Mme. Meusy had prepared us to some extent for the work which she had done in the school by intelligent organisation. It was a pleasure to us to see with our own eyes the notes she had kept regarding each of her pupils. All the schedules were in perfect order, regularly filled up to the day. They contained all the medical information, as to diagnosis and treatment, which Mme. Meusy had been able to procure from the doctor by reiterated requests. They contained also full particulars as to the state of instruction of the child, her character, her aptitudes, and the amount of her school attendance. Such notes were repeated periodically, so that it was easy to find out approximately whether or not the child had progressed during her stay in the school. Finally, her history after discharge was noted. It is only just that we should here express once more to Mme. Meusy how much we admired the care, the order, and the intelligence with which she had kept these individual histories. It is an example to be followed.
Mme. Meusy readily placed before us one after another all these documents, and allowed us to extract from them the notes which seemed of most value for our work. While one of us was taking the notes, she contributed much valuable information in a lively voice; for she knew her pupils admirably, she followed them after they left school, and often received visits from them. But, although she clearly understood the importance of our inquiry, she could not keep to herself a distressing thought, which was that a large number of these unfortunate girls had obtained no benefit from the instruction received at the school during a long series of years. The majority, on leaving school, had been transferred to asylums for adults. It saddened her to acknowledge such impotence officially. However, neither she nor her devoted staff of teachers was responsible, for if their educational success was restricted, that was due to the fact that the administration had for some time been sending her the epileptic defectives, while reserving for the Fondation Vallée the privilege of having the non-epileptic defectives. Now, everyone knows that when epilepsy, with repeated fits, is present, it produces a mental decadence against which the best teacher is powerless.
The information which we have collected about the work of the school of the Salpêtrière bears upon 117 children, who had left the school during the period of four years. Now, this is how these children are distributed, if they are classified according to their condition on leaving:
1. Children who had improved. Some of these had returned to their families; they lived at home, and were employed, more or less, and the directress states that they had improved in their mental condition. These numbered eight. Others had become capable of following a calling, either in the asylum as attendants, or outside as seamstresses, ironers, laundresses, domestic servants, etc. These numbered twelve. (None was employed in making artificial flowers, for which there was a workshop in the school.) The total number who had improved, therefore, was twenty.
2. Doubtful cases—children who had returned to their families, but concerning whose mental state and employment precise information was lacking. These numbered twenty.
3. Those who had got worse. These are the cases who had been marked "transferred." They are to be found in the lunatic asylums, where they are destined to pass the rest of their existence. Of these there is a formidable number—namely, sixty.
4. Those who had died, of whom there were seventeen.
From all these calculations we obtained a figure to remember, and also an opinion.
The figure is that the school for defectives at the Salpêtrière returns to active life 12 per cent. of its pupils.
The opinion is what one might have known in advance, that in the majority of these cases the education given was a waste of effort, for none of the pupils who had acquired a calling had been affected by the worst degree of mental deficiency, idiocy, or imbecility. Moreover, none of these was epileptic as well as mentally defective. In other words, the two worst degrees of mental deficiency do not permit any hope that the child will be made capable of following any calling; and even a lesser degree of deficiency—that is to say, feeble-mindedness—is equally cut off from hope when the feeble-mindedness is complicated by epilepsy.