Part 2
"The front of the house looked out on a board fence which divided a double alley. In the rear was a small back yard. One hydrant at the entrance sufficed for the different families. There was underground drainage, but an offensive odour came from the closets. This was the soil in which Fannie had struggled to grow for eight years. When the school nurse visited the house, Fannie sat crouched in a corner, her eyes sullen and dead, her mouth hanging open, her skin showing the poorly nourished condition. Her eyes were crossed, her teeth irregular, the whole face devoid of life or interest.
"Fannie had been two years in the first grade of a Philadelphia school, and had made in that time so little progress that there was no possibility of promoting her to the next grade at the end of that school year. During the first year her attendance had been somewhat irregular, but despite the regular attendance of the second year she had profited little, and had come to be overlooked because she was thought to be too feeble-minded to progress in a school for normal children."
Taken to the psychological clinic, she was given a thorough physical and mental examination. She was found to be afflicted both with adenoid growths and enlarged tonsils, and was sent to a hospital to be operated on for these. Later she was entered in the hospital school connected with Professor Witmer's clinic at the University of Pennsylvania. Here she remained a year, part of that time attending also one of the city's public schools. Both mentally and morally she made satisfactory progress. Her sullenness rapidly disappeared under sympathetic handling. Though "at first she did not seem to understand affection," by the end of six weeks "she was the most demonstratively affectionate child in the school." Professor Witmer adds:
"During the first summer she appeared extremely sluggish. She showed very little tendency to play, and preferred to sit more or less motionless. As good food, better air, sunlight, and kindly treatment began to take effect, she burst forth with such excessive vitality, such exuberant spirits, that once when I had her before the psychological clinic one of the teachers asked if the lively movements were not the result of St. Vitus's Dance. This first outburst of vitality gradually subsided, leaving her a normally active child."
Undeniably, of course, even though a vicious household environment was chiefly responsible for this girl's backwardness, the adenoids and enlarged tonsils were also responsible for it in some degree. Parents cannot too keenly appreciate the hurtful effect bodily defects like these may have on mental development. Doctor Ayres, who has made an exhaustive study of this factor in retardation, estimates that it alone accounts for about 9 per cent. of the laggards in our schools, and clinical psychologists are disposed to put the percentage still higher. On the other hand, their experience with retarded children has led them to the important conclusion that, helpful as spectacles, the ear syringe, and the surgeon's knife may be, "after-treatment" in the form of careful individual training usually is indispensable, if only for the reason that while handicapped by the bodily defect the child may have acquired faulty mental habits which need to be corrected before education by ordinary schoolroom methods can count for much.
This means, manifestly, that many agencies must co-operate in the regeneration of the curable dullard. How many are sometimes involved may perhaps be sufficiently indicated by detailing another case from Professor Witmer's extensive experience, the case of an eleven-year-old boy who was brought to the University of Pennsylvania's psychological clinic with a history of five wasted years in school.
Any suspicion that this boy might belong to the ranks of the truly feeble-minded was dissipated by the results of the exhaustive mental testing through which Professor Witmer put him. This showed not only that he was naturally intelligent, but also that he was of an affectionate, generous, and thoughtful disposition. When, however, a physical examination was made, ample reason for his dullness was discovered, for it was found that he was suffering from adenoids, enlarged tonsils, weakness of vision, and dental trouble, his teeth being decayed and unclean, with tartar pushing back the gums, which were inflamed and swollen. In addition, he was stoop-shouldered, had an irregular heart action, and showed signs of being poorly nourished.
"Before anything can be done to improve your boy's mental state," it was explained to his mother, "his physical condition will have to be improved. He should be put under treatment without delay."
Then began a distressful period for the hapless youngster. First of all, a throat specialist operated on him for the removal of the adenoids and the hyper-trophied tonsils. After this he was sent to the eye clinic, where he was fitted with glasses. Next, he was taken to the dental clinic, where his teeth were cleaned and filled. All the while a trained social worker kept in touch with his parents to make sure that he would receive the hygienic care which had hitherto been wanting. In the meantime, he was allowed to return to school, from which, after the beginning of the summer vacation, he was transferred to a special school for backward boys. Here he remained most of the summer, being given individual attention with regard to his mental and physical needs.
