Obituary
On November 27th last?^Thanksgiving Day?there died one whose pioneer work on behalf of the i ^ebleininded has made his name, and that of the Institu- tion which he directed, knJpwn throughout the world.
Dr Walter ElmorlrFernald, Superintendent of the Massachusetts Colony for the Feeble-Minded, was born at Kittery, Maine, on February 11th, 1859. He received his education at Boudouin College and, after serving as Assistant in the State Insane Hospital, Mendota, Wisconsin, became superintendent of the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded in 1887. This Institution, the first of its kind in the United States, has a special interest in the history of the attempt to educate the mentally deficient in the fact that Dr Edward Seguin was associated with it in the early years of its existence. Much of Seguin’s apparatus, adopted by Dr Montessori as her ” didactic material,” is still treasured in the school at Waverley. Thus upon Dr Walter Fernald descended the mantle handed down from the great French pioneers in the education of the feeble-minded at the end of the eighteenth century. He proved himself a worthy successor.
Under Fernald’s direction the School grew into a great Colony with more than sixteen hundred inmates, including the Agricultural Branch-colony at Temple- ton, and showed how largely the inmates of a Colony, when properly graded and classified, are capable of contributing towards their own financial support. But it was through his Annual Reports, his lectures and addresses that Dr. Fernald’s influence was chiefly felt. His post-graduate lectures to the students of Harvard University were fine examples of lucid exposition. It may be said with truth that no one has exercised a more profound influence in both America and England on the subject of mental deficiency, and that to his labours much of the advance in the last thirty years has been directly due. When the members of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded made a tour of enquiry in America they were immensely struck with what they saw of the organisation of the colony at Waverley, and especially with the advan- tages in classification and grading according to capacity afforded by a large institution under capable medical direction. It was the privilege of the present writer to spend a week at Waverley Colony in 1911 and to learn from Dr. Fernald his views upon the practical principles of administration and upon the wider issues of the social problems of feeble-mindedness. He was a firm believer in the importance of beginning the training of mental inefficients at an early age and of allowing discharge under adequate supervision of those who by their conduct appeared capable of social adjustment outside the walls of an institu- tion. He regarded an out-patient clinic as an essential adjunct to the Colony at which discharged inmates could be seen from time to time, and where expert advice on ” problem children,” delinquents and incipient insanity could be sought.
His enthusiasm was great because it was tempered by a sound experience and ripe judgment which were ever at the service of those who sought his opinion. In 1922 Dr Fernald took a trip in the West Indies and Central America, and was much interested in observing the mentality and social adjustment of the peoples he visited. In a letter to the author of this note he wrote . A feeble- minded person seems to get on well down there. The trouble is that our Northern civilisation has become too complex. The feeble-minded could live in a tin hut, knock cocoanuts off the trees, eat wild yams and be perfectly happy ! Seriously, I realise that the mentally inferior are much better off in the Tropics than they are in the North.”
Dr Walter Fernald has left behind him a record of noble achievement in the service of the mentally inefficient, and a kindly memory in the hearts of all who knew him.
Multis ille bonis fiebilis occidit, Nulli flebilior quam mihi.
G. A. AUDEN. We hope that otir fellow-workers in the United ‘States to whom the loss of Dr Fernald must he such a heavy blow, will accept the assurance of our deep sympathy and will take this tribute of Dr Auden’s as voicing not only his personal sentiments but also those of the C. A.M. TP. and of the readers of this journal.?Editor.
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