HE gentlemen who advertise in Ungraded have no desire to lead you into unnecessary purchases. They are dealing with you, the only owners of Ungraded, in a spirit of co-operation. They know that it costs money to run a magazine, and that a successful magazine in their field is worth money. For instance, Mr. C. G. Putnam has expressed his willingness to help out to the extent of this half page in connection with the book Backward Children, by Barbara Spofford-Morgan, with an introduction by Elizabeth E. Farrell, published by the Putnams. You will be buying certain books this year, just as usual to keep up to date. We can think of no happier plan than to select and place these and other necessary purchases with the men who are helping make Ungraded possible. It looks fair all around. You will find them all courteous and cordial glad to serve you personally, as well as through Ungraded. And do not forget to mention the magazine when you order-that puts a rose in the hard road of the Ad man.

Kindergarten Materials and Kindred Supplies

FOR

Ungraded Classes

HAMILTON WEAVING MATS

Linen mats with gray borders, black and white strips, and colored wooden weavers.

STEIGER'S HOME BUILDING BOX

A substantial wooden box, containing 123 two-inch kindergarten blocks for free play, weighing only 25 lbs.

EXTRA LARGE SIZE STICKS

inch thick, 1 to 10 inches long, larger than the enlarged kindergarten sticks, but neither as large nor expensive as the "Long Stair."

Linen squares with embossed perforated lines,

NATURE STUDY AND OBJECT TEACHING CHARTS.

KINDERGARTEN CATALOGS MAILED GRATIS UPON REQUEST. CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO SPECIAL MATERIAL AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW IDEAS SOLICITED.

E. STEIGER & CO.

49 Murray Street, New York

P. O. Box 1905

Telephone, Barclay 6133-6134

UNGRADED

THE UNGRADED TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK CITY ELIZABETH E. FARRELL, Inspector of Ungraded Classes, President

Published monthly, excepting July, August and September, at the Hall of the Board of Education, 500 Park Avenue, New York City. Subscription, $1.50. single copy $0.20. Entered at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., as secondclass matter

101

103

The Teacher's Relationship to an Important City Problem HON. JOHN A. KINGSBURY,

Commissioner of Public Charities of the City of New York

The matter of provision for the feeble-minded and of the relation of the different agencies involved represents at best a most complicated problem and nowhere is it more intricate than in the City of New York. The Department of Public Charities of this city carries the burden of the care of some 2,000 mentally defective children and while the city is paying 70 per cent. of the taxes of the State and comprises 60 per cent. of the population, it is allotted only 30 per cent. of the beds in the various State institutions. In other words, the city takes care of most of its own feebleminded and in addition pays 50 per cent. of the cost of care of all the feeble-minded from the rest of the State. The inability of the City to transfer children to State institutions and the lack of any suitable institution sufficiently near at hand to permit visits from parents necessitates maintaining a population of dependent defective children over 400 in excess of the capacity of the institution.

This condition also limits the ability of the City to receive as many children reported by the teachers of Ungraded classes as both the teachers and the Department would desire. It does not, however, lessen in the least the Department's appreciation of the very extensive contribution which these classes are making to the serious task of making provision for the feeble-minded of the City. Many of the higher grades of feebleminded children whose home surroundings are such as permit of their receiving reasonably satisfactory care are thus kept from becoming residents in a public institution. In view of the serious overcrowding of the City's only institution for the feeble-minded, it would perhaps be wise for the present to stretch a point in the direction of keeping the child with its parents and in the Ungraded classes even though the home surroundings are not entirely satisfactory. The teachers in the Ungraded schools by reporting any feeble-minded child in need of institutional care to this Department and by writing to their member of the legislature calling his attention to the need for additional State provision for the care of these children will make a further contribution to the problem of providing for the feeble-minded of this City.

For those children who are of such a grade of mentality that they cannot be properly cared for at home or whose home conditions are impossible, the process of commitment is first to make application at one of the district offices of the Bureau of Social Investigations which is the receiving division of the Department. These applications will then be

investigated and a report submitted to the Central Office of the Bureau, at Centre and Pearl Streets, where action thereon will be taken. If the investigation shows that the parents are unable to pay for the care of the child in a private institution or to care for him at home, or that he is a menace or in other respects an insuperable impediment to normal family life, he will be received by the Department and transferred to Randall's Island in case it is impossible to secure admission to a proper State institution for the feeble-minded. All cases received by the Department are first examined by the clinic for atypical children in connection with Bellevue Hospital and action of the Department depends in large part upon the diagnosis made at this clearing-house for mental defectives.

Malnutrition in School Children

CHESTER A. MATHEWSON, PH.D.,

Brooklyn Training School for Teachers, New York City

The subject of normal nutrition is of interest to every individual on practical or theoretical grounds. It is of especially interest to teachers in so far as the problem of nutrition has its social and particularly its educational aspects. Malnutrition should be considered by teachers in their capacity as social workers as an important phase of the problem of nutrition in general. For teachers of Ungraded classes the subject is of peculiar importance, because there seems to be a close correlation between mental retardation and malnutrition. It is said that malnutrition is from two to three times as common among backward children as among normal Malnutrition is commoner with some races than with others. Many studies have been made of the prevalence of this disease and the results would seem to show that the younger children of school age suffer the most. The figures collected show that in various groups and places the percentage of children subject to the disease varies from three to sixteen.

The child is a growing organism-hence his feeding is of even greater importance than the nutrition of the adult. Marked deficiencies in feeding will surely bring marked and lasting results. It should be recalled that a child needs food for all the purpose for which adults need it, and in addition needs it to supply the building materials used in growth. A child of six weighing fifty pounds or only a third of the weight of an adult needs a ration approximating one-half that of the adult. A child of twelve needs almost the same amount of food as an adult.

In malnutrition the fatty tissues are the first to suffer, hence there is a loss of the pleasing rounded contour of the healthy child. He becomes thin and pale and below the normal in weight. Sometimes the facial expression is thin and pinched, but a badly nourished child may have a face of normal appearance owing to the presence of subnormal fat under the skin. The state of nutrition, according to Dr. Walter Cornell, may be judged in general in three ways: (1) By the relation of age, height, and weight. This relation cannot safely be used independently of other factors owing to racial or family idiosyncrasies. Southern Europeans, e. g., are likely to have children who might appear subnormal in comparison with children of parents coming from the north of Europe. The child from some group therefore may be underweight according to the table, but he is not necessarily underfed. If he is underweight, additional evidence is to be sought in order to make a proper diagnosis. (2) The quality of the blood as judged by the hemoglobin content and the red corpuscle count.