In the first place, there is the interest of the parents. When it is a question of secondary education, of rich or middle-class parents, there is nothing to fear. The bourgeois do not love their defectives; they are ashamed of them. They send them to a distance, to some private institution. They never speak of them to anyone; they do not visit them; they abandon them. But the common people have more heart or less prejudice. They will not be afraid of the special school for defectives any more than they are of the hospice. When they have a really defective child in the hospice, they never cease to visit him. We can imagine the results which such a state of mind will bring about. If these fathers and mothers of the working class were to hear of the existence of a boarding-school where children receive board, lodging, and clothing, they would flock to obtain admission even for their normal children, although it were well known that the school admitted only the feeble-minded, defectives, and fools. If necessary, they would get municipal councillors to back up their demands. This abuse was practised recently in the case of a reformatory, which was rapidly filled with ordinary children, whose sole characteristic was this—that their parents had political backing.
This fraud—for it is one—will not be perpetrated in the case of the special schools and classes where no greater material advantages are given to the pupils than is the case in the public schools, but it is to be feared that it will recur in the case of special boarding-schools for defectives. Such schools, if they are not carefully looked after, will turn out plenty of normal young people!
And this is not all. It is not only the parents who will try to deceive. Think also of the heads of the schools for defectives. What is their interest? Take note of it, for it is important. One should always try to foresee the results of human frailty. In every new school which is started one should watch that part of the organisation which gives most scope for charlatanism.
The head-masters and the teachers of the defectives will certainly have a tendency to show off before visitors children who have never been mentally defective, or who have been so to a very slight degree. They will take good care to say nothing about the condition of the child on admission. Or, if necessary, they will tell lies—pious lies, told in a good cause, and for the honour of the school! These children will be shown off as advertisements, which will be just as illegitimate as if the schools for deaf-mutes were to present to visitors the semi-deaf-mutes, or the deaf who had formerly been able to hear, and to claim the entire credit for the facility with which these pupils could read the lips or pronounce words.
All such impositions will continue to be practised as long as those who visit such institutions are content to look about and docilely question the children presented to them by the teachers, instead of personally selecting the pupils to interrogate.
There is another reason why the heads of schools for defectives will keep their doors wide open to normal cases. This is, that in some cases a dearth of pupils may arise. A school is opened; it begins its work; the staff signs on. There is not much to do; there is no gossip about the matter; everyone is happy. But the number of admissions slowly decreases. It begins to be feared that the inspector will in his report notice the decrease, and that the school will be closed as of no public utility. Pupils, therefore, must be found, and if they must be found, found they will be. Recollect those evening classes held in the elementary schools, where the teacher, fearing he will have to speak to empty benches, begs the head-master to send him some school children as an audience. Think of those libraries, where the staff, uneasy at the desertion of the public, pays a gratuity to an industrious reader for show!
We strongly insist that the inspectors should be alive to this danger. They will be seated by the side of the manager of the special school. Let them take note that this manager has a direct vital interest to admit normal children. It is upon the inspectors that we rely to see that everything is done honestly and correctly.
Schedules of Particulars.—Full and detailed particulars regarding every child admitted to a class for defectives should be furnished by the head-master and teachers of the school from which he came. They will do this easily, for when a child is a little peculiar he attracts attention. Abnormal children never escape unnoticed. It is of the greatest importance that the future teacher of the child in the special class should be correctly informed, and that what has already been observed should not be lost. Let it be remembered that the education of defectives should be individual, made to measure, as has been said with picturesque exaggeration. Now, if the child is to be individualised, he must be well known, well studied.
The necessity of some definite method of collecting particulars has been experienced abroad. A scheme of questions has been prepared, to be answered by the teacher who sends the child. The plan is a good one. It avoids the worry of lapses of memory. We suggest the following questionnaire: