Handicaps of Childhood

by H. Addington Bruce

There was once brought to Doctor Wallin a pupil in a private school, an attractive girl of seventeen, who was studying—or, rather, attempting to study—Latin, history, algebra, and English. Her teacher complained that she could remember little or nothing of what was taught her, that her attention flagged easily, and that in other ways she did not seem to be of normal mentality. And, in fact, tested by the Binet-Simon method she graded only eleven and a half years old.

Had the psychological inquiry into her condition stopped there, she would have been declared a fit subject for institutional care, according to the Binet-Simon rating. But Doctor Wallin insisted on additional and different testings, and presently made the significant discovery that her trouble lay, not in any structural brain defect, but in a functional weakness of the nervous system that caused her to become fatigued at slight mental exertion. She was, in short, a "psychasthenic," and needed only proper treatment by a skilled neurologist to be put into condition to profit from her lessons as her schoolmates did.

So, too, with a man of twenty-eight, who, tested by the Binet-Simon system, displayed the mentality of a boy of twelve. Had he been in the hands of an investigator who knew no more of the technic of psychological examination than the Binet-Simon scale, he would unhesitatingly been classified as feeble-minded. But, as Doctor Wallin said, in discussing the case:

"He did not impress me at all as being feeble-minded. His appearance, speech, and conduct suggested the polished and cultivated gentleman. I put him through approximately thirty sets of mental tests [other than twenty-five individual Binet tests] and thirty moral tests. These tests demonstrated that there was a considerable difference in the strength of his different mental traits. Some traits were on the twelve-year plane, some on the fifteen-year, and some on the adult plane. In some mental tests he did as well as college men. He passed correctly practically all of the moral tests.

"His was indeed a case showing more or less deficiency in respect to various mental traits. But, contrary to the Binet rating, the man was not feeble-minded. It eventually developed that a sexual complex was at the root of his trouble."

Again, with the express purpose of determining the reliability or unreliability of the Binet-Simon tests as sufficient indicators of the mental status, Doctor Wallin applied these tests to several successful farmers and business men. The results were surprising and amusing. He tells us:

"The 1908 scale was administered according to my own Guide,[1] and the 1911 according to Goddard's version, which is usually used in this country for diagnosing feeble-mindedness. The subjects were generously rated in the tests; i.e., full credit was given for some responses that did not quite meet the technical passing requirements. Measured by the standards of one of the best rural communities of the country, socially and industrially considered, and by my own intimate knowledge of the subjects tested during the greater part of my life, not a single one of these persons could by any stretch of the imagination be considered feeble-minded. Not a single one has any record of delinquency, or crime, petty or major, or indulges in alcoholic beverages. All are law-abiding citizens, eminently successful in their several occupations, all except one (who is unmarried) being parents of intelligent, respectable children. The heredity is entirely negative, except for a few cases of minor nervous troubles and alcoholic addiction. No relative in the first or second generation, so far as it was possible to get the facts by inquiry, was ever committed to a penal institution or an institution for the mentally defective or disordered."

Yet, given the Binet-Simon tests, every member of this group, if judged by the tests alone, would have to be rated as feeble-minded. Here is Doctor Wallin's account of one of these most illuminating cases:

"Mr. A., sixty-five years old, faculties well preserved, attended school only about three years in the aggregate; a successful farmer and later a successful business man, now partly retired on a competency of $30,000 (after considerable financial reverses from a fire); for ten years president of the board of education in a town of seven hundred; superintendent or assistant superintendent of a Sunday school for about thirty years; bank director; raised and educated a family of nine children, all normal; one engaged in scientific research (Ph.D.), one assistant professor in a state agricultural school, one assistant professor in a medical school (now completing thesis for Sc.D.), one a former music teacher and organist, a graduate of a musical conservatory, now an invalid; one a graduate of the normal department of a college, one a graduate nurse, two engaged in a large retail business, one holds a clerical position, all high-school graduates, and all, except one, one-time students in colleges and universities.