Author 4-OOf Title Imprint lft— 47372-3 6PO LIBRARv OIF CONGRESS READING ROOM FOR THE BLIND NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION PROCEEDINGS OE THE Department of Special Education IN THE ANNUAL CONVENTION AT Boston, Massachusetts July, 1903 REPRINTED EROM THE BOSTON VOEUME OE PROCEEDINGS NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION PROCEEDINGS OF THE Department of Special Education in the annual convention at Boston, Massachusetts July, 1903 \B s » Reprinted from the Boston Volume of Proceedings CONTENTS Secretary's Minutes 985 President's Address— 4 lien 9 ^6 Influence of the Study of the Unusual Child upon Teaching— Hall, Johnson 987, 992 Discussion — Brandt, Campbell 997 Should the Scope of the Public School be Broadened?— Miss Greene 998 Discussion— 11 r ood, Miss Le Garde, Prince, Fernald 1003 How can the Term "Charitable" be Justly Applied to Education— Fay 1007 Discussion — -Wait. .1012 The Importance of Tests of Hearing in Public Schools— Blake 1013 Facts and Fallacies in the Examination of School Children's Eyes— Stahdish 1020 Some Eye Defects of Feeble-minded and Backward Children— Greenwood 1023 Some Diseases of the Nose and Throat of Interest to Teachers- Crockett 1028 What Teaohers.Need to Know,about Speech Impediments— Mrs. Thorpe 1031 Re^oft k-CbrrJrijiti^ pn. Statists;' <^ Defective Sight and Hearing— Booth L< >36 i, t, CUX^Vv- DEPARTMENT OF SPECIAL EDUCATION SECRETARY'S MINUTES FIRST SESSION.— Wednesday, July 8, 1903 The department met in the First Baptist Church at 9 : 30 A. M., and was called to order by President Edward E. Allen. The following program was carried out : President's Address — Edward E. Allen, principal of the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, Overbrook, Pa. Topic I : " The Influence of the Study of the Unusual Child upon the Teaching of the Usual " — Frank H. Hall, ex-superintendent of the Institution for the Education of the Blind, Jacksonville, 111.; George E. Johnson, dean of the Lower School, University School, Cleveland, O. Discussion — Francis Burke Brandt, professor of pedagogy, Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa. ; Charles F. F. Campbell, Loudon, England. Topic II : " Should the Scope of the Public-School System Be Broadened to Take in All Children Cap- able of Education ? If so, How Should This Be Done?" — Mary C. Greene, ex-superintendent of special classes for the blind in the board schools, London, England. Discussion — Thomas D. Wood, M.D., professor of physical education, Columbia University, New York city; Ellen Le Garde, director of physical training, including that of backward children, public schools, Providence, R. I.; John T. Prince, agent of Massachusetts Board of Education ; Walter E. Fernald, M.D., superintendent of Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded, Waverly, .Mass.; Mr. B. Pickman Mann, Washington, D. C. The president appointed as committee on nominations : A. L. E. Crouter. F. H. Hall. E. A. Fay. G. E. Johnson. W. E. Fernald. SECOND SESSION.— Friday, July 10 The department met at 9 : 30 A. M., President Allen in the chair. The following program was presented : Topic III : " How Can the Term ' Charitable ' Be Justly A pplied to the Education of Any Children ? " — Edward A. Fay, vice-president of Gallaudet College, Washington, D.C., editor of American Annals of the Deaf. Discussion by William B. Wait, principal of New York Institution for the Blind, New York city. Topic IV : " What Teachers Need to Know about Sense Defects and Impediments : Messages Chiefly from Specialists in Medicine" — Clarence J. Blake, M.D., professor of otology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.; Myles Standish, M.D., instructor of ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.; Allen Greenwood, M.D., ophthalmic surgeon, Boston City Hospital; Eugene A. Crockett, M.D., assistant in otology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.; Mrs. E. J. Ellery Thorpe, specialist on speech defects, Newton Centre, Mass. Topic V : Report of committee on statistics relative to children in the public schools of the United States who need special methods of instruction. The president appointed the following committee to continue the investigation into the number and conditions of pupils having defective faculties who attend the public schools, and to report at the next meeting of the department : F. W. Booth, Mount Airy, Pa., Chairman. Percival Hall, Washington, D. C. O. H. Burritt, Batavia, N. Y. ClarenceJ. Blake, M.D., Boston, Mass. F. Parke Lewis, M.D., Buffalo, N. Y. 9 86 - NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special The following minute was presented by Dr. E. A. Fay, and adopted : The Department of Special Education of the National Educational Association desires by this minute to express its high appreciation of the character and services of its late member and former president, Dr. Joseph Claybaugh Gordon, who died April 12, 1903. Dr. Gordon was active in the meeting of the Round Table of Teachers of the Deaf, held in connection with the meeting of the Association in Milwaukee in 1897, which resulted in the establishment of this department. He was elected the first president of the department, took a prominent part in all its meetings, and was a strong believer in the possibilities of its usefulness. In his death we mourn the loss of one whose work as teacher, superintendent, writer, and speaker gave him a high place in our ranks, while his amiable disposition, attractive personality, and genuine friendship won our affection and esteem. We offer to his bereaved wife and children the assurance of our sincere and respectful sympathy. Officers were elected for the ensuing year, as follows : President — J. M. Jones, Columbus, O. Vice-President — F. W. Booth, Mount Airy, Pa. Secretary — Elizabeth Van Adestine, Detroit, Mich. Upon motion, the department adjourned. Sarah Fuller, Secretary. PAPERS AND DISCUSSIONS PRESIDENTS ADDRESS EDWARD E. ALLEN, PRINCIPAL OF THE PENNSYLVANIA INSTITUTION FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF THE BLIND, OVERBROOK, PA. When President Eliot last winter summoned the presidents of the departments of the National Educational Association to meet him in Bos- ton, he stated that he wished each department to limit itself, if practicable, to four topics to be treated in two papers and four discussions each. He then called upon each president in turn for the subjects he wished to have discussed in his department. My turn came last. I then said that every topic or subject that had been mentioned by the presidents of the fifteen other departments had definite relation to some phase of our special work of educating and training children requiring, in some part of their schooling, special means of instruction. I brought forward about twenty topics suggested by our own work, every one of which could with just as much propriety be discussed in one or another of the other departments of the Association, thus showing that at one point or another our special work not merely touches their work, but is their work, as theirs is ours. Now, if this be true, what need is there for a department of special education ? My answer is, first, that if the work of teaching and training children hampered by defective faculties not merely presents questions of interest to general teachers, but can also help them solve certain difficult problems in their own work, then it is imperative that the best means be had for bringing these matters into full and proper notice, and neither a good nor a proper place can be found for them in departments where hosts of questions of much moment would certainly crowd out our ques- Department] INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD 9^7 tions; and, secondly, that any instrumentality, such as our department now is, which will offer to our special teachers a program sufficiently attractive to bring together from twenty to forty of them, and put them in more or less close touch with many thousand other teachers at a great convention like this one, is helpful and broadening to them, and has sufficient reason for being. Against this second position it is sometimes urged that teachers of special classes cannot be expected to attend every year these conventions in the various sections of this great country. That is very true. But to my mind the very fact that the meetings are held so often and in such different parts of the land makes our departmental meetings all the more useful; for they thus reach different teachers each year, and so have a wider influence than if they reached the same ones over and. over again. The objects of this department are identical with those of any other department of the National Educational Association ; viz., to afford an adequate opportunity for the discussion of topics relating to one special field of work, but interesting and instructive to all teachers ; and to provide a means of affiliating this special work with general education. As we are gathered here, we represent the education of children deficient in three distinct ways. The teachers of each one of these three kinds of children have different ways of gaining their ends, and have their meetings where these may be discussed with profit. At these meetings of the National Educational Association there should be no intolerance, no exploiting of specialties, but the discussion of gen- eral subjects in the spirit of absolute good fellowship. The charitable side of our work is so patent to the outside public that the educational side is largely lost sight of. Here is a chance to emphasize this more important side of our work. If this department is to be a success, it seems to me that it must be conducted on the broadest possible lines. INFLUENCE OF THE STUDY OF J HE UNUSUAL CHLLD UPON THE TEACHING OF THE USUAL FRANK H. HALL, EX-SUPERINTENDENT OF THE INSTITUTION FOR THE TEACHING OF THE BLIND, AURORA, ILL. The "unusual child" can be found in any community or in any group of half a dozen children. It may be true, as some have claimed, that there is no "usual child," no "average child." Each is in some important respect unlike every other. The study of any one of these is, of course, helpful in the teaching of any other. But there are classes of unusual children, made so by a common deprivation, whose study may 988 NA TIONAL ED UCA TIONAL ASSOC I A TION f Special become, a source of unmeasured helpfulness in the teaching of normal children. I refer to the blind, the deaf, and the deaf-blind. The influence of the study of such children upon the teaching of the usual child has thus far been quite unimportant, for the reason that little attention has been given to this phase of educational research. We have relegated the teaching of these classes to specialists of supposed unusual skill and exceptional insight. Their work has been regarded as quite unlike that of the teacher of normal pupils and fraught with untold difficulties. These specialists have sometimes received undue praise for what they have accomplished. This is especially true of teachers of the blind. That which has happened as a result of enforced narrowness and consequent concen- tration has too often been attributed to the marvelous skill of the expert teacher. A sympathetic and admiring public has wasted much breath in such expressions as "wonderful," "marvelous," "astonishing beyond measure," without in the least degree realizing that that for which these people are praised, is the natural result of a narrowness on the part of their pupils which is not apparent to the casual observer. It is certainly time for the student of educational psychology to begin a systematic study of the blind, the deaf, and the deaf-blind, with the hope of finding what may prove helpful to the teachers of normal pupils. Permit me to suggest a line of research that seems to give promise of valu- able results; and pardon me if I yield to the temptation to predict the outcome of such investigation, coming to me, as it does, after many years of association with large numbers of blind people, some opportunity to observe the deaf, and the privilege of making a most careful study of two deaf-blind children. The necessity of a sense-basis in the educational process is conceded by all. It is also well understood that thought does not deal mainly with things of sense, but first with the images of these and then with imagina- tive creations. Hence "emancipation from bondage to the things of sense " is a necessary concomitant of sense-training. It is the "emancipa- tion" that is the difficult step in the educative process. Hence in the training of the usual child there may be greater danger of devoting too much time to sense-perception than too little. With the normal child the securing of a sense-basis involves the action and interaction mainly of three senses — feeling, hearing, seeing. Just how much each of these contributes to the necessary working sense-basis constitutes thus far an undetermined and perhaps indeterminate problem. But here, as elsewhere in human indeterminates, approximation is doubt- less possible. A great side light upon this problem may come thru the study of the unusual child. If one desires to know what seeing contributes to a desir- able working sense-basis, in no other way can one hope to accomplish so much as by a comparison of children educated in darkness with the usual Department] INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD child. If one would know what hearing contributes, in no other way can one hope to accomplish so much as by comparing children educated in silence with the normal child. The comparision of the deaf with the blind furnishes another invaluable side light, while what has been accomplished with the deaf-blind invites the most careful and thoro research. Let the following questions be answered by those who have had oppor- tunity for knowledge upon this subject : 1. Are the congenitally blind more imaginative than the congenitally deaf? 2. Are the congenitally blind more imaginative than normal people ? 3. Are the congenitally deaf less imaginative than normal people ? 4. Are the congenitally blind more imaginative than those who have lost their sight after six years of age ? 5. Are the. congenitally deaf less imaginative than those whose hearing became impaired atter they were six years of age ? 6. Do the congenitally blind spend less time in sense-perception than normal people ? 7. Do the congenitally deaf spend more time in "reveling in the endless panorama of sense-perception " than normal people ? 8. Do the congenitally blind image and think — see the relation of images in any field with which they are familiar — more quickly and easily than normal people? 9. Do the congenitally deaf image and think — see the relation of images in any field with which they are familiar — less quickly and easily than normal people ? 10. Is the sense-perception basis for the mental operations of the congenitally blind narrower than the sense-perception basis of normal people ? n. Is the sense-perception basis for the mental operations of the congenitally deaf as broad and filled with a greater number of details than the sense-perception basis of normal people ? 12. Are the deaf handicapped mainly in their thinking power — their power to image and see relation ? 13. Are the blind handicapped mainly in their earning power — their power to use the results of their thinking in a way that will be helpful to other people ? 14. Can the blind, if provided with the necessary book equipment, do the greater part of high-school work and of college work more easily by far than the deaf and almost as easily as normal people ? 15. Can the deaf, if properly trained, contribute to the general good in much larger measure and in a greater variety of ways than the blind and almost as easily as normal people ? If, after due -investigation, the foregoing questions are all answered in the affirmative, as I believe they must be, it will be apparent — 1. That while sense-perception gives a necessary thought-basis, within certain limits thought-power seems to be in inverse ratio to the amount of sense-perception. 2. That, while a large amount of sense-perception tends to dull the edge of the thought-power, it is not incompatible with good earning power ; often, indeed, contributes to it. 3. That in the education of the blind a main effort should be to provide a broader sense-perception basis. 4. That in the education of the deaf a main effort should be to train in imaging and seeing relations. 5. That in the education of the usual child it is of the utmost importance that a proper balance be maintained between these two kinds of mental exercise. 99° NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special Educated blind people have in a large measure what the world calls culture. They can think and enjoy many of the products of art and of civilization. Some of them have " poise, serenity, and contemplative delight." They are quite at home in literature, history, and music. If the main business of life were enjoyment of the intellectual and spiritual type, they would be well equipped. But, with the exception of the few, the very few, who are especially gifted, they find almost insurmountable obstacles in their efforts to take care of themselves ; to provide for them- selves food, clothing, shelter, books, musical instruments, and the thousand and one material things that are necessary to the enjoyments of the com- mon life and of the higher life. The very fact that they have spent less time with the things of sense gives more time for the things of the intel- lect, the heart, and the spirit. If the education of blind people is mainly a matter of mental acquisition and personal enjoyment, as it sometimes is, their earning power is thereby diminished, and they go out into the world to be provided for, not by people who are grateful for valuable services performed, but by a more or less disguised charity at the hands of a spasmodically sympathetic public. The blind are handicapped by their defect in their power to do for others, and, sometimes by their education, in their disposition to do. Educated deaf people are usually self-supporting. In many occupa- tions their defect is not a serious handicap. In scholarship they are, as a class, far below the blind. In power and disposition to earn, they are the superiors of the blind. A colony of deaf people would succeed in caring for each other and for themselves much better than a colony of blind people. The deaf would have less poetry, but more bread and butter; fewer artists, but a greater number of useful artisans. The two classes might get along very well together, if the deaf would consent to do the physical labor for the community, and the blind attend to the intellectual and spiritual needs. "The ear," it is said, "is the avenue to the heart;" but eye and hand are necessary in making provision for the stomach. The foregoing thoughts seem to point to conclusions which ought to influence and modify the work of the teacher of the " usual child." Too much time devoted to sense-perception, and too little time devoted to imaging and seeing the relations of mental images, will make the usual child too much like the deaf child — quick to see with the natural eye, and perhaps well able to take care of himself and to provide for his own physical necessities, but not profoundly thoughtful, not able to see quickly with the mind's eye, to image and see the relations of things not present to the senses, hence incapable of the higher appreciations and enjoyments. Too little time devoted to sense-perception in the teaching of the usual child may result in making him like the blind, narrow — he may think himself very broad because of his familiarity with literature and history and bookish science, yet narrow and profound — but incapable of using his Department] INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD 991 knowledge for the good of other people, hence incapable of earning enough to provide for his own physical wants and for such material neces- sities as make the higher intellectual life desirable and possible. The deaf, the blind, and the deaf-blind are unsymmetrical in their development. It should be the care of the teacher of the usual child to avoid the anomalous results that necessarily come from growth in darkness or in silence. To this end a proper balance must be maintained, particu- larly in the first years of school, between eye-training and ear-training. In the early life, of the normal child the eye and the hand give the chief part of the sense-basis necessary for thought. At this time of life the ear is the principal instrument for training the imaginative faculty. If these two kinds of training are mutually well balanced, the result will be a symmetry that can be expressed in terms of efficiency (and this is the only desirable symmetry). Increase the eye-training beyond the normal amount, and the result may be a moderate degree of efficiency on the material side of life, with serious and irreparable loss on the spiritual and intellectual side. Increase the ear-training, the training in responding to ear-symbols (and later to eye-symbols), beyond the normal amount, and the result may be inefficient intellectuality — particularly inefficient so far as peformance that will be useful to other people is concerned. I have suggested what seems to me to be a most, important lesson for the teacher of the usual child that comes to me from a study of the unu- sual child. It is quite possible that I am in error; that I have general- ized on in sufficient or imaginative data. Be this as it may, I cannot be wrong in the assumption that the unusual child furnishes an unusual opportunity for most valuable psychological and pedagogical research. In no other way can we be made to realize so fully the educative importance of sight as by a careful study of the blind. In no other way can we be made to realize so fully the educative importance of hearing as by a careful study of the deaf. It is believed that light will yet come out of the darkness and voices out of the silence that will help to illuminate and make clearer and plainer the path of the teacher of the usual child. There is great work for Department XVI on the lines herein indicated. Neither can this be done by any one class of specialists, nor by combina- tion of all classes that have specialized in the education of abnormal or subnormal children. But there should be associated with those who deal chiefly with subnormal mentality, others who are mainly interested in the broader and more important problem of determining educative values in the work of training normal pupils. Let the evidence be brought forward and sifted, and the data collected for such generalization as may be helpful to all who are engaged in the great work of teaching, whether their pupils are normal, abnormal, or sub- normal ; whether they deal with the usual child or with the unusual child. The help of all is necessary, and the results will be helpful to all. 99 2 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special II GEORGE E. JOHNSON, DEAN OF THE LOWER SCHOOL, UNIVERSITY SCHOOL, CLEVELAND, O. When Dr. Hughlings Jackson formulated his "three-level" theory of the nervous system, and applied it successfully in the diagnosis of epi- lepsis and mental diseases, he made a valuable contribution to surgery and the knowledge of the physical causes of mental disorders, and also to psychology and education. The fact that the control of certain bodily movements and the seat of certain mental operations lie in definite regions of the brain, and that different areas of the brain come into com- plete functioning at different ages, is as applicable in education as in surgery. What pathology has done for psychology, the study of unusual chil- dren can do for the understanding of the normal child. In the study of defectives we examine a section of the mind. Here mental defects are written in the large. Since knowledge of the external world comes mainly thru the three avenues of sight, hearing, and touch, by a process of subtraction we see what it is that the mind receives thru these avenues, and we understand more clearly the relations of sight, hearing, and touch in instruction and the acquisition of knowledge, and are enabled better to select and apply methods in school work. Again, "evolution" and "physiological psychology" are the key-words to method in the new education. To the teachers of defectives we are most indebted for the theory and practice of physiological education, dictated first by Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel, and first successfully practiced by Periere, De 1'Epee, Itard, and Seguin. To Periere we are indebted for the first formulation of the physiological method. He not only conceived the idea of substituting one sense for another, but also saw the physiological significance of sense-training. This is the first great contribution of the student of the unusual child to the teacher of the usual. And I shall be pardoned for saying here that the world hardly yet knows its indebtedness to that man, by birth a Frenchman, by adoption an American, who has inspired hundreds of teachers of defectives by his zeal, devotion, and genius in teaching the idiotic eye to see and an idiotic hand to do — that man who more clearly than any other has set forth the need and the value of physiological education, Dr. Edward Seguin. Because most so-called defectives are to a large extent normal, and most normal children approach in some degree or particular some type of the unusual child, we find great value in the study of defectives. But we are to keep in mind today particularly the three great classes of unu- sual children — the deaf, the blind, and the. feeble-minded. We have dropped the old idea of a child-mind as a weaker mind than Department] INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD 993 that of the adult, but altogether like it. We have learned that it is an organism passing rapidly thru stages of evolution — stages not as marked as those of the race in its progress by evolution, but distinct enough to serve as practical guides in many questions in education. For this reason, the causes which interfere with or modify the natural develop- ment of this organism are of great interest to us as showing more clearly the nature and mode of development of the perfectly healthy organism. Now, what do we find peculiar in the manifestations and development of character and mind in an organism which has no contact with the external world thru sound ? Many writers on the deaf claim that they are more apt than hearing children to be selfish, suspicious, clannish, untruthful, less emotional, less sympathetic; in short, less susceptible to social and altruistic ideals. They live by themselves and for themselves. Early writers, like De 1'Epee and Sicard, placed the uneducated deaf intellectually in the class of idiots. .Today many teachers of the deaf claim that the deaf are not a distinct class, asserting that they present the same individual variations as the normal. I fear it would be presumptuous in me to attempt to decide between these conflicting statements. Yet I can but believe that the deaf do, as a class, present some differences from the normal, or at least tendencies to class peculiarities. To be sure, just to the extent that the education of the deaf is perfected and they are enabled to mingle in the world with other people, just to that extent the deaf will approach the nor- mal. Granted that the soul-germ of the deaf child comes as fresh