Mentally Defective Children Part 14

We have been able to collect in the primary schools of Paris, thanks to the kind a.s.sistance of M. Belot, particulars which are very valuable, though restricted in amount. These particulars we have examined in every possible way, and we always reach the same conclusion: _the defective makes very slow progress in the ordinary schools_.

Let us consider, for example, _en bloc_, forty-five defectives of whom we possess records, and see to what extent they are behind at different ages. We get the following table:

Age. r.e.t.a.r.dation.

7 2 years } 8 2 " } about 2 years.

9 1- " }

10 3 " } 11 3- " } about 3 years.

12 3 " } 13 3- " }

14 6 " } 15 5 " } about 5 years.

Thus, the amount of r.e.t.a.r.dation increases with the years. It is at first two years, then three, then five. But this augmentation in the amount of r.e.t.a.r.dation, which is the first fact to strike the attention, ought not to conceal from us that there is real progress in the mental condition and in the studies; in fact, we may remark that if a defective child, in pa.s.sing from the age of eight to eleven, has an augmentation of r.e.t.a.r.dation of one year with respect to his companions, this proves that in the same time he has progressed two years with respect to himself. It is like an omnibus which goes more and more slowly, yet advances all the same. To be more precise, let us say that, since the defectives reach, as an upper limit, the intermediate course, and that in the proportion of two-thirds, one may conclude that they make nearly half the progress of the normal children. Be it understood, this is only roughly true, and many reservations must be made with regard to details. But the indication which these doc.u.ments afford is, nevertheless, very instructive, for it shows us that the majority, two-thirds at least, of the defectives appear regularly to duplicate each cla.s.s, or to take two years to pa.s.s a stage which the normal child pa.s.ses in one. It is important to remember this, for the teachers do not always give the facts their true value. They have a tendency to compare the slow progress of the defective with the more rapid progress of the normal, and to conclude from this comparison that the defective remains stationary. This is a pure illusion, which may be compared to what one experiences when looking out of the window of a train in motion. One sees another train going in the same direction but more slowly, and imagines that the second train is not moving. Let us retain, therefore, provisionally, the following important idea: _Only half the defectives in an ordinary school reach with difficulty the intermediate course, first year, pa.s.sing through the different stages in double the normal time._ No doubt one would find many examples of slower progress still, three or four times the normal. On the other hand, the teacher sometimes points out a defective who has improved very rapidly, as if his intellect awoke from a long sleep. Such cases exist, but they are very rare, and they are open to the suspicion that an error in diagnosis has been made, and that the child who has improved so greatly was wrongly considered defective.

With regard to the ill-balanced, the success of the ordinary school is much greater. A recent inquiry taught us that in the course of two years half the children noted as ill-balanced were regarded by the teachers as improved. This figure speaks for itself.

From this we may conclude in a general way that it is essential that the special schools and cla.s.ses should bring more than half of their defective pupils to the level of the intermediate course, and improve more than half of the ill-balanced, if they are to render public services superior to those of the ordinary schools.

This must be the aim. How are we to know whether it is attained or not? By supervision exercised in the most serious manner, by well-kept individual records, in which are noted only facts which can be controlled.

We remember, a dozen years ago, having turned over the records of young defectives in an asylum-school which had the reputation of perfect organisation, a reputation otherwise deserved, for everything that was shown to the public on visiting days was perfect. But a distinction must be drawn between what one sees and what one does not see. The records were kept with surprising negligence. They were dirty in appearance, torn, disordered, falling to bits. On reading them one only met with vague estimations, loosely expressed, about children who, as was repeated to satiety, "would make progress if they would work better." The less we say the better about contradictory diagnosis, such as one we noticed on a certificate of discharge: "Complete idiocy--very much improved"; or the too optimistic prognosis, really very nave, if the writer has not had the bad taste to be ironical: "Vicious child--would make an excellent housemaid." If doc.u.ments could be kept in this way, it is quite clear that those who so kept them felt pretty sure that n.o.body would ever read them.

We demand that the notes which show the educational progress of the pupils should be written under the constant fear of control, in order that they may be guaranteed against negligence and interested optimism. The manner of control is very simple, and may be summed up in three paragraphs.

