Foreword
By G. E. Shuttleworth, B.A., M.D., etc.
Fellow of King’s College, London; Vice-President, C.A.M.D., N.A.F.M., and Child Study Society, London; Consulting Physician, formerly Medical Superintendent, Royal Albert Institution, Lancaster, etc.
The promoters of this new periodical having honoured me with the request that I should supply a few prefatory words for its opening number, I tackle the task with a deep sense of my own “mental inefficiency ” for the purpose. The only reason I can conceive for having been thus honoured is the) fact that for the chief part of my professional life (now extending beyond half a century) my lot has been cast amongst mental defectives in Institutions, Schools or in private care.
I have therefore had the opportunity of taking part in successive developments of the problem how best to deal with the subnormal child and adult, and I may perhaps be pardoned for inflicting on my readers some retrospective reminiscences.
Fifty years ago, when I became interested in the subject, philanthropists in this country, impressed by the success which had attended the efforts of continental workers, such as Itard, S6guin, Saegert, Guggenbiihl and others during the first half of the nineteen century to ameliorate the conditions of various
classes of defective children, had established on charitable foundations lout residential Institutions for ‘ idiots and imbeciles ‘ in England, and a fifth was in course of organisation at Lancaster. Two were also in existence in Scotland, and one near Dublin. Later the Metropolitan Asylums Board established three large rate-aided Institutions respectively for adult and juvenile imbeciles. Though the early anticipations of the founders of these Institutions as to the results of training were somewhat more sanguine than subsequent experience proved to be practicable, there can be no doubt that they have accomplished most excellent work and have enlisted influential public interest in the amelioration of the degraded condition of the mentally defective class.
Owing largefy to the object lessons thus afforded, Education Authorities, charged by the Act of 1876 with the training of all types of children in the public elementary schools, interested themselves in improved methods of dealing with those who proved unfit for the ordinary curriculum. Progressive authorities, such as those of Leicester and1 London, drew up schemes of their own and opened Special Schools ” for the laggards as early as 1892. This was followed by the appointment by the then Education Department of an official enquiry on the subject, the result of which was the passing of the Defective and Epilesptic Children’s Education Act of 1899.
Unfortunately both Voluntary Institutions (in the main) and Special Schools dealt with mental defectives only for a term of years, but the need of permanent care in the majority of cases soon asserted itself, and various homes and other benevolent organisations with this object wrere gradually established. It was speedily found that the vast extent of the needed1 aid could not be overtaken by unassisted local and charitable agencies, and after the comprehensive Report of the Royal Commission on the Feeble-minded, the Government were at length induced to take up the question, with the result of the passing of the Mental Deficiency Act in 1913 and of a measure supplementing the Act for the Education of Defective and Epileptic Children in the following year.
Space will not permit discussion of the far-reaching consequences of this legislation and its national importance from the educational, industrial, sociological and racial points of view. To attain the desired benefit the Acts relating to Mental Defectives must be efficiently carried out, and this will require an army of well equipped workers, both official and voluntary. The C.A.M.D. and kindred societies have already rendered signal services in bringing together workers for this cause in various capacities and co-ordinating their efforts for the welfare of Mental Defectives. Scientists, teachers, officials and social workers will doubtless appreciate the opportunities of mutual information which the new publication opens up to them. Let all interested in any branch of the subject aid the venture not only by their financial but by their scientific, scholastic or sociological contributions, and thus may “Studies in Mental Inefficiency/’ like Mercy, grow to be ” twice blest ” as ” It Messeth him that gives, and him that takes.” G.E.S.
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