Problems of Subnormality
REVIEWS AND CRITICISM. :Author: J. E. Wallace Wallin. Yonkers: World Book Co., 1917. Pp. xv ?485.
In his preface Dr Wallin presents four problems as fundamental and inviting thorough scientific investigation. They are: first, the development of an adequate art of differential diagnosis; second, providing differentiated educational treatment in accordance with the diagnosis; third, the organization of adequate systems of after-care and control; fourth, the development of preventive measures. This book is a discussion of all four problems, and while suggestive, is necessarily not an adequate treatment of any of them. The discussion of the first problem seems inconsistent. The author says that logically it is the most basal of all, and that “too much time, therefore, cannot be given to the perfection of the methods and standards of psychological diagnosis.” Through two long chapters he sets forth the “changing attitudes toward the subnormal,” and tries to answer the question “who is feebleminded?” In these chapters are clearly shown and ably presented the fallacy and the absolute futility of using arbitrary objective standards for determining the fact of feeblemindedness or its different grades. Whether “mental age” (B-S scale), point score, or intelligence quotient is used makes no difference. Whether absolute amount of retardation or relative amount of retardation is used, it all comes to the same thing. Neither feeblemindedness nor normal mentality is a unit character and the one can no more be determined by a measuring stick than can the other. Therefore, Dr Wallin’s plea for further and more scientific study of the problem of diagnosis is very much to the point. But he devotes much space to a fruitless discussion of whether Binet age XII, XI, X or IX is the proper boundary between feeblemindedness, and normality! Since he so well sets forth the need of adequately trained medical and psychological examiners for every school system, he should consistently take a stand for analytic diagnosis of the nature and extent of the defects of the children examined. How else can the problem of differential educational treatment be solved?
The book is written largely from the standpoint of a public school system trying to solve the problem of the disposition of children who cannot get on in the regular grades. Of what use is a discussion of the number of feebleminded when no comparison can be made because of different standards? Only a very few cities have really trained psychologists dealing with the problem, and nearly all the data are estimates based on observation or on Binet tests applied by people who do not know what they are doing. What difference does it make whether there are .5% or 2% when so little provision is made for any?
The latter part of the first chapter (page 104 ff) is a good statement of the need and the functions of a psychologist and a physician in every school system. He says, “Since a psychological clinic in a public school system exists for the purpose of making it possible to classify the pupils better in their school work and of prescribing the type of pedagogical training best adapted to meet their peculiar needs, it is evident that the director of such a clinic must be a technically trained educator.” It may be evident, but one who knows how many of the so-called “technically trained educators” know nothing of modern psychology in our public school systems today will question the statement. What is needed is a technically trained psychologist. One defect in the clinics today is that the psychologist is under the direction of a physician as a part of a department of medical supervision. The medical and psychological work should be coordinated, but not by making one subordinate to the other. The superintendent should be able and willing to rely for diagnoses and recommendations upon the head of the psychological clinic.
Suppose there were an ideal psycho-educational clinic and medical cooperation, what good would it do when there are no classes or institutions to put the children in? Logically, is not the basic problem the one relating to provisions for differential educational treatment? This problem is well treated in chapter three. The name given to special classes as distinguished from the regular graded classes matters little. There should be classes and in some cities schools for the feebleminded, border line and seriously backward cases. These classes should be distinct from ungraded classes in which real restoration work is possible for those who are pedagogically retarded but not feebleminded. The mixing of these two types of children in one class can not be too emphatically condemned. Disciplinary cases should be kept out of both, and, if possible, industrial classes should be provided for those who are “more or less backward mentally, who are retarded or disinterested in the academic subjects of study, but who have ability in, or inclination for, motor forms of work.” Some cities large enough have special classes for the deaf and blind as well as orthopedic classes for crippled children. All of these and more are provided for in Dr Cornman’s proposed scheme quoted by the author, but some of them are not differentiated either in the scheme or in actual practice in the schools. The reasons for the unsatisfactory conditions in the great majority of cities are, doubtless, the ignorance of the supervising force and the penuriousness of the appropriating body. Lack of money and the wasteful expenditure of available funds keep conditions bad, even in systems where the department of superintendence is informed and willing to make the differentiation. The schools must take the burden because the state does not, and apparently will not, provide adequate accommodations for all its feebleminded dependents. This subject is treated in chapter six which contains a report with recommendations submitted to the legislature of the State of Missouri in 1917.
The problem of prevention is the hardest to solve. The data as yet are not available. It is hard enough to get at the etiology in individual cases, and anything like a generalization or even a classification of causes is out of the question for the present. Various hypotheses need careful investigation and above all we need scientific treatment. Popular books and articles are apt to be misleading, and public sentiment can not be properly created by them. In the chapter entitled “The Hygiene of Eugenic Generation,” most of which appeared in The Psychological Clinic, 1914, October and November, this problem is discussed. All through the book, which is very interesting, are cited illustrative cases, and there are many statistical tables, some of which are valuable. Dr Wallin’s experience entitles him to a respectful reading even if one does not agree with him all on points. H. J. H.
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