Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

of the limited apparatus and because a medical examination cannot be secured in all cases. However, it is in the schools more than in any other way at present that I am in touch with Iowa's atypical child problem.

This rather lengthy introduction of myself and of my lines of endeavor is a necessary preliminary to the body of my paper. Those who for several years have been giving more or less attention to Iowa's atypical children will understand that what I offer is to be considered as suggestive and as material for discussion rather than as real conclusions and facts.

For present purposes we may divide mentally atypical children into four groups, the first of which are the feeble-minded. And since there is usually little difficulty in recognizing the lower types and in deciding what should be done for them, those of higher grade are the more serious problem. We find some of them being sent to public schools, misunderstood, suffering from restraint and discipline, and getting nothing of value from the school. They are a serious imposition on the teachers and other pupils. A most encouraging movement is that of segregating them along with other mentally backward and peculiar children in special ungraded schoolrooms. There are pitfalls in this procedure and in some school systems serious blunders have been made in their first attempts at segregation, but the danger points are fairly well located, and some Iowa school superintendents are successfully introducing these ungraded rooms.

Much has been done of late to spread abroad certain ideas and theories concerning feeble-mindedness and to arouse the interest of the general public. The conception of mental age [as differing from chronological age], physiological age, and pedagogical age; Goddard's classification of the feeble-minded according to Binet age; the eugenic phases;-these serve as hypotheses for the present because they are simple and interesting. But there is much in this popularization propaganda that at best is only a temporary scaffolding, the services of which will be outgrown.

It is perhaps justifiable to appeal for action on the part of the public by presenting the problem of the feeble-minded in this simple and attractive, though more or less fallacious way, but care should be taken that those who have to deal with the adult moron do not expect him to be exactly like a normal eight-year-old or twelve-year-old child. The setting of the dead-line for feeble-mindedness at twelve years mental age occasionally leads to error. It must be understood that mental retardation is not at a level, and that high-grade morons usually have intelligence in some lines that is considerably above that of any twelve-year-old child. Of course, they are usually very backward in some other features. I have recently had under care and observation for several weeks two high-grade feeble-minded young men. They are entirely different types, one being weakest in some of the mental qualities in which the other is strongest. Neither will be able to make his way in the world without the care of relatives or of an institution, but each averages considerably above a twelve-year-old child mentally.

Recognition of these facts does not involve the taking of a reactionary attitude. In the Vineland popularization movement and the lines of

progress in which Waverly, Glenwood and Faribault lead are the real vital features of what amounts to a revolution in the understanding of the feebleminded and in the handling of them. And we must spare no effort to help to make the progress even more rapid and more general.

So much for the feeble-minded. The second of the four groups is made up of those children who are retarded or peculiar mentally because of some unfavorable environmental influence. Were I speaking to teachers concerning this group I should take up in detail the ways in which children are pedagogically hampered, but to-day I shall merely mention the fact that occasionally poor teaching, too slow or too rapid promotions, or too little allowance for individual differences cause a child to make an entire failure of school work and even to be suspected of feeble-mindedness. Environment outside the school may be even more depressing and stunting. And it is not always poverty and neglect. In rare cases, the mental development of a child from a wealthy home is seriously warped by his being given too much attention, or by his being kept away from other children and made the victim of the whims of a parent. A school principal recently asked me to examine a six-year-old boy who has some atypical mental traits and attitudes and who is failing to get a proper start in school. His teacher believed him to be feeble-minded. The mental examination showed that the boy is not feebleminded. An interview with the mother and observation of the boy in recitation indicated that the cause of his peculiarities lies in the ambition of his mother that he be far superior to other children and in her overanxiety concerning him. The boy has caught some of this spirit, anxiously compares his own efforts with those of his class, and is greatly discouraged and fretted when he does not excel. Unfortunately, his teacher uses competition as the main incentive to her recitations. Hence the unfavorable home environment is made to have its worst possible effect on the child.

The third group that we shall consider is made up of those children who because of physical ailments are mentally atypical. Sometimes a child is brought for mental examination when the real ailment is physical. This group is made up of those with physical ailments, the most prominent symptoms of which are mental. Chronic throat and nose troubles are the most common of these ailments. In a few cases bad teeth have proved to be the basis of the slowed-up intellect. In one case the crowding of large permanent teeth is responsible for extreme nervousness and stuttering in a little seven-year-old girl. As most of my hearers are physicians and know much more about this than I, it is not worth while for me to go through the list of physical ailments that may cause mental deviation. If we had medical inspection of schools, and if more children were taken to physicians, there would be fewer cases of mental retardation. At present one important service of the psychological clinic lies in calling attention to chronic physical ailments that need medical care.

The fourth group consists of the children usually included under the captions "neuropathic" and "psychopathic." In our public schools are many children who seem never to relax. They usually show Warner's nerve sign, their reaction time is too quick, and their nervous energy is being

wasted because of constant high tension and overactivity. Many of them are precocious and not all show mental peculiarity. Through proper handling poise and ability to relax can be cultivated in them, but unfortunately few of such cases get any corrective treatment. Quite unlike these nervous children are those of psychopathic tendencies. They exhibit a wide variety of symptoms, including overtimidity, feelings of insufficiency, lack of initiative, vacillations, hypersuggestibility, hyperconscientiousness, emotional incompleteness, sulkiness, moroseness, abnormal selfishness, false pride, eccentricities, craving for sympathy, morbid fears, religious terrors, illusions, delusions, and hallucinations. Fortunately, these cases are not comnon, and many of them are likely to outgrow their peculiarities. A few, however, will become peculiar and eccentric adults, and occasionally one has in him the germs of insanity. Those of you who are urging the importance of preventive measures in insanity probably know of some such cases. I saw a boy at the Soldiers' Orphans' Home last spring who may possibly be a real psychopath.

