A later grafting of the spirit of social service on long established practices is shown in the progress of hospital social service. What first opened the eyes of the medical profession is not recorded, but it was soon proven that the assurance given to a woman at the hospital that her children were being well cared for in her absence hastened her recovery, and that the visits of a wise and sympathetic nurse or trained social worker to the home of a discharged patient almost always succeeded in preventing that patient’s return because of a relapse due to carelessness or ignorance. A physician in a large Boston hospital where the social service is famous for its completeness and efficiency has said that a good social service nurse saves her salary twice over by the cures she hastens and the returns she prevents.
There is a tradition in this country on which we greatly pride ourselves, that education, at least in certain of its fundamental branches, is free to all who wish to avail themselves of the opportunity afforded by the state. Indeed, we go so far in most of our states as to make it not only free but compulsory between certain ages. But look carefully through any large school and many a small one, and you will find children who would gladly partake of this free education but who for many reasons, and through no fault of their own, are unable to do so. Children who sit idly in school or stumble blindly through a grade or two, and children whose names are finally taken from the register because for them no place in school can be made. And so we come to see that our free education is for those fortunate ones who are fitted for it, while for others it is practically non-existent. You can compel a child to go to school, but you cannot compel him to profit by his stay there.
The story of Nello is a pathetic illustration of this. Here was a boy of eleven, pitifully small for his age, who had been placed in an ungraded class, and was disturbing the class and distracting the teacher by his utter badness. A visitor was asked to investigate the home conditions and find out a possible explanation for his incorrigibility. She found ample cause. Nello’s mother was dying of cancer. His father was a heavy drinker, often out of work, who shared his beer with the small boy instead of getting proper food for him each morning. Nello was the only nurse his mother and the three younger children had, and his burden of responsibility gave him no other outlet except the schoolroom tantrum. A nurse and proper food were secured. The two youngest children were placed temporarily in an institution. Nello was taken to a doctor who said that the boy was permanently dwarfed because of his alcoholic diet, and the father was induced to discontinue this and give him milk instead. With better food and some time in the country it may be proved that Nello is only temporarily dwarfed mentally, even if his physical state is permanent. In any event, with the burden, too great for his narrow shoulders, finally removed the boy is now doing well in school and his future is not hopeless.
CLASS FOR ANAEMIC CHILDREN IN A NEW YORK PUBLIC SCHOOL
When the room is in a building the windows are so arranged that the largest amount of air is taken into the room. The windows are never closed.
Happily certain phases of the situation are now being remedied. Through the increase in the differentiation of special classes within the schools our educational systems are making education more nearly free to all, and so taking a most important part in the great work of prevention. We are ceasing to think quite so exclusively of the ambulances at the foot of the precipice and are building our fence, foot by foot, across its top. By means of these special classes, the different demands which differently constituted minds and bodies make are in great part met, the fact that certain obstacles prevent many minds from attaining full development is recognized; and due allowance is made for the effect physical and mental handicaps have on individual education.
To give an instance: In the public schools of New York these special classes are carried out to an admirable extent. Physical handicaps are recognized and provided for in the classes for cripples, for blind, anaemic and tubercular children, and in the School for the Deaf. The teachers of these classes come to know a great deal about the homes and the individual difficulties of their pupils, and what home or medical care will be of the greatest assistance to them educationally. Bodies are cared for, lunches even are furnished, that the mind may have a chance to grow strong and keen—for the school lunch is more and more recognized as a real factor in education.
For the backward children and for those who are mentally rather than physically defective, there are other special classes; those for the over-age children, for foreigners who come to school before they have learned to speak English, for children who are trying to get their working papers, and the so-called Ungraded Class for those who are apparently or really backward to a hopeless extent. Often members of this latter group find their way into the classes for foreign children or those who are trying for working papers, so limiting the best usefulness of those classes.
But one step further must be taken, and in some places and in some connections is being taken in this work of prevention, and of bringing together the incomplete little being and his opportunity for becoming more complete. This step is the adaptation of the ideal of social service to our educational work and through it we shall finally come to see, I believe, the supremely important part the schools must play in the solution of our most perplexing social problems. Often this part will be not to take the actual steps themselves, but to point out to other especially equipped agencies the steps that must be taken by them in order to prevent future misery and crime. From the schools must come our most valuable information and advice concerning the treatment of various groups of dependent children. They constitute the great dragnet and the natural clearing house.
The day is fast coming when just as surely as social service is an inseparable and honored part of both religious and medical institutions, so it shall be of our educational work. Phases of this service or movements closely allied to it, are already being slowly introduced into the public school systems of some cities, volunteer agencies are carrying on a more definite social service in close connection with the schools, and always a good teacher, interested to learn of the home surroundings of her pupils, is the most effective social service worker the schools can have.