and pure from the hand of God as that of the hearing child, yet' it is a very different world he lives in. Character and mind are the resultant of two forces — heredity and environment. Heredity may be the same, but the environment is very different, and the resultants cannot be the same. I believe that the thunderings and whisperings of nature, that voice and speech, that the music of nature and the symphonies of the masters, have exerted great influence in the development of the human race and of the individual. There is no other means of expression of the emotions of love and sympathy to compare with the human voice. It is not strange that the man who never heard the song of a bird, who never fell asleep at the lullaby of a mother, who never heard the story of another's love, or listened to a sob of a bleeding heart, should lack fullness of sympathy and devotion. I shall claim, then, that the great fundamental emotions of the soul — love and sympathy- — which lead to our modern ideals of altruism and the brotherhood of man, are less easily developed in the deaf than in the hearing. This is a second important influence lesson which the study of the unusual child has for the teacher of the usual. The ear is of mighty importance in the development of the sensi- bilities. And the development and training of the sensibilities in its bearing upon character is one of the most important, but neglected, offices 994 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special of our public schools. The teacher of normal children too often neglects the opportunities of the voice and the ear. Lack of contact with the external world thru the ear seems also to have a characteristic intellectual effect. But the records of biography seem to show a decided intellectual superiority of the blind over the deaf. Since the eye is the most important sense-organ, being the medium of the great majority of all our sense-impressions, and the organ most relied upon in the education of normal children, this fact seems rather startling. Doubtless whatever intellectual inferiority the deaf may have is due largely to deficiency in language power. Observe that language is the "vehicle of thought" and is essential to the development of a high degree of intelligence. Language is at once the means and the stimulus to accurate thinking. The deaf receive more sense-impressions than the blind, but make less of them. They have not, particularly during the early years, a convenient medium for thought and reflection. The blind have fewer sense-impressions, but make more of them. They are thrown back upon reflection. These facts emphasize, in the teaching of normal children, the value of language in school work — not formal language study, but language as the means for thought and its expression. And the vast superiority of the young blind but hearing child over the deaf child in language power — having, it is even asserted, at the age of eight a greater com- mand of language than the congenitally deaf child ever can have — proves that the ear is the natural organ for the acquisition of language. In our public schools language study has very generally miscarried. In the case of young children, it has had too much to do with formal lan- guage study, instead of the development of power and delight in thought and expression of thought. There should be more oral language work and less written language work with little children. This importance of the ear in acquiring language is evidence enough that normal children should begin foreign languages thru the ear rather than thru the eye. On the other hand, it is a pointed question whether the study of the dead languages — which in most cases is not the acquisi- tion of language, in the real sense, at all, but the study of the grammar of language — should not come later rather than earlier in the school course, and during the reflective period rather than the sensory. Mr. William B. Wait has made a most interesting and suggestive study in "comparative education" at the New York Institution for the Blind. For a period of nine years the results of the Regents' examinations, according to a wholly impartial rating, have shown a superiority in general scholarship of the blind pupils over the normal pupils of other schools. How shall we account for this? Certainly we do not think it is an intellectual advantage to lose one's sight, as did the ancient philoso- pher Democritus, who inflicted blindness upon himself that he might the Department] INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD 995 more perfectly give himself up to reflection. No doubt it is partly due to superior teaching. The teachers of defectives are our best teachers, unquestionably. But there is more yet to be explained. Mr. Hall has just told us that the blind child digests his mental pabulum more per- fectly than the seeing child. No doubt we have often, in our public schools, sacrificed depth to breadth. But I believe there is one element more to be taken into account in this matter, and Mr. Wait points it out. In our teaching of the young normal child we are relying too much upon the eye. And we are doing this at the very age when the ear should be predominant in instruction. In primary school work, the office of the eye, as compared to the ear, is accessory; of the ear, fundamental. The foregoing facts seem to point clearly to the value of the ear in the training of the sensibilities, to the fact that the ear is the natural organ for the acquisition of language, and to the need of a convenient medium of expression and reflection in the development of a high degree of intel- ligence. A grave doubt arises as to whether there is not an excessive use of the eye in the training of normal children ; whether we have not swung too far away from the use of the ear for the good of the child's intellect and the child's soul. And the question also arises as to whether the young deaf child should not be given every encouragement and aid in acquiring ability to express thought in whatsoever way. Since language is so important in the development of the intellect, it seems a great mis- take to shut the flood gates of expression of the little deaf child in what- soever direction nature may dictate them to open. In the preparation of this paper I sent out questionnaires to teachers of the deaf and the blind. The returns were insufficient to warrant gen- eralization, but they seemed to be mostly corroborative of what I have claimed here. A few other points brought out may be of interest and worth inserting without discussion. The claim of evolutionists that certain definite periods are most favorable for the development of certain powers seemed in general corroborated. The difficulties of education not only steadily increased with advancing age, but the difficulties in certain directions seemed to be conspicuous after certain ages. The molding of bodily habits and the correction of mannerisms are very difficult after the age of eight or nine. Dullness of touch is confirmed .after fifteen or sixteen. The vocal organs of the deaf become stiffened before the end of the early teens. Imitation and perception in the deaf are less active after the age of eight. Interest in elementary work, so easy to arouse in the young deaf child, cannot be awakened after the age of ten or eleven, and apathy of mind sets in by the age of fifteen or sixteen. The general testi- mony was that the deaf learn to read with much more difficulty than the normal, but the blind learn as rapidly; that the deaf are better spellers than the blind or the normal; that the blind are more accurate in arith- metic, the deaf less so ; that the blind remember better than the normal, 99 6 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special the deaf not so well ; that the blind reason as well as, if not better than, the normal, the deaf do not; that the blind are more emotional, and the deaf less emotional, than the normal. The study of feeble-minded children presents entirely new conditions. The difficulty here is one of centralization rather than one of avenues of approach. The whole organism of the feeble-minded is involved in the difficulty; not any particular part, as in the case of the deaf or the blind. Hence the teaching of the feeble-minded has necessarily been reduced to lowest terms. The teacher of the feeble-minded has to do with the very beginnings of mind. All of the avenues of approach are more or less closed. All must be opened. The very senses have to be. taught before the child can be taught. The physiological method becomes, not merely an essential, but a necessity. All that is done must be done in accord with established facts of evolution and in harmony with the laws of physi- ology. Herein is the great influence that the study of the feeble-minded is exerting upon the teaching of the usual child. One could not begin to give here even an outline of the lessons a teacher of normal children might gather from the physiological method — the object-lessons, use of play, training of the senses, attention to hygiene, and the study of the individual, displayed in the education of the feeble-minded. These things have been carried to a greater degree of perfection in schools for unusual children than elsewhere. It would be impossible to state how much the schools for defectives have advanced the cause of the kindergarten in this country. In these schools we find a higher and truer development, I believe, of kindergarten principles than elsewhere. Light is coming to the teachers of all children from the schools of these unfortunate, yet fortunate, children. The study of the unusual child, then, has put the individual child in our midst; has made for sympathy; has disclosed the seat of the diffi- culty, showing that supposed stupidity was often the result of defect of eye or ear; has emphasized the value of play and spontaneity in educa- tion ; has helped to fix the relative importance of the several senses in education; has emphasized the importance of sense-training ; has practi- cally created the physiological method; has made clearer the application of evolution to education; has kept in the foreground the social object of education, rendering the helpless helpful members of society. The schools for unusual children present the best object-lessons available to the teacher of normal children. DISCUSSION Dr. Francis Burke Brandt, professor of pedagogy, Central High School, Phila- delphia, Pa. — Speaking from the point of view of the training of the normal child, I believe that the study of the unusual child has already produced an influence upon the teaching of the usual child that is illuminating, instructive, and inspiring. Department! INFLUENCE OF STUDY OF THE UNUSUAL CHILD 997 ■ In the first place, such study has demonstrated the almost infinite possibilities of educa- tion. Sometimes in our public schools we are in danger of turning away from children because they are dull or stupid or incapable of being taught. But one Laura Bridgman and one Helen Keller have taught us, more than all our child-study investigations put together, that there is an avenue to every soul. Such cases have taught, too, the larger lessons that the twentieth century must regret the nineteenth-century dictum of the sur- vival of the fit, to put in its place the higher principles of fitting to survive. In the second place, such study has demonstrated the supertor effectiveness of special methods and special teachers to accomplish ends which meet the individual needs of the child. In connection with this subject such studies as Superintendent Hall's point out the relative value of these senses, as well as the importance of ultimate emancipation from the senses, together with the necessity of training for some form of social service, that all this can be of incalculable worth in revising our methods in handling the normal child. Again, such study has been highly illuminating as to the importance of right condi- tions in training a child. The favorable conditions which prevail in many institutions for the special training of special children, in the form of the fewness of pupils assigned to teachers, the assignment of special subjects to teachers, the adequacy and adaptability of equipment, and the respect, sympathy, and resources of trustees, have important lessons for those in authority who administer the training of the normal child. Summed up, the study and training of the usual child have rendered the greatest service to the elevation of the individual and the progress of humanity, to the extent that it shows that there is no depth scarcely of physical, intellectual, and moral defect on the part of the individual which the impulse of Christian motive, the intelligence of modern science, and the energy of civilized society combined cannot reach. Charles F. F. Campbell, former inspector of the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind, London, England. — The unusual child in this discussion is the blind child. With the blind it is necessary to begin at once to prepare for remu- nerative occupation. The normal child needs a similar system and has greater opportunity, having a larger field open to him. That he needs immediate training for all possible ends, not for higher education only, as at present given, is shown by the figures in the state school reports. Only an extreme minority continue higher education after the high school ; indeed, a large percentage of grammar-school pupils do not enter the high school. Example of a pupil at the Royal Normal College and Academy of Music for the Blind, London, England : With a blind child there, it is recognized at once - f bat there is to be a struggle for a livelihood. The child starts his training with the assumption that he may ultimately go to Oxford or Cambridge, to be possibly a