Slight defects in children. I do not say that children with slight defects should not be admitted into the school, but that there should not be too large a proportion of them; they should probably not be in larger proportion than is found in general society. Again, it is not well in general schools to congregate in class, or in other associations, children. with like defects. In a school specially intended to help, and improve, weakly children the classes should be small: in the Schools for Exceptional Children in Norway no class exceeds twelve in number'. These statements show that advantages might be derived from carefully studying the temperament and the physical condition of each member of a school community. The higher the proportion of exceptional children, the greater is the demand upon the teaching staff. These principles applied to Public Elementary Education indicate that the best schools and teaching staff are the most required in the worst neighbourhoods. Something may now be said of the interaction of types of children upon one another, and the tendency to strengthening of the characteristics of each type. This Grouping interaction of children upon one another is mainly due of children. to the imitative faculty". This principle of imitation explains why children of some defect in development, in whom the imitative faculty is low, do less harm to one another than to healthful children. On the other hand 1 See Report of Brit. Medical Association, p. 17. 2 Sir Gilbert Blanc said: "The only objects of imitation are gestures and sounds, and by these are also transferred from one individual to another, the emotions of the mind of which they are the natural expressions." Croonian Lecture, p. 268. Gestures are imitated before sounds. This is one reason why teachers would do well to study gestures and movements, both in their pupils and in themselves. Imitation is one of the most important means of controlling action in children's brains. children nervous children usually have good mental faculty, and Nervous children much tendency to be affected by imitation; further, with good action seen in the body of another person is the kind of mental stimulus which most readily produces imitation, the faculty. result being that nervous children excite one another and are not the best companions, although, as has previously been said, they tend to congregate together for companionship. The interaction of children slightly defec- Defective tive may tend towards vulgarity, hence they require con- tend to stant supervision. Children of delicate constitution and vulgarity. feeble physical health, may be of as many different temperaments as there are types of children. As to conditions of more definite kind, chorea, and hysteria, distinctly tend to spread among children. The actions known as yawning, gaping, fidgetting, coughing may become infectious, and spread through a class; the first signs of such spreading should be dealt with to arrest the infection. tion. The converse of the harmful interaction of one child Usefulness upon another is a brighter side of school life; children of imita teach much to one another. A child will often imitate good action in another child, when it will not imitate our actions; try as we may we cannot be completely children among our children, but those are often the most successful in training who get the nearest to this desideratum. A few types of childhood may be sketched. It is not Types of children. uncommon to find some children who are called "old fashioned", you remember little Paul Dombey in his Paul Dombey. school at Brighton; these children are called "precocious". In many such the weight of the child is deficient, and among other signs of low brain nutrition, you may find spontaneous movements wanting, there is no desire for play and but little general activity'. There may be a 1 Paul Dombey would sit staring in his little arm-chair by the Spon taneous small number of spontaneous small thoughts in these children, some of them resembling those of a more mature age— thoughts. this condition is a further sign of low nutrition, and is often accompanied by imperfect sleep, dreaming and tooth-grinding. The condition is one of want of impressionability from low nutrition, and is to be met by good feeding, general hygiene and continuous careful training; the companionship of stronger children is very useful, and as thoughts are implanted, and the mental power brought under control, the actions of the child as well as his methods of thought will tend to become more natural. Want of Such children as those referred to above need more impresthan others to be rendered impressionable by their sursionability to sur- roundings, this is to be effected by causing many things roundings. to impress their senses; specially try to effect this by A bad type. imitation of other children-the actions of other children impress them more favourably, and easily, than action. seen in older people who are less like them. A common type of low development is the child with a badly made head, the forehead narrow laterally and shallow, the skin may be dull with innumerable fine horizontal creases from recurrent over-action of the frontal muscles. Sometimes fine vertical lines appear in the mid-frontal region between the eyebrows from overaction of the corrugators. In such case, as in an example given in Lecture VI. p. 112, that kind of management which lessens over-action in the forehead for the moment is that which is good for the child. Improvement may occur in such cases. The child may be slow fire, for any length of time. Once Mrs Pinchin asked him, when they were alone, what he was thinking about. "You," said Paul, without the least reserve. The child was small, without spontaneous movement, and spoke as older people might do. in all his actions; he may keep his hands out long after Slow mental A low class mental condition is sometimes indicated A low by the tendency to repeat a question asked of the child. form of "What day of the week is it?" and the child replies action. "What day of the week is it?" and does not answer the question some of these children also tend when writing to copy or repeat their work. The School as a Corporate Body. The average School, The school. consisting of a sufficient number of pupils congregated for educational purposes, may be supposed to consist of children within a certain range of age, who represent in the aggregate the various types of children met with in the outside world, in about the relative proportions in which they exist in society of the same social class. This arrangement is probably the best for mental culture, and the formation of character. Deviations from this average community may be, and often are, brought about by artificial circumstances-and in many cases it may be questionable whether the artificial arrangement is better. Entrance examinations, prizes and scholarships, have an Prizes. undoubted tendency-an effect planned for by the management of attracting to the body corporate individuals of a certain kind, viz., such as already show an intellectual capacity above the average. Again, some private schools are situated where every healthful arrangement is Schools for delicate amply provided for, and under a genial and kind hearted pupils. management, are open to weakly and delicate children, the numbers being small, and health considerations being Artificial placed before intellectual competition as the end aimed grouping at. In such cases the corporate body is artificial; each of pupils. individual must be trained according to capacity, and the management, if wise, will exercise an arbitrary government of each child, such as is always necessary in the home where some of the rules laid down for one child are not applicable to others, in such items as work, play, rest, feeding, rising and going to bed. The boarding school is after all a limited community; a pupil cannot ordinarily be expected to be better than children at large, and is a possible source of danger if his development is much worse than the average. Primary schools. Among Primary Schools there appears to be much difference between those that have to receive all the children compelled by law to attend, and voluntary schools which are not necessarily obliged to keep exceptional or troublesome children. The coexistence of Voluntary and Board Schools in a district, is likely to lead to the aggregation of the more difficult children in the school which is not free to select its members. Exactly what the average percentage of delicate, feeble brained and nervous children may be in the school population is not yet known, but where it is much higher than the average there is evidence that it may be desirable, in the interests of the school, that some at least of the exceptional children should be removed from the general classes; from examinations, and the Standards instituted under the Educational Code, and placed under special training more suitable to their requirements'. The School as a corporate body may be viewed in another light by the parent who wishes only to do the 1 See evidence of Dr Shuttleworth and the author before the Royal Commission on the deaf, dumb and other children requiring exceptional education, |