While this has been going on the mother, or whoever came with the boy, has been interviewed at the second table in the big room and a few simple facts about the family have been ascertained, to be checked up and added to later when the home visits are made. All are then told to return in the afternoon. When they come back they go into a big schoolroom bright with plants and pictures, and furnished with small chairs and several long tables and with carpenter's benches and looms for weaving against the wall. Let us suppose that one of these boys is Rocco, a big-eyed Italian of six and a half, who came to this country when a baby. For the first time he has taken a real bath; for the first time he has been inside any house but the grimy tenement where he lives, the only slightly less grimy shops nearby, and the church whose real connection with the life around him his child mind has not yet grasped. Here are all the boys he has played with on the block. There is that sheeny, Max, who stole his balloon yesterday; this seems a chance to get even and Rocco makes for him. But fighting does not have quite its usual zest in this room whose beauty Rocco feels dimly, and while he is half-heartedly lifting his foot for a kick he is arrested by the sound of a bell and a pleasant but quite definite voice. "Boys," it says, "I want you all to get chairs and sit down beside the tables. Don't hurry or push and you will find there is room enough for everybody." Of course many of them do hurry and push but the owner of the voice seems to be everywhere at once, helping and directing, and in a surprisingly short time they are seated, wondering what is to come next. "Now we are going to play some games with pencils. You will be told what to do and when to stop and the game is to see who gets the most right. If you do not begin when I tell you and stop when I tell you then the most important things will be wrong." And then Rocco draws a square and a triangle and does other things-or mostly doesn't --and tries hard to follow the directions, forgetting the other boys in his eagerness to win the game. Then they march and put their chairs back in place at the same moment or try to-and Rocco learns that there is fun in all doing something together. The people in his house usually all do things separately.

are n

The results of the afternoon's work are entered on a card, just as the morning's and mental hygiene has begun its work, not only in the rough classification lt of the physical examination and group test, but also in Rocco's cleanliness and in the first items on his environment card. able to come, she has been sickly a long time-some

the studies from the be

culosis; his father has a corner fruit stand; there

if there had been an older boy the history

of them speaks much English. They me with the boy. When, therefore,

tes are added to Rocco's. "Pay ing he has time for specially nutrition group." During is visited and the teacher the added information few pertinent facts co-operative; he abulary is much

knesses both

physical and intellectual, have been considered from the first and his good points noted and developed. Even his antipathy for Max has been perceived and efforts made to counteract that.

This is not visionary. Good teachers now-and there are many of them-take as much time and trouble as this, and more, but they have no help. No individual facts are put at their disposal. The principal or the district superintendent comes and tests the class and says, "You are behind in spelling or in number-work, give more drill," and then passes on. Physical examinations are given at irregular intervals and the teacher often does not get the benefit of the resulting knowledge. The family may be visited by various relief and health agencies but the school knows nothing about their estimates of its assets and liabilities. In this new school which I have been picturing the visiting teacher, social worker, or whatever she may be named, brings constantly to the school and to the teachers most interested, additional information about the boys as she acquires it-from their homes, their chosen places of recreation, from clinics or relief agencies. The psychologist is constantly making individual or group studies and helping the principal to break up or to modify old classifications and the teacher to understand the vagaries of her arithmetic class. Different medical specialists are consulted and various conduct difficulties traced to their source. No additional staff except a visitor for each school is needed to bring all this about. The others must be available for the school, and the information they give must be stored in the school so that it may be translated into terms of school procedure by an enlightened principal. And the principals do not need to be particularly different or any abler than they are today. Many of them need a different ideal, and that this ideal may be defined and held before them the men and women at the heads of educational systems and training schools must see a vision.

And now let us leave the world of fancy and paint a picture of this school as it is today and show what can be done in spite of the tremendous handicaps of inadequate equipment, the wrongly directed activities of present-day education, and an unconnected social service.

This school is on the lower West Side of New York City in a region which has been noted for rowdyism and for a sordid poverty, the result often of shiftlessness and alcoholism. The building has recently been investigated by representatives of certain civic organizations which have been looking into the sanitary conditions of our schools, and this is what they say: "Public School No. 11, 314 West 17th St.-E 90 years ago this building is still in service. It has had no repairs for three year is badly in need of them. It is dingy and dark, needing paint and general cle The sanitary equipment is old and in shocking condition. The lighting is onl and the ventilation poor. The two restrooms for the teachers are very poorly equi and quite unfit for their purpose."

Needless to say it has no large, light rooms for its offices and no shower ba It also has no gymnasiums, no assembly room, and a most inadequate playground, har worthy of the name. There are no welfare agencies and no facilities for health recreation in its neighborhood.

On taking over the school a new principal found the retardation so striking tha he asked for help in solving the problems it presented-the sort of help which should be easily available for every principal who wishes to study the make-up of his school, in other words to ascertain individual differences. The study was made from the point

of view of mental status, educational condition, and conduct difficulties. The school was found to be somewhat below the average in mental status, that is, the median of intelligence instead of being 100 as in the average school, was about 92. There was much overlapping of grades, a condition which has been found in many schools as shown by recent educational tests. About ninety boys, or almost 10 per cent of the average attendance of 997, were named by teachers and principal as giving special trouble in the classroom, and there were in addition to these about one hundred truants whose school conduct was pretty good but who were fairly apt to get into difficulties outside the school. To meet these conditions as they were presented by the group tests and the teachers' estimates, a certain amount of home-visiting was done and boys were referred to clinics and various welfare agencies; many individual intelligence tests were given on medical advice obtained, and on the basis of all the information collected the school was re-graded and a number of special classes formed for those boys who could not do the regular schoolwork in the way required by the curriculum. All this was possible without any special permission except for the organization of the classes, and that was obtained without much difficulty.