lawyer or a minister. Before ten years of age, however, he is started in music, for that profession offers the greatest oppor- tunities for the blind. Thus the possibility of failure in one direction is provided for in another. Before the child is fourteen years of age it is generally clear whether a legal, ministerial, or musical profession is advisable ; but all this time he has had the best of manual training, so that, if these more advanced mental professions do not promise, his attention is concentrated upon a calling requiring manual dexterity. Thus every contin- gency has been provided for and in ample season. Application of this to the seeing child : The large majority, owing to family circum- stances, must go to work in some factory or store by fourteen years of age. Since many must work thus early, the public schools should provide preparation for this, as well as for higher education. Clear thinking is needed in the best work, even of manual labor; for it is not human machines that are required, but artisans. If public schools offered such commercial and technical training, parents would strive to maintain their children longer in school, to avail themselves of an education having so practical a value. The ideal should be held out to the pupils that because they cannot go to college a 99 8 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special great and useful career is not closed to them, but rather, by careful application to some congenial art or craft, they may become designers and creators. The supreme end of education will thus be to make them better citizens and, as President Eliot has said, more able to enjoy life. SHOULD THE SCOPE OF THE PUBLIC-SCHOOL SYSTEM BE BROADENED SO AS TO TAKE LN ALL CHILDREN CAPABLE OF EDUCATLON? LF SO, HOW SHOULD THIS BE DONE? MARY C. GREENE, EX-SUPERINTENDENT OF SPECIAL CLASSES FOR THE BLIND IN THE BOARD SCHOOLS, LONDON, ENGLAND I will answer the question in the topic of this paper by saying : Yes with qualifications which may or may not be applicable under existing conditions. I assume that the public-school system implies residence at home, or under home conditions, with day attendance at a school. It does now provide for all children excepting cripples, epileptics, the mentally defi- cient, deaf-mutes, and the blind. Can all these unfortunate classes, or can any among them, obtain suitable education and training under the public-school system ? Is it to the advantage (a) of the normal children, (b) of the defectives, that this should be undertaken ? The number of defective children whose parents can provide satisfactory training in their own homes is so small that these heed not come into the discussion — altho,with every advantage that money can secure, something is probably lost under wholly private instruction. No argument is required to show that the children embraced in these five groups cannot be required to attend the ordinary schools, in con- tinuous association with normal children, except to the disadvantage of all concerned. l*irc Cripple would suffer in body ; the epileptic and the weak- minded would be unable to keep pace with their school-fellows, or would be a drag upon their progress ; the deaf would profit hardly at all ; the blind only by the spoken word. Since, then, they cannot be taught as units of the ordinary school, the customary, almost universal, practice is to provide for them in large boarding homes, equipped with everything needed for general care, and also for such elementary, higher, and tech- nical training as may be adapted to the special needs of the several groups under consideration. The defective child is placed in such a boarding home for a term of years, usually including the entire period of child- hood and youth, and extending into early manhood and womanhood, at the end of which period he is returned to his home and friends. In the best examples of such institutions, health, manners, morals, training of hand and brain, are all wisely and carefully looked after ; and, in contrast with the life of a defective child in many families, the sympathetic visitor, Department] SHO ULD SCOPE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BE BROADENED ? 999 noting the well-clothed, well-cared-for little ones, can but regard institu- tion life as the ideal for all such unfortunates. Such conclusions may, however, be qualified by two considerations, deduced from long experience. First, the practical training of home life, which defective children in common with normal children need, is missed in an institution. It is true that valuable lessons in order and regularity are learned, and the motto "together," so well worth impress- ing, is deeply impressed upon them. Some such experience is useful to all. But these children are taken from home at a very early age. From that moment every need is supplied. Food and clothing, schooling, and care come to them as freely, as naturally, as the air they breathe. There is no question of cost — of sparing or saving. No committee of ways and means deliberates in their presence, as members of a family talk together of what can, or cannot, be afforded. At home there may be anxiety, struggle, hard work, privation. Of all this the little exile knows nothing. So pass the years till the youth leaves school. The institution, the arti- ficial home, is left behind, and the youth comes forth to make use, or no use, of what he has learned in school and shop, with such help as friends or strangers can give. He must face life — and of life in the world he is profoundly ignorant. Already handicapped by his infirmity, the lack of all practical experience puts him still further at disadvantage, and it is hard, if not impossible, for him to get his bearings and adjust himself to his surroundings. Without knowing it, he may be selfish and exacting. This is my first qualifying consideration. The second tendency to be deprecated is the inevitable result of exclusively institutional training in weakening home ties thru too pro- tracted separation in early life. In the course of years, childish interests have been exchanged for those of maturer life, and the home-coming youth finds himself much of a stranger, having little in common with others of his family. The earlier habits of consideration, of tender pity, have lapsed thru disuse. Moreover, the limitations of his infirmity keep him more or less to one side, and he may be overlooked or forgotten, when he would gladly share the common interests and the common pleasures. If intelligent and sensitive, he may grow morbid in the feel- ing that he has come to be only a care and a burden. Now, is it practicable so to enlarge the scope of the public-school system as to include any portion of the whole number grouped as defectives, and thus to secure a more practical training, while keeping them in closer touch with friends on whom they may, to a degree, be dependent in future years? Without discriminating between that form of institution where all inmates are gathered into one great family and the institution organized on the cottage system, I concede its necessity in some form, except in large centers of population. In great cities the public-school system can be utilized to the advantage of many defective children. iooo NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special Instead of leaving this statement as an unsupported assertion, it will be more definite to indicate what is actually done for defectives in one metropolitan area — that of London — in connection with its work of popular education. From the problem are eliminated nearly all epileptics, and the lower grades of the mentally deficient, who, for such training as their condition allows, are better under the constant watchfulness of a permanent board- ing home. The census of the school population of London — that is, of all chil- dren between the ages of five and fourteen — is annually taken in house- to-house visitation by the school board visitors, each in his own area. When the excuse for non-attendance places the child in any one of the defective groups, it is so recorded, with age, address, and character of disability; and the respective lists, when complete, are sent to the three superintendents in charge of defectives, cripples and epileptics being assigned to the superintendent of the mentally deficient as a matter of convenience. Not only at the annual scheduling, but thruout the year, it is the duty of the visitor to report at once to the superintendent each new case that comes to his notice. The age of compulsion for deaf-mutes is from seven to sixteen ; for the blind, from five to sixteen. The superintendent, having received the data from the visitor, proceeds to amplify; and this can be done in no way so well as by friendly personal calls, wherein details of the cause and degree of disability, and the condition and his- tory of the family so far as it has affected the child, are obtained. These are useful in establishing cordial relations as well as for information. Three of the groups — viz., the blind, the deaf, and the mentally deficient — are gathered in centers under teachers specially trained to the work for each. Cripples, not requiring specially trained teachers, make a fourth group. I wish to say just here that, next to thoro training in the special work which is undertaken, there must be, even more than in ordinary teaching, a real love for, and interest in, that special disability, and a rooted con- viction that to a large degree it may be surmounted. Not more than twenty feeble-minded, eight deaf, or sixteen blind are allotted to one teacher, tho, if numbers warrant, there may be two or more classes at one center. This permits satisfactory grading. If possible, each center occupies a building of two or more rooms, detached from the main building if on the school premises, and having independent entrance from street and playground. When desirable to establish centers for two or more groups in the same or adjoining premi- ses, it is important to provide for entire separation, both in and out of school hours. If cripples are of the number, their center is on the ground floor. Department] SHOULD SCOPE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BE BROADENED? iooi In considering how the children shall reach the center, one rule does not apply to the several disabilities. Usually speaking, no deaf or feeble- minded child is required to travel more than a mile to the center. For greater distance, or for weakly children, arrangements are made with public conveyances. The feeble-minded and the deaf are so nearly on the level of ordinary children in respect to attendance that the matter of their coming is commonly left to the parents. For cripples, a vehicle adapted to their needs collects and returns to their homes those who otherwise could not attend school with safety. In the case of the blind the problem is simplified if another child in the family capable of acting as guide can attend the school with which the center is associated. If there be none such, a trustworthy child is selected in the school, who for a small weekly payment will accompany the blind one. The limit of distance mentioned in connection with the deaf and the feeble-minded may be considerably extended for both the cripples and the blind. For cripples, the time of man and horse is the only considera- tion, and, in practice, a blind child with guide, when once in a public conveyance, can travel three miles as easily as one. When difficulties arising out of distance are too great, or where home conditions are morally or physically bad, the boarding-out system is adopted. Satisfactory families are sought near the center where the father and mother are willing to act the part of foster-parents to one or two of these little ones. It is preferred that these families be in some- what similar position in life to the real parents; it is imperative that they be clean and honest, and able to supply proper food and lodging to their little boarders. To insure the faithful observance of all regulations, there is frequent careful inspection. If the parents of a boarding-out child fail, thru poverty or neglect, to provide needful and tidy clothing, an outfit is procured, and, in case of neglect, the cost is charged to the father. In the bringing up of each group of defective children the necessity of rendering them, as far as possible, self-supporting is kept steadily in view. From kindergarten to manual training no effort is spared. From the several centers of each group the children, on appointed half-days, go for practical lessons to the cooking, laundry, or manual-training class most accessible. The selection of the children for the coveted privilege is made on the same lines adopted for normal children. It is needful for the deaf to be accompanied to such classes by one of their own teachers, to interpret in case of necessity. Manual training for the blind, including the use of tools in single cabinet-work and carpentry, is limited less by want of sight than would be supposed. They can, and do, learn to use readily all ordinary tools with benefit. Whatever is done for cripples in respect to manual training, is done at their own centers. To the statement previously made, that defectives cannot be closely associated in the schoolroom with ordinary children, the blind are a partial 100 2 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special exception. After acquiring at the center facility in the use of their special apparatus for writing and arithmetic, it is found possible for them to do the work and profit by the instruction of the ordinary school for some part of each day, devoting the remainder of the day, under the guidance of their special teachers, to subjects and methods in which they, because of their lack of sight, require individual