Age 13; an ordinary looking boy; physician reports no physical defects or peculiarities; extremely selfish, envious, and conceited; introspective; broods over old grudges; in the examination he told of occurrences as far back as a year ago in which he believes that he was treated unfairly; his school work is poor; he is very restless at times; mental tests revealed no defect; he passes the Binet twelve-year questions and reacted normally to all intelligence tests.

Here is another case that puzzles me:

Age 15; a tall, slouchy, anemic looking fellow; had rheumatism last summer but has recovered and his physician reports that except for general lack of vitality he is physically normal, is always depressed, listless, apathetic, lacking in initiative; attempted suicide recently; is doing poor work in the seventh grade; an orphan; no history obtainable except that he came from South Dakota last spring and lives with relatives who have a very poor home and are of an ignorant, low type. In the mental examination he did Healy's puzzle tests better than the average adult; he in no way showed lack of intelligence; some responses were a bit slow, but his thinking was clear and accurate. His attitude was melancholic rather than apathetic.

My knowledge of psychiatry is limited to what I learned in lectures, clinics and ward sections along with undergraduate medical students at the University of Pennsylvania. Since coming to Iowa the little attention I have given to it has been in reading along lines which might help me to understand these few possibly psychopathic children. While I am not prepared to discuss this type of case, I hope to learn more about it, and if my hearers can suggest anything that will help me to be of service to such children in this state, either directly or through teachers and others with whom I am in contact, I shall endeavor to make the best possible use of it.

I am pleased indeed to have the privilege of meeting with this group. It has been a part of the plan from the beginning of my work in Iowa to find as many points of contact as possible with those who represent the great works of charity and correction in our state, but my time has been spent largely in work with children at the laboratory and in public schools. The needs of the atypical child in public schools are so great that helping them seems almost hopeless. The task can be touched only at points here

and there until teachers and physicians in every community take hold of it. Hence the need for publicity work and for the creation of a general interest in the special treatment of certain types of individual children. I am attempting to assist in this through talks before teachers' associations, parents' clubs, women's clubs, and similar groups. The ideas that go out from such meetings as this and from the state conference of charities and correction are far-reaching. Our state institutions and schools where special work is going on as it is in Ottumwa and Mason City extend an important influence and in a general way ideas are disseminated by lectures and publications. We give at the State University a course in clinical psychology, but we should be training special teachers for work with atypical children. This is the one phase of our work concerning which the prospects are not encouraging. Only teachers of the best natural ability should be given these ungraded classes, and their preparation in psychology, science of education and study of backward children should be thorough. Unless we lower our standards or schools offer very attractive salaries I do not see how we are to get our best students to specialize in this line, in spite of the fact that positions are already awaiting them.

From the reports of these quarterly meetings, and from what I know of the work going on in the state institutions, my small endeavor is not nearly so much needed there as it is out over the state. And what one individual worker can accomplish is discouragingly small. There are evidences on all sides that many individuals have been and are giving part time to it and doing some splendid things, and that the general public is taking a real interest; so, on the whole, the prospect for better handling of atypical children in Iowa is encouraging.

AGRICULTURAL OBSERVATIONS.

By L. W. Forman, Assistant Chief in Soils, Iowa State College of
Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Ames, Iowa.

The agricultural interests of the state of Iowa are passing through an extremely critical stage in their development. Our farmers of yesterday took the lands in their virgin state and found little difficulty in producing satisfactory crops by using only ordinary methods of tillage. The soil they found rich in all the elements that went to make up the stem and grain of the crops raised. They were working a soil that for years had lain idle so far as crop production was concerned and, in case of cleared land, had secured the accumulation of forest leaves and trees for many years. What plant food had been removed by forests and prairie coverings was largely returned in such form as to be again made available to vegetation in years to follow. This life process was disturbed when settlers appeared. They were compelled to change the order of things, for, in order to provide for themselves and their families, crops must be grown and both fed and sold to provide for the immediate needs of the farmer.

The soil they found well supplied with humus and the other more important food elements. Conservation was not their aim. The country was open and competition was limited. These were the conditions under which our grandfathers worked. They were able to secure at small cost tracts of considerable size, and, by retaining the same through the years that followed, were enabled to realize from the same, through crops produced and through a fair advance in land values, a very fair return from their original investment.

It has been very natural indeed for the second generation to follow more or less closely the farming methods used by their fathers. Many new ideas were introduced as improved machinery appeared. Such improvements have been of untold value to farming operations. Less labor has been required to produce a given amount of farm produce, and the manual labor involved very materially reduced. Better cultivation of crops meant better tilling of the soil and a consequent increase in the rapidity with which the plant food was made available to the growing crop.

With the introduction of labor saving machinery there has been the tendency to put a larger number of acres under cultivation than formerly. In general, this has meant that in order to care for this increased area in crops, as well as the apparent scarcity of competent farm labor, a very

« AnteriorContinuar »