It was noticed at first he was inclined to be quick-tempered and disorderly; but under the tactful handling he received he soon settled down. From being puny and delicate, he became an active, vigorous boy, excelling in the swimming-pool and the gymnasium. At his books he also made such progress that, on returning to regular school in the autumn, he was promoted through two grades in less than six months, being then only one grade behind normal and giving every promise of catching up with the boys of his own age in another six months.
Altogether, the services of half a dozen specialists in psychology, medicine, and education, and the expenditure of much time, effort, and money had been required to get this boy straightened out. Nor is his by any means an uncommon case. Moreover, like the case of the gibbering girl of eight, it illustrates another point in connection with the problem of retardation which should indeed be emphasised--the part played by parental ignorance and thoughtlessness in swelling the army of the retarded.
Had the parents of this boy appreciated the close relationship between bodily health and the health of the mind, had they taken alarm at the first signs of malnutrition and sought the advice of a competent physician, instituting developmental measures in accordance with his counsel, their son might not have become an educational "lame duck," and all the tedious and costly restorative work of later years would then have been avoided. To be sure, it must immediately be added that maintenance of his physical health would not of itself have unfailingly operated as a guarantee against retardation.
For, quite conceivably, he might have been surrounded by an intellectually deadening home environment, receiving from his parents neither proper disciplining nor encouragement and stimulus to mental activity, with the result that when the time came for him to go to school he would display little capability for, or interest in, the tasks of the classroom. So frequently is this actually the case that students of retardation are inclining more and more to rate faulty home training as perhaps the chief cause of mental backwardness. Thus we find one keen observer, Professor P. E. Davidson, declaring in an address at an educational convention in California:
"Parental neglect as a cause, resulting in emotional and volitional disorder, is emphasised in our cases. Learning in school is conditioned largely by what Witmer calls 'pedagogical rapport,' wherein a deference to the prestige of the teacher and the school and a sensitiveness to its rewards and punishments are such as rapidly to produce a habit of voluntary effort or active attention. Confirmed wilfulness at home and undisciplined impulsiveness must undoubtedly figure in the matter of learning. If the child's organic habit, after five or six years of poor home training, makes avoidance of the painfulness of effort the usual thing, we may be sure the teacher in the first grade will have unusual difficulty in inducing a disciplined attention, and a bad beginning on this account may establish a backwardness which later may not be overcome without the individual attention that is impossible in the teaching of large classes."
Professor G. W. A. Luckey, of the University of Nebraska, listing the causes of retardation, puts at the foot of his list "bad inheritance, unredeemable defects, physical and mental," and at the very top, "ignorance and indifference on the part of parents." Most investigators would evaluate these contrasting causes in precisely the same way. The inference, needless to say, is that we need never hope to bring about an appreciable diminution in the number of retarded children until parents are more fully enlightened as to their duties and responsibilities. It is therefore good to find that a nation-wide campaign of enlightenment is well under way, together with an ever-increasing extension of agencies for the work of rescuing the retarded and fitting them to achieve success in the school and in the world.
Eight years ago there were in all the United States only three "clearing-houses for retarded children." These were the psychological clinic of the University of Pennsylvania, established by Professor Witmer in 1896; a civic psychological clinic, opened in 1909, in connection with the schools of Los Angeles; and the psychological clinic of Clark University, at Worcester, Massachusetts, established in the same year as a department of that university's splendid Children's Institute.
To-day, as part of the regular activities of universities and normal schools, there are psychological clinics in more than a dozen States, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington. At least four States--Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania--have psychological clinics in operation as adjuncts of hospitals. California, Illinois, Missouri, New York, and Pennsylvania have similar clinics in direct connection with the public school system. Ohio has one connected with a vocational-guidance bureau. And in some States--such as Connecticut, Illinois, and Massachusetts--psychological clinics are also in operation for the special purpose of aiding in the proper disposition of cases brought before the juvenile courts.
Even more rapid has been the development of ear, eye, throat, and dental clinics for the needs of school children. As an outgrowth, too, of the discoveries of the past few years, there has been a widespread movement in the direction of establishing special schools and classes in which the retarded may receive the care necessary to enable them to make up for lost time, or, when this is out of the question, to equip them for as happy and useful a life as is possible under their exceptional mental limitations. Unquestionably a splendid beginning has been made in the warfare against retardation--a beginning not surpassed by similar effort in any foreign land, and certain to prove of great value to the American nation.
