Clinical Psychology and the Rural Schools
- Author:
Ernest R. Groves,
Professor of Psychology, New Hampshire Stale College, Durham.
In The Psychological Clinic for February, 1913, Professor Pyle makes an appeal for an organized effort to discover the feebleminded living in the country. Although it is impossible at present to determine the proportion of rural aments as compared with those in the cities, it is certain that we have a large number of physically and mentally defective children in rural and village communities who are receiving less attention than those of the same classes who happen to live in the cities. A recent careful study of the feebleminded in New Hampshire1 is very interesting with respect to its conclusion regarding the feebleminded in the country. The investigation made to discover the number of feebleminded in the state also found their geographical distribution by counties. “One of the most significant studies that can be made in the survey of these counties is the geographic distribution of the feebleminded and the proportion of the entire state population that falls within this defective class. Since there has been a report from every town in the state, either by questionnaire or personal canvass, this proportion may be considered fairly correct even though many cases have not been reported. One of the most significant revelations of this table is the range of feeblemindedness gradually ascending from the smallest percentage, in the most populous county of the state, to the largest percentages, in the two most remote and thinly populated counties.”
A student of country-life problems can hardly fail to appreciate the importance of this proportion of feebleminded in the rural counties. Without attempting to assume that such a condition is true of all the states, it is a fair inference that the rural feebleminded children are relatively given less attention than the seriousness of the situation justifies. This statement docs not mean that teachers and superintendents in the country are indifferent to or ignorant of the significance of the problem of amentia, but rather that there is at present lacking the efficient, organized, administrative effort to solve through the schools the problem of the defective country child. It is most reasonable to turn to the schools as the means by which the country’s need may be met. As in most fundamental social efforts the instrument for progress is already at hand. The country school 1 Report of tho Children’s Commission, Concord, 1914, p. 01. organization must be made use of in the attempt to find the children who are physically and mentally defective. It is wise economy to organize the forces of public education so as to enable them to undertake clinic investigation in localities too small to carry on such work by themselves. Moreover, there is a special reason why such investigation for the finding of the defective child in the country schools will appeal to educational officials. They of all persons are likely in practical and even painful ways to feel the need of such work being done. Any school administrator of experience realizes the magnitude of this problem as it appears in matters of school administration, especially as it is related to moral difficulties.
In any such investigation an interested but unbiased source of information provides a useful first step in the effort. The teacher is a most excellent source for such preliminary information. She is hampered in her daily work by the defective child, and to a considerable extent may be trusted to bring such children as need immediate attention to the notice of the proper official for examination. Her school records have great value for the expert, and can easily be made to have still greater value. The rural teacher in some cases may even use as a preliminary test the Binet scale, or the superintendent may give a preliminary test. Although such an investigation can not take the place of expert examination, it can serve a purpose in giving information of value to the school administration and perhaps in showing the need of expert help.
The rural ament will never receive deserved attention unless educators are alive to the greatness of his needs. At this point those who realize the significance of the defective child must concentrate educational effort. The demand for the state-wide clinic work along both physical and mental lines must come from the teachers and school officials before the legislators can be expected to consider the matter seriously. The educating of schoolmen and schoolwomen in regard to the imperative character of this special problem is no hopeless undertaking. Already a limited attention to such educating effort has accomplished wonders.
It will be impossible merely to expend social energy in finding ky clinic tests in small communities the defective children. A larger public provision for the treatment and segregation of such children must also be provided, and any attention to the problem will make this fact very clear. The dull child who improves when given special class work must have the attention in the rural communities that he now receives in the cities. It would seem as if special class work for country children involves necessary expenses and problems of administration greater than the demands of similar work carried on in the cities. Who can question, however, the social economy such work represents?
The large problem of institutional care for mental defectives created by the discovery of additional aments is not so hopeless as it at first seems to one who knows that even now proper segregation is not provided for all who need it. Science of course can hardly fail to discover many new cases of children needing attention when it investigates rural districts. However, the significance of public opinion, alive to such needs as a result of educational effort, must not be forgotten. Indeed the public indifference is largely due to the fact that the magnitude of the problem of feeblemindedness is just being recognized by science. It must also be remembered that as soon as a serious attack is made upon the problem all along the line there will be a rapid decrease in the offspring born to feebleminded parents. As segregation is increased the problem must decrease. Our present situation is due to neglect resulting from not having understood the real meaning of this social problem. There is also a possibility that our progress in taking care of the morons will not depend wholly upon our ability to provide segregation. Science offers hope of other means of relief.
A very aggressive attack upon the problem of amentia in the county is certain to provide unexpected social relief along other lines. It is impossible to know how much the problem of the use of alcoholic drinks in the country is related to the problem of feeblemindedness. When one has seen how strong the craving for intoxicants is among some country people without the suggestions and constant temptations provided by the saloon industry in the cities, it is clear that much may be expected of any successful attack upon rural amentia in decreasing alcoholism. The problem of illegitimacy in the country is certainly in large measure a problem related to feeblemindedness. The moral imbecile and the feebleminded boy given to occasional fire-setting for a time are a most serious menace. When this problem of rural amentia is more successfully met, a great economic gain also must result. The best propaganda carried on by experiment stations and agricultural colleges must fail in communities where a feebleminded strain by close intermarriage has made nearly an entire community defective or abnormal or has been a large cause of the constant loss of the ambitious youth because of their eagerness to remove from such an unfavorable social environment to a city having promise of better conditions. Progress in the control of rural amentia must surely conserve the resources of the various activities that are attempting to improve social conditions in the country. Political exploitation also in its different forms in rural communities is tied up with amentia. The largest result, perhaps, of all which may be expected to follow an effective program respecting the country feebleminded is the bringing of optimism into the lives of people in some country places who at present are possessed by a pessimism which forms the largest obstacle to social and economic progress.
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