S BUREAU OF EDUCATION. m py . ay Mea Loe nln athena oes ORT or TH COMMISSIONER OF EDUC ATION | a r Tag le a 4 * , 4s © CHAPTER IA MENTAL ARNURIALIIES 1 HORE Sars 2 rae | ¢ -ADVEE CT, SAasa LS. are a eee ® - ‘WASHINGTON: ~~ m> _ GOVERNMENT PRINTIN OMB IOU se BE ge te OE eerste a ABN A CHAPTER X. 1INOR MENTAL ABNORMALITIES IN CHILDREN AS OCCA- SIONED BY CERTAIN ERRONEOUS SCHOOL METHODS.' 5 By Dr. William O, Krohn, Psychologist, Illinois Eastern Hospital. | } | My discussion of this subject is based upon four distinct premises or proposi- ‘ons, each of which is a clearly proven and fully demonstrated truth—a funda- ‘ental principle—in some one of the various particular sciences. Itis not my ‘arpose to endeavor to substantiate any particular theory of education. We are ~ ot trying to bring forth evidence in favor of any ‘‘fad” or ‘‘ism.” It is an nwelcome fact, but a fact, nevertheless, that mental abnormalities do exist in chool children. To what is this seeming mental disintegration due? We know hat in a large measure these mental abnormalities are the direct result of erro- eous school methods—the logical attainment of a pseudoeducation. ‘The present paper is not at all concerned with the physical ills of the child, jany and serious as they are, due to improperly appointed schoolrooms. Schoolroom diseases” do exist, and the fact that they do exist is a stigma that ve should all hasten to eradicate. That a healthy, laughing, romping child ntering our modern school may be doing so at the probable expense of health is sad commentary upon our modern educational methods. Can you wonder that parent sometimes hesitates to give his child to the modern school when he /nows from observation that his dearly beloved child may come back to him at he end of a few years broken in heaith? Must the parent of to-day take along vith the modern school, possessing as it does so much that is excellent, utilizing ‘sit does so many of the best educational facts and forces—must he needs take lso those factors that make against rather than for the child’s health? Can you riticise the parent for sometimes halting at the schoolroom door and repeating o himself the question, ‘‘ What will it profit my child if he gain the whole world ‘f knowledge and lose his health?” _ But in these latter days reforms are being made in regard to seating, ventila- ion, lighting, and heating, as well as provisions for exercise, recesses, and recre- tions, all of which goes to show the steadily growing belief of parents, teachers, | nd school officers in the dictum that ‘a ton of knowledge gained at the expense of ' single ounce of health is far too dearly paid for.” Our schoolhouses are being etter builded, better equipped, and better appointed, so that as time advances he physical child—his health—will be more and more conserved. But the mental abnormalities of school children, resulting from erroneous, isfit methods, have occupied the thought and evoked the sympathy of compara- Pag 4 few, and for that reason I shall devote the entire time of this paper to the ‘iscussion of these mental abnormalities, their causes, and how they may be Tadicated. 1A paper read at the Washington (1898) meeting of the National Educational issociation, and published by the Commissioner of Education according to a . eae expressed in a resolution of the Association. 14, "a 471 Uy < iJ a-: = p 3949 A472 EDUCATIONAL REPORT, 1898-99. law of heredity, in which we all believe to a greater or less degree. I mean thie law of heredity only in its more restricted but fully established sense—namel the acquired characteéristics of the parent are not transmitted to the child. strong belief in heredity has become so general and so widespread that the dire} results of descent are looked for with supreme confidence. The good pare is supposed to have a good child, and the brilliant parent a brilliant child. Ye and not structural. They are the results of friction, struggle, social conditiong environment. The question of the underlying physical structure of the chil§ is quite different. Bone, muscle, nerve in their distribution are governed largel} and artificial acquirements. The father may be deaf and the mother a deaff- mute, but the child of these parents will have normal hearing and speech. } have made personal observation of-one family in which both parents were deaf yet their five children are perfectly normal as to hearing and speech. A mai may have his nose pushed to one side and the woman he marries may have suf . fered the same deformity, and yet the children born to them will have perfectl straight noses. Both father and mother may be ‘‘star’” mathematicians—thife result of acquisition and study—but the children born to them may be unable tt go beyond the ‘‘rule of three.” Acquired characteristics are not transmitted}. They are functional qualities rather than organic attributes. As Dr. Oppenheimey says in his recent book: ‘‘ The doctrine of heredity, as commonly held, not only} is falsely