Page images
PDF
EPUB

In contrast to this it is seen when a feeble-minded child is placed among his mental equals in an institution that soon a feeling of comradeship springs up from the fact that there is a mutual interest in their work and amusements. He feels on an equality with his companions, and the good results of this contact is soon observed in a healthier physical appearance and a happier expression of countenance; both decided improvements which could not be accomplished in the home without companions of his own mental caliber.

As generally found among normal children, there will always be some who have less power of receiving and holding ideas and who consequently do not acquire an equal amount of knowledge.

Among the feeble-minded the degrees of mentality are found to be much more varied; hence, how all-important is a particularly careful classification of the different grades of abnormal minds in order to be able to determine, by noting their natural inclinations and aptitudes, the directions in which their powers can best be utilized to promote their improvement.

All who are interested in the training of the feeble-minded believe that the training of the hand and eye and brain should go together. The axiom of the new education that play is a child's work, applies to the young feeble-minded as well as to the normal childhood. Place the young feeble-minded child with companions of his own age, encourage him in natural play and games, which, while strengthening his physical powers, will at the same time quicken his power of thinking and acting, and if his interest can be aroused sufficiently to bring about this result the first and most important step in the development of this feeble mind will have been accomplished.

The period from six to fourteen years of age in a normal child is a period of tremendous organic movement and growth, but this mobile state continues through a longer period, often until they reach the age of eighteen or twenty years, in the mentally defective.

The moral and intellectual faculties can be unfolded only by the

school discipline, which has a softening and refining influence upon the children. Here they may be taught to obey and to acquire habits of propriety; their wandering attentions may be arrested and concentrated and their observations stimulated by object lessons on common things and simple instruction in every-day incidents, and before they reach the age of eighteen years most of them will have acquired a knowledge of the rudimentary elements of education. About this age the capacity for mental development reaches its limit and the child is not susceptible of further advancement.

They remain children all their lives and have to be treated as such. This being so, it can readily be understood that the feebleminded will always remain a care and charge to their friends or to the State. Hence, all efforts tending toward their advancement, both physically and mentally, should be made with the object ever in view that the joint development of the hand and mind better fits them to acquire a knowledge of some useful occupation or handicraft, the daily performance of which assists them in forming ideas of the work in hand; by arousing the creative faculties their interest is excited and pleasure and happiness in their work naturally follow.

This happy state of usefulness can be accomplished and maintained only under constant surveillance and guidance, as their. mental deficiency, no matter to how high a degree of partial development it may be brought, remains permanently visible through life and precludes them from all possibility of competing at any occupation with those of normal minds.

Therefore, it devolves upon the State, as a wise measure of political economy, to train the young feeble-minded in the practical matters of every-day life and to some useful occupation; and when the period for training in the school has passed, to place them in custodial institutions where their manual training may be continued and their capabilities can be utilized so far that the remuneration for their labor would recompense the State for their maintenance.

By custodial institutions is not meant that the trained feebleminded youth should be transferred to an asylum for hopeless idiots. Contact at this period of their lives with the low grades found in the latter institutions would have a demoralizing effect. upon them; they would retrograde very rapidly, and the years of patient, careful, persevering labor spent in their mental and physical development might as well never have been attempted.

The need of custodial care for the brighter and more advanced of the feeble-minded is a want felt at the present time, not only in this country, but also in England and other European countries where the training and education of the feeble-minded have been carried on to any extent.

It has been found in England that, after a training in such an institution as the Royal Albert Asylum, the inmates who have been taught trades cannot obtain employment in the overstocked market of skilled mechanics. It has also been noted that, after being returned to their homes, they rarely carry on the occupations for which they were fitted in the institution, and that few, if any, employers of labor will engage them.

The very same conditions confront us in this country, and the question naturally arises, how can their training be utilized?

Those who are engaged in the work of their development believe that it can be used to the best advantage by employing them in custodial institutions or colonies. Here, under skilled supervision, their training would become manifest and, by proper classification, there would be found those who could make and repair clothing, make mats, baskets, tinware, mattresses, plain furniture, repair shoes, cultivate the land, care for cattle and perform domestic duties and all other work necessary for the conduct of their institution.

Dr. Barr states: "It is greatly to be hoped that each State may shortly possess, in addition to its training school, its own colony farm, with all the industries of a village, drawing its workers from the well-directed energies of a carefully guarded community."

A step in this direction has been taken in England, through the munificence of the late Sir Thomas Storey, who recently established, in connection with the Royal Albert Asylum, a permanent home for forty of the brighter feeble-minded girls, who had passed the age of training. In this country, Massachusetts has taken the lead by purchasing a large tract of land to inaugurate the establishment of a colony for the permanent care and employment of those who have been trained at the Waltham Training School.

In my opinion, based upon experience in the teaching and training of the feeble-minded, the most important feature, in order to accomplish the best results, is a strict classification of the different grades of mentality. And to maintain these results, this classification should be permanent.

I hold that the feeble-minded of brighter mentality, when trained to useful occupations, should not be transferred to asylums for hopeless idiots, which at present are the only refuges for this class, when the period for training in the training schools is past.

While it may appear an economical measure to have these bright, trained feeble-minded assist in the care of the lower grades, the services they would be competent to render in this capacity would in no wise compensate for the years of patient, persevering efforts put forth for their advancement. Furthermore, from a humane point of view, it would not only be a cruelty to have the lower grades subject to this irresponsible care, but the contact with them would be very detrimental and an injustice to the trained feebleminded.

I, therefore, earnestly urge the coöperation of the members of this Conference in advocating the establishment of custodial institutions or colonies for the trained feeble-minded, that the labor of bringing them to this state of advancement may not go for naught and that these worthy wards of the State may be enabled to earn partly, if not wholly, their own maintenance and so lead useful lives.

DISCUSSION ON "THE TRAINING AND EMPLOYMENT OF THE
FEEBLE-MINDED."

The discussion was opened by Dr. Martin W. Barr, Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children, Elwyn, Pennsylvania.

Dr. BARR.—Mrs. Dunphy has so well expressed my own views that I have only to emphasize some of the points she has skillfully touched.

In regard to the best qualifications for a teacher; of course, we do not need the acquirements of the higher education so much as the breadth, versatility, and, above all, adaptability, which culture alone insures; added to these there must be that most inestimable gift of imparting, and that sympathy which recognizes needs and to which the feeble-minded readily respond. This, too, gives the teacher that readiness in sizing up a class, all the more essential because the children have this faculty in large degree, and often find out peculiarities in a teacher long before the teacher becomes acquainted with the class in other words, while she is sizing them up they are more quickly sizing up her.

Again: We never use the word cure at least I do not in connection with the feeble-minded. What the cradle rocks the spade will most surely cover-I would even go farther and say unvaryingly cover- for experience has proved that only in exceptional cases may there even be a change of grade, and indeed so well accepted is this theory that you will find in all large training schools distinctly different methods employed for the development of each grade, having outcome in equally distinct employment or life work.

Each in his way and his several sphere may approach the higher intelligence, but we can rarely, except in cases of imbecility by depravation, make a low-grade imbecile a middle-grade - advance middle to high - and never by any amount of training make a high-grade imbecile wholly a normal being. There will always

« PreviousContinue »