But gradually the belief strengthened that some of them must not go back to their homes, even if improved. So one individual after another has been retained, until now the school holds all grades from custodial idiotic cases to the brighter feeble-minded children whose education has shown physical, mental and moral development. This policy, while, in important respects, it is for the welfare both of the feeble-minded and the State, crowds the school and unduly prevents the admission of new cases. The question of how far State control shall extend over the feeble-minded has thus become a serious one. Shall the State keep in perpetual kind custody the lowest class of defectives? How far shall the education of the higher grades extend? Shall the State permit these to be returned to their homes when brighter and stronger? Who shall decide, when doctors and philanthropists disagree? Questions like these have to be met and decided, notwithstanding the perplexities attending them. Two lessons have already been learned: (1) the impossibility of drawing a sharp line between the highest grades of the feeble-minded and the lowest grades of normal boys and girls; and (2) the civilizing power of love and cleanliness, — an old lesson, but never receiving more pathetic illustration than when the institution bell rings for meals and the inmates form in a so-called line. The economic bearing of this matter is most complicated in the school department, where the mode of education is so fascinating and its results so enticing that one is tempted to forego the question of their cost in admiration of their value. The kindergarten takes many at the age of eight or ten. Fully fifty per cent. of the higher feeble-minded are capable of receiving a great deal of book instruction. While object lessons are often the beginning and end of their education, others progress to spelling, writing, intelligent reading of elementary history, an understanding of simple nature studies, and at sixteen are often the equals of children of ten. Manual training and gymnastics also have greatly aided the pupils in their capacity for usefulness. The first and last point aimed at in this school, in both of its departments, is that of making both the weakest and the brightest feel a desire to do something they have not done before. "Progressive desire," to use psychological terms, is the result of months of patient teaching, minute training and endless ingenuity. In connection with the management of the feeble-minded there is a responsibility for the consequences of heredity, as well as for possible pauperism and crime, which the State must share with individuals, and which, therefore, merits the consideration of the State as well as of this Board. KATE GANNETT WELLS, for the Board. |