But, if it is to prove of the utmost possible value, there must be active co-operation by the public generally and by parents in particular. Society must insist on every child being given hygienically decent surroundings, and parents in the mass must become increasingly alive to their responsibilities and opportunities in developing the mentality of their young. To reiterate:
It may be considered as definitely established to-day that the vast majority of cases of mental backwardness are the result, not of organic brain defects, not of true feeble-mindedness, but of remediable physical conditions or faulty training in the home.
It may be considered as established that even seemingly incurable cases will often yield to expert treatment.
And it may be considered as established that, of the cases which cannot be successfully handled, a large proportion are cases which could have been successfully handled had they been recognised and given expert treatment during early childhood.
Let every parent of a dull child act, and act promptly, to ascertain from some expert just why his child is dull, and what can and should be done to overcome the dullness. Let every parent of every child make it his business to learn and heed the laws of physical and mental hygiene as applicable to his child, with a view to insuring that the child shall not be afflicted with preventable mental backwardness. This is one of the prime duties of parenthood.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: As given in J. E. Wallace Wallin's "Experimental Studies of Mental Defectives," 1912, p. 116 _et seq._]
[Footnote 2: For some illustrative cases see "Psychology and Parenthood," especially pp. 174-178.]
THE ONLY CHILD
II
THE ONLY CHILD
Fifteen years ago a boy was born of prosperous New York parents. His arrival was exceptionally welcome, for his father and mother had been living in dread that theirs might prove a childless marriage. They had fervently promised themselves that if their fondest hopes were realised and a child granted to them, nothing that loving devotion could accomplish would be left undone to secure for the little one the best possible start in life. As a first step in the fulfilment of this promise, they decided soon after their son's birth to remove from New York to a pleasant residential suburb, where fresh air abounded, and where the adverse environmental influences of the crowded city streets were utterly unknown.
Seemingly, no decision could have been wiser; seemingly, no child could have been brought up amid more favourable surroundings than their boy enjoyed in the splendid home they provided for him on a beautiful slope crested with pines. Yet, despite all the love lavished on him, despite the prodigious efforts to keep him well and strong, he did not thrive.
Before he was seven he displayed "nervous" symptoms that threw his parents into a panic. He suffered from "night terrors," he became excitable and irritable. The eminent physician to whom he was taken made the flattering diagnosis that the only trouble with the boy was an unusually sensitive nervous organisation; prescribed sedatives, advised outdoor exercise, warned against overstudy, and so forth. Unfortunately, he did not also emphasise the necessity for simplification of the child's environment as a preventive of nerve strain. Nor did he dwell on the supreme importance to physical, no less than moral, welfare of sedulously cultivating in the little fellow the virtues of courage, self-control, and self-denial. Perhaps he did not think it needful to speak of these things to such evidently well-bred and well-intentioned parents; perhaps he did not think of these things at all.
In any event, while acting on his advice as to stimulating animal activity and retarding brain function, the father and mother continued to minister to their son's every whim, and eternally busied themselves devising amusements and distractions for him. In time the "night terrors" were no longer in evidence; but the excitability and irritability persisted, and presently other unpleasant traits appeared, notably a tendency to conceit and selfishness. Naturally, this did not make the poor youngster any too popular among the few playmates with whom his parents allowed him to associate, and naturally the parents blamed the playmates for not appreciating the "sensitiveness" of his disposition. Thus matters continued until his twelfth year, when his father suddenly awoke to the fact that, intellectually, the naughty playmates were considerably ahead of the good little boy. For the first time common sense scored a distinct triumph over excessive and indiscreet parental love; the governess who had been unable to handle her self-willed pupil was dismissed, and the boy was sent to school.
There he has been painfully gaining the discipline--the lessons in self-mastery--that should have been given him in the nursery. But he still is lamentably arrogant and selfish; he still finds it difficult to get along with other boys. Whether his schoolmates will take the trouble to help him overcome the handicap of his early rearing is questionable; and however this may be, it is hardly likely that the character defects unnecessarily acquired during his childhood will be wholly rooted out.
It must regretfully be added that this boy's case is not an exceptional one. Rather, it is typical of the plight of most "only children," who, no matter what their advantages of birth, too often reach manhood and womanhood sadly handicapped and markedly inferior to other children. In a vague way, to be sure, parents with only one child have long realised that they are confronted with special problems in child training; but there is abundant proof that in innumerable instances they signally fail to grasp these problems clearly and work them out satisfactorily.