After the classes were organized those boys whose intelligence quotients showed special dullness and those who had had previous difficulty in passing from grade to grade were given simplified work and some shop-work, and were taught by teachers of special subjects, just as the higher grades were. In other words, instead of being marked out as boys who failed constantly and who were unable to compete with the better boys of the school, they progressed from grade to grade, they took honors, they were a definite and important part of the school. The significance of this for a better mental hygiene does not need to be pointed out.

At the same time the teachers almost automatically became more interested in the different boys who made up their class groups. There were constant calls for conferences about some particularly difficult case, and for individual tests so that they might know beyond doubt whether John really could not remember, or was inattentive for some undiscovered reason, or whether the teacher herself could present the subject in a different way. The attitude of the whole school seemed to change regarding promotions and the handling of the curriculum. I do not mean it was hopeless in particular cases, but understanding. If Jo could not learn fractions, then he could not-the teacher no longer agonized about the percentage she was going to promote and no longer blamed Jo for something she now knew was not his fault, but gave him something he could assimilate.

There have been certain tangible results of this new attitude toward the class and the pupil. To show this we must give some school statistics.

To show how much this population changed during the year:

The only item which differs greatly then is the number discharged.

398

physical

noted a made to Thi

as mucl

facts ar

and tes drill," : the tea may be

about

been p brings tion al tion, f or gro and th specia additi

other:

in the

MENTAL HYGIENE

This reflects social conditions somewhat, as people wanting to move last could not find rooms as easily as the winter before. Nevertheless, a compart table of the reasons for discharge is interesting as transfers to other schools, particul private or parochial schools, often indicate dissatisfaction, whether real or fancied

331

272

The first year 18 per cent of all the discharges were to go to work. In the next 15 per cent. To these figures must be added the intention as to work or high sch of the boys who graduated, as they form part of the whole number leaving scho during the year.

Graduates going to high school.
Graduates going to work.

Total.

ir

ened

abler

may

syste

toda

equi nect

note

alco

civi

sch

90

is t

Th

an

an

It

W(

re

he

b

ir

Of the whole number leaving school during 1919-20, 25 per cent left to go to wor and during 1920-21, 17 per cent.

the

SC

Truancy is a more interesting indication of the influence of a school. There no time to go into the causes or effects of truancy. Many record cards filled in by officers of our Department of Compulsory Attendance state "dislike for school" # a principal cause. Dr. Maxwell used to say that the children would stay in school the schools could be made attractive to the children. This is one of the many which have been pretty constantly disregarded. In 1919-20 there were 140 truants this does not include cases of irregular attendance or illegal detention. In 1920-1 there were 83 truants; and many of these were cases of previous years, too firmly established in the habit of truancy to change in one year.

truism

Perhaps the most important of all as a test of a school's ability to meet the purpose for which it was established is the amount of retardation. Again we have no time to discuss causes or effects. This is another change which takes more than a year fo its accomplishment and is very difficult to state in a comparative way. The children two and three years from now will show the difference more than those of this past

year.

The first records I have are those of January, 1920-the number of children who failed of promotion at the end of the first half-year. Leaving out of consideration

rgarten, IA, open-air ungraded classes, from the resulting register we find were "left back" to repeat the same grade another year. This is about anting to m it of the whole. In the spring of that year the new organization was planned, vertheless sting of groups was done in March and April, 1920, and the results of the other schon environment were also made available then. The number not promoted in hether real o, was 12 per cent of the whole. In January, 1921, again 12 per cent failed tion; the organization was about the same as the preceding term. In June, find less than 10 per cent who have been marked for non-promotion by the The new plan has had more time to work. The effect on the morale of e school can be easily perceived.

3

-20

In the

ork or

Der lea

2, 1021

4

sh there were space and time to tell of the help toward a better mental hygiene #closer linking of school and home gives; and of the bearing on a child's successtation which the family's co-operation with his school has. Many facts g that may be found in the annals of the visiting teachers. And I wish there le to give some histories of the boys whose whole attitude toward school-life arently changed during these two years and, a less happy story, of those Roccos xes who, we believe would be different now if they could have had the right >m kindergarten days.

en we consider the important part which an orderly life and a sense of achieveid success play in the maintenance of mental health, we see the value of the ng which has been made in this school. This could be stated in a negative way ore emphatically, and the results of failure and early misconduct shown in the s of adult delinquents and ne'er-do-wells, as has been done again and again. hool is the first social environment to which a child must make a conscious to adjust himself, as often he need not, and more often he does not at home. cquires the habit of failing to make this adjustment either in his work or his t, the results cannot help but be disastrous in later life both to himself and to , even if the fault is not his but the school's, as is often the case. Mental hygiene elp enormously in preventing these problems from arising as well as in helping e them when they do arise; and, as I have tried to show, a right school procedure got to a normal happy home, the best form of mental hygiene.

schoo

C. SPEECH DEFECTS IN SCHOOL CHILDREN

y Blanton, M.D., Associate Professor of Speech Hygiene, University of Wisconsin Madison; Attending Specialist United States Public Health Service Hospital

No. 37, Waukesha

The value of easy, smooth, intelligent speech has not been appreciated in the cula of our public schools. Much more stress is laid upon oral reading than upon Dossession by the child of good speech. And even where the child has a definite ct of speech so serious that he cannot get along in the social world, teachers and parents often place the school-training in geography or grammar above the ssity of acquiring good speech. This attitude on the part of teachers and parents be accounted for through a lack of realization of the nature of speech and its al value.