Mentally Defective Children Part 1

Mentally Defective Children.

by Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon.

INTRODUCTION

The Binet-Simon tests of children's intelligence have been the subject of much discussion during the past few years, both in this country and in America. Much of this discussion seems to have been carried on, at times, without any knowledge of the original aim or purpose for which these tests were devised, and as if, so to speak, they were invented as a means for ascertaining the relative intellectual powers of all children, and so of affording to the teacher a ready and sure means of accurately cla.s.sifying and grading the children under his charge. As a consequence, there is a tendency, in some quarters, to search for and to endeavour to establish some absolute standard or criterion of intelligence which shall be valid, irrespective of the nationality, or the cla.s.s, or the particular environment of the child.

It is hoped that the publication in translation of the work of Binet and Simon in which these tests first appeared, along with the complete series of tests as extended and revised during the lifetime of the former, will tend to remove this twofold misapprehension, and make the educationalist, as well as the wider public interested in social questions, acquainted with the real purpose which underlay the devisal or invention of the tests, and so enable all to perceive that their relative value, as measuring stages of intelligence, must be judged by the purpose for which they were devised.

Now, the main purpose of the authors in the devisal of these tests is to furnish to the teacher a _first_ means by which he may single out mentally backward children, who, upon further examination, may also be found to have some mental defect or peculiarity which prevents them from fully profiting by the education of the ordinary school, and who probably would benefit more by being educated in a special school or in a special cla.s.s. But the final selection, it is contended, of defective children for special education demands the experience of the doctor and of the psychologist, as well as the knowledge of the teacher, and the aid of all three is necessary in the devisal of courses of study for the mentally defective. Especially important is the division of mentally defectives into two main cla.s.ses--the feeble-minded and the ill-balanced. The latter, as a rule, are easily marked out from the normal child, and, if not specially looked after, may in later life become a menace to society. The feeble-minded, on the other hand, may easily escape the notice of the teacher, and may pa.s.s through the ordinary school unaffected and unimproved, enter into society, and propagate their kind. Both cla.s.ses require the special care of the community, and their proper education and training are of the gravest importance for the welfare and stability of society. In this selection and education of mentally defective children, three positions of Billet and Simon are worthy of consideration. In the first place, it is contended that a physical examination alone can never allow us to dispense with a direct examination of the intelligence, and that "anthropometry, stigmata, and physical appearance must take a second place as means of discovering in school the feeble-minded and the ill-balanced." Again, "mental deficiency and want of balance are peculiar mental conditions which it is often impossible to connect with definite pathological changes." Hence the examination of the medical man is not decisive. It must be accompanied and reinforced by that of the psychologist. In the second place, it is affirmed that in the devisal of schemes of training for mental defectives, we must take into account that the dominant features in their life are the "senses, the concrete perceptions, and motor ability," and that "in the education of defectives the workshop ought to become a more important place of instruction than the cla.s.s-room." In the third place, the position is strongly emphasised that "every cla.s.s, every school for defectives, ought to aim at rendering the pupils socially useful. It is not a question of enriching their minds, but of giving them the means of working for their living."

Hence, the utility of special schools or special cla.s.ses for such children depends ultimately upon their success in making their pupils, according to the measure of their intelligence, efficient workers.

These two problems--viz., (1) the method of selecting abnormal or defective children who are not sufficiently good for the ordinary school, nor yet sufficiently bad to be cla.s.sed as idiots or imbeciles; and (2) the devisal of courses of education and training which may tend to make them hereafter useful workers and citizens--are of first-rate importance to us at the present time. Under recent legislation, public local authorities have been entrusted with the devisal of the means for the proper selection and the proper education of defective children, and the utmost wisdom and care should be taken in the beginning of this new movement. The many errors that administrators may fall into are fully set forth in this little volume (_cf._ p. 78 _et seq._), and the concluding chapter on the utility of special schools should be read by all who have to do with the administration of the new Act.

The importance of the work of Binet and Simon to teachers and inspectors is without question, and were the duties of the teacher and inspector carried out as set forth in this volume (_cf._ p. 86) throughout the whole school, a much-needed improvement in our ordinary school education would soon result.

Lastly, the volume is important as marking a new att.i.tude towards educational problems, and as indicating the newer spirit in which we should undertake the training of all teachers. This new att.i.tude and spirit are clearly set forth in the concluding words of the volume: "The essential thing is for all the world to understand that empiricism has had its day, and that methods of scientific precision must be introduced into all educational work, to carry everywhere good sense and light."

