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not harsh or overbearing, any more than with the normal child. To a teacher who lacks tact and power to persistently and constantly carry on her work along lines of least resistance as indicated in the individual child there is danger of her being over indulgent with the epileptic child or being unkind in her attitude toward the afflicted one.

I have been told by a teacher of considerable experience with these defectives that it is much more difficult to overcome the mental habits of an epileptic child who has been over indulged than it is to teach one who has simply been neglected.

A boy 15 years of age, suffering from infantile paralysis, involving one-half of his body, had been the victim of circumstances which existed from the boy being also subjected to epileptic seizures that prevented him from receiving instruction. During his first year in school little progress was noted, but during the beginning of the second year he asked his teacher if he might try and read a page on the chart, which request was granted and he was soon able to read fairly well in the First Reader. If the teacher of the epileptic child will be patient, tactful, persistent and intelligent in her efforts there will seldom be presented an epileptic child, unless one who is absolutely defective mentally, who cannot make some progress in school work and as already mentioned, in many instances quite satisfactory advancement.

In a recent spelling match held at the Colony between the boys and the girls, it was of interest to note the manner in which these children participated in the contest. They displayed as much, if not more, interest than would be displayed by children of normal mentality and were able, on the whole, to render results quite comparable with those expected from the normal child. The writing done by many of these epileptic children when they have the opportunity to gain some experience is just as good as that seen in the ordinary school room.

The fact which cannot be too strongly impressed upon those having these children under their care is that hand in hand with the school work should go the care and supervision of a competent physician to regulate the living conditions of the child. There must be outlined a careful hygienic mode of life to be consistently adhered to so that the child may approach as nearly as possible the normal physical condition, thus enabling him to re

sist to a marked extent often times the effect of certain deleterious influences acting upon his physical makeup. This careful supervision can naturally better be given in a special institution where the child is under observation during the entire 24 hours, than can be given in the ordinary home.

In summarizing the results of school work with epileptic children, the fact should be borne in mind that when an epileptic child has a seizure there is, as a rule, a marked interference with his mental process, so that it is difficult or impossible for him at such periods to acquire knowledge. Furthermore, the knowledge acquired a short time previous to the occurrence of a seizure or series of seizures may be entirely blotted out, necessitating the teacher's repeating the instruction given during this entire period.

Ordinarily, however, excluding the occurrence of seizures and giving due weight to the presence of a mental defect the work of instructing epileptic children is much more encouraging as to its results than is often thought for.

I do not wish to go on record as claiming that the average epileptic child may be brought into school work and results obtained which compare absolutely with those of a normal child, but I do manitain that a large percentage of epileptic children carefully selected and under proper conditions can do quite satisfactory school work in the lower scholastic branches, and in most of the manual branches and that a comparatively small percentage of epileptics can carry on advanced school work to a very satisfactory degree. From time to time I have seen epileptics well advanced in years who have had their disorder since early childhood and who nevertheless had acquired a University Degree, standing well in their classes during their college work.

I wish to reiterate that the work in the manual branches should receive more attention in proportion than should the ordinary scholastic work, with due allowance for the acquiring of the ability to read and write and carry on simple calculations. While persistence, optimism and tact in the efforts of the teacher should be ever in mind in carrying on school work with any class of children, they are especially necessary in conducting work among those who are afflicted with epilepsy, and as a consequence have a retardation of their mental activities and a narrowing of their psychic sphere.

ECONOMY IN SCHOOL ADMINISTRATION

ANNUAL ADDRESS DELIVERED BY WILLIAM L. ETTINGER, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

BEFORE ASSOCIATE SUPERINTENDENTS, DISTRICT SUPERINTENDENTS, DIRECTORS AND INSPECTORS OF SPECIAL BRANCHES, TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1921

While the rapid development of the City of New York, with a population of approximately 6,000,000 people distributed over an area of 316 square miles, with a school population of 860,000 pupils, equal to the aggregate school population of Boston, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and St. Louis, has thrown into prominent relief the educational service as the most vital agency to the support of which the municipality is committed, the result has also been to place education, as regards financial support, in keen competition with the numerous other important civic activities and has made it imperative that the educational authorities justify their demand for practically 25 cents of every dollar raised through the taxation of real and personal property. Although primarily a state function, education is none the less a grave municipal responsibility for the maintenance of which the Board of Education during the coming year will demand, exclusive of funds for sites and buildings financed through the issue of corporate stock, the vast sum of approximately $89,000,000. A generous conviction as to the supreme value of educational service to the community has been the basis of generous financial support. But lest there be an abuse of such confidence, I deem it my duty to urge you, to whom the administration of the schools is entrusted, to do all within your power to study wherein economies may be effected.

