We would like to know exactly how many boys and girls have been able, after their discharge, to work at a trade and to maintain themselves. Upon this point of capital importance the publications of Bicêtre tell us nothing—absolutely nothing. It is, therefore, impossible to find out the real value of this institution, so richly endowed, where the visitor perambulates palatial buildings, is saluted by a fanfare, and admires museums of natural history which would be the envy of many a public educational establishment. The publications give a number of particulars as to the number of dancing lessons, the walks to the Jardin d'Acclimatation, and the cost of laundry, etc.; but we are left in entire ignorance as to what all this is good for, and what is the practical tangible benefit which society receives from it.
Everyone knows, however, that the director of the school for defectives at Bicêtre is an enlightened philanthropist, who has devoted himself with remarkable zeal and activity to procuring for his old pupils situations which they are capable of filling. He has understood, and was one of the first to do so, that the question of the education of defectives will never be settled until one has settled that of the social usefulness of these children.
We have even learned indirectly that he has made many endeavours to induce employers to engage his defectives as workmen; but it is likely that these suggestions have not met with the success they deserved, for the employers, threatened by the new law regarding accidents at work, hesitate to saddle themselves with workers who, being liable to attacks of epilepsy, or affected by motor inability, would lay upon them a very heavy responsibility. On the other hand, the school education has had a good deal of success since it has happened, as we have already remarked, that several of the pupils obtained their certificates of study.[14] But the only publications which we have consulted say no more about these certificates of study than about the trades followed by the defectives after leaving school. This silence is very significant. In spite of oneself, one puts a bad interpretation upon it. One has an irresistible tendency to believe, not that all the effort at Bicêtre has been in vain, but that it has been disproportionate in relation to the result achieved.
We have no difficulty in admitting that idiots have been improved, but to what an extent this amelioration loses in importance if the majority of these idiots are destined to pass the rest of their life in an asylum, where they will be nourished in absolute idleness, and where, consequently, the heedless administration will gain nothing for what has been taught them at the price of such great efforts!
Let us try, however, to interpret the silence of the text. In four years 240 boys have left the school at Bicêtre. In studying the school of the Salpêtrière we distinguished three classes of children—the improved, the stationary or doubtful, and those who have got worse. We have consulted the statistical tables of Bicêtre, and we have not found a single one marked worse, although one-third of the entire contingent are epileptic. Now, this is very surprising, since we know that epilepsy with repeated fits inexorably results in mental decadence. It is an enigma, which we explain in the following manner: Those who are really decadent have been marked stationary by medical or pedagogical optimism. If our interpretation is correct, it recoils forcibly upon the expression improved, which is applied frequently to those discharged. To the interpretation of this word improved we are, therefore, obliged to turn our attention.
What, then, must be understood by improved when this word is found in the publications of Bicêtre? First of all we must subtract a certain number of subjects who have been marked transferred. We know what is meant by this little word transferred when it is applied to the children. It is lugubrious. It amounts to a sentence for life. A subject transferred is one who, his time at school come to an end, is removed to an asylum for the insane, where, in all probability, he will stay to the end of his useless existence. If we eliminate the transferred, and if we keep amongst the improved only those who, having been so designated, have returned to their families, we get a proportion of 58 in 290—that is, 20 per cent. of boys.
This proportion seems to us too large, on account of the optimism which these documents exhibit. It is to be noticed, however, that children are sometimes marked very much improved, or notably improved. If, for the sake of prudence, we consider as improved only those who are designated in this way, we have only eighteen, or 7 per cent.
This new proportion, if small in absolute value, still seems to us an exaggeration, because it is reached only by including a certain number of children affected with epilepsy. It must, therefore, be believed that their epilepsy has improved. But the amelioration or cure of epilepsy is not a matter of education; it cannot be considered as a success to be credited to active medico-pedagogical treatment. Let us therefore put the cured epileptics aside. There will then remain only seven who have undergone a notable amelioration and have returned to their families. What percentage is this? The total contingent upon which we have been making our calculations numbered 290, but it is right to exclude all the epileptics, for the reasons we have mentioned. This brings the number down to 216, and the number of children really improved, calculated upon 216, amounts, for the boys, to from 3 to 4 per cent.
By similar calculations, into the details of which we will not enter, we have shown that the improved amongst the girls are more numerous—namely, 20 per cent. But Vallée contains relatively far fewer epileptics than Bicêtre. We do not know, also, how many of them have become capable of working at a trade.
We therefore conclude with the following propositions: