Bismarck daily tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1881-1916, 1912-04-05
Public Schools Can Assist BY
Teaching Them Clements !
Of Simple Industry
Liable to Drift Into Crimina |itV
Class If Not Properly
Cared For
Characteristics Can Be
Studied by Dividing Them
Into Special Glasses
BY Associated Press.

BY Associated Press.
SOUTH BETHLEHEM. Pa, April
81 H. Van SICKLE, superintendent
OF schools of Springfield, Mass, de-
livered an address here to-day before
the conference On conversation Of
school children. held under the auspi-
ces of the American Academy Of Medi-
cine. His subjectwas the care of
feeble minded children by tie public
schools. and he spoke in part as fell
lows:
In the most progressive communi-
ties the control AID care of the pos
itively feeble-minded, like that of the
insane, is a state function. Boys Of
this class if left to themselves, being
unable to sustain themselves in COM
petitiye industry, drift into criminali-
ty and come upon the state for sup
port in our penal institutions. 1t is
now seen that state supervision over
these boys should begin before crm-
inal tendencies have been allowed to
develop.
To prevent the marriage of feeble
mined girls and to shield them from
temptations to which they are notori.
ously easy prey is obviously a duty
This duty the state can perform more
effectively and at less expense than
the local community. At what point
shall the state take up this burden?
While feeble. minded boys are with
in the usual compulsory attendance
age and are under the watched eye
Of teacher and attendance officer, the
local community may properly as
sumo full responsibility for their
training. Predetermined girls become
a menace earlier than the feeble-mind.
ed boys. but for number of years
both boys and girls of this class may
with safety to themselves and others
be taught in the public day schools.
They should. however, be grouped in
special classes where their charac-
teristics may be carefully studied.
In border line cases, several years
may pass before it can be determined
with certainty whether a child is posi-
lively feeble-minded or merely back
ward, hence the special class in the
public school serves a highly useful
purpose as a cline in which suspected
cases are slowly and carefully dag.
nosed. From the special class the
child CT temporary retardation is re.
turned to the grades. Some of the
border line cases of feeble-minded-
ness and the high-grade cases pass
from tine school to employment
Those who go from the class to the
state school for the feeble-minded are
removed from the community to
which they are menace, are them
selves protected, and are taught to
assist the state toward their support
in SO far as they are capable of do
ing so. Except in the exceedingly
small number of instances where the
feeble-minded child has a good home,
local communities cannot safely re-
tain feeble-minded children beyond
the age of adolescence.
The public school can render its
best service by teaching the feeble.
minded not ordinary academic studies
but such elements Of simple industry
as will most nearly render them self
supporting when at about the age of
adolescence they 60 to the custodial
home.
The teacher of the special class
should have the ability to enter into
sympathetic relations with parents Of
feeble minded children, gradually and
gently acquainting them with the
child's real condition and with the
advantage which the state institution
offers, and finally securing their con-
sent to transfer.
While in the special class each
child should be put into as good physi-
cal condition as possible This is a
prerequisite in determining the child's
mental condition.
The public school is one of our
social institutions, and as such it may
justly be expected in work with the
feeble-minded to do whatever its
publicly provided facilities can &C
complish without neglecting it's other
functions. BY gathering sub normal
children into special classes and fit
ting them for partial self-support in
institutions. the school renders only
a reasonable service, for the segrega
ton of the feeble-minded is equally
in the interest of the normal children
whose progress they would otherwise