FEEBLE-MINDED CHILDREN AND METHODS OF CARE AND INSTRUCTION IN THE TRAINING SCHOOL AT VINELAND, NEW JERSEY, U.S.A. By E. R. JOHNSTONE.

Superintendent of the School.

WHEN the Training School at Vineland, New Jersey, U.S.A., was founded in 1888, it was intended first to give a home with cheerful and suitable surroundings for those feeble-minded children of the State who were known to be in need. It also proposed to train and educate these children so that they might be, in so far as possible, more useful when they became men and women in years. There were but eight children when the institution was removed from its temporary quarters in the home of its founder, Professor S. Olin Garrison, to its present site in Vineland. Each Each year the numbers increased, and many generous friends came to its aid. Not being a State institution, it was unable to receive any financial assistance from the State for the purchase of land or the erection of buildings. From one building and forty acres the institution has grown until there are now twenty-four large cottages and service buildings and a number of smaller ones. The population at the present time consists of 400 souls of both sexes and of all grades and ages. The residence buildings for the children (of which there are sixteen) are small and home-like, and the children are grouped particularly with reference to congeniality. Up-to-date sanitary conveniences, hot and cold water, flush toilets, hot air or hot water heat are provided in every building.

The first aim of the institution to-day is happiness. These children, who have been all of their lives at the tail-end of everything-set aside, hidden, repressed-are here given a new incentive. They are encouraged to give expression to their thoughts, however meagre those may be. They come and go about the grounds, under someone's watchful eye it is true, but feeling that they are free. They are brought forward to take part in all that is going on, and frequently find themselves as leaders for once in their lives.

In the cottages they are trained in regard to dressing and undressing and the care of the person, doing house work of every kind, helping with the more helpless children, and in observing those little habits of living that make them more pleasant companions. In the school there are classes in kindergarten; the elementary English branches; needle

work of all kinds; weaving and netting; wood working of all kinds leading to simple carpentry and the repairing of furniture; brush, broom, and rug-making; basketry, reed, and raffia work; house work of every kind; physical training and games; gardening and poultry raising; singing, and instrumental music in the band. These school classes have trained teachers in charge of each, and from them the children, as they grow older, are advanced to the shops. These are situated in different buildings, and the grown boys and girls do much of the less skilled work in carpentry, painting, plumbing, masonry, house work, mending, and dressmaking. They work in the electric shop, the power-house, and the laundry. They especially enjoy occupation on the farm, in the orchards, truck gardens, and florist's department, and are delighted when they are assigned to help the care of the cattle, horses, poultry, or swine.

As the institution grew the various departments were established : to-day there are nine-household, in charge of the matrons and supervisors; industrial, in charge of the assistant superintendent; medical, in charge of the physician; educational, in charge of the Principal; business, in charge of the chief clerk; foods, in charge of the dietitian; agriculture, in charge of the foreman. Ten years ago we opened a department of research with a trained psychologist in charge, and three years ago a department of colonies.

The heads of these different departments, with several others who have important divisions of the above, form the Executive Staff of the institution. They meet with the superintendent twice each week to discuss plans, policies, and the work of the Training School. They are all theoretically of equal rank, but their personality or the relation of the topic under discussion to any one department serves to make first one, then another, a leader. The inspiration and initiative thus developed cannot be adequately described. Out of the Staff meetings has grown the development of committees. Few of them are standing committees, but whenever any question arises it, is referred to those most interested. They meet, act, and report back to the Staff. This serves to greatly facilitate the routine of the institution. It prevents misunderstandings, and keeps all of the department heads in close touch with all parts of the School. To these meetings are brought all new children with the records on the application papers, and the results of the examinations in school, laboratory, and hospital. Thus all become familiar with each child, and this acquaintance is kept up by reports which come in from time to time, and by the assignment of children. for especial observation by some department head.

Very early in the growth of the institution it was realized that the problem of the feeble-minded was much more serious than most people understood, and because this institution was independent, unhampered by political considerations, and able to work out plans, it developed interests outside of as well as within the institution. The special needs of the feeble-minded woman led to the establishing of a State institution for such. Part of our Board served for several years as part of the Board of the women's institution. Later, when the plight of the epileptic was becoming understood, largely through Professor Garrison's efforts, a State institution was organized for that class.

Fourteen years ago the first Summer School for Teachers was held at Vineland. Special classes for backward and defective children were being started in a few progressive cities, but they could find no teachers who had had suitable training, and this was an attempt to give very intensively for six weeks all that was possible relating to the care, training, understanding, testing, and managing of this class. The work was successful. There are now sixty students each year, and the class roll is always filled long before the opening of the session. The number must be limited as the teachers live in the institution, and in this way study the children in the home life, in school, at work, and at play.

