and they gain confidence with each article made. Many of the older girls have learned to use the commercial patterns and cut out their work with very little supervision. We feel that sewing is one of the best means of teaching concentration, and while girls of this type may never hope to hold positions where their knowledge of sewing will be of use, yet through it they have learned to concentrate and apply themselves. Several girls who have been in our care are now earning eight and nine dollars a week and are not only holding their own with supposedly normal girls but are working up to better positions, proving that they are making good. One girl who left us in June, 1913, began work in the German-American Button Factory as a sorter at five dollars a week. She is now earning from ten to twelve dollars a week on piece work. Another girl is in Adler's Clothing Factory. Another is in Bausch and Lomb's Optical Works. Still another in the Rochester Candy Works. All these girls have started at five dollars a week and are getting increases as they work on.

KATHERINE M. HOYT,
Rochester, N. Y.

THE VALUE OF THE WRITER PRESS

The truly successful and up-to-date institution or school of today is checked up, regulated and protected by its recording system. Such a system requires the use of many blank report forms which vary in accordance with their purpose and use. In our institution we use about thirty different report forms. Some are made out daily, some weekly and a few monthly. The greater number of our reports, however, are made out daily. In addition to these, we use many blanks in the ordering and issuing of supplies and in the keeping of such records as are necessary in the running of a school.

This short résumé of our recording system gives one a fair idea of the number of blank forms used in our institution daily, and also makes a fitting preface to the real subject which I wish to bring to your attention, namely, the writer press and its practical use in a school.

As everyone may not be familiar with the writer press, a short description or explanation of its construction and use may help to make clear its real utility and training value. The writer press is a practical substitute for a printing press, and as compared with it in price, its cost is only about one fifth that of a regular printing press.

In construction it is very simple and easily within the range of children to operate, its operation being similar to that of a regular printing press. The setting of the type in "chases" is the first and most difficult part of the whole process. In our school it is only a very small percentage of the children who are able to do this part of the work in a practical way,—about one in every thirty children. We grade typesetting as our highest achievement along English lines, for, in this work in order really to accomplish

results with reasonable speed, children must have a fair knowledge of spelling, capitalization and punctuation, and must be able to make practical use of such knowledge. These requirements are what makes the percentage of children capable of doing the work so small.

The printing is very much easier to do, and the taking down and sorting of the type, a task which follows the printing.

In a public school the quick and accurate-minded children would be the best typesetters, while the less competent would be able to complete the process of printing.

In operating the writer press, after the type has been set in the "chase" and the form is complete, the chase is then placed in the carrier of the machine in readiness for printing which is the second step. A ribbon quite like a typewriter ribbon is stretched over the form. The paper, letter-head or blank which is to be printed is then placed upon the ribbon directly over the form and a rubber roller which is held in place by "eccentrics" and regulated by thumbscrews is then pushed forward over the form. This roller is fitted with a handle which is manipulated by the right hand. The compression of the roller, the paper and the ribbon upon the form causes the impression to be made upon the paper and your copy is printed. After the completion of this second step of printing, the third step is made in the following manner. The roller is pushed forward in the carriage until it touches a spring and releases itself. It is then returned to its place in readiness for printing the next copy. By means of two finger attachments of steel, it brings back the first copy and deposits it in a tray beneath the machine which is especially made for the purpose. A small attachment fastened to the control rod registers each copy as it is deposited in the tray. Therefore at the end of a period any one can tell at a glance just how many copies have been printed. From a form as many copies may be made as may be desired. In printing up our daily report blanks, we make about four thousand copies at a time.

Very often we print up letter forms for the superintendent which are so nearly like a dictated typewritten letter that the difference is hardly detectable. The Oliver typewriter duplicates exactly the print of the writer press, so we are able to write the contents of a letter on the writer press, making as many copies as are needed and then by inserting the salutation. on our typewriter the result is that each copy looks as if it had been dictated to, and written by, a private stenographer.

In a period of eight school months we made forty-four thousand five hundred and fifty copies from fifty-four different forms. This included both blank forms and letters and a few special bulletins. Nine children, three girls and six boys, did the work, each child spending one hour daily in the writer press room. Three set the type and the others did the printing and taking down of the type.

From an educational viewpoint this was splendid training for these children and from a financial point it was a decided saving to the school.

Our writer press cost about two hundred dollars and has been in constant use since May, 1911. In this time it has been necessary to replace a few of the worn parts but only a comparatively few considering the length of time it has been in use and the amount of work which has been turned out upon it during that time, a period of nearly five years.

The yearly cost for running expenses of the machine has averaged about twelve dollars a year. This has included new type, leads, ribbons and the replacement of broken parts. The ribbons are the most expensive. They cost a dollar and fifty cents each. They need to be replenished in accordance with use. If forms are long and full of type, the ribbons wear out rapidly. If, on the contrary, the forms consist mostly of headings, lines, dots and dashes and are short, the ribbons will last for three or more months. In order to avoid poor printing and real damage to the machine, it is necessary for a teacher to understand the mechanics of the writer press very thoroughly. Just now a pupil teacher is in charge of our printing department. This is an excellent thing both for her and for myself. Yet I can not expect her to understand the finer workings of the machine. I have made it my business to know the minutest detail of the machine and now it only takes a fraction of my time to keep it in first-class condition.