ALEXANDER DARROCH

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, _July, 1914_

MENTALLY DEFECTIVE CHILDREN

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

=The Present-Day Interest in Social Questions.=--Amongst questions of present-day interest, none are more discussed or attract a greater amount of attention than those which relate to social problems. The generous philanthropy of preceding generations seems to us to-day a little out of date, and we subst.i.tute for this virtue of the rich the otherwise fruitful idea that, by the very const.i.tution of society itself, we are all in duty bound to occupy ourselves with the condition of our fellow-citizens, and especially of the less fortunate among them. This duty does not rest solely upon a sentiment of humanity. It is dictated equally by our own pressing personal interests; for unless, within a reasonable time, satisfaction is given to the just demands of the nine-tenths of society who are actually working for wages very little in harmony with their efforts and their needs, we already foresee that a violent revolution, from which the "haves" have very little to gain, will shake society to its very foundations.

The consequence is that the very people who up to the present time have kept themselves most aloof from the social problem are being brought into contact with reality. It is a curious thing to see how scientific men, who for the past fifty years have never stirred a foot outside their laboratories, are showing a tendency to mingle in affairs. In spite of the diversity of the forces at work, there is one general fact which is undeniable. Pure and disinterested science retains its votaries, but the number is increasing of those who are turning to science for useful and practical applications; albeit, they are thinking less of science than of society, for it is those social phenomena which are capable of amelioration which scientific men are now studying by the most exact methods for the benefit of men of action, who are usually empirics.

Innumerable examples of this intervention of science in daily life might be cited. On the one hand, we see physiologists--Imbert, for example--who are setting themselves to the study of the phenomena of the labour and the nutrition of different cla.s.ses of workers; in order to find out whether the increase in wages and the diminution in the hours of work which the workers are for ever crying for can be justified by physiology. The day is not far off when such scientific observations, which are becoming more exact and more extensive, will play a part in the discussions between capital and labour.

Another example may be given of a different nature, but of identical signification. Psychologists are studying the value of evidence, and are thinking out better methods of arriving at truth, in order to discover reforms which may be introduced into the organization of justice. An important movement of this nature, started in France, is being continued in Germany with even greater energy (Binet, Stern and his pupils, Claparede, Larguier, etc.).

As a last example we shall cite the most striking of all. This is the increasing interest which doctors are taking in the upbringing of the young, both in infancy and later. This is _puericulture_, and includes everything that is being done for the supervision, protection, and a.s.sistance of the mother and nurseling. It includes the medical inspection of school-children, which gives the doctor the opportunity of caring for their ailments and preventing overpressure. It includes, lastly, all the reforms of but yesterday's date which make for a better hygiene, a better physical education. One might add also the work that is being done almost everywhere, in Germany, in America, in Italy, and in France (Laboratory of Psychology of the Sorbonne, and the Society for Child Study), with reference to the special apt.i.tudes of children, and, as has been said a little ambitiously, the making of education an exact science.

=Education of Defectives.=--The movement referred to, of which we see only the beginning, but which will result, let us hope, in an amelioration of the lot of the great majority, is now being directed to the education of the mentally defective. Their problem has been discussed theoretically for a long time, but nothing has come of it.

Now the problem is entering upon a new phase, and something practical will result.

Without attempting to write the whole history, which would be nothing more than the study of what has been done in other countries, let us state where we are ourselves.

It was in France that alienists first began to occupy themselves with the children known under the various names of "abnormal," "backward,"

"idiot," "mentally defective," "unstable," etc. Esquirol made the important distinction between the idiot and the dement; and after him many other alienists--notably Itard, Falret, Voisin--described the princ.i.p.al symptoms of idiocy, or attempted to show that it is capable of amelioration. Seguin, a teacher of defectives, who has left an honoured name, showed experimentally how one may, by dint of much ingenuity and patience, increase the intelligence and improve the character of some of these unfortunate children.[1] Lastly, in our own day, Bourneville, the well-known physician of Bicetre, after having organised the most important clinique for idiots which exists in France, agitated with untiring energy for the formation in the public schools of special cla.s.ses for the instruction of abnormal children. This scheme has been supported by a great many doctors and philanthropists, and laid before munic.i.p.al councils, general councils, scientific societies, and all the numerous educational congresses which have been held in France and abroad during the last twenty years.

This effort has had no result; and whilst in the great majority of foreign countries there have been for a long time schools and cla.s.ses for defectives--the first German school, that of Dresden, dates from 1867--with us the only children of this kind who receive the care and education appropriate to their condition are the children of the rich.