As soon as this teaching was begun the lack of certain knowledge was realized. Much of the literature on the subject was theoretical. Much was based on a rather cursory study of comparatively few cases. A great deal was the purely subjective impressions of those in the work. It was to help get the facts that the department of research was organized ten years ago. This too grew rather rapidly, and, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Samuel Fels, of Philadelphia, and others, the studies have been steadily pursued. The heredity of all of our pupils has been traced as far as possible by competent field workers. The Binet-Simon Measuring Scale for Intelligence was translated and revised to meet American conditions. Physical and psycho-physical measurements were made and analysed. As a result of these studies the laboratory has issued a number of books and pamphlets.1

1 The most important of these are: "Feeble-mindedness: Its Causes and Consequences," "The Kallikak Family," "The Criminal Imbecile," School Training of Defective Children," all by Goddard; "Anthropometry as an Aid to Mental Diagnosis," by Doll; "The Development of Intelligence in Children " (the Binet-Simon scale), and "The Intelligence of the Feeble-minded," by Binet and Simon, translated by Elizabeth S. Kite; "The Record of Individual Growth," by Dr. Paul Godin, translated by C. T. Jones.

The laboratory budget is about $18,000 a year, and while new studies are being undertaken all the time by various members of the Staff, our field workers are still following up the members of our children's families who are still at large, and we hope this may be continued for at least fifty years. As we began to get scientific facts. the requests for information compelled us to make a new departmentthat of Extension. We had been publishing a monthly "Bulletin " for several years (now in its thirteenth volume), but the answers to letters of inquiry and the call for lectures made such a demand upon our time that a separate committee1 was formed more than a year ago. Its agents are now active in many of the States aiding in the work of providing for the feeble-minded.

All of the above activities (many of them extra institutional) led the Board of Directors of the Training School to set a limit of 400 pupils as the number to be cared for here, so that the officers might not be tied down by the administrative details of a large institution.

In view of the fact that most of these children (being feeble-minded) must have custody throughout their lives, it was necessary to find some outlet for the institution for its adults. A number of the women were transferred to the State Institution for Women, and colonies were organized for adult males. The colony plan had been tried in Massachusetts, Indiana, New York, Ohio, and other States. Two were developed here in New Jersey. The first was placed on rough, uncleared scrub oak land, and the efforts of waste humanity on waste land have brought benefit to both. After clearing enough to provide for the farm needs of the parent institution, we shall sell the cleared land and purchase more of the so-called waste land and continue the process. Realizing the very large number of the feeble-minded, it was at once evident that the commonwealths cannot afford to spend so much money for buildings, and we experimented in building. The inmates, under the direction of a mason, have made the concrete blocks for the buildings, and have provided all of the unskilled labour required, driving teams, scooping and digging cellars, handling blocks, lumber, &c.

The result is the Menantico Colony unit, now three years old, with modern buildings for 120. This in addition to those at the Training. School proper. The colony consists of two dormitory buildings for

1 The (American) Committee on Provision for the Feeble-minded, 701-3, Empire Building, Philadelphia. Its purpose is "to disseminate knowledge concerning the extent and menace of feeble-mindedness, and to suggest and initiate methods for its control and ultimate eradication from the American people."

sixty beds each (cost $110 per bed), dining-rooms and kitchen, administration house, farmers' house, workshop, stable and sheds for eight horses and vehicles, cowsheds and silo for ten head, hog-houses for 100, and a laundry is being built. The machinery for a small electric light plant is on the grounds and paid for, the laundry machinery also. There is a complete water and sewage system, and hot-water heat is being put in the buildings. About 100 acres of land have been cleared and are under cultivation. The whole cost of construction when completed as above will be less than $250 per bed. The other colony was started three years ago in the heart of the pines, a district noted for its degenerate families. Here, in addition to the plans. like Menantico, it was intended to do social service work in the district. The results have more than justified our expectations, and last July the colony was given outright to the State of New Jersey, which is planning to rapidly develop it.

Our whole institution has greatly enjoyed its part in these movements. We realize the load of sorrow, the breaking down of the home life, the danger of procreation, the horror of sex offence, if these people are neglected. We see the sacrifice of the normal child, the lowering of educational standards, and the waste of the taxpayers' money if they are kept in the regular school grades. We know that there is at least one in every community, however small, one in each primary school, that most physicians find at least one among their patients, that the lawyer finds them in the families of his clients, and the clergyman in his church. The social agencies of every sort find them complicating their problems. The higher grades at large increase the number of industrial accidents, and decrease efficiency in factory, shop, and mill. They lower the standards of work and raise the cost of supervision. They add to the number of unemployed and take toll from the wages. of the worker. Knowing this, how can we turn a deaf ear to their calls? When feeble-minded children are placed in our institutions and special classes they teach us many lessons valuable in the handling of normal children. Our studies show that praise increases energy and censure takes it away; that commendation develops an exalted self opinion which, rightly directed, makes him do what may be called (for him) exalted deeds; that he will use every ounce of power within him if we create the desire to do and make his task a special privilege; that immediate tangible rewards are valuable. We have learned how necessary it is to be thoroughly understood, how important that our personality and manner, and especially our voice, shall be agreeable