Mental Deficiency in Vienna and Berlin
- Author:
Henry Harris, M.D., D.P.M.
[I submit a few facts and impressions concerning the arrangements made for mental defectives in Vienna and Berlin that a short visit enabled me to obtain. The section on Vienna is reprinted from an article in the Journal of Mental Science (October, 1929) by permission of the editor.]
VIENNA
The following are some of the medical and educational arrangements made for mental defectives in Vienna.
As far as I could ascertain, no state institutions have been exclusively devoted to certifiable subnormals. Those in the Vienna area are housed in the ” Steinhof ” which is the giant mental hospital for Vienna and has nearly 4,000 patients.
The educational authorities have provided 11 special schools or ” Hilf- schulen ” for the city of Vienna. This in addition to ” L ” (langsam) classes in the ordinary schools for pupils who are educationallv retarded and require special coaching.
Permission to visit schools is obtained at the ” Stadtschulrat,” Burgring 9. The courtesy I received here was unusual even for Vienna. It was arranged by telephone that I should meet Herr Schulrat Karl Gnam next day. Next morning Herr Gnam?who is actively interested in all movements which con- cern subnormal children?conducted me to one of the schools, where an interpretess was in readiness in case of need.
Accommodation for subnormal pupils is not provided for a definite per- centage of the school population. Actually 1/6% of the children are in Hilfschulen ” as compared with London which allows special training, I understand, for 1^2%.
The special schools are separate self-contained schools with six standard grades, several facultative grades, and arrangements by which certain children can receive additional private coaching. Food is provided from the municipal kitchens, and where necessary it is free. Where no playground is available the parks are used.
I was struck by the large airy rooms and the efficient teaching, but most of all by the parental attitude of the teachers. The attitude here, as in most of the children’s institutions subsequently visited in Vienna, was remarkably free from that ” spinstery ” discipline that one so often meets in schools and institutions.
The pedagogical methods used are based on a three-years’ research in the ‘ Hilfschulen.” They are closely related to pedagogical theories which have been elaborated in Austria in recent years and which have attracted much attention. They resemble Swiss and Belgian methods in insisting that every- thing taught must bear an immediate relationship to the practical needs of everyday life. In the ” Hilfschulen ” emphasis is also placed on the training in manual dexterity, so that the subnormal child is prepared for the demands of a simple vocation.
Specifically Austrian methods of mental testing have, I believe, been elaborated. A method which seems to be attracting attention at the moment is the ” psychological profile ” of Prof. Rossolimo of Moscow, and its Modified application to subnormals by Bartsch of Leipzig.
BERLIN
The following are the arrangements that I was able to observe in Berlin. Certifiable mental defectives generally, have drifted into the ordinary asylums. The only institution in Berlin which is specifically reserved tor certified defectives is the ” Erziehungsheim “: part of the Wittenauer group ?f institutions which consists of a large mental hospital to which is attached, a home for psychoneurotics, a home for inebriates and addicts, an t e Erziehungsh eim.”
160 presumably educable, mentally defective children are accommodated here. These are ” difficult ” children, of somewhat lower average intelligence than those in the ” Hilfschulen “: but the aim is to discharge them at the age of 16; possibly for further vocational training. The institution is directed by a pedagogue who works in conjunction with the medical staff of the adjoining mental hospital. I was struck by his obvious enthusiasm and the thoroughness of his methods although I did not observe anything new.
A recent investigation here revealed something that may be^of medical interest. 42% of these children had positive Wasserman reactions in the blood : of the ineducable types the percentage was 50%, of the more educable type 32%. These percentages are greater than have usually been found. In a small group of older defectives, all over 20 years of age, who were distributed over the adjacent asylum, the percentage of positive reactions was much smaller, i.e., about 9%.
Permission to visit a special school was obtained through Herr Schulrat Arno Fuchs. Herr Fuchs is the leading authority in Berlin on special schools for physical and mental defectives and was consistently courteous and helpful. He supplied me with relevant literature and all the information I needed and would, I feel sure, help anyone who wished to visit the special schools of Berlin. His address is Berlin, N.O.18. Bardelebenstr. 6.
The educational authorities have provided 49 special schools for Greater Berlin. These are self-contained and each accommodates about 160 pupils. There are 6 standards. The class-numbers that are suggested are: 16 for the first two standards, 18 for standards three and four, 20 for standards five and six. Actuallv these numbers have had to be exceeded.
About 70% of all the mental defectives in special schools and the “occupa- tion-centres ” to be mentioned shortly attain the fifth or sixth standard, 20% attain standards three or four, 6% complete standards one or two and 4% have to go to the ” Sammelklassen ” or occupation-centres.
As a rule those in the first group attain economic independence, those in the second group can work at home under supervision and the other groups are socially useless.
The percentage of the school population in special schools and occupation- centres is about 2/ %; as compared with 1 y6% in Vienna, iI/2?/0’m London, and a minute percentage (about 120 children in all) in Paris.
The classes are mixed. Special attention seems to be paid to instructing the children in the local geography of the neighbourhood they live in, in table and street ” manners ” and in their elementary responsibilities as citizens. The instruction struck me as being amazingly thorough, perhaps un- usually logical as compared with English standards; and most of the teachers were men of a very fatherly type.
One class was being taught reading by a finger-sign method quite new to me. Each finger-sign was apparently a phonetic symbol and the class was able to read sentences and words from the teacher’s hands. The children then transferred the knowledge thus acquired to a primer in which pictures of the finger-signs were printed over the printed words. The virtue of the finger- signs was that each represented visually either the shape of the mouth in the case of the vowels or the position of the articulating organs in the case of the consonants.
Those who make no progress after two years in a special school are sent to a ” Sammelklasse ” or occupation-centre; especially where institutional accommodation is not available or where the parents object. These are housed with the special schools but their administration remains entirely separate. They consist of a single class which ideally contains not more than 16 children. The aim is to occupy the child manually and to render him socially harmless.
A recent innovation are the ” Erziehungsklassen ” or classes for psycho- pathic, unstable and ” difficult ” children. At the moment there are 9 such in the ordinary schools, accommodating 120 children in all. For educationally retarded children there are ” Vorklassen ” and “Abschlussklassen.”
The ” Vorklassen ” are for those children who fail to pass out of Standard I of the ordinary schools. Here they get a year’s or even two years’ training in a smaller class of not more than 20 pupils to prepare them for Standard II. The “Abschlussklassen ” are for those who have failed twice to be pro- moted and are in Standard VI. Here they get a year or more individual tuition; they also get the rest which their obvious inadequacy demands for them before passing into the last two Standards which are the most critical as far as preparation for life in the community is concerned.
Provision is also made for individual tuition by teachers who may visit a chronically ill child in his home up to 6 hours a week, or in a hospital up to 4 hours.
Pedagogical theory underlying the teaching does not?to my limited knowledge in these matters?differ materially from English methods generally. Some stress is laid on orienting the child to his own neighbourhood and to local conditions.
The methods of intelligence-testing employed are: that of Rossolimo: the modification of Rossolimo’s method by Bartsch of Leipzig: and lastly the German variation of the Binet-Simon tests by Bobertag.
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