“According to a more recent inquiry, made under the auspices of M. de Gizycki at Berlin, and published in a book by Paul Dubois, 22% of the children were sent home or to asylums; 11% were apprenticed; 62% worked at occupations which required no knowledge and yielded little pay (laborers, crossing-sweepers, ragmen). If we add together these two last groups, we reach a proportion of 73% of defectives who have been made, or who have become more or less useful....
“Dr. Decroly has kindly arranged at our request a few figures relating to the occupational classification of the girls discharged from a special class in Brussels.... Finally, then, out of nineteen feeble-minded subjects, regarding whom particulars have been supplied, one-half, or 50%, have been apprenticed, or more than half, 75% if we count the defectives who 'work....'
“Through the intervention of an inspector, M. Belot, we have inquired of twenty heads of schools what has become of the defectives whom they notified to us two years ago. We have made these inquiries with regard to sixty-six children only.... If we subtract the two first groups, those about whom the particulars are wanting, and those who have not yet left school, there remain twenty-seven children, of whom seventeen have been apprenticed, or 76%.... Now this proportion is, by an unexpected agreement, identical with that obtained in the classes of Berlin and Brussels.”
A more recent report concerning the Hilfsschulen in Berlin by Rector Fuchs is in close agreement. It indicates that from 70% to 80% of the former pupils of these schools make a living after they leave school.
To compare with these reports indicating that about three-fourths of those leaving the special schools of Paris, Berlin and Brussels by social assistance attain occupational classifications, we have less favorable reports from Great Britain. Shuttleworth and Potts (181, p. 23) say:
“At the Conference of After-Care Committees held in Bristol on October 22, 1908, a paper read by Sir William Chance, Chairman of the National Association for the Feeble-Minded, dealing with the reports of the After-Care Committees of Birmingham, Bristol, Leicester, Liverpool, London, Northampton, Oldham and Plymouth. The combined statistics from the nine centers showed that 22% of those who had attended special schools for the mentally defective were in regular work, and 6.8% had irregular work.... To illustrate the necessity for continuous supervision and the futility of temporary care, we cannot do better than quote the records of the Birmingham After-Care Committee, as embodied in their report for 1908, after seven years work. It was found that, 'out of 308 feeble-minded persons who have left school and are still alive, only 19.8% are earning wages at all, and only 3.9% are earning as much as 10 s. per week'” ([181]).
Tredgold summarizes other data on this question of industrial success as follows:
“We may next turn to the reports of 'After-Care' Committees regarding feeble-minded (moron) pupils of the special schools. In London the proportion of pupils known to be in 'good or promising' employment was 37.5%. Two years previously it had been 45.7%, and Sir George Newman, the Chief Medical Officer to the Board of Education, attributes the falling off to two causes—firstly, insufficient after-care; and secondly, the two additional years. He remarks: 'The longer the test the more severe it is.' In Birmingham, the 'After-Care' Committee compiled information regarding 932 cases which had passed through the schools during the previous ten years. Of these, excluding the normal and dead, 272, or 34%, were engaged in remunerative work. At Liverpool, of 712 children passing through the hands of the 'After-Care' Committee during a period of six years, 85, or 11.9%, were doing remunerative work.
“Finally we may refer to some figures concerning 'After-Care' work compiled by Sir William Chance from the returns of the National Association for the Feeble-Minded. These were based upon an inquiry made of sixteen centers of the Association, and referred to a total of 3,283 persons. Of this number, 798 were doing remunerative work, 89 were 'doing work, but not reported;' 202 were useful at home; and 941 were returned as 'useless members of society.' If we exclude 340 who were transferred to normal schools (not being feeble-minded), we have 27% engaged in remunerative work.
“With regard to the term 'remunerative work,' however, it is to be remarked that the person employed is not being paid the standard wage. On the contrary, it is my experience that this is practically never the case, and this is corroborated by the observations of the secretary of the Birmingham center, who says: 'Although some of our cases have been at work for more than ten years, only 34 of the whole number (173) earn as much as 10 s., 2 d., per week. Of these only 6 earn as much as 15 s., and only 2 earn 20 s., which is the highest wages earned.... While it is not very difficult for some of our higher-grade cases to get work when they first leave school, it is almost impossible for them to retain their situations when they get older, and the difference between them and their fellows becomes accentuated. Uncontrolled and often quite improperly cared for, they rapidly deteriorate, the good results obtained by the training and discipline of the special school being under these circumstances distinctly evanescent.... There are few workers over twenty years of age'” (204, p. 425, 435).