1. The estimation of the progress of the children should be made by the professors themselves, since they know each child well. The professor will always keep in mind that his notes will be checked by the inspector. With regard to instruction, notes will be kept with regard to reading, writing, arithmetic, spelling, according to the methods which we have indicated, and such remarks as "good," "very good," "pa.s.sable," each signifying absolutely nothing, will be avoided. With regard to the manual work, it goes without saying that the record would have to be made in a somewhat different way.

2. The inspector will examine a certain number of cases chosen haphazard. He must carry out this control with an open mind and without prejudice.

3. He will make use of methods of control of a strictly impersonal nature.

=Social Return.=--We are surprised to find that abroad there have been published very few particulars concerning the social return of the schools, although they have been in existence for a long time, some of them for forty years. Statistics are rare, without commentaries, and some of them are apparently prejudiced. In order to find out what they are worth, we think it would be necessary to live in the country, and to observe carefully for oneself the work of the schools. The official doc.u.ments do not teach very much, and one may suspect that every public service which is not supervised in the most intelligent manner, and incited by compet.i.tion, will slip into routine and empiricism. We demand an inquiry on the two following points: How many defectives are provided with a trade when they leave the special schools? How many defectives are provided with a trade when they do not leave the special schools?

Such an inquiry, we may be certain, has never been seriously undertaken. Here are some statistics. Mme. Fuster, after a stay in Germany, where she visited some _Hilfschule_ and _Hilfscla.s.se_ (literally, "help-schools" and "help-cla.s.ses") made a communication to the Societe de l'Enfant, from which it appears that in the case of 90 cla.s.ses for defectives in Berlin, 70 to 75 per cent. of the defective pupils who were there became able to carry on a trade; 25 to 30 per cent. died in the course of study, or returned to their homes, or were sent to medical inst.i.tutions for idiots.

According to a more recent inquiry, made under the auspices of M. de Gizycki at Berlin, and published in a book by Paul Dubois, 22 per cent. of the children were sent home or to asylums; 11 per cent. were apprenticed; 62 per cent. worked at occupations which required no knowledge and yielded little pay (labourers, crossing-sweepers, ragmen). If we add together these two last groups, we reach a proportion of 73 per cent. of defectives who have been made, or who have become, more or less useful.

We shall quote a last doc.u.ment, to which we attach more importance than to the preceding, for we have full confidence in the author. Dr.

Decroly has kindly arranged at our request a few figures relating to the occupational cla.s.sification of the girls discharged from a special cla.s.s in Brussels. He states that the cla.s.s was opened only in 1903, that education in Belgium is not compulsory, that many of the pupils leave the cla.s.s too soon--all circ.u.mstances which explain the smallness of the success. He firmly believes in the educational value of special instruction, provided one does not expect miracles. He has a good critical mind. We cannot publish here the whole table. We shall summarise it thus:

Of three idiots, practically nothing is known; of eight imbeciles, one is employed at home, one unemployed (?), and one is messenger to a shoemaker. One can scarcely expect any real return in the case of imbeciles and idiots, and the merit of Dr. Decroly's statistics lies in the fact of distinguishing between such children and the feeble-minded. Let us speak more fully of the latter. They are thirty in number. Concerning nine there are no particulars. Two have entered a Catholic school, and nothing more is known about them. If we subtract these eleven, there remain nineteen. Some of these are "kept at home," or "occupied at home"; of these there are five. We do not know exactly what they are doing. There are others who "work," but it is not stated whether this is outside, or whether the work deserves to be taken into account. Four belong to this category. There remain the apprentices (tailors, cigarette-makers, sewers, etc.), of whom there are nine. Perhaps the last figure is the only one which deserves to be taken into account. Finally, then, out of nineteen feeble-minded subjects, regarding whom particulars have been supplied, one half, or 50 per cent., have been apprenticed; or more than half, 75 per cent., if we count the defectives who "work." We are not, therefore, very far from the figures collected by Mme. Fuster for the special cla.s.ses of Berlin, nor from those published by Gizycki.

We do not think enough of the ordinary school, and of the service it renders to the defectives; or, rather, we are too ready to a.s.sert that it does nothing for them. Yet, all the defectives who leave it do not turn out badly. There are journalists who try to attract the attention of public bodies by declaring that defectives, left to themselves, inevitably fall into mendicancy and crime. What do they know about it?