I cannot too highly recommend the use of the writer press, and I feel confident that once a school came to try it out it would prove of such value, either to an institution or a public school that henceforth they would hesitate to get along without it. The typewriter and the writer should go hand in hand. Together they would facilitate and perfect even the most complete and difficult of recording systems.

ALICE MORRISON NASH,

The Training School, Vineland, New Jersey.

A book full of good suggestions for handwork is Ella V. Dobbs' Primary Handwork, Macmillan Company.

All the suggestions given relate to things of immediate value and use to the children themselves rather than to those considered useful from the adult point of view.

The old method of dictation and patterns is not advocated, for the end aimed at is not the resulting forms but the development to be gained by the child through constant self-expression.

E. V. T.

EDITORIAL

MENTALLY SUBNORMAL CHILDREN AND THE CHILD LABOR LAWS

All connected with the administration of laws governing school attendance and the employment of children, are keenly alive to the difficulties in enforcing these provisions in the case of mentally subnormal children. As special care for children of this type is a comparatively new thing, it is not surprising to find that many of the child labor laws are silent with respect to this class of children or specifically exempt them from the protection accorded to all other children.

Framers of our laws apparently have considered these children either hopelessly unable to grasp instruction, no matter what its character, or so afflicted as to make it incumbent upon the state to permit them to go to work without regard to their inadequate preparation for industrial pursuits. Surprising as it may seem, even school officials have been known to fall into this unfortunate mental attitude and have urged the making of exceptions in the law to permit backward children to obtain working papers when not able to satisfy the educational requirements, on the ground that they would never be able to comply with the law no matter how long they remained at school. In the opinion of such persons, factory work would apparently be the salvation of these subnormal pupils, thus failing to realize that they are able to enter only the lowest of the unskilled occupations in which most children under sixteen engage. Such employment not infrequently opens the door to temptations which the subnormal child has not strength of mind enough to withstand. The Federal investigation of the relation between employment and delinquency among children showed that "working children furnish a greater number of delinquents, both absolutely and relatively, than the non-workers." This condition, it is obvious, would be particularly true with respect to mental deficients.

Scientific research of recent years into this whole subject has happily resulted in a more constructive view of this problem. Instead of considering these children as troublesome pupils to be pushed out in industry ahead of normal children, enlightened educators have found that children can benefit materially by special instruction. As a result, these children are being more and more regarded as particular wards of the state, to be kept under school supervision, at least until they are sixteen, and longer if possible. Considered from this standpoint, mental deficients deserve special attention to help them overcome, as far as it may be possible, the handicap under which they must maintain their place in society throughout their lives. Thus special classes for backward and mental subnormal children have been established in many cities.

This type of pupil seems to be increasing, either actually or as the result of more careful methods of selective study of children in our schools.

The head of a leading custodial institution for defectives is authority for the statement that "it is very noticeable that during the past decade the type of the feeble-minded coming to our doors for admission has greatly changed and that, whereas ten years ago 80 per cent were idiots and imbeciles and only 20 per cent border-line cases or morons, now only 20 per cent are of the idiot and imbecile class and 80 per cent morons and borderline cases. The question may, therefore, well be raised whether our child labor laws should not make special provision for them, as has already been accomplished in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. In the former a medical inspector of each school district, must examine mentally deficient children and, if the examination shows them to be fit subjects for education and training, the state must provide such instruction. In New Jersey, the law makes mandatory the establishment of special classes for children who are three years or more below the normal grade. It is clear that such a statute, to be effective, should make compulsory both special classes and the attendance of such children upon them.

In view of the tremendous burden which mentally defective adults bring upon the state in the way of reformatory and hospital care, no thoughtful person can fail to realize the importance of proper education being given to such persons when they are young. Surely no agency can more appropriately provide the proper training, which should include suitable industrial instruction, for mentally subnormal children, than can the public school system of the state.

GEORGE A. HALL,

Secretary of the New York Child Labor Committee.

The last legislature of the state of Missouri authorized the governor to appoint a Children's Code Commission, to recommend to the legislature of 1917 a complete code of laws relating to children. The commission has organized with the following committees and sub-chairmen: present laws, Professor Manley O. Hudson; statistics and social conditions, C. A. Ellwood; public administration, Professor Isidor Loeb; delinquent children, Mr. Rodger N. Baldwin; defective children, Dr. J. E. Wallace Wallin; destitute and neglected children, Dr. George B. Mangold; child labor and education, Mr. A. E. Johnston; health and recreation, Mrs. P. N. Moore; and education, Superintendent H. A. Gass. Chairman of the Commission, Judge Rhodes E. Cave.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Courses for Teachers in the Correction of Speech Defects by Mrs. Edward W. Scripture will be giyen at Columbia University, Teachers College, Summer Session 1916; and demonstrations at the Vanderbilt Clinic on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, at two o'clock, by arrangement with Mrs. Scripture.