attention. A second divergence in the case of the blind from other defectives in their relations to the public-school system is this : Individuals of other groups may continue in the public school till they have exhausted its advantages; it is not so with the blind, except in a few cases where expense of later professional training is no consideration. They are restricted in the choice of callings for a livelihood, and must pass earlier from the public school to an insti- tution adapted to prepare them for their life-work, as musicians, teachers, or workers at a handicraft. If the pupil has musical ability, that can be developed only by some years of residence in an institution provided with all that is necessary to thoro professional training. So, too, if talents and character point to success in any other profession, including that of teaching, the preparation for the normal school, or for the university, must be made under the conditions prevailing in an institution. The Royal Normal College for the Blind, near London, besides its elementary, higher, and technical departments, is accredited by the government as one of the authorized training colleges for teachers. Similarly with handi- crafts available for the blind, including the art of tuning, in which they can compete on equal terms with the sighted, special teachers, longer time, and the aid of many devices, unknown in ordinary workshops, are required, and are only obtainable in a residential institution. It is thus evident that the connection of the blind with the public school differs from that of the other groups of defectives. There is no vital relation between the ordinary school and the centers for cripples, for the deaf, or the feeble-minded; tho among the feeble-minded there are always individuals so classed who from adverse circumstances are sim- ply backward, and who after a time of quiet progress can be transferred to the ordinary school. The centers for these three groups are selected without reference to the proximity of a public school; but because of the division of their time between the special class and the ordinary school, it is desirable that the centers for the blind should be in close connection with the public school and occupy room within its grounds. I have now covered what appears to be the chief points of my subject, and will summarize as follows : (a) In large cities, cripples, deaf-mutes, and the mentally deficient, excluding the lower grades, may receive their whole education under thepublic-school system, each group by itself, in centers which may be quite apart from the ordinary public school, and, in the case of the deaf and thcmentally deficient, under specially trained teach- ers, (p) The blind may be taught by a specially trained teacher, at a Department] SHO ULD SCOPE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BE BROADENED ? 1003 center closely connected with a public school, in the instruction of which they can participate for a part of each day ; but they must be transferred from the public school to an institution for the blind, at the age of twelve or thirteen years, to complete their training. DISCUSSION Thomas D. Wood, M.D., professor of physical education, Columbia University, New York city. — -The idea of education has been enlarged until today we consider it rightly as the process by which the individual is prepared for life, for human society, for citizen- ship. It is the duty of the state as the agent of society to make sure that the individual is qualified as perfectly as may. be for complete citizenship. In our country, this means that the state shall demand a certain minimum of intelligence and training of all, and beyond this provide generous opportunities for the young to improve them- selves, in order to add to power and capacity in every possible way, without pauperiz- ing anyone or decreasing individual responsibility and self-reliance. In our democracy, with the present standard of education among intelligent people, the well-to-do classes may be trusted to give their children, whether normal or defective, at least an equivalent of the benefits of free public schooling. Leaving out of account, then, those who prefer to educate their children at private expense, the public-school system is, or should beget- ter qualified than any other agency to set the standards of education for all children capable of education. This will be done most naturally and economically, where it is practicable at all, by the attendance of the deficient child, while living at home, upon the public school adapted to the needs of exceptional children. The home is still the most fundamental and vital of human institutions. It is of great importance that the home do all that it can and will for the child, whether normal or deficient ; important, again, that education stimulate the home in every way to a higher development and a more effective service in the care of the children. In many cases, of course, the state can provide better care and training for the child than he can get at home, and often the education of deficient children can be accomplished only in special institutions. But it is really important that, where feasible at all, the young child should remain at home, and that provision for instruction should exist within convenient distance for attendance upon school. This is not feasible, of course, for most defectives except in large communities. The scope of public education, then, should be enlarged to include all children capa- ble of education, capable of becoming self-supporting members of society; and facilities for the training of deficient children should be developed as rapidly as possible, and in close relation to the home. The training of dull, backward, and moderately deficient children may best be accomplished by the ungraded room of the ordinary school under specially qualified teachers. Those more deficient mentally, and often morally, who are yet capable of educa- tion, and many of whom may become independent members of society, even if of a low grade, should be kept away from the normal children in special schools, like the Hilfsschulen in some* European cities. Here they may have the best available oppor- tunities, and a further differentiation may be made between those educable and capable of life at home and in society, and those who should go permanently to institutions for defectives. The deformed and crippled children should have their own more favorable con* ditions, with the instruction and training best adapted to their limitations and needs. The schools for crippled children in New York — some supported by philanthropy, 1004 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special some by public funds — show strikingly how much can be done for these handicapped children. The deaf and the blind should be trained in special schools or under special teachers. They should live at home when possible, at least up to the age of adolescence. The more advanced training of the blind and deaf may very reasonably be completed away from home in special institutions maintained by the state as part of the public-school system. The instruction of all unfortunate and deficient children, whether carried on at public or private expense, should be under public supervision, or at least subject to inspection of officers of public institutions. Ellen Le Garde, director of physical training, including that of backward children, public schools, Providence, R. I. — Feeblemindedness — a state of arrested psychical development — will always be an interesting study to the physical director, who realizes that a mentally weak child is almost always defective physically, and that its physical education should precede its mental, and always progress with it. Feeble-minded children may be found in every school building, and should be trained by themselves. In the proper education of this class of children, Germany, in 1863, was the pioneer. There such children have been gathered either in special ungraded schools or separate classes, which arrangement enables the classes of the normally endowed to progress at a more rapid rate in their studies. The German plan, making these schools a part of the school system, is that followed in Providence. Providence, in 1894, was the first city in the United States to support public day schools for mentally backward boys and girls. In 1899, similiar schools were opened in Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia. The methods of developing the arrested or weak mental and muscular powers are most interesting. Seldom do these children walk correctly; they have little sense of rhythm ; hands and feet cannot move in unison. Exercises requiring at first little or no effort, but always training in time, in co-ordination, in balance, in grasp, in powers of concentration, in strength and memory, are all used, and gradually increased in power and velocity. Lacking, as many of this class are, in powers of articulation, the ward, or marked sys- tem of reading, is used in the morning, and unmarked reading in the afternoon. Seat work for reading is taught by letter builders, one and a half inches long. Number is taught at first by large primary colored blocks eight inches long ; later by various objects; all, however, larger than those in use in the ordinary primary school. The color sense in these children is often so deficient that this instruction is a part of every day's lesson. Geography and language are taught in games and talks, and the children are encouraged to express themselves freely and correctly. Singing it is possible to gain by number first, as in the regular grades, and by songs. Drawing is done upon the blackboard to illustrate all the reading lessons. Sewing, weaving, and basketry are employed for hand- and eye-traming. I place great faith in the Swedish exercises in gymnastics for co-ordination, and in musical drills with wands and dumb-bells for rhythm and for gaining interest and attention. Many of these children tire of games, and lose patience and get excited, but are always devoted and constant to piano and dumb-bells. The drum and triangle are great aids. Lately we have tried dancing steps. The teachers consider the physical training the greatest aid to the greatest need of the children. In what would appear apparently as a hopeless task, the teachers jn these three schools for a-typical children are devotion itself. All have been graduates from our city schools and from our excellent city training schools. Each understands kindergarten methods and has served an apprenticeship as assistant in a disciplinary school. Encouragement and praise are freely given ; happiness of a right sort is ever pres- ent; and the animal affection, often a part of the character, is trained in habits of helpful- ness for the teacher, for the schoolroom pet, in cat or dog, or for a weaker child needing constant aid. Department] SHOULD SCOPE OF PUBLIC SCHOOL BE BROADENED? 1005 It is safe to say that 80 per cent, of the children are cured. By "cured" one does not mean made into Edisons, Marconis, or Roosevelts, but lifted up to better things. Many are holding good positions. The future holds many plans for the betterment of these schools. They are under the care of a special supervisor, who visits them once in two weeks. It is hoped to concentrate them in one building in the center of the city, to pay transportation, and to provide lunch; for these children lack in nutrition, and any public-school system starting such schools should provide at once, with books and slates, either a lunch or mid-day meal. The superintendent desires medical inspection for them, in order to allay any objection on the part of the parent, when told his child should be placed in a school for pupils of arrested development. More attention can be given to physical exercises and manual training when we have a central school with proper work- rooms, gymnasium, etc. Philadelphia is in advance of Providence in its medical inspection of defectives and in their manual training, but Providence points with pride to the fact that the school funds pay for the cost, and that seven years of growth is one of progress and actual accomplishment in making a class of children of value to the community and to themselves, who might have been a drawback and a disgrace. John. T. Prince, agent of the Massachusetts Board of Education, Boston, Mass. — Public-school education is constructive in helping to create high ideals and intelligence, and preventive in helping to hinder pauperism and crime. It is a wise provision of statute law for the upbuilding of society, and for the happiness and usefulness of individu- als, that every normal child shall be assured of a common-school education. It is no less the state's duty for its own protection to make obligatory the training of educable defectives and the care of those who are not capable of improvement. This training and care should be carried on either in institutions under the direction of the state, or directly in connection with the local public schools. Those children only who do not need institutional treatment should be trained at home in separate groups. For the cities and large towns this will not be a difficult mat- ter, as has been shown by experience. For country districts, provision may be made for carrying children to a central school, or for establishing small home schools in convenient localities. These schools should be under the charge and superintendence of the local public school authorities. In states like Massachusetts, where district supervision pre- vails, the schools may be under the direction of the superintendent and district committee, the expense of the schools being borne by the towns from which the pupils come. In country districts whose unit of government is the county, the schools may