Absolutely nothing, since no serious inquiry has ever been carried out. Even we, for several years, allowed ourselves to be influenced by such suggestions, until the day when one of these journalists went rather too far. We refer to an alienist who published in a morning paper a series of articles on the defectives. After having estimated their total number at 40,000, he called them "the madmen of to-morrow," truly an excellent t.i.tle for a sensational article. But, little as one might think it, of all that was written nothing was really proved. Those who think that the defectives are destined to become lunatics are just as much in a dream as those who declare they will become criminals. The fact is that we are in complete ignorance, because one has always recoiled from an inquiry which promised to be as long as it would be troublesome. And it is a disgrace, let us say frankly, that no State has ever undertaken it.

Through the intervention of an inspector, M. Belot, we have inquired of twenty heads of schools what has become of the defectives whom they notified to us two years ago. We have made these inquiries with regard to sixty-six children only. Poor figures, indeed, and we would not give them, but that a little is better than nothing. These sixty-six children may be cla.s.sified thus: Thirty-five are defective, twenty-six ill-balanced, and three both defective and ill-balanced.

r.e.t.a.r.dation is quite plain in the unstable, amounting to from one to two years; it is very marked in the case of the defectives (one alone has a r.e.t.a.r.dation of two years, the others have a r.e.t.a.r.dation of three, four, six, and even seven years). We give these figures only that it may not be imagined that we are dealing with cases of slight feeble-mindedness with a r.e.t.a.r.dation of one or two years. It is necessary to understand these details in order to form a correct idea of the value of the figures.

The particulars regarding the ultimate destiny of these sixty-six children are as follows:

1. _No Return in the Case of Fourteen Children._--Some left the district without giving an address. Some even left school with insults from the parents directed against the teachers.

2. _Children still at School._--These number twenty-two. We have already spoken about this little group, and have remarked that some of them have improved.

3. _Children sent Home or placed in Asylums._--There are three who have been sent to asylums. We know one of them, an imbecile, but he had bad instincts, and who knows but that he might have been made useful? With regard to the others, who have been sent home, we have only very vague particulars, and the interpretation of their condition is quite arbitrary. Some of them seem to be useful. Some girls help at home. Some boys a.s.sist their fathers at their work, but are said to be wanting in balance or to require constant supervision. We have thought it well to include them in this third category, which stands for the social waste. They number ten. We repeat that the limits of this group are extremely ill-defined. With a little optimism one might have pa.s.sed three-quarters into the following group; with a little more strictness, on the other hand, the present group would have been larger. We emphasise the difficulty of limiting the frontier impartially. It would be a good thing to make use of a criterion, good or bad, but exact. One will, no doubt, be found, but in the meantime we have none.

4. _Children who have become Useful._--These are they who have become capable of following some calling. It is evident that one should take account of the nature of the calling followed; many are misery in disguise. A little time should also be allowed, for a child may not find definite occupation immediately on leaving school. In fact, the only particular we have regarding this last group of children is, that they have entered on an apprenticeship. Girls are apprenticed to dressmakers or laundresses. Boys are apprenticed as hairdressers, tinsmiths, gilders, printers, carpenters, etc. These children number seventeen. These results have impressed us rather favourably. We did not expect that the majority of defectives from the ordinary school would enter an apprenticeship; but, in fact, the majority did so. If we abstract the two first groups, those about whom the particulars are wanting, and those who have not yet left school, there remain twenty-seven children, of whom seventeen have been apprenticed, or 76 per cent.

From these statements the following conclusion is reached--namely, that, contrary to an opinion which attempts are being made to spread abroad, the ordinary school does render real service to the defective child. We have already seen, _a propos_ of the educational return, that the ordinary school carries a proportion of the defectives as far as the intermediate course. All these facts are mutually confirmatory.

Is it possible to go farther? We have just seen that the ordinary school permits the occupational cla.s.sing of 76 per cent. of the defectives. Now, this proportion is, by an unexpected agreement, identical with that obtained in the cla.s.ses of Berlin and Brussels, whence an opponent of special instruction would hasten to argue that such instruction is useless, or that, at least, it could not prove its usefulness except on the condition of insuring occupational cla.s.sing superior to 76 per cent. We do not think, after mature reflection, that this proposition would be justified. All our figures show is that the majority of defectives who pa.s.s through the ordinary school had not entirely lost their time, since they reached the stage of entering upon an apprenticeship. But it will not do to take account only of the proportion of children cla.s.sed as workers; it would be necessary also to take account of the duration of such cla.s.sing, and especially of its quality. A defective enters upon an apprenticeship.

