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the feeble-minded child would not be the best type of training to give to a backward child, or a normal child with specific pedagogical handicaps, or a speech defective who is not feeble-minded. And it is evident that if all types of misfit pupils are placed in the same class it will be difficult to do justice to any one type. It is therefore necessary in the interest of the individual child who cannot be reached by the ordinary curriculum, and in the interest of the economic administration of the schools, that the differentiations must be drawn as finely and accurately as possible, so that pupils subject to the same type of disability or degree of subnormality may be grouped together.

The attempt to supply this need has brought the pyscho-educational examiner, or clinical psychologist, into the service of the public schools; and to the solution of this task Dr. Wallin devotes a considerable portion of this book. Dr. Wallin has for many years enjoyed unparalleled opportunities in the first-hand study of a great variety of types of mentally and educationally abnormal children, not only in residential institutions, but also in large public-school systems, and he has had a wide experience in the training of teachers for normal and subnormal children and in the administration of public-school classes for subnormal children. In this book he has outlined more clearly and adequately than has hitherto been done a plan for the organization of various types of special and ungraded classes to meet the needs of different types of exceptional children, and has had an opportunity to subject the plan to a practical test in the St. Louis public schools, where it has been possible gradually to adopt many of the recommendations of the book. One of the significant results of the examinations conducted by Dr. Wallin in the St. Louis schools during the past three

years has been the notable shrinkage in the estimate of the number of our elementary pupils supposed to be feeble-minded. We had been led to believe that at least two per cent. of these pupils were feeble-minded. We do not find that the number of pupils requiring special help is smaller than we had supposed, but the great majority of these pupils are backward instead of feeble-minded. We are accordingly organizing different types of ungraded classes to meet the needs of these pupils. Of these classes we now have almost fifty, which is about twice the number of our classes for mental defectives. ~

This book on the "Problems of Subnormality," however, is not restricted merely to the consideration of the educational questions, but also considers the social, civic, industrial, criminological, and eugenic questions affecting different types of abnormal children—the feebleminded, backward, epileptic, blind, deaf, speech-defective, crippled, psychopathic - which are of vital moment to the individual concerned and to the family, the state, and the nation. The book deals with the increase of our most important national asset, the man power of the nation, and comes as a timely contribution to the literature of national preparedness. It has a vital message for the school administrator no less than for the teacher of defective children, and also for the psychologist, physician, penologist, social worker, and lawmaker. The author is a careful investigator who has not been stampeded into extravagant statements by some of the publications of the day.

JOHN W. WITHERS.

CHAPTER ONE

CHANGING ATTITUDES TOWARD THE
SUBNORMAL

HISTORY OF THE CARE, TRAINING, AND STUDY OF FEEBLEMINDED AND BACKWARD CHILDREN

THE

HE attitude which society has assumed toward its feeble-minded members, and the consequent treatment which it has accorded them, has varied from time to time. Roughly we may recognize four historical epochs in the social care and educational training of the feebleminded.

1. The Ancient Period

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During ancient times the feeble-minded, generally speaking, were regarded with indifference, contempt, or aversion and became the objects of ridicule and often of extreme cruelty. The feeble-minded were regarded as persons who stood outside the pale of the humankind, having forfeited all human rights either because they were demons possessed," "accursed of the gods," or because they were private, peculiar (hence "idiots " 1), solitary persons who were unable to see, hear, feel, know, or do anything, and who therefore were extra-social, incapable of human intercourse. On such a theory it is not at all surprising that the "idiots " not only were treated with cruel neglect and indignity, but that they became the objects of

1 The word "idiot" originally meant a private person, then a humble person, and later one who was unskilled or clumsy, while today it refers to the lowest grade of the feeble-minded, say those not exceeding a mentality of two years.

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heartless persecution or extermination. In point of fact, idiots and imbeciles were often allowed to perish from deliberate exposure to death perils. They were abandoned in the mountains to starve or to be devoured by wild animals, or they were thrown in the rivers, or, it may be assumed, executed outright. The practice of infanticide of both the fit and the unfit was, no doubt, indulged in secretly by the ancients just as it is practiced secretly in modern times. But the deliberate neglect or abandonment of idiots to their fate was countenanced by the laws of Lycurgus, and was openly practiced by the Spartans. Cicero intimates that the practice also flourished among the Romans. The Greeks, a race of ancient eugenists, probably were actuated by eugenic motives. The Greek philosophers had observed how nature, operating through the law of natural selection, permitted only the fittest to survive. In legalizing the deliberate extermination of the feebly gifted by a process of social selection, the Spartans probably considered that they were merely applying a natural law to the conduct of human affairs. Undoubtedly the motive, in part at least, was the desire to prevent racial degeneration through the breeding of contaminated stock.

Evidences are not lacking, however, that a more tolerant attitude was assumed toward the feeble-minded even in ancient times. Use was frequently made of them as objects of diversion or amusement in the homes of the more affluent among the Romans. Seneca's wife is said to have kept a blind imbecile (fatua) for purposes of entertainment. They became the entertainers at the receptions of the wealthy classes. Moreover, it has been asserted that a few of the feeble-minded among the ancients occupied positions of honor and influence in the state and that

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