Everyday observation supports this statement, and it is confirmed by the findings of modern medical, psychological, and sociological investigation. Statistically, its most important corroboration is forthcoming from the results of a census of "only children," undertaken some years ago by the psychological department of Clark University in consequence of certain suggestive indications noticed in the responses received to a _questionnaire_ on peculiar and exceptional children.
Of the thousand children described in these responses it was observed that forty-six were specifically mentioned as being "only children," although none of the queries in the _questionnaire_ asked directly or indirectly about such children. The presumption was that a number of the remaining children described in the responses were also of the only-child class. But even if such were not the case, the total of forty-six was surprisingly high, since, according to reliable vital statistics, the average progeny of fertile marriages is six, with an only-child average of one out of every thirteen fertile marriages; that is, a proportion of one only child to every seventy-eight children, as contrasted with the proportion of one in fewer than every twenty-two of the "peculiar" children described in the _questionnaire_ reports.
Moreover, on dividing these reports into three groups based on the "advantageous," "neutral," and "disadvantageous" character of the peculiarities mentioned, it was found that while considerably less than half of the total number of children fell into the disadvantageous group, two-thirds of the "only children" had to be put into it. Naturally this suggested the desirability of a special investigation with reference to the only child, and accordingly a second _questionnaire_ was issued, with queries relating to age, sex, nationality, health, amusements, intellectual ability, moral traits, and so forth. In this way, from school teachers and other disinterested observers, definite information was obtained concerning nearly four hundred "only children"--information which, as finally tabulated and analysed by the director of the investigation, Doctor E. W. Bohannon, is of great significance to the parents of every only child and to all interested in individual and racial improvement.
The age average of those whose ages were given--nearly three hundred--was twelve years, including about sixty ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five. About four-fifths were of American parentage, while the proportion with regard to sex was, roughly speaking, one-third male and two-thirds female, a disparity doubtless attributable in part to the circumstances of the investigation. About one hundred were said not to be in good health, and another hundred to be in outright bad health. In one hundred and thirty-three out of two hundred and fifty-eight cases the temperament was described as "nervous." Precocity was another often-mentioned trait; but on the average the beginning of school life was from a year and a half to two years later than is usual, and in the performance of school work the _questionnaire_ responses also revealed a marked inferiority on the part of many "only children."
In their social relations only eighty were reported as "normal," while one hundred and thirty-four out of a total of two hundred and sixty-nine got along badly with other children, usually because they were unwilling or did not know how to make concessions, or were stubbornly set on having their own way. On this important point Doctor Bohannon says, in detail:
"When they disagree with other children it is usually because of a desire to rule. If they fail in this desire they are likely to refuse to associate with the children who cause the failure, and in a measure succeed in the wish to have their own way, either by choosing younger companions whom they can control, or older ones who are willing to indulge them. Many do not care for a large number of companions, and select one or two for friends, with whom they prefer to spend most of their time.... In numerous instances ... a marked preference for the company of older people is manifest, even when opportunity for younger company is present. But this is no doubt due less to a dislike of suitable companionship than to their inability to understand and be understood by children of near their own age. It is plainly evident that they have as deep longings for society as the children of other families, but their isolated home life has failed to give them equal skill and ability in social matters. They do not so well understand how to make approaches, to concede this thing and that."
Of two hundred and forty-five in attendance at school, more than one hundred "only children" were recorded as not being normally interested in active games, sixty-two of these scarcely playing at all. "If left to their own devices," Doctor Bohannon infers from the reports which he received concerning the inactive sixty-two, "they are pretty sure to be found in the schoolroom with their teachers at intermission. A number of the boys prefer to play with the girls at strictly girls' games, such as keeping house with dolls, and generally come to be called girl-boys."
Effeminacy, in fact, is an unpleasantly frequent characteristic of the male only child, and was noted in case after case described in the replies to the _questionnaire_. Selfishness was set down as the dominant trait in ninety-four "only children" of both sexes, and many others were described as being unusually bad-tempered, vain, naughty, or untruthful.[3]
These depressing findings have since been confirmed by other investigators, some of whom have contributed specially to our knowledge of the state of the only child in adult life. For instance, the well-known English psychologist, Havelock Ellis, studying the life histories of four hundred eminent men and women, found the low percentage of 6.9 for "only children," indicating unmistakably the persistence of the intellectual inferiority brought out by the answers to the Bohannon _questionnaire_. There would also seem to be no doubt that egotism and social inadaptability characterise, the adult only child no less than the immature one.