be organized and controlled by the county board and county superintendent, and the expense of carry- ing them on will be borne by the county. It is therefore right and feasible for all educable children to be included in the scope of the public-school system, and to share in its benefits and obligations. It is also right and feasible for the state to place all educable children of a certain age under the statu- tory requirement of compulsory school attendance, to the end of giving all its citizens the benefits of intelligence and self-support, and of guarding itself and society against the dangers of ignorance and crime. . Walter E. Fernald, M.D., superintendent of Massachusetts School for Feeble- Minded, Waverly, Mass. — Until within a comparatively few years it was believed that feeble-minded children could be successfully educated only in special boarding schools or institutions. All such schools were recognized as strictly educational institutions. Dr. Howe said of his school: "It is a link in the chain of common schools, the last indeed, but still a necessary link in order to embrace all the children in the state." The methods of training found necessary with the feeble-minded were radically different from those then used with normal children. Object-teaching, nature study, gymnastics, special sense-training, manual and industrial training, music, directed games, training in habits and morals, etc., were the sheet anchors of this work, years 1006 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special before the era of the kindergarten and the dawn of the new education. Outside of these special schools suitably equipped teachers were not to be found. Special public school day classes for the feeble-minded have been in operation in various continental countries for more than twenty years. There are many reasons why such classes should be established as a part of the public-school system in large centers of population in this country. Every American child has the right to be educated according to his need and capacity. It is a great hardship for the parents to send a child of tender years away from home to be educated. Parents with a comfortable home would naturally prefer a public-school class to an institute. Many defective children who now receive no train- ing would be placed in these special classes. The special training would be begun much earlier than is now possible. These special classes can be quickly and easily organized and increased in number, making a very flexible system of providing and extending facilities for training defec- tives. They do not involve the expenditure of large sums of money for construction of large institution plants. The actual expense of such training is largely assessed upon the local community receiving the benefit. The admirable special classes in London may well serve as models for classes in this country. In organizing these special classes, the pupils should be selected under expert medical advice, and should be the merely " backward " or slightly feeble-minded, and not imbecile or idiotic, for the merely backward should not be classed with the actually feeble-minded. The training and instruction of these children may begin on a much lower plane than with the lowest grades in the public school. It must begin with what the child already knows, and the successive steps should be made very gradual and progressive. The physiological education of the special senses and the training of the muscles to accurate response to directions must precede and prepare the way for so-called intellectual training. Hand-work and manual training in great variety is of great importance. Object- lessons and familiar nature study should be emphasized. The beginnings of ordinary primary work should be based upon the best modern methods. The progress will be slower, and the pupil cannot be carried so far. The study of the life-history of these persons has evolved some generalizations which must not be ignored in considering this subject. All degrees of congenital mental defect, from the merely feeble-minded child to the profound idiot, are the result of certain defi- nite structural defects or inferiority of the brain, or the result of brain disease or injury. These brain abnormalities are permanent conditions. No really feeble-minded person ever was, or can be, entirely "cured." It is a question of how much improvement is pos- sible in each individual case. The hope of the pioneer teachers in this work that many of the slightly feeble-minded could be educated and developed to the point of supporting themselves, and of becoming desirable members of the community, has not been realized. A certain very small pro- portion do actually leave the schools and lead useful, harmless lives, supporting them- selves in a precarious way by their own efforts. Of the great majority of these trained pupils it has been well said that they may become " self-supporting, but not self-control- ling." By far the greater number need oversight and supervision as long as they live. A very large proportion of the feeble minded persons, even the well trained higher- grade cases, eventually become public charges in one way or another. No one familiar with the mental and physical limitations of this class believes that any plan of education can ever materially modify this fact. The brighter class of the feebleminded, with their weak will-power and defective judgment, are easily influenced forevil, and are very likely to become prostitutes, vagrants, or petty criminals. They are powerless to resist the physical temptations of adult life, and should be protected from their own weakness and Department] TERM "CHARITABLE" AS APPLIED TO EDUCATION 1007 the cupidity of others. Especially should they be prevented from marriage and the reproduction of their kind. Feeble-minded children may be tolerated in the community, but it is a great respon- sibility to inaugurate any plan on a large scale which does not provide for withdrawing defective adults from the community. HOW CAN THE TERM "CHARITABLE" BE JUSTLY AP- PLIED TO THE EDUCATION OF ANY CHILDREN? EDWARD ALLEN FAY, VICE-PRESIDENT OF GALLAUDET COLLEGE, WASH- INGTON, D. C; EDITOR OF "AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF " At the time, now nearly a hundred years ago, when the first schools for the education of special classes were established in America, such schools already existed in Great Britain. The British schools were gen- erally called "institutions;" the largest and most important of them was styled an "asylum"— a title which it still retains; another bore and bears the name of "hospital." These British schools were founded and maintained entirely by private charity, and were therefore classed as charitable institutions, tho their educational purpose was recognized. The same is true not only of special schools, but of all the English free schools of that time; they were known as "charity schools." In America, on the contrary, our free schools have always been supported by public taxation, and education in them has never been regarded as charitable, but as the birthright of every child. The early founders of American schools for special classes in their preliminary steps followed English precedent. They contributed money, interested their friends, sought subscriptions, secured acts of incorpora- tion from the state legislatures, and (most unfortunately) called their schools " asylums" or "institutions." Long before that time, however, the duty of the state to provide for the education of all its children had been recognized in this country, and as soon as the special schools were established they applied to the legis- latures for support on the ground that their pupils had the same right as other children to education at the public expense. The justice of this claim was generally recognized," and appropriations were made by the legislatures for that purpose. In a few of the older states this arrange- ment continues; the schools are under corporate management and have endowment funds resulting from former gifts and bequests, which the state supplements by paying a. per capita rate for the pupils in attendance. So far as the education of these pupils is paid for by the state, it can- not be called charitable, for the state cannot dispense charity. The state educates these children, as it does all its children, in its own- interest ; for educated they become self-supporting citizens, while left uneducated ioo8 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special they are liable to become criminals and paupers. The schools are some- times spoken of as "institutions aided by the state;" it would be more correct to say that the state is aided by the institutions, for with the help of their endowment funds it is enabled to educate its children at less than cost. If, however, we consider these early schools from the point of view of their origin, their corporate character, and their endowment, they may be classed, legally at least, as charitable institutions. The same is true of our incorporated colleges and universities; in the eye of the law they are charitable institutions. In the famous Dartmouth College case Chief Justice Marshall held that a college was an eleemosynary corporation ; and the same opinion has been reaffirmed in a score of judicial decisions. The principle is well established that "a charity, in a legal sense, includes not only gifts for the benefit of the poor, but endowments for the advance- ment of learning, or institutions for the encouragement of science and art, without any particular reference to the poor;" and that "schools established by private donations and carried on for the benefit of the public, not with a view to profit, are institutions of charity." In a legal sense, then, our endowed special schools must submit to be classed with all endowed schools, colleges, and universities as charitable institutions. But the legal sense is not the common sense; in the popu- lar conception the idea of charity is not associated with ordinary schools, colleges, and universities ; they are considered, not from the legal point of view of their endowment, but from the common-sense point of view of their purpose. Their purpose is educational ; they are therefore univer- sally regarded as educational institutions. The purpose of schools for special classes is also educational ; should they not be regarded as edu- cational institutions ? There is not a student in Harvard or Yale the expenses of whose education are not paid in large part from endowment funds, irrespective of tuition fees; but no one ever thinks of applying the term "charitable" to the education of students at Harvard or Yale; why should it be applied to the education of pupils in the Perkins Institution or the Clarke School ? This question was put to the Massachusetts legis- lature in 1875, and the result was that these schools were removed from the supervision of the state board of charities and placed, where they properly belong, under the supervision of the state board of education. But not all states are as enlightened as Massachusetts. What has been said of the charitable character, from a legal point of view, of certain endowed and incorporated special schools applies only to a few schools in a few of our oldest states (Connecticut, District of Colum- bia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania). The great majority of our American schools for special classes are public schools ; they have been established by the state legislatures, in some cases they have been provided for in the state constitutions ; they are maintained Department! TERM "CHARITABLE" AS APPLIED TO EDUCATION 1009 wholly by public taxation. There is no reason whatever for regarding them as charitable. In some of the states the purely educational character of these schools, their entire dissociation from the idea of charity, is recognized ; in others it is not. In ten states (Alabama, California, District of Columbia, Flor- ida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Virginia) it has been clearly defined by legislative or constitutional action. 