THE HANDICAPPED CHILD
Educators have only recently realized the existence of large numbers
of pupils within the schools who are unequal to the routine class-work
because of mental defects. It was one of our settlement residents, a
teacher in a Henry Street school, who first startled us into serious
consideration of these children. In the year 1899 she brought to us from
time to time reports of a colleague, Elizabeth Farrell, whose attention
was fixed upon the “poor things” unable to keep up with the grade. She
had, our resident declared, “ideas” about them. We sought acquaintance
with her, and we felt it a privilege to learn to know the noble
enthusiasm of this young woman for those pupils who, to teachers, must
always seem the least hopeful.
The Board of Education permitted her to form the first class for ungraded
pupils, in School Number 1, in 1900, and the settlement gladly helped
develop her theory of separate classes and special instruction for the
defectives, not alone for their sakes, but to relieve the normal classes
which their presence retarded. We provided equipment not yet on the
School Board’s requisition list, obtained permission for her to attend
children’s clinics, secured treatment for the children, and, finally, and
not least important, made every effort to interest members of the School
Board and the public generally in this class of children.
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The plan included the provision of a luncheon. For this we purchased
tables, paper napkins, and dishes. The children brought from home bread
and butter, and a penny for a glass of milk, and an alert principal made
practical the cooking lessons given to the older girls in the school by
having them prepare the main dish of the pupils’ luncheon—incidentally
the first to be provided in the grade schools. Occasionally the approval
of the families would be expressed in extra donations, and in the
beginning this sometimes took the form of a bottle of beer. Every day
one pupil was permitted to invite an adult member of his family to the
luncheon, which led naturally to an exchange of visits between members of
the family and the teacher.
Among the pupils in this first class was Tony, a Neapolitan, impossible
in the grade class because of emotional outbursts called “bad temper,”
and an incorrigible truant. When defects of vision were corrected the
outbursts became less frequent, and manual work disclosed a latent power
of application and stimulated a willingness to attend school. Tony is now
a bricklayer, a member of the union in good standing, and last spring he
and his father bought a house in Brooklyn.
[Illustration]
Another was Katie. Spinal meningitis when she was very young had left
her with imperfect mental powers. Careful examination disclosed impaired
control, particularly of the groups of smaller muscles. She has never
learned to read, but has developed skill in clay-modeling, and sews and
embroiders very well. She makes her clothes and is a cheerful helper
to her mother in the work about the house. Last Christmas she sent to
the school warm undergarments which she had made, to be given to the
children who needed them. Her intelligent father feels that but for the
discriminating instruction in the ungraded class her powers would have
progressively deteriorated and Katie “would be in darkness.”
The teacher who thus first fixed our attention upon these defective
children has long been a member of the settlement family. She has carried
us with her in her zeal for them, and we have come to see that it is
because the public conscience has been sluggish that means and methods
have not been more speedily devised toward an intelligent solution of
this serious social problem.
From the small beginnings of the experimental class in Henry Street a
separate department in the public schools was created in 1908, and this
year (1915) there are 3,000 children throughout the city under the care
of specially trained teachers who have liberty to adapt the school work
to the children’s peculiar needs. All these ungraded classes are under
the direction of Miss Farrell.
Looking back upon the struggles to win formal recognition of the
existence of these children, who now so much engage the attention of
educators and scientists, we realize that our colleague’s devotion to
them, her power to excite enthusiasm in us, and her understanding of the
social implications of their existence, came from a deep-lying principle
that every human being, even the least lovely, merits respectful
consideration of his rights and his personality.
Much is required of the public school teachers, and many of them rise to
every demand; but naturally, in so great a number, there are some who
do not recognize that theirs is the responsibility for discovering the
children who are not normal. Harry sits on our doorsteps almost every
day, ready to run errands, and harmless as yet. Obviously defective, a
“pronounced moron,” he was promoted from class to class, and when one of
his settlement friends called upon the teacher to discuss Harry’s special
needs, the teacher, somewhat contemptuous of our anxiety, observed that
“all that Harry needed was a whipping.”
From one-half of one per cent. to two per cent. of children of school
age are, it is estimated, in need of special instruction because of the
quality or the imperfect functioning of their mental powers. The public
school has the power, and should exercise it, to bring within its walls
all the children physically and mentally competent to attend it. If
children are under intelligent observation, departures from the normal
can in many instances be recognized in time for training and education
according to the particular need. Long-continued observation and record
of the child are essential to intelligent treatment of abnormalities
concerning which there is even now very little accurate information.
Cumulative experience and data, such as can be obtained only through the
compulsory attendance at school of the multitudes of children of this
type, will finally give a basis for scientific and humanitarian action
regarding them.
[Illustration]
Up to a certain period the child’s helplessness demands that every
opportunity for development be given him, but that is not the whole of
society’s responsibility. The time comes when the child’s own interests
and those of the community demand the wisest, least selfish, and most
statesmanlike action. Society must state in definite terms its right
to be protected from the hopelessly defective and the moral pervert,
wherever found. This constitutes the real problem of the abnormal. At the
adolescent period those unfit for parenthood should be guarded—girls and
boys—and society should be vested with authority and power to accomplish
segregation, the conditions of which should attract and not repel.
