No; it is neither possible nor desirable to pack them off to an asylum. These abnormal children are not in all cases so severely affected as to require segregation. We admit that such a measure is necessary for idiots of low grade who cannot even feed themselves. We have also no objection to leaving to the asylums cases of very severe nervous disturbance such as epilepsy, for only there can they receive the medical supervision appropriate to their condition. They have more need of the doctor than of the teacher. As for the other abnormal children who constitute the great majority, it seems clear that the proper place for them is not the asylum, but the special school. They have sufficient intelligence to attend a school. What they probably require is instruction specially adapted to their mental state, and such instruction can be profitably given only in classes small enough to permit of individual attention.
From all this we reach a very clear definition of what we mean by abnormal children, and a very simple indication of what should be done with them. Abnormal and defective children are those who are suitable for neither the ordinary school nor the asylum; for the school they are not sufficiently good, for the asylum not sufficiently bad. We must try what special schools and classes can do for them.
Statistics.—It is important to notice that the children so defined are not a negligible quantity. Their name is legion. And since number is the factor that gives importance to every social problem, we may say that the regulation of the lot of these children is a social question of the greatest gravity.
The statistics which have up till now been published abroad do not give such precise information as one could wish regarding the number of the defectives. Some give the bare figures; others, using a better method, state the proportion of mentally defective children to the total population. There is also much doubt as to the way in which the statisticians have used the term "abnormal" or "defective." One inquiry relates only to children slightly affected; another bears upon all abnormal children, including the lowest grades of idiocy, and is therefore much more comprehensive. In other cases we are not told how the selection was made.
As to France, precise information has not been available until last year, when two inquiries were held—one at the instance of the Ministerial Commission, the other organised by the Minister of the Interior. According to the former inquiry, we find that the proportion of defectives amounts to scarcely 1 per cent. for the boys, and O.9 per cent. for the girls. These percentages are evidently far too small, and we ourselves have discovered, by a small private inquiry, that many schools returned "none" in the questionnaires distributed, although the headmasters have admitted to us that they possessed several genuine defectives. In Paris, M. Vaney, a headmaster, made some investigations by the arithmetical test, which we shall explain presently, and reached the conclusion that 2 per cent. of the school population of two districts were backward. If we were to include the ill-balanced, whose number is probably equal to that of the backward, the proportion would be about 4 per cent. Lastly, and quite recently, a special and most careful inquiry was made at Bordeaux, under the direction of M. Thamin, by alienists and the school medical inspectors, and it was found that the percentage of abnormality amongst the boys was 5.17. Probably the true percentage is somewhere in the neighbourhood of 5. All these inquiries are comparable because they all deal with the school population. The great variation in the figures is due to several causes, the chief of which are the following: (1) The proportion of the abnormal varies to a surprising extent in different schools even in the same neighbourhood. Dr. Abadie, for example, has expressly noted that in some schools the proportion may be four times as great as in others. (2) The definition of a child of backward intelligence has usually and quite gratuitously been left vague by the investigators; each interprets the term in his own way, whence arise great differences in the figures. (3) It is particularly difficult to define the cases that are to be reckoned as ill-balanced or unstable, and some teachers, if they are allowed, will place in this category all the pupils that they dislike.
We have been led to interest ourselves in abnormal children in the following way: One of us, Binet, President of the Société Libre pour l'Étude de l'Enfant, has for many years been in daily contact with the staff of the primary schools. In obedience to the wish of a great many teachers, he has formed, in connection with the Society, a committee for the care of abnormal children, upon which are many distinguished people, such as M. Rollet, M. Albanel, Dr. Voisin, Mme. Meusy, and, above all, M. Baguer, who is deeply interested in the education of defectives. This committee initiated various investigations relating to backward children. Some time afterwards M. Binet, having been nominated a member of the Ministerial Commission on Abnormal Children, became the director of the work of the Commission relating to the backward and the unstable. He then, in conjunction with Dr. Simon, undertook in certain districts various inquiries into the condition of such cases. In regard to several questions we enjoyed the intelligent and devoted co-operation of M. Vaney, Head of the Primary School of the Rue Grange-aux-Belles, where one of us has founded a laboratory of pedagogy. We have thus been interested in abnormal children for a long time, either from the point of view of school organisation, or from that of their differentiation from the normal. Let us add that lately M. Bédorez, the distinguished Director of Primary Education in the Seine District, has kindly permitted one of us (Binet) to co-operate in the organisation of some classes for defective children, which have been started experimentally in the primary schools of Paris.
Let us now state quite clearly our aim in writing this book. Ever since public interest has been aroused in the question of schools for defective children, selfish ambition has seen its opportunity. The most frankly selfish interests conceal themselves behind the mask of philanthropy, and whoever dreams of finding a fine situation for himself in the new schools never speaks of the children without tears in his eyes. This is the everlasting human comedy. There is no reason for indignation. Everyone has the right to look after his own interest, so long as he does not compromise interests superior to his own—namely, those of society. It is this social interest with which we are concerned. Having found out by our own personal experience how a class for defectives may be established and conducted, we have noted the faults which could not but be committed, and the mistakes which will certainly occur unless one is forewarned and makes every possible effort to prevent them. May our book, then, be regarded as a means of prophylaxis, a means of escaping conscious or unconscious error. May it also prove a guide—imperfect, no doubt, but still useful—for the organisation of some of those social inquiries conducted in a strictly scientific spirit, which are becoming more and more necessary for the proper management of public affairs.