applied to human descents, but also renders the wisest and best effortys of training unnecessary and useless. For if at birth the child’s bodily and mentafl organization is complete, if the characteristics of parents are handed down td offspring, then there the matter ends. Every remarkable parent would hay =f equally remarkable children, and every deficient person would curse his descend+ ants with a like deficiency; work, training, striving after noble ideals would be) useless and silly.” All individual efforts at self-improvement would be worthless) every individual impulse would be incapabie of realization, every endeavor of parent or teacher would be at an end. Not a single educational fact, not a single educational force but would fail of fruition. But education is not a matter of such utter hopelessness. Pedagogical efforts; are not doomed to such complete barrenness of results. Tosuch a hopeless philost ophy this world would be a dull blank and man little more than a grinning skull§. If one really observe the laws of growth and mental development as they become actualized in every child he will see that there is a more wholesome, roseat¢ philosophy of education. Happily, then, the child does not grow according tq some hard and fast rule that has been implanted in him before he was born. The old Calvinistic form of pedagogy, called heredity by Darwin, has given place te the counter dogma of liberally minded men, as Rousseau, who says: ‘‘ Everything is good as it comes from the hands of the Creator; everything degenerates in thé hands of man.” While both of these dogmas are too extreme—both the old Cal4, vinistic and the more recent liberalistic—the sum of the whole matter is that} entirely too much dependence has been placed upon heredity in its commonly} accepted significance. Parents and teachers educate the minds, train the bodies,} and develop the morals of the children under their care ‘‘not so much by what their ancestors were but what they themselves do and think.” In the meantime, in any case of mental abnormality in the child, the teacher will shift the blame on the parent and the parent in turn on the teacher until finally, with their utte#: lack of cooperation, the psychopathically disposed child really becomes mentall¥7 disintegrated and quite degenerate. In how far does the school help to develop mental and nervous abnormalities when they could and should be checked and obliterated? In how far does thép ie Y 7 \ ; MINOR MENTAL ABNORMALITIES IN CHILDREN. 473 { } school give rise to new evils that affect the mental power of the child—evils that would be entirely unnecessary were the courses of study, the daily programme, and schoolroom methods more fitting and better adapted to the child? This vital question will be answered more fully after our other premises have been set forth. In the light of the true conception of the doctrine of heredity we are warranted, however, in saying that we have usually taken too much for granted in believing that the child of 6 years of age as he knocks at our schoolroom door is more developed than is really the case. We certainly take too much for granted with reference to the knowledge possessed by the children we are called upon to edu- cate. There isin fact next to nothing of real educational value the knowledge of which it is safe to assume at the beginning of school life. The child does not inherit in any form the knowledge acquired by his parents, and we must proceed in his education by bringing into exercise all methods of appeal to the child’s mind. We must be prepared to educate the whole child and not take for granted that a certain segment of the circle of his intellectual life has been measureably formed, fashioned, or developed by heredity. We must so place our array of eductional forces that every form of the brain activity may be aroused and that appeal be made to every mental potency. If we take for granted that a certain parce! of knowledge is bestowed upon a child as an heirloom by his ancestors we are creating a possibility for mental abnormalities to appear in the particular child thus partially neglected. My second premise I take from the domain of genetic psychology. It is alsoa firmly established, clearly demonstrated principle—an ultimate fundamental truth in the science that has given it its being. This principle is: Mental develop- ment in the child occurs by stages—by periods. Just as the entire body is not growing at any one time, so all the mental powers are not unfolding and growing at the same time. In bodily development growth settles for awhile on one set of muscles, one set of organs, and then another, and another, until the entire body is developed. Likewise, there is a nascent period for each mental faculty. The first mental power to develop is sensation. At birth a child possesses but two senses—touch and temperature. They are the only windows of the soul open to receive the impressions that Mother Nature has to bestow upon him.