Because so much needs to be said upon it, if anything is said at all, I
am loath to touch upon the one great obstacle to the effective use of
all the intelligence and the resources available for the well-being of
these children, the most baffling impediment to their and the community’s
protection, namely, the supreme authority of parenthood, be it never so
inefficient, avaricious, or even immoral.
* * * * *
The breaking up of the family because of poverty, through the death or
disappearance of the wage-earner, was, until comparatively recent years,
generally accepted as inevitable.
In the first winter of our residence on the East Side we took care of
Mr. S⸺, who was in an advanced stage of phthisis; and we daily admired
the wonderful ability of his wife, who kept the home dignified while she
sewed on wrappers, nursed her husband, and allowed nothing to interfere
with the children’s daily attendance at school. When her husband died
it seemed the most natural thing in the world to help her to realize
her own wishes and to approve her good judgment in desiring to keep
the family together. The orphan asylum would doubtless have taken the
children from her, leaving her childless as well as widowed, and with no
counterbalancing advantage for the children to lighten her double woe.
A large-minded lover of children, who gave his money to orphans as well
as to orphanages, readily agreed to give the mother a monthly allowance
until the eldest son could legally go to work. It was our first “widow’s
pension.”
Our hopes in this particular case have been more than realized. The
eldest boy, it is true, has not achieved any notable place in the
community; but his sisters are teachers and most desirable elements in
the public school system of the city,—living testimony to the worth of
the mother’s character.
In no instance where we have prevented the disintegration of the family
because of poverty have we had reason to regret our decision. Of course,
the ability of the mother to maintain a standard in the home and control
the children is a necessary qualification in any general recommendation
for this treatment of the widow and orphan, and competent supervision is
essential to insure the maintenance of these conditions.
[Illustration]
At the famous White House Conference on Children, held at the invitation
of President Roosevelt, there was practical unanimity on the part of the
experts who gathered there that institutional life was undesirable and
that wherever possible family life should be maintained. Testimony as to
this came from many sources; and keeping the family together, or boarding
the orphan with a normal family when adoption could not be arranged,
became the dominant note of the conference.
The children, in this as in many other instances, led us into searching
thought many years ago. Forlorn little Joseph had called upon me with a
crumpled note which he reluctantly dragged from a pocket. It was from
the admitting agent of an orphanage, explaining that Joseph could not
be taken into the institution until his head was “cured”; and it gave
some details regarding the family, the worthiness of the mother, and
her exceeding poverty. The agent hoped that I might relieve her by
expediting Joseph’s admission.
I tried to make the child’s daily visit to me interesting. The treatment
was not painful, but the end of each visit—he came with patient
regularity every day—left me as dolorous as himself. One day I tried,
by promise of a present or of any treat he fancied, to bring out some
expression of youthful spirit—all unavailingly. “But you must wish for
something,” I urged; “I never knew a boy who didn’t.” For the first time
the silent little lad showed enthusiasm. “I wish you wouldn’t cure my
head, so I needn’t go to the orphan asylum.”
Unscrupulous parents, I am well aware, often try to shift the
responsibility for their children upon public institutions, but there
are many who share Joseph’s aversion to the institutional life, and we
early recognized that the dislike is based upon a sound instinct and
that a poor home might have compensating advantages compared with the
well-equipped institution.
There have been great changes in institutional methods since I first had
knowledge of them, and much ingenuity has been shown in devising means
to encourage the development of individuality and initiative among the
orphans. The cottage plan has been introduced in some institutions to
modify the abnormal life of large congregations of children. But at best
the life is artificial, and the children lose inestimably through not
having day by day the experiences of normal existence. Valuable knowledge
is lost because the child does not learn from experience the connection
between the cost of necessities and the labor necessary to earn them. It
was somewhat pathetic, at another conference on child-saving, to hear
one of the speakers explain that he tried to meet this need by having
the examples in arithmetic relate to the cost of food and household
expenditures.
The lack of a normal emotional outlet is of consequence, and as a result
astute physiognomists often recognize what they term the “institution
look.” Maggie, an intelligent girl, who has since given abundant evidence
of spontaneity and spirit, spent a short time in an excellent orphanage.
She told me the other day, and wept as she told it, that she had met no
unkindness there, but remembered with horror that when they arose in the
morning the “orphans” waited to be told what to do; and that feeling was
upon her every hour of the day. In fact, Maggie had stirred me to make
arrangements to take her out of the institution because, when I brought
her for a visit to the settlement, she stood at the window the entire
afternoon, wistfully watching the children play in our back yard, and
not joining them because no one had told her that she might.
One is reluctant to speak only of the disadvantages of institutional
life, for there are many children rescued from unfortunate family
conditions who testify to the good care they received, and who, in after
life, look back upon the orphanage as the only home they have known.
For some children, doubtless, such care will continue to be necessary,
but the conservative and rigid administration can be softened, and the
management and their charges delivered out of the rut into which they
have fallen, and from the tyranny of rules and customs which have no
better warrant than that they have always existed.
Perhaps these illustrations are not too insignificant to record.
