Report on the scientific study of the mental and physical conditions of childhood : with particular reference to children of defective constitution : and with recommendations as to education and training.

  • Committee on the Mental and Physical Condition of Children.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report on the scientific study of the mental and physical conditions of childhood : with particular reference to children of defective constitution : and with recommendations as to education and training. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    either be kept among the infants, for whom he is not good company, or go among classmates with whom he cannot profitably work. To meet such cases it often happens that there is a class of Primers or Standard O, but without any special arrangements for individual culture of these dull or backward pupils. In such schools the brighter children are well educated; at fourteen years of age they get the prizes of the school and enter social life at an advantage; the dull children on the other hand have not only been left comparatively uncultured, but by raising a class distinctly superior to them, they find the struggle for existence becoming intensified. Schools of Special Difficulty. Until the year 1890, certain schools under the London School Board were officially recognized as schools of special difficulty; three of these schools were visited in 1892 and the fourth in 1894. An account of the children in these schools is given in Tables XXVI., XXVII. and XXVIII. On reference to Table XXVIII. it will be seen that while presenting a percentage of dull pupils much higher than the average of Board Schools, they also contained more than the average number of children with all the Main Classes of defects. Schools where the Number of Children in Attendance is Small in Relation to the School Accommodation. In two London Board Schools, with an aggregate accommodation of 1828 places, there were present only 566 boys and 451 girls : this was explained by the diminishing child-population of the neigh- bourhoods, and both schools were about to be closed. The conditions of these children are indicated in Tables XXVI., XXVII. and XXVIII. , and on reference to Table XXVIII., it will be seen that the child-material was much below the average and presented a super-abundance of abnormal nerve-signs.