Backward and Feebleminded Children
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: Edmund Burke Huey. Baltimore Warwick and York, 1912. Pp. xiii-j-221. Illus.
“Years ago at Heidelberg,” writes Dr Huey, “Professor Kraepelin told me, with enthusiasm which I well remember, how much he thought might come from an intensive clinical study of a group of some thirty school children. On my way to Lincoln, Dr Adolf Meyer encouraged me to undertake some such study in the Illinois institution. The results of a practice try-out of the plan are here before the reader.” Thirty-four borderland cases studied in the State School and Colony at Lincoln, Illinois, and one additional case from the Johns Hopkins Dispensary service, are presented clinically by Dr Huey in chapters III and IV of his book, chapters I and II being taken up with an introduction and a discussion of classification and terminology. He uses the nomenclature which was officially adopted by the American Association for the Study of the Feebleminded in 1910, and which had previously been worked out at Vineland and at Lincoln.
Chapter V deals with “tabulation of data, suggested groups, and lines of transition from feeblemindedness to non-feeblemindedness.” Here Dr Huey describes the tests which were used in studying the children, and tabulates the data obtained. In this connection it is rather a shock to read, “In spite of the fact that a majority of these children have defective vision, only P. S. was wearing glasses when the tests were made, and only D. M., H. E., and G. J. have used glasses while in the institution, as far as could be learned.” What is one to think of the management of an institution neglecting to provide for its inmates the necessary glasses, which are so cheap and contribute so much to comfort and efficiency?
Chapter VI contains Dr Huey’s excellent syllabus for the clinical examination of children, including various record blanks and his own modification of Dr. Goddard’s version of the Binet scale. Chapter VII discusses the “Mental Functions to be tested and observed.” This is followed by a good brief bibliography, an index of cases, and a general index. A. T.
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