CARE OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED

Evening Star, Issue 16236, 4 October 1916, Page 8

CARE OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED

[Special to the ‘ Stau.’] WELLINGTON, '.October 4. The school for feeble-minded girls, situated at Richmond, near Nelson, is approaching completion. The parents of the girls who are,to be admitted to the institution have beoii instructed to prepare the children for transfer to the. control of tlie Education Department, and. probably 100 first batch of 30 girls will be admitted within the next fortnight. The school provides accommodation for about 65 girls in all, and the minutes have already been selected from among 'children whose names have been recorded on the books of the department. A selection has had to be made, and the officers of the department have been guided as far as possible by the possibilities of improvement in individual cases. It is important that the institution should receive children who have the best' chance of profiting by the special instruction that will be given. Now Zealand cannot be said to have done its duty by feeble-minded chilThe provision made for them by toe State has boon recognised for vnanv years to lie inadequate ; in Tact, many of the cu.ildrcn have received no expert treatment at all. They have been incapable of benefiting by the'instruction given in the ordinary schools, and have advanced in years without receiving any special attention, until they have pase.cd the period when assistance could bo given them with any certainly of benefit. The school for feeble-minded boys at Otekaike. in North Otago, represen+ed the first attempt ..of the New .Zealand Government to deal with a problem that has received a great deal of attention in some other countries. That school now contains more than 60 boys, but it has not yet been fully organised, and the construction cf additional buildings required to provide for tho increased number of

pupils, and to permit of proper classification, has proceeded very slowly. The Richmond school, like the Otekaike school, is intended to deal only with children who arc capable of being trained educationally in some decree Aoung people who aro more severely afflicted arc handled by the Mental Hospitals Department. Die institution is modem in design, and pleasantly situated in the block of land that may bo used in connection with the education of the girls who are to be receaved there, but the Education Department has encountered difficulties in the provision of an expert staff. Men and women competent to undertake work of the kind •oquired are few in number, and the demand for them is great in older countries. This matter has received the .attention of the Minister of Education during the last year, and there is no intention that either Richmond or Otekaike shall Ire come a mare place of detention.