That is good, but how long does he retain it? Will he be discharged as incapable at the end of a few months? If he is kept, will he remain in the lowest employments--for example, unskilled labour? In connection with all trades, there are minor occupations in which defectives stagnate. Our figures do not take account of these differences, which are of considerable interest, nor do they give any fuller ideas with regard to the utilisation of the defectives. And it would be necessary for the statistical method to be carried out with greater perfection to enable us to measure the services rendered by special instruction.

It is probable that the special school would render greater services than the ordinary school, because it has greater advantages: teachers experienced in the training of defectives, a curriculum better fitted to the apt.i.tudes of the latter, and, most important of all, the possibility of individual instruction.

Let us stop here. In the meantime this is all that we can say with regard to the organisation and control of special education. If we were to attempt to go farther we could do so only on _a priori_ grounds. The time has come for experiment. The new cla.s.ses which are being formed in Bordeaux, Paris, and elsewhere, must be carefully watched. We shall grope, we shall make attempts, certainly we shall commit mistakes, which will not matter very much if only we have the mind to recognise them and the courage to put them right. The essential thing is for all the world to understand that empiricism has had its day, and that methods of scientific precision must be introduced into all educational work, to carry everywhere good sense and light.

FOOTNOTES:

[14] In trying to explain this success, one must, no doubt, take into account the comparatively advanced age of the children, the probable leniency of the examiners, and, above all, the fact that the ill-balanced subject is a moral rather than a mental defective.

APPENDIX

[N.B.--Throughout the Appendix Roman numerals refer to ages--_e.g._, IV. 2 = second test for children of four years.]

Part of the interest of this work on defective children consists in the fact that in it we find the origin of those ideas and investigations which culminated in the formation of the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelligence, now so widely known throughout Europe and America.

The ideal that Binet set before himself was the formation of a scale which should measure intelligence in something the same way as the foot-rule measures height. The first difficulty was the unit. If we regard intelligence as the power to cope with a situation, we see that this power in a general way increases with the experience of the child, or, we may say, with his age. A child of nine should have more intelligence than one of eight, a child of eight than a child of seven, and so on. We may suppose, then, that there is a normal intelligence for each age just as there is a normal height for each age, although in the first case, as in the second, many children fall below and many rise above the standard. It is clearly by no means so easy to establish a norm for intelligence as for height, nevertheless, the method should be the same; that is, we should begin by finding out what the intelligence of children of different ages actually is, and from these results we should derive averages which might be used as norms.

In the course of his work with defectives, Binet, as we have seen, had gathered a number of questions which he had found useful as tests of intelligence. He now, in conjunction with Dr. Simon, proceeded to extend the number of these tests and to a.s.sign each to its appropriate age. The method he adopted was this: He tried each test on a great number of normal children of the same age. If a large majority answered satisfactorily, he set the test down as suitable for that age; if a majority failed, he moved it to a more advanced age, and tested it again on older children. When we consider his scale then, we must remember that the arrangement is no arbitrary one, but has been derived from actual experiment.

In 1908, after having been tried on over two hundred Parisian school children, the tests were published in the form of a scale, giving a measure of intelligence graded from three to thirteen years of age. By this scale it was held a child's mental age, which, of course, was often not the same as his chronological age, could be determined.

In 1911 there was published a revised scale in which, owing to the results of further experiment and criticism, a considerable number of alterations in the grading of the tests was made. This revised form of the scale is given below. For convenience in use the _exact_ words to be said to the child are placed first, the particular directions for each test being given afterwards. General directions regarding the tests and the method of marking will be found at the end of the scale.

Tests of Intelligence.

_Three Years._

1. "Show me your eyes." "Show me your nose." "Show me your mouth."

Count the child correct if he indicates in any way that he understands.

2. "I am going to say two numbers. Say them after me--3, 7."--"Again, 6, 4."--"Again, 0, 5."

The examiner must say the figures slowly; an interval of half a second should be allowed between the two. The child pa.s.ses if he is successful once out of the three trials.