some definite bearing on the general problem of the education of these children. The method most widely accepted is the one already mentioned, the physiological method, which was suggested by Seguin. Except for the strong emphasis which is placed upon the physical education, the method seems in general to be the kindergarten method as we know it in the public schools. As the idiots have been so often regarded as a special class, their education has come to be regarded as special too, being considered entirely distinct and different from that of ordinary children. It can be easily understood that this must be the case were the following views to be held in the extreme: "The memory is nearly always weak and unreliable. The faculty of observation limited within the more elementary lines and attention is both difficult to fix and hard to hold without unusual effort on the part of the teacher. The imagination is very crude. Such children are capable of the most meager abstract thinking, and their powers of judgment aberrant to a degree; they act impulsively, and without reason, because the fundamental principles of potentiality in this respect are inactive-inert."- Osborne. "Abstract ideas and intellectual perceptions are dull or wanting and the notions of foresight, prudence and self-preservation are deficient or feebly developed. The memory

is usually weak. . . . The power of attention is defective or often absent, as are the faculties requiring exercise of the will. . . . The judgment cannot be depended upon."-F. Beach.

But it seems that these children are not so very different from other children and that consequently there is no reason why their education need be. As Dr. Fernald points out, "As compared with the education of normal children, it is a difference of degree and not of kind. With these feeble-minded children, the instruction must begin on a lower plane, the progress is slower and the pupils cannot be carried so far." That the instruction must begin on a lower plane and that it must be of a kind that will appeal to the senses rather than to the intellect goes almost without saying. But whether, as the child grows older, it should retain that characteristic is another matter. Certain it is that the idiot is more easily reached by such training, but whether it is better for him in the long run and whether it is impossible to reach him in the same way that we do ordinary children, is not fully decided. If the idiot is simply at the extreme of the ordinary distribution of ability and is characterized by a sluggishness of disposition which may affect both mental and physical advance and development, then what he needs is stirring up, encouragement and, if need be, even forcing in the mental field. as well as in the physical. Theoretically there may be no good reason why he should not have the intellectual work which is required of school children in general. It may have to be given a very little at a time, with more repetition, illustration and amplification, but still it could probably be of the same general character that we find in the best schools. Of course the objection is raised that idiots fail in appreciating abstract ideas; but so do a large percentage of ordinary children. How much do the school children really understand and appreciate of technical grammar or mathematical geography if taught in the grammar grades? Here again the difference is simply a matter of degree. It is very probable that could the idiot once be taught to write and read he might gain more and progress more quickly than he does by the present methods of education.

Theoretically there may be no objections to giving the feebleminded something more of the intellectual training, but practically there may be. The main object in the education of the mentally deficient seems to be to fit him to become self-supporting. Although he might be able to do more intellectual work, yet he could never excel in the field of intelligence and would probably never be able to support himself by the pursuit of any occupation requiring much mental work. For the same reason, then, that in the public schools