1 In two (Florida and New Jersey) the schools are under the direct control of the state board of education. In nine (Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee) they make reports to the state board of education or the state superintendent of public instruction. In seven (Alabama, Florida, Min- nesota, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia) the superin- tendent of public instruction is ex officio a member of the board of trustees. In two (Michigan and New York) the schools are subject to the supervision or visitation of the superintendent of public instruction. In five (Cali- fornia, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin) provision is made for day schools for the deaf in various localities in addition to the large state school ; there are also day schools in three cities (Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis) in other states. These day schools are all classed as part of the common-school system. On the other hand, the special schools in two states (Kansas and South Dakota) are under the direct control of the state board of charities. In nine (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Caro- lina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) the board of charities has the right of inspection, recommendation, and suggestion. In one state (Kentucky) the committee of the legislature that has charge of the affairs of these schools is entitled "committee on charitable institutions;" in another (Mississippi) "committee on benevolent institutions;" and in a third (South Carolina), "committee on penal and charitable institutions." Probably a similar erroneous nomenclature is used by the legislatures of several other states. On the whole, taking all the circumstances into consideration, the special schools in nineteen states (Alabama, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia) seem to be classed by the state authorities as purely educational, and in twenty-two states (Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kent-ucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, 1 Perhaps the most explicit legislative action is that of the Congress of the United States relating to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in the District of Columbia. After providing that the admission of pupils from the district shall be subject to the approval of the superintendent of public schools, the law adds: "And said institution shall not be regarded nor classified as an institution of charity." IOIO NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special Washington, and Wisconsin) as charitable, or partly charitable and partly educational. When we consider that within our own memory these schools were universally classed as charitable institutions, it is certainly a gratifying sign of progress that in nineteen states their true character is now offi- cially recognized. Probably the popular conception, however, even in those states lags somewhat behind the official recognition. While a little reflection will convince any reasonable man that the term "charitable" cannot justly be applied to the education of any children, the unthinking public everywhere are slow to realize it. One reason why people are slow to comprehend the true character of our special schools is doubtless the unfortunate names of "asylum" and "institution" — especially "asylum" — which were given these schools in former years and which still cling to some of them. Another reason why some people regard our special schools as charitable is that food and shelter as well as instruction during the school term are provided by the state. They are willing to admit that free tuition and opportunity for self-development should not be called charitable, but they insist that free board should. The state, however, does not provide board for her chil- dren as an act of charity ; she provides it as a necessary incident of their education. For ordinary children schooling is brought to their doors ; in some cases, where they live at an inconvenient distance, the pupils are transported daily to school at public expense, because it costs less to bring the children to school than to bring the school to the children. On the same principle, it is found to be more economical, as well as productive of better results, to instruct the deaf and the blind in cen- tral schools, paying for their food and shelter during the term, than it would be to bring the school to their doors or bring them daily to the school. The heads of schools generally insist that their work should be classed as educational and not charitable, but perhaps they themselves are some- times responsible to some extent for the erroneous classification. It may happen that they have at their service a state board of charities composed of intelligent, sympathetic men who take an active interest in the welfare of the school, make valuable suggestions, support them in their endeavors to obtain needed appropriations, and defend their good name against unwarranted attacks and unjust criticism. On the other hand, the state superintendent of public instruction may be a man who cares nothing for the interests of the special classes, performs his duties in connection with their education in a perfunctory manner, or neglects them altogether. There is a state in which that officer is required by law to visit the state school for the deaf once a year, but, as a matter of fact, he has visited it only twice in ten years. It is not strange under such circumstances that the Department] TERM "CHARITABLE" AS APPLIED TO EDUCATION ion authorities of the school should prefer the friendly visits, timely sugges- tions, and cordial support of the board of charities to the indifference of the department of education. As one head of a school writes : "In theory our connection with the Board of Charities is all wrong; in practice it could not be improved upon." Again, the school authorities may lend countenance to the objection- able classification by resting their claims for the support of the school upon motives of charity rather than of justice. There is a strong tempta- tion to do this, for an appeal to the feelings sometimes meets with a readier response than an appeal to the reason. The simple claim that the right of special classes to an education rests upon the same basis as that of ordinary children in public schools makes but a slight impression upon some legislators; while a stirring appeal to their humanity and compassion, presenting the education of the deaf or the blind as a work of benevolence and mercy, is likely to result in a "generous" appropriation. It may sometimes be desirable to have the co-operation and support of the state board of charities as well as the department of education in the work of our special schools. There may be occasions when the simple declaration of the right of the children and the duty of the state does not suffice, and it seems as if the very existence of a school would be endan- gered unless the chord of sympathy in the heart of the legislator is touched; but we should never lose sight of the injurious effect produced upon the general public, upon the parents and friends of the children to be taught, and upon the children themselves, whenever their education is allowed to be classed as charitable. What is the effect upon the public ? An erroneous impression of the character of the work and the nature of the schools is created and diffused. What is the effect upon the parents ? It arouses a prejudice against the school, and sometimes deters them from sending their children. What is the effect upon the pupils — the "bene- ficiaries of the state," as they are sometimes called ? If they realize the injustice and cruelty of the stigma thus placed upon them, it tends to humiliate and embitter them ; if they do not realize it, or realizing, com- plaisantly accept it, it harms them still more by tending to degrade and demoralize them, discouraging self-activity, and leading to dependence and pauperism. The latest state to place its schools for the deaf and the blind in the purely educational class is Virginia. This was done by the constitu- tional convention of 1902, after a full discussion of the merits of the case. The superintendent, Mr. William A. Bowles, reports that the effect of the change has been to increase the attendance, arouse the ambition of the pupils, elevate the tone of the school, and produce better work both in the schoolroom and in the workshop. IOI2 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special DISCUSSION William B. Wait, principal of The New York Institution for the Blind, New York city. — "How can the term 'charitable' be properly applied to the education of any children ? " This question presents three of the most important words in the English language : children, " for of such is the kingdom of heaven ; " education, the salvation of children and the hope of mankind ; charity, greater than hope and better than faith. The basic idea presented is that of classification. Right classification is a condition necessary to good results. Wrong classification gives imperfect results. Right classi- fication is necessarily scientific and helpful. Wrong classification is necessarily unscien- tific and harmful. Concretely, classification may be represented by the base of a right-angled triangle ; method, by the altitude ; and results by the hypothenuse. If classification be correctly extended and methods be poor, the side showing results will be disproportionate and inadequate ; likewise, if we have wrong classification and our methods be absolutely correct, still the side showing results will also be disproportionate and inadequate. Furthermore, error in classification will inevitably produce error in method. It should be observed that the proposition before us refers to no special class of children, but to all children: to those of the rich and of the poor; to the normal, abnormal, and subnormal ; to the vagrant child and the idiotic child. Can the term "charitable" be properly applied to the education of any of these children? If a certain stone be improperly classified as good building material, and be used in the construction of a house, it will make no difference to the stone, but may be of vital importance to the occupants of the house. If a farmer classifies his cow as a butter-maker, when its milk should go to the cheese factory, it is of no importance to the cow, but is of importance to the farmer, and to the butter or cheese factory. When, however, children of any class or condition are improperly classified, the inevitable resulting loss must first fall upon them ; and, as both by nature and by law they are incapable of self-defense, it becomes the duty of parents, of teachers, and of the administrative agencies of the state, not merely to shield them from physical harm, but to protect them from self-negation, social disparagement, and degradation. It is unfortunate that any educational institution should ever have deemed it necessary to accept classification as charitable for the sake of money considerations. Educational institutions, if classed as charitable, may get more legacies than they otherwise would ; but the cause of education cannot fail to be hindered and its standards lowered when money is received as charity. The education of all children is absolutely necessary to the well-being of the state, and they should be granted and should receive all things, whether directly essential or merely incidental to their education, as a matter of right and of sound public policy, and not as charity. If a maximum of good results is dependent upon right classification and correct methods, what must be the effect on a child if he be classed as a recipient of charity, when he should be encouraged to put forth every effort to be self-respecting and self- reliant ? If the word "charitable" were to be placed over every kindergarten, public school, and college in our land, the educational results would immediately be reduced to a minimum, and no claim or pretense of charity could prevent it. Why, then, should children bereft of one sense be classed in this way ? A gentleman once said to me: "Our charitable society is aiming to create the impression that we are using the term in the higher sense of 'good-will to men.'" The affections of love and good will, however, are exercised between persons whether of the same or of widely different situations in life, independent of those conditions of poverty and pecuniary need which are the sole basis for acts of charity. Moreover, a policy or system which incapaci- tates individuals for growth into true manhood is neither an expression of good-will nor of charity, and should have no recognition either in our statute or our common law. Department] TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF SENSE DEFECTS 1 013 In 1875 Dr. Samuel G. Howe, while principal of the Perkins Institution for the Blind and a member of the Massachusetts state board of charities, with great foresight secured the enactment by the Massachusetts Legislature of a statute recognizing the Per- kins Institution for the Blind as a distinctly educational institution, and placing it entirely under the jurisdiction of the educational authorities of the state. Surely no one will question the wisdom or the authority of Dr. Howe in a matter of this kind. It can safely be said that the only assurance of the largest success of the work of special schools, and the only hope for children who have been deprived of some of their faculties, rest upon the avoidance of this needless and false classification. As has been so clearly pointed out in the admirable paper of Professor Fay, there can be but one right answer, which is : the term "charitable " cannot justly be applied to the education of children. WHAT TEACHERS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SENSE DEFECTS AND IMPEDIMENTS I THE IMPORTANCE OF HEARING TESTS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS CLARENCE JOHN BLAKE, M. D., PROFESSOR OF OTOLOGY, MEDICAL DEPART- MENT, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. At the Medical Congress held in Philadelphia in 1876 there was made what was, so far as I am aware, the first public proposition in this country for the organized medical inspection of public schools; this proposition having in view, not merely protection from the contagious diseases inci- dent to childhood, but also the determination of sense defects with refer- ence to their amelioration or to the provision of compensatory education. This form of supervision, since generally adopted, has opened up a much larger sociological service than was at first expected of it, for, where medical inspection has been fairly established, the examiners find themselves confronted with questions of the proper seating of school children, of the provision of school lunches, of proper lighting, ventila- tion, and sanitary accommodations, and of the detection and setting aside for compensatory educational advantages of children whose defective sight or hearing puts them below the average of their fellows : and I am glad to have the opportunity of urging before your representative body a still more extended availment of the special knowledge of members of a profession of which it may be safely said that it stands eagerly ready for public service. The distinction between lack of perceptive capacity and lack of sense-transmission is frequently represented only by a thin and shadowy line, and