News and Comment
The School Hygiene Association.
The American School Hygiene Association holds its second congress at Atlantic City, N. J., April 17-18. This association, which was organized at a meeting held in Washington May 6-7, 1907, has nearly doubled in size during the year. It now has 170 members, of whom 102 are founding members.
Its objects are,? (1) To stimulate research and to promote discussion of the problems of school hygiene. (2) To take an active part in movements wisely aiming to improve the hygienic conditions surrounding children during school life.
The program for this meeting, which deals with a variety of topics, will be of interest to educators, physicians, and parents. The following is a list of the papers that will be read at the meeting:? Preliminary report of committee of medical inspection. John J. Cronin, M.D., First Assistant Chief Medical Inspector, New York City, Chairman.
Medical and Sanitary Inspection of Schools in Vermont. Henry D. Ilolton, M.D., Secretary State Board of Health, Vermont. The Medical and Sanitary Inspection of Schools and their Relation to the Tuberculosis Problem. Samuel G. Dixon, M.D., Commissioner of Health, Pennsylvania. Medical Inspection in California. Joseph Chamberlain, LL.B., San Francisco.
Medical Inspection in the Schools of Baltimore. H. Warren Buckler, M.D., Medical Inspector, Baltimore. Recent Medical Reforms in Massachusetts Law. Curtis Guild, Jr., Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Statutory Enactments relating to the Medical and Sanitary Inspection of Schools. A. C. Yandiver, Counsel for the Medical Society of the County of New York.
Playground Legislation. Joseph Lee, Boston. The Status of Hygiene in the American College. George L. Meylan, M.D., Adjunct Professor of Physical Education, Columbia University. Provision for Exceptional Children in Public Schools. J. H. Yan Sickle, A.M., Superintendent Baltimore Public Schools. What do the Histories of the cases of Insanity teach us concerning Mental Hygiene of the school year? Adolf Meyer, M.D., Director Pathological Institute, State Commission in Lunacy, New York. A Brief for the Organization of Departments of School Hygiene within Boards of Education. Luther H. Gulick, M.D., Director of Physical Education, Public Schools of New York City. Schoolhouse Construction, as affecting the Health and Safety of Children. R. C. Sturgis, B.A., Chairman School House Committee, Boston.
The Inspection of the Yentilating and Lighting of Cleveland School Rooms. Martin Eriedrich, M.D., Health Officer, Cleveland. School Illumination. Myles Standish, M.D., Professor of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School. The Readjustment of the Elementary and High Schools upon the basis of Physiological Age. C. Ward Crampton, M.D., Assistant Director of Physical Education, Public Schools, New York City. Medical Inspection in the School of Education, University of Chicago. Joseph E. Raycroft, M.D., Medical Examiner, University of Chicago.
Physiological Psychology.
The 1908 report of the Commissioner of Education for the State of New York contains a discussion of the causes of backwardness in school children and of the elimination of pupils from the grades, which cannot fail to interest and instruct. The Psychological Clinic has already called attention to the value of this report, and there will be occasion in the future to refer to some of the statistics which form the basis of Dr Draper’s discussion. The report, however, contains a paragraph whose meaning is not quite clear. In presenting the causes of the failure of children to profit by the work of the schools, Dr Draper says,?
“There is altogether too much so-called ‘psychological science,’ too much fanciful exploitation and illustration, too much method and dress parade in teaching. The cold and sad fact is that men and women whose knowledge of physiology is utterly repudiated by our experts in physiology and whose reasoning is ridiculed by our leaders in logic, are assuming with entire confidence to teach physiological psychology in the schools. If the professors in the colleges enjoy it, and their students will stand it, perhaps we can let it alone, for they have the means of correcting it within their own number, but it is high time to protest when primary teachers are led to believe that they are bound to know all about this mass of superficial stuff and that they must inflict it upon the children in the elementary schools.”
Does Dr Draper mean to imply that teachers in the elementary grades are teaching physiological psychology to their pupils? If they are making this attempt it is undoubtedly true, as Dr Draper would have us believe, that they are poorly equipped to give such instruction. Very few of our universities and colleges are giving to-day adequate instruction in physiological psychology to their students. Many normal schools are from ten to twenty years behind the times in the instruction which they offer in modern psychology. It would be safe to say that there is still much professional prejudice against the teaching of physiological psychology to teachers and normal school pupils. What is physiological psychology? Its opponents have at the best but a hazy notion. In some quarters the scope and intent of physiological psychology are completely misrepresented. Thus, in the February number of the Pennsylvania School Journal is a remarkable article by the late superintendent of public schools of Philadelphia, Dr Edward Brooks, on “The Nature of Physiological Psychology.” From this article is culled the following gem of purest misinformation:
“Physiological psychology begins with the study of the brain. It finds it composed of two hemispheres divided into two parts called respectively the cerebrum and the cerebellum. It finds the brain to consist of gray mater and of white matter, and holds that the gray matter is concerned in mental action and the white matter in the motion of the members of the body. The gray matter is found principally in the cerebrum in the form of cells and connective fibers, while the white matter is found in the cerebellum and consists mainly of nerve fibers. The cerebrum is the seat of mental action and the cerebellum of bodily action.”
