Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Report of the Royal Commission on the care and control of the feeble-minded, Volume VIII. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    lEEIAND. The Condition of Mentally Defective Children in Ireland. Belfast. Vol. VI. pp. 456- 458. Dublin. Vol. VI., p. 416, and Vol. VI, p. 41, Galway Unions. Vol. VI., p. 504. 1085. Dr. Graham, our Medical Investigator in Belfast, thus comments on the conditions prevailing in the elementary schools there :— Of the “ twenty-nine imbeciles ” among the school population it is said that “ these children are apparently sent to school more as a sort of day nursery than to be educated. The majority are quiet and obedient, but cannot be depended on when teased by other children. . . . Their habits are degraded, and they often make them,selves extremely offensive to their more sensitive companions. Of the defective children (forty-eight males and eighty-one females) : “ Some display marked aberrance of conduct, such as pilfering from other children and from their own homes. Others are quite unmanageable and a great source of irritation to their teachers, as well as a bad example to other scholars. Of the feeble-minded, three in number, two were boys eighteen years of age, one a cretin, one odd, and the third, a boy of seventeen, greatly deformed, was sent to school to ‘ keep him out of mischief.’ ” “As regards the presence of idiots or imbeciles in a public school for the purpose of education, there can be no question whatever as to its futility and worthlessness, not to speak of its undoubted cruelty in many instances.” And of the schools themselves, “ the poorest counties in Ireland,” the Commis.sioners of National Education state, “ are better off in this respect than a city w^hich prides itself on its wealth, enterprise and progress.” To illustrate this two instances are given :— “ My own observation supports this statement to its fullest extent. One school which I visited had a small classroom for infant children, on opening the door of which I was compelled to stand back to permit a clearing away of what cannot be described in less terms than a stench. Greatly to my surprise I found this room literally packed with infants up to six years of age, as tightly as the small benches could admit them, while others were crowded over the floor up to the teacher’s feet. In order to make my inspection I had to step over two rows of children after the teacher had vacated her place, as there was not standing room for both of us. There were from fifty to sixty children present, with one small window partially open for ventilation ! ” “ In a classroom belonging to another school which was almost full of boys, there is no window which opens, and the only ventilator is a broken pane of glass. The teacher merely stared in amazement on my suggesting to her that one of her boys with a few stones should be permitted to rectify matters by opening up a couple more panes. The odour was simply unbearable. ” There is thus in Belfast the double evil—schools whose insanitary conditions would in all normal conditions be productive of lowered vitality and ill-health, and the retention in such schools of mentally defective children who, while they cannot there themselves be educated, are a source of trouble and annoyance to those who can be. 1086. The investigation in Dublin disclosed unsatisfactory conditions of school accommodation, which suggest a comparison with Belfast. But a distinctive feature of it was an examination of the relation between the schools in which children of a different social status were taught, and the amount of mental defect in the several grades of schools. Thus :— — Number of Schools. Child Population of Schools passed under review. Mentally Defective. Total Percentage of Mentally Defective. A ; attended chiefly by the children of eivil servants and other clerks, and of small merchants 41 4,502 46 1-02 B : attended by children of the artisan class and others of the same social level - 66 12,951 194 1-50 C: attended chiefly by the children of temporary labourers, street dealers, and even lower classes 75 16,117 288 1-78 1087. In the Galway Unions, Dr. Mills attributes the very large percentage of mentally defective children to the causes that affect the population generally —the stock depleted by emigration, the'hard and anxious life, and the “ un- ceasing toil in which the children participate from an early^ 9'ge,” the unwhole- some and sometimes insufficient food, and “ the greatly increased number of persons who become parents after an attack of insanitj'. ’