In thus taking as my theme the matter of economy in school administration, I am influenced by the recent emphasis upon thrift during the World War and also by the existing financial condition of our city, which has been made the subject of legislative investigation. I sincerely trust that you will consider the matter as one worthy of your continuing attention throughout the school year, because, in the last analysis, our practices, however excellent, are constantly in need of careful scrutiny and the rapidly mounting cost of education renders it advisable that our expenditures be closely analyzed not only by a considera

tion of the ends to be attained but also of the methods to be pursued. As every educational need casts an inseparable financial shadow, we must not only provide for the extension of educational service, but we must make every endeavor, through the reorganization and the careful conduct of our work, to make certain that not one penny is demanded or expended in excess of the needs of the service. In the use of our funds and in our requests for further financial support neither extravagance nor parsimony, but economy and efficiency should control. In the last analysis, our problem, as set by the demands of an intelligent community, is not to find out how cheaply the schools may be operated, but how wisely funds can be expended to insure the accomplishment of desirable ends.

With your indulgence, therefore, I will briefly describe several phases of our work in which certain economies are apparently possible, leaving to the fullness of your daily experience and to your keen perception of professional duty, the task of filling in the details of the picture.

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WASTE DUE TO CRUDE CLASSIFICATION OF OUR PUPILS

Lest this discourse become too materialistic in tone, let me hasten to explain that I would have you regard the problem of waste from still another viewpoint, for even more important than the improvident use of supplies and equipment is the waste of the energy of the teacher and the pupil, due to our failure to individualize instructions because of the crude way in which we classify our pupils and measure their achievements.

As I have elsewhere pointed out, perhaps the most characteristic advance in school administration during recent years has been the rejection of the assumption that all children are practically alike in physical and mental endowments and also that children with marked physical defects of sight, hearing, or limb have no place in the public schools. Today progressive school administration requires that an earnest effort be made to sort our children on a scientific basis, so that group instruction may still be consistent with recognition of the fact that as regards physical and mental traits, one group differs widely from another. Up to the present perhaps the greatest waste in education has been due to the crude classification of pupils. A vast

amount of time, energy, and money is wasted whenever masses of children are grouped without regard to those physical and mental characteristics which individualize them and yet which, when properly recognized and made the basis of grouping, permit class instruction to be carried on very profitably.

If we are to eliminate waste, children of widely different abilities must not be grouped in unit classes. The child with defective vision, the stammerer, the cardiac, and the mental defective must not be placed in severe scholastic competition with normal children. A violation of this principle of organization means as regards the children, not only extreme personal discouragement and the loss of self-esteem and self-confidence, but also considerable expense to the city because such children are repeaters in the grades. The proper classification and segregation of such children is therefore desirable, not only from an ethical but also from an economical standpoint.

In addition to such efforts to make definite segregation of pupils with marked physical and mental defects, a striking feature of the administration of our most progressive elementary schools and high schools has been the application of tests that bespeak an earnest effort to group children on the basis of their ability in order that they may more fully derive the benefits of instruction and in order that their achievements may be measured by definite standards of attainment, instead of by the unstandardized judgment of the average teacher. Exceptional work in this regard has been done in many of our schools and my sincere hope is that a greater number of progressive elementary school and high school principals will carefully study the problem.

The average class organization in many of our schools is susceptible of great improvement. In many instances poor classification results in great waste. The poorly graded pupils make a fruitless effort to profit by instruction and the ineffectiveness of her work carries the conscientious teacher to the verge of nervous exhaustion. Not infrequently it would appear that the mode of organizing classes in a grade is exclusively a mathematical one of dividing the grade register by the average class register of forty, in total disregard of the distressing truth that the resulting class units are merely promiscuous groups of pupils showing the widest variations of age and ability. An analysis

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