This paragraph is distinguished by the fact that it does not contain a single true statement, with the possible exception of the statement that “it finds the brain to consist of gray matter and of white matter.” Dr. Brooks is the author of a work on “Mental Science” which presumes to give an outline of the facts and principles of psychology. While this book is perhaps the worst that could be put into the hands of teachers for the purpose of instruction in modern psychology, it is not the only work which fails to comprehend the nature and scope of this modern field of scientific work.
Special Training in Camp Schools.
Mr. S. G. Davidson, of Mount Airy, Philadelphia, at the request of the editor of The Psychological Clinic, writes as follows concerning his work and experience in training difficult cases at his vacation camp and school in Cliocorua, N. II.,?
I had for twenty years been connected with the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, located here, for most of the time as special teacher of language, and had loug been impressed with the belief that the difficulty the deaf child experienced in mastering English was not so much due to the lack of hearing in itself, as to imperfect mental development, due in the first place to the mind having lain stagnant owing to deafness during early childhood, and secondly to his isolation from the actualities of life during the period of his instruction. Under ordinary conditions, teaching must be done in the class room, under artificial conditions, apart from the thing taught, without the inspiration, the suggestion and the interpretation of personal experience. In order to experiment with a view to overcoming this latter deficiency, I opened a small camp school for deaf boys in the White Mountains, where the climate would enable them to live an active outdoor life during the summer. We had two hours a day of classroom instruction, devoted rather to the cultivation of concentration, application and interest, than the imparting of knowledge, although it soon proved that the child learned more in this time, under the conditions of camp life, than in the ordinary school day of five or six hours. The rest of the day was spent out of doors, in active exercise, in long tramps to points of interest, excursions, picnics, bathing, fishing, etc., the pupils being at all times accompanied by their instructors both for their protection and to utilize every opportunity for training and instruction. The results exceeded my expectations, for the boys not oidy made remarkably rapid development during the summer, but on their return to school did far better than before in all their’ studijes. One boy who was so backward as to be considered by some of his teachers as feeble-minded, and who had been repeatedly dropped back in the classes, was found fit for promotion, and spending succeeding summers in the camp, was able to graduate with credit in the class into which he was put. Another boy who had been doing poor work and was very unruly under the restraints of school life,?I was warned not to take him as he would make it uncomfortable for everybody,?developed under the influence of this free outdoor life and sympathetic companionship into the best boy in the camp, a favorite with everybody, and took the prize offered for manliness. What is better, he no longer made life a burden to his teachers on his return to school. There was a corresponding improvement in every case. I found the task of teaching boys from my own classes much lightened, and the teachers and principals of schools from which other boys had come reported similar progress.
The second year, the father of one of my deaf boys, who had been gratified by tlie improvement in his son, asked me in the middle of the season to take his hearing son, who had been dropped from a farm school to which he had been sent as incapable of improvement. The boy had been tried in many schools, but always discharged as unable to learn, and his parents wished my opinion as to whether anything could be done for him. None of us expected any results in the short time he was with us, but by fall he showed such signs of physical and mental improvement that we were encouraged to continue the same methods, as nearly as possible, through the winter and the summer and winter following. He was then entered in an ordinary school and made satisfactory progress. Since then we have taken more and more hearing children, until they are largely in the majority, and in every case parents and teachers have expressed themselves as gratified by the results. Some of these boys were more than ordinarily bright, but even they have done better for a summer of this camp life. Others were backward from physical causes, some from lack of proper restraint and training in the family life, and some from poor teaching. One case was a boy from a private school for backward children in Massachusetts, whose principal has sent us a number of her pupils for several summers past. This boy was pigeon-breasted, stunted, flat-footed, and wasted almost to a skeleton, as well as backward in his studies from other physical causes. He grew strong and hearty, the trouble with his foot was largely overcome by manipulation and exercise, and he returned to school an altogether different boy.
Causes of Retardation.
Data of a quantitative character on the causes of retardation are scarce and any light upon the subject is welcome. In the fall of 1906 the Boston Board of School Superintendents made an inquiry into the causes of excessiye age in the case of all pupils in the three primary grades who, on September 12, 190G, were ten years of age and over. According as the pupils are in the first, second and third grade, they represent different degrees of retardation, as follows:
Pupils 10 yrs. Minimum reand over. tardation. Grade 1 38 3 years Grade 2 104 2 years Grade 3 477 1 year G19 The causes assigned by the school superintendents in these G19 cases were as follows:? Entered school late 91 Foreign children 131 Came from private schools 43 5G THE PSYCHOLOGICAL CLINIC. Came from other town or cities 61 Parents moving about 31 Illness and absence caused thereby 115 Absence for other causes 29 Mentally weak or slow 107 Deafness 3 Blindness 1 Laziness 1 Neglected 3 Inattention . ..”. 1 Truancy 2 019 The foregoing figures are printed in the Minutes of the Boston School Committee for December 31, 1906. A Social Service Department.
Following the example of the Massachusetts General Hospital, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania has established a Social Service Department. The work of this department comprises:?1. Friendly visiting; 2. The placing of patients in hospitals and of convalescents in homes; 3. The giving of instruction in hygienic methods of living to patients and their families suffering from certain diseases, notably tuberculosis; 4. The employment of patients and convalescents. A trained head worker and four volunteer assistants constitute at present the staff of the Social Service Department. This supplementing of medical treatment through practical social work is an important sign of the times. The best exemplification of the uniting of medical, educational and social work in a single great movement, will be afforded next September by the National Congress of Tuberculosis, which meets in the city of Washington.
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