Poor children continue to attend the ordinary schools.

It was not till 1904 that the powers that be awakened from their indifference. The Minister of Public Instruction, M. Chaumie, appointed a Commission to study the abnormal--physical, mental, and moral--from the scholastic point of view. This Commission, over which M. Leon Bourgeois presided most ably, met a great number of times in 1904 and 1905, and drew up a complete scheme for the care and education of defective children, which has been embodied in a Bill by the Minister of Public Instruction.

=Some Definitions.=--Now, who are these abnormal children, and why should the authorities interest themselves in their education? For the sake of clearness, we must give some definitions.

In medical terminology the term _abnormal_ is applied to every subject who diverges so clearly from the average as to const.i.tute a pathological anomaly. As a matter of fact, the abnormal const.i.tute quite a heterogeneous group. Their common characteristic, which is a negative one, is that by their physical and mental organisation these children are rendered incapable of profiting by the ordinary methods of instruction in use in the public schools. The most definite types are the deaf and dumb, the blind, the epileptic, idiots, imbeciles, cripples, etc. There are in this list some cla.s.ses which are of less interest to us than others, because the State has already to a certain extent provided for their needs. This applies especially to the blind, and to the deaf and dumb. It has always been perceived that such children were not like others, and could not be taught by ordinary methods. The blind can learn to read only in a book whose characters are printed in relief, and the deaf-mute cannot follow an oral lesson.

The necessity of a special education for these two groups was therefore obvious, and at the present time about five thousand are receiving care and a professional education in the State inst.i.tutions and in private schools, the majority of which are religious. We shall not concern ourselves with them here, in spite of the interest which they awaken. Nor shall we discuss whether the methods which are used for their education might not be improved, though the question is attractive. But we must simplify the subject if we wish to get on.

We shall also exclude here the lowest grade of idiots, who require continuous medical supervision, and who are very seldom educable.

These subjects are received into hospitals and asylums. When we have excluded these cla.s.ses of children--the deaf-mutes, the blind, and the ineducable idiots--what remains?

Why, there remain just the very children with whom the new law will be concerned. In the meantime these are not in any special school; they are attending the primary schools, which cannot shut the door in their faces when they have arrived at school age. But they do not profit much by the instruction given in school, and this fact gives rise to vigorous complaints on the part of the teachers. These children, say they, are not in the least like the great majority of other pupils. A great many of them are mentally defective. Without being completely lacking in intelligence, they are not sufficiently endowed therewith to work alongside normal children; they do not understand, they cannot follow; they profit so little by attending the school that some of them are never able to a.s.similate the instruction even of the elementary course. Very often they pay no attention whatever to the work of the cla.s.s; and this is quite a good thing, for then the teacher forgets them in their corner, and goes on as if they were not there. But many of these children are ill-balanced; they are excitable, and their bodies are never at rest; they are not amenable to ordinary discipline. They are a constant source of trouble and annoyance to their master and to their comrades. The supervision of a single ill-balanced child is more trouble, the teachers sometimes declare, than the direction of twenty normal ones. Either one or the other must be neglected, and the alternatives are equally objectionable.

What, then, must be done with those children who are not amenable to the ordinary school discipline? At first sight this seems a simple question. Let them be sent to an inst.i.tution. We actually possess in the hospitals of Bicetre and of the Salpetriere, in the colony of Vaucluse--to say nothing of provincial inst.i.tutions--establishments which make provision, both medical and educational, for children who are idiotic, imbecile, vicious, and epileptic. Is it not possible to send to these inst.i.tutions all the abnormal children who enc.u.mber the primary schools?

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 const.i.tute 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.ses can do for them.

=Statistics.=--It is important to notice that the children so defined are not a negligible quant.i.ty. 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 _Societe Libre pour l'etude 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. Bedorez, 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 cla.s.ses 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 cla.s.s 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] It is common to cite with respect the names of one's predecessors, and Seguin's portrait may justly hang in such a gallery of one's ancestors. But Seguin's work must not be examined too closely; those who praise it have certainly not read it. Seguin impresses us as an empiric, endowed with great personal talent, which he has not succeeded in embodying clearly in his works. These contain some pages of good sense, with many obscurities, and many absurdities. We refer the curious reader to his chief work, _Traitement Moral, Hygiene, et Education des Idiots et des autres Enfants Arrieres_, published in 1846. One might make many criticisms on the writings of alienists; but to what end? We prefer to say of such predecessors what Ingres said to his pupils in the Rubens gallery at the Louvre, "Salute them, but pay no attention to them!"