A GREAT REFORM.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 828, 5 October 1916, Page 10

A GREAT REFORM.

FEEBLE-MINDED GIRLS. NEW SCHOOL AT RICHMOND. [Special to The Sun.] WELLINGTON, October 4.

The new school for feeble-mind-ed girls, situated at Richmond, near Nelson, is now approaching completion. The parents of girls who are to be admitted to the institution have been instructed to prepare the children for transfer to the control of the Education Department, and probably the first batch of 30 girls will be admitted within the next fortnight. The school provides accommodation for about 05 girls in all, and all the inmates have already been selected from among the children whose names have been recorded on the books of the department. A selection has had to be made, and (lie ollicers 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 the children who have the best chance of profiting by the special instruction that wiil be given. New Zealand cannot be said to have done its duty by its feebleminded children. The provision made for them by the State has been recognised for many years to be inadequate. In fact many of the children have received no expert treatment at all. They have been incapable of benefiting by the instruction given in the ordinary schools, and they have advanced in years without receiving any special attention, until they have passed the period when assistance could be given them with any certainty of benefit. The school for feeble-minded boys at Otekaike, in North Otago, represented 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 (50 boys, but it has not yet been fully organised, and the construction of the additional buildings required to provide for an 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 are capable of being trained and educated in some degree. Young people who are more severely afflicted are handled by the Mental Hospitals Department. The institution is modern in design and pleasantly situated in a block of land that may be used in connection with the education of the girls who are to be received there. Rut the Education Department has encountered difficulties in the provision of an expert staff. Men and women competent to undertake work of the kind required are few in number, and the demand for them is great in the older countries. This matter has received the attention of the Minister of Education (Hon. J. A. Hanan) during the last year, and there is no intention that either Richmond or Otekaike shall become a mere place of detention.

The work of the Otekaike school has already proved its value, in spite

of adverse conditions. The boys are taught handwork of various kinds, ihe guiding idea being the development of habits of useful industry and, thus, the gradual strengthening of dull minds. The inmates are l aught basket-making, wood-carving, mat-making, etc., and they do a considerable amount of gardening and farm-work. The course of instruction at Richmond will be varied to suit the needs of the girls, who will be of various ages. The Education Department has been compiling a list ;>f feeble-minded girls for some time past and the number of these alllicted young people is larger than is generally imagined.