Happening to pass through a room in an asylum when the dentist was paying
his monthly visit, I saw a fine-looking young lad about to have a sound
front tooth extracted because he complained of toothache. No provision
had been made for anything but the extraction of teeth. An offer to have
the boy given proper treatment outside the institution was not accepted,
but it needed no more than this to insure better dentistry in his case
and in the institution in future. The reports stated that corporal
punishment was not administered. When a little homesick lad displayed
his hands, swollen from paddling, a request for an investigation, and
that I be privileged to hear the inquiry, put a stop, and I am assured
a permanent one, to this form of discipline. These are the more obvious
disadvantages of institutional life for the child. The more subtle and
dangerous are the curbing of initiative and the belittling of personality.
An intelligent observer of the effects of institution life on boys,
a Roman Catholic priest, established a temporary home in New York to
which they could come on their release from the institution until they
found employment and suitable places to board. His insight was shown
by his provision for the boys during their brief sojourn with him of
a formal table service, and weekly dances to which girls whom he knew
were invited. As he astutely observed, the boys often went into common
society, or society which made no demands, because, from their lack of
experience, they felt ill at ease in a circle where any conventions were
observed.
Where life goes by rule there is little spontaneous action or
conversation, but the children occasionally give clews to their passion
for personal relationships. In an institution which I knew the children
were allowed to write once a month to their friends. More than one
child without family ties took that opportunity to write letters to an
imaginary mother, to send messages of affection to imaginary brothers and
sisters, and to ask for personal gifts. They knew, of course, that the
letters would never leave the institution.
An unusual instance of intense longing for family life and the desire to
“belong” to someone was given by Tillie, who had lived all her life in
an orphan asylum. Sometimes she dreamed of her mother, and often asked
where she was. When she was ten years old the wife of the superintendent
told her that her mother had brought her to the asylum, but that all she
could remember about her was that she had red hair. From that day the
child’s desire to re-establish relations with her mother never flagged.
In the files of the asylum a letter was discovered from an overseer of
the poor in an upstate town, saying that the woman had wandered there. At
Tillie’s urgent request he was written to again, and after a search on
his part it was learned that she had been declared insane and taken to
the hospital at Rochester. The very day that Tillie was released from the
orphan asylum she secured money for the trip and went to Rochester. The
officials of the hospital received her kindly and took her into the ward
where, although she had no memory of having seen her, she identified
her mother—doubtless by the color of her hair. The mother, alas, did
not recognize her. Two years later the girl revisited the hospital and
found her mother enjoying an interval of memory. Tillie told me that
she learned “two important things”—that she had had a brother and my
name. How I was connected with the fortunes of the family the poor,
bewildered woman could not explain, and I have no recollection of her.
Tillie followed these clews, as she has every other. She has learned that
the brother was sent West with orphans from an Eastern institution, and
that he has joined the army. The devoted girl is making every effort to
establish a home to which she can bring the mother and brother, utterly
regardless of the burden it will place on her young shoulders.
We must turn to the younger countries for testimony as to the wisdom
of the non-institutional care of dependent children. In Australia the
plan for many years in all the provinces has been to care for them in
homes, and in Queensland and New South Wales the laws permit the children
to be boarded out to their own mothers. It is encouraging to note the
increasing number of responsible people in America who are ready to adopt
children. It may not be possible to find a sufficient number of suitable
homes to provide for all who are dependent; but once the policy of
decentralization is established, other methods will be evolved to avoid
large congregations of boys and girls. Two of my colleagues and I have
found much happiness in assuming responsibility for eight children. Quite
apart from our own pleasure in taking to ourselves these “nieces” and
“nephews,” we believe that we shall be able to demonstrate convincingly
the practicability of establishing small groups of children, without
ties of their own, as a family unit. Our children live the year round in
our country home, and are identified with the life of the community; and
we hope to provide opportunity for the development of their individual
tastes and aptitudes.
[Illustration: On the Farm]
Education and the child is a theme of widest social significance. To the
age-old appeal that the child’s dependence makes upon the affections
has been added a conviction of the necessity for a guarded and trained
childhood, that better men and women may be developed. It is a modern
note in patriotism and civic responsibility, which impels those who are
brought in contact with the children of the poor to protect them from
premature burdens, to prolong their childhood and the period of growth.
Biologists bring suggestive and illuminating analogies, but when one has
lived many years in a neighborhood such as ours the children themselves
tell the story. We know that physical well-being in later life is largely
dependent upon early care, that only the exceptional boys and girls can
escape the unwholesome effects of premature labor, and that lack of
training is responsible for the enormous proportion of unskilled and
unemployable among the workers.
The stronghold of our democracy is the public school. This conviction
lies deep in the hearts of those social enthusiasts who would keep the
school free from the demoralization of cant and impure politics, and
restore it to the people, a shrine for education, a center for public
uses.
The young members of the settlement clubs hear this doctrine preached
not infrequently. Last June the City Superintendent, addressing a class
graduating from the normal school, made an appeal for idealism in their
work. He spoke of the possibilities in their profession for far-reaching
social service, and named as one who exemplified his theme the principal
of a great city school, once one of our settlement boys.
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