the partition classification of dependent and imperfect children is often one of the most exacting of the moral responsibilities of the doctor. Children who are regarded as backward, or even idiotic, are sometimes found, on careful examination, to be merely creatures shut within themselves by the closure of normal channels of communication, 1014 XATIOXAL EDUCATIOXAL ASSOCIATIOX [Special and the bringing of such children into touch with the human companion- ship which makes life worth living is worth far more than all it costs time or effort. As an example of the value of co-operative work on the part of the medical and the teaching professions may be cited the conjoint action of the American Otological Society and the National Association of Teachers of Speech to the Deaf in undertaking a svstematic examination of all pupils in schools for the deaf thruout the United States. The pur- pose of this investigation is to provide, not for what might be called a census-taking, but for the establishment of continuous special medical examination of the pupils, first for their immediate advantage, and, secondlv, to make records upon a uniform basis suitable for comparison and tabulation. The work, already begun as a preliminarv investigation in the Horace Mann School, shows that out of one hundred and fifty children set apart by their infirmity and specially educated, fullv S per cent, are capable of being restored to an amount of hearing which will enable them, in some instances with the help of artificial aids to hearing, to take their places in the society of people of normal average hearing; while still others, to the extent of an additional 5 per cent., can be so far improved as to be materially aided in their power to acquire well-modulated articulation. Between 10 and 15 per cent, of these cases, in addition to those already mentioned, are found to illustrate the truth of the saying that disuse is abuse, for in them it is possible, by means of speaking-tubes and other appliances for the direct communication of sound to the perceptive organs, to awaken what may be called, for want of a better term, the latent hearing, and make it, if not a means of communication or con- secutive thought, at least useful for improvement of the articulation. With the continued prosecution of this investigation there is opened a large field for the study of the causes of high grades of deafness in young children, and one leading to better knowledge of possibilities of prevention. A pronounced need is more sure of being helpfully met than one which requires investigation for its detection, and it is precisely in this respect that the subject of sense-perception should be more care- fully studied in our public schools; the peripheral is far more common than the central defect, and is, moreover, amenable to remedial measures. The sense of hearing, in the normal individual, is so much a part of the involuntary perception system of the animal economy, and so little the subject of voluntary effort, except in the upper limit of overtone accommodation and in the determination of the direction of a sound source, that a moderate degree of diminution is liable to pass unnoticed. The bounty of nature provides us always with more than our actual need, and it is possible to lose nearly one-half of the normal hearing power, especially if this loss is so gradual as to permit of the formation of com- Department] TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF SENSE DEFECTS 1015 pensatory sense-habits, before the practical, basal, normal average is reached. This loss, however, implies something more than subtraction from the working power of a single sense. That impairment of the hearing power should be an inconvenience is readily understandable ; that it can make so large a demand upon the nervous energy as to be a source of fatigue needs personal experience or observation for its full appreciation. Before birth the cavity of the middle ear, containing the sound- transmitting mechanism, almost as fully developed as in adult life, is filled by a protective cushion of tissue, which usually disappears with the first cry ; and the human infant is apparently sensitive to sonorous vibra- tions within a few hours after its birth. The education of the brain thru the organ of hearing, therefore, begins at a very early period, and the habitual classification of sounds in reference to their cause, their indica- tive importance to the individual, and the location of the sound source is easily assured. The establishment of a perceptive habit implies provision for the expenditure of nervous energy along a given line, deviation from which necessitates a further expenditure of energy proportionate to the degree of deviation from what was formerly the line of least resistance. Changes in the tension of the sound-transmitting apparatus of the middle ear, and in its sound transmission incident to disease, may so alter or decrease the sounds perceived as to make them unfamiliar and needing explanation by a mental process ; and the total, or even partial, aboli- tion of the hearing power of one ear, the other remaining intact, may so far interfere with the ability to appreciate the direction of a sound source, which is one of the habits of normal binaural audition, as to be not only a cause of embarrassment but a serious demand upon the nervous energy as well. To the individual possessed of a reasonably perfect machine, the working limitations incident to possible imperfections in that machine are with difficulty appreciable by any merely mental process, and it is therefore only by the sufferers themselves, or by those whose business it is to study imperfections, effect repairs, and suggest compensations, that the full cost in expenditure of nervous energy required to overcome an obstacle, either to perception or to expression, can be adequately understood. With the abolition or limitation of one or another of the channels of communication thru the human machine, a portion of that nervous energy which is constantly seeking peripheral expression must be expended in the adjustment to the new conditions, and to the utilization, in a compensatory way, of other channels of communication. Give, therefore, a limitation of sight, of hearing, or of tactile sense, an expenditure of energy, in what way may be termed the conversion of force, is required, which evidences itself in the individual as that complex of symptoms to which we give the name of fatigue. 1016 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special That this fact should be better illustrated in children than in adults is readily understandable, and special examination of large numbers of children within the school age shows a greater percentage of cases of impairment of hearing, accompanied by fatigue symptoms, than might be supposed upon the basis of ordinary observation. Of a large number of cases of partial deafness, ocurring in children under sixteen years of age, the causative diseases are amenable to treat- ment, with more or less improvement in hearing ; while an examination into the etiology of partial deafness in children shows that the diseases of the middle ear are its most frequent cause, and, furthermore, that many cases of partial deafness are due either to sub-acute or chronic catarrhal inflammation of the middle ear, or to the purulent inflammation, accom- panied by perforation of the drum head, which follows the simple acute inflammation, or occurs as one of the sequelae of the exanthematous diseases of childhood. This general rule is subject to certain differences, in differing classes of society. Among the wealthier classes, for instance, which perhaps merit our attention less in this connection, because their children are educated more frequently in private than in public schools, the diseases of the ear accompanied by partial deafness and more or less amenable to treatment, in children .under sixteen years of age, amount to but 7.8 per cent, of the whole number of cases of ear disease in children and adults taken together. Of this number, making the 7.8 per cent, of the whole, 76 per cent, are traceable to the exanthematous diseases of childhood, especially scarlet fever, and in 56 per cent, there is found an existing purulent inflammation of the middle ear, requiring treatment, and causing a suf- ficient degree of deafness to interfere with the patient's participation in the ordinary school exercises, on equal terms with other children. Among the middle and poorer classes the proportion of diseases of the ear in children is largely increased, and it is these classes which we have particularly to consider, since they more generally avail themselves of the advantages offered by public instruction. Out of a thousand cases of disease of the ear, examined in patients of this category, 24.95 per cent, ocurred in children under fourteen years of age. Of this number 49.8 per cent, were examples of purulent inflammation of the middle ear; 10.5 per cent., of the cases of purulent inflammation being due to scarlet fever. As many as 23. 6 per cent, of the cases of disease of the ear in children were examples of either acute or chronic catarrhal inflamma- tion of the middle ear. This brief analysis is sufficient to show the much greater prevalence of such diseases of the ear as are liable to induce partial deafness in the children belonging to those classes in society which depend for their instruction on the advantages offered by our public schools. A more minute analysis of the material offered affords interesting Department] TEACHERS' KNOWLEDGE OF SENSE DEFECTS 1017 information as to the general causes, and the average course and results, of diseases of the ear in children. It may be remarked, however, that in the analysis given only those cases are included in which the deafness was not so decided as to interfere with the acquirement of articulation, or even with the use of the ear as a medium for instruction. The number of cases of positive deaf-mutism, and of cases in which, while there was a certain degree of hearing, it was so slight as to render instruction in articulation necessary, was 4.9 per cent, of all the cases in children examined. The average age of all the children examined was about nine years. In addressing any audience, it is always noticeable that some individu- als give evidence of imperfect hearing, either by turning one ear toward the speaker, by supplementing the receptive capacity of the auricle by means of the hand, or by an effort at strained attention in watching the lips of the speaker. Such evidence in a roomful of children would permit the selection of these individuals for more careful tests as to their hearing power, and for their further examination by a medical expert selected for that purpose and regularly appointed to the discharge of that duty. It should be the further duty of this officer to keep a careful record, prefer- ably an indexed card record, of his examinations, of the reference of cases to hospitals or infirmaries, and of the* result of treatment; for, since the public school is a secondary home, and in large community centers with a foreign population especially so, there is afforded an opportunity, in addition to that of moral and intellectual training, for the betterment of the machine in which the child lives and learns, and in which, as a citizen, it must wage its battle of life. With the considerable and increasing demands made upon the teach- ing staff of our public schools, it is very plain that the burden of special examination into physical defects — except selectively — should not be placed upon the teacher. For selection purposes the tests may be of the simplest, and applicable, with but little addition, to the routine of class- room work. As an example may be taken the rules for hearing tests formulated for the department of physical training of the Summer School of Harvard University, and already published. These rules lay special stress upon the value of the voice as a hearing test, and, while not an instrument of pre- cision, it is, in the case of a school-teacher, the sound to which the children are expected to listen and by which they are largely trained. as well as taught. Human speech is made up of a series of vocal sounds, all within a short compass, which are modified, obstructed, or terminated by changes of position in the articulating apparatus, to the effect of which we give the name of consonant checks. A superficial study of these checks shows that some of them are formed in the front, some of them in the middle, and some in the back of the mouth ; that they are, with few and IOI8 NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION [Special slight exceptions, accompanied by a greater or less degree of resonance in the nasal and pharyngeal cavity, and that they vary considerably in the amount of muscular energy required for their production ; and, further- more, that the principal distinction to the ear between such consonant sounds as are similar in character is due to the greater or less preponder- ance of a small number of qualitative overtones. Further than this, we are aware that the consonant sounds which nearly resemble each other, in both force and musical value, are produced by the co-ordinating operation of very nearly the same sets of muscles, and therefore are accompanied by very nearly the same facial expressions. Given, therefore, an average case of marked impairment of hearing, the result of a slowly progressive middle-ear disease, the patient will hear most readily the consonant sounds which require most force in their pro- duction; these include four explodents — /, d, p, and b — which very nearly resemble each other in force and tone value; they are, however, formed in the front of the mouth,/) and b being distinctly labial, and /and