The Ensign. THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1914. TO SAVE HUMAN WASTE.

Mataura Ensign, 23 July 1914, Page 4

The Ensign. THURSDAY, JULY 23, 1914. TO SAVE HUMAN WASTE.

A moat interesting and far-reaching movement lias been started by the New York Bon I'd of Education with the object of saving human waste in the public ts<;hooh. The Board is segregating mentally defective children into classes of their own so that they can be properly taught by especially trained teachers. liic number of mentally defective, abnormal or feeble-minded' childiyn-of j school age in the city has been """iuuSJj estimated at from iIOOO to 1(5,000. Th<>larger iigmti its piolwW.v more nearly correct. Until lwently these ■unfortun--1 a>6 >7l"' irresponsible, children were hanging like millstones upon the regular school classes, committing petty depredations in the public strc-ots and parks and making life uncomfortable for their distressed: and bewildered parents. They in their turn, were made .constantly it\oro wretched, sullen and desperate by the demands "of their parentis, their teachra> ami sometimes the police, that they do things to them utterly impossible, or stop doing things which they .wore equally unable to avoid. They were ordered to keep silent, and they could not. They were ordered to sit still, and they could not. Approbation being to tihem even inpre than }to normal children the very breath of life, they received nothing but denunciation, frequently accompanied by kicks and blows from ignorant and tired parents. Finding the upward straight and narrow path of industry and'yirtue for them, impossible, many of these unhappy youngstere turned to the easy downward path of erime. In ever greater numbers they sullenly trooperl through the courts into the retonnatoriee and the prisons. Thus were thousands of them yearly offered up as victims on society's altar of unconscious 'cruelty. There poor children' are now being segregated i Tift_o classes of ;their own. in which they are taught in the only way they can be taught, by teaehern especially fitted for the task both by temperament and training. Of such classes there are now 180 of 15 children each. In some of these classes are the hopelessly feeble-minded children for whom the most that can be done is: to keep them, occupied and happy. For them-self-support will be forever impossible and custodial care, for life a necessity. Then there are the more hopeful morons—the highest grrfde of feebleminded—who may as manual workers become self-sustaining, happy and, in their humble 'way, useful citizens. Among the latter are constantly found a certain number of children who prove to be, after a greater or less period of propei- care and training, perfectly normal awl sometimes even bright and promising. Being starved or neglected' and abused, or merely different from most children, they were misfits in n system which ill its very nature can. take little account of individual peculiarities and neods. Everything is in the first instance taught as a game. And these games are played with the whole-heart-ed earnestness with which all children everywhere have always played games. But iwhat becomes of these ..il-iklren after they "leave school? That.part of the problem is now in process of solution. There is to be dev'sed an rdvertising man would call a follow-up lystom. Morons can be taught to do .eli'-sustaining manual work under direc;ion, but they cannot be taught selfHrecfion. Therefore when set adrift in 1, city they are more than ant to revert md lose all thev have gained. If work -an be found for them with employers ,vho will take a personal interest in rheni they may do well. In some few rases they have succeeded even better han perfectly normal young people. Hiis is of course because of. their very iraeh superior manual training. Mr John. H. Finley, the new Commissioner vf Education of New York State, jshavng prepared: a Bill which will call for :hr> appointment of a Commission by :he Governor to study the entire subcot of the education and cure of monal defectives of all ages and conditions tnd prepn.ro " a comprehensive programme upon which to base legislrit-Vr teflon. Probably the greatest menace o civilisation to-day is the alarming in'rease in feeble-minded ness and injanity. The work of the ungraded 'lasses in the New York schools is one )f the most fundamental atul' systemitie efforts that are being made to meet it its source and solve this problem.