Education of the Handicapped
- Author:
Brampton and Kowell, both ot Teachers’
College, Columbia University, U.S.A. Volume One?History, 260 pages, price 7s. 6d. Volume Two?Problems, 440 pages, price 9s. Published in Britain by Harrap & Co., Ltd.
These transatlantic editors set themselves an ambitious task in dealing with a subject that rarely receives the attention it deserves. In Volume One they aimed at defining the various groups of the handicapped, and then tracing the history of the care and education of each group separately. Seven groups are dealt with, namely, the visually handicapped, the hypacusic (!), the speech defective, the crippled, the under- vitaiized (!), the mentally handicapped and the socially handicapped. To give adequate treat- ment in a volume of this size demanded not only wide study, but judgment and almost ruthless selection of material. It is in these latter directions that the authors are found wanting.
Only dry bones of innumerable facts are given us: no vivid pictures of the work of outstanding pioneers, or cross sections of important stages in progress. In many cases so little information is given regarding events mentioned that the mere statement of the facts would be meaningless and worthless to a reader who did not already know a great deal about the subject.
As we should expect, most space is given to developments occurring in the U.S.A. One can only hope that the majority of the statements are accurate, but doubts arise when we read on page 125, in connection with the education of cripples in England, that ” Birmingham passed the Education Bill in 1918 “. It seems useless to devote space to the recital of the advantages of certain named methods of teaching the ” hypacusic ” (page 79) without giving any description of the main features of those methods. In the section on tuberculosis, discussion of details as to medical treatment is quite out of place in such a book as this. It is, however, only fair to say that the chapter on the Socially Handicapped, contributed by Dr Sanford Bates, shows a thorough grasp of the subject and a desire to be interesting as well as helpful.
In Volume Two, we dip into many hetero- geneous problems. The treatment is very uneven and caters rather for the student prepar- ing to answer examination papers than for the administrator or teacher faced with practical issues. Chapter Fourteen deals with ” Problems of the Mentally Handicapped ” in twelve pages ! One has only to read the lengthy quotation from a Dr Dunlop, given on page 338, to realize how far removed the authors must be from the real work of educating mental defectives. Would that we could succeed in teaching normal pupils what Dr Dunlop believes we should teach the mentally handicapped.
We are indeed grateful to those who con- tributed Chapters Nineteen and Twenty; one describes the Jersey City Plan for the Prevention and Control of Juvenile Delinquency, and the other the Montefiore School for the Socially Handicapped in Chicago. Both give helpful details regarding experiments in the solution of problems connected with juvenile delinquency. E.L.S.R.
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