The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1906-02-21


in its highest sense, therefore, cannot
exist independently of speech. Hence
it is If you train and perfect his
speech you deprive him at the same
time of development, and it also fol-
lows that if you train and perfect his
speech you must greatly improve his
mentality. In the normal child men
tai development and speech develop
ment progress simultaneously
Neither can be said to precede the
other. The child thinks and speaks
If he does not speak when he thinks
we at once suspect that there is
something wrong with the organs of
speech and if he also fails to make
use of the other forms of expression,
such as gesture and pantomime, we
even doubt his ability to think"
IF there is no outward mechanical
obstruction TO speech, and if the
hearing is intact" DR.. Maliuen says,
'the character of the speech is our
best index to the operations of the
! mind, and the response TO training
shown by the speech will be in direct
| proportion to that of the mind. Thus
the study of the speech of the feeble
minded becomes valuable and in lie
| diagnosis and pronosis of their con-
| dition. Defective speech is both
| physical and mental sign of feeble
mindedness, though it may be cause
and not result of the latter" To
| quote further:
"a child's educability depends
more than anything else upon his de-
sire to be educated The desire to
speak is inherent in every normal
| person, and if this desire is not
gratified, the desire to be educated
will be diminished or blunted. What
is the use of knowing things il you
| cannot communicat them? The
child who will not be educated will
| retrograde and become feeble-minded.
Being out of harmony with his en-
vironments his normal nature will
become perverted. He will grow
destructive and show other signs of
degeneracy and imbecility He does
this because he does not understand
his surroundings, and he is not him
self understood by those about him
He elicits the sympathy of the house
hold, and his every wish is anticipat-
ed and granted without even the ask
ing. Under these circumstances, of
course, education becomes an i'm
possibility There is no necessity
for the child to talk, and there is no
inducement for him 10 learn to know
things. He is what we call a spoiled
child, and he differs but little in his
actions from the imbecile
"Our whole system OF education,
beginning at the cradle. has been
developed to meet the requirements
of the normal mind. and is wholly
inadequate to the requirements of the
abnormal or feeble mind. 1t must
be remembered also that the mind is
the product of complex physical Or
ganism, and that speech itself is, in
part at least. a product of this same
organism. Even the socalled periph-
eral mechanisms of speech, in the de-
velopment period, are under direct
control Of the cerebral mechanisms,
and the muscles employed in the ar
ticulation of speech sounds have been
called the mental muscles. AS Max
Muller has said, TO think is to
speak low and to speak is to think
aloud 1t follows, therefore, that
the training of speech should occupy
an important place in the curriculum
Of schools for the feeble minded"
In the course of his paper DR.. Ma.
kuen described several cases in
which he had successfully treated
imbecile children by training them
to speak clearly. Improvement in
quality of thought and intellect ran
parallel to improvement in language.
Literary Digest.