Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/73

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DEFECTS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES
47

where defects, that may, or may not, constitute mental inferiority can be studied, and where physiological methods of teaching may be put to the test. At the mere mention of such a school some may object, on the ground that it would be a kind of inhumanity to experiment in training. But alas! What have we been doing always, what are we doing now, but experimenting?— and always more or less in the dark. In the new order of school, the experimenting would be done under safer conditions, and with a more definite end in view—that is all. The students would be more or less experts. Abnormal children would be under observation (for the school would be residential). They would not simply have easy lessons— which is only an evasion. Each would have the physical training (exhausting for the teacher as it often is) of which he was in need. Many problems that puzzle the ordinary teacher would, we may hope, be cleared up as the result of the work, for the new knowledge gained would be put within the reach of all schools, and even of every parent.

To-day, even in the best institutions, the doctors of the feeble minded and defective prescribe treatment, and supervise education. But there is no provision made for research work, or the application of