The Younger Generation and the “Almosts”
The reformer is always trying to open the school-room door. To the younger generation our eyes are always turning. If we are going to help in the task of making the world safe for democracy, we shall accomplish the greater part of our task by and through the younger generation.
Let us t y to take an airman’s view of our task. We fail to realise that all our troubles, so far as the outward and elementary struggles and tasks of Government and Democracy are concerned, come from a small group of persons. Out of every thousand Britishers the number who give the Government and the people anxious thought, expense, or trouble is surprisingly small. It is probably not more than ten out of every thousand citizens?one per cent.
There are certain reasons why we might think this a fairly correct estimate. It is a well-known fact that the curve of ability tends to rise slowly at first, then more rapidly, then maintain a “plateau” and finally repeat in its fall or decline, almost the same curve which characterized its rise. In other words, the number of those possessing somewhat marked mental ability and usefulness approximates to the number of those possessing somewhat marked mental disability and useless- ness. Instinct, intellect, intuition?however much of these we have?combined with that long-known “character ability” that psychologists are beginning to talk about?this total gives us our place.
There is some reason to think that really first-class human beings are not much more numerous than they were at the dawn of history. At least, certain records, such as Gideon’s reduction of his volunteer army from thirty and two thousand men down to three hundred men who were found not only ‘ ‘fit to fight and ready to die,” but who had their wits about them and who apparently possessed marked ability of some kind, would seem to support such a theory.
Three hundred is perilously near one per cent of thirty and two thousand.
That one per cent, is the hope of democracy. Democracy needs leaders.
But we need also the power of caring for and making the best of that other one per cent. Of these about three in every thousand are mentally defective. About three in every thousand are mentally diseased. And about three in every thou- sand are what we call criminals or unemployables, or else they are incurable or derelict in some other way. Surely the other ninety and nine can take care of the one wanderer out of the hundred.
But this will not be an easy task. It may mean a good deal of ‘ ‘scrapping.” It will certainly mean educational reform. For the mentally defective child, the school should furnish special help and training and the school, being a National School, should be the place where the Nation can begin to deal wisely with the problem, and work towards a solution.
The experience of the United States in the war?when psycho-neurological units were formed to assist in the medical examination of recruits for the army and these military psycho-neurologists found an appalling percentage of the recruits, according to their tests, showing signs of mental defect?has shed a flood of light on the subject.
We should remember that mentally defective persons, especially children who are mentally defective, differ among themselves as much as normal persons do. The real question which must be answered by the School Medical Officer, in consultation with the Medical Expert in mental defect and with the principal teachers, parents and everyone else who can afford information or ‘ ‘give evidence,’ so to speak, about the school child who is not getting on, or very backward, is not so much whether the child can do this test or that, but whether he shows signs of being able to “make his way.” Can he really fill a place in the Community ? Can it be reasonably expected that he can make, or help to make a home? Or is he going to be a “destructive social force.” Perhaps he is a destructive social force already.
Mentally defective children not infrequently ruin the home financially and otherwise. They weight the scale on the wrong side and the weight is a heavy one.
There seems to be no alternative at present, at least, to the conclusion that when, after every proper precaution has been taken, the school authorities find that mental defect is present, the nation should appoint some guardian or supervisory power in the national interest and in the interest of the mentally defective child or adult person. Revision and re-examination are of course, necessary.
This means educational reform on a grand scale, for it shows that means and methods must be found to make the best of all those children whose mental gifts are so inadequate that they cannot take up the duties of citizenship. The im- portant thing is to remember that they have gifts and to discover these and give them development and encouragement.
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