206 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE. 



Elementary school; after this age the boys go on to older mentally 

 deficient schools, where there is much manual work and training with 

 a view to special trades, which provide a better education for them than 

 they could have in the ordinary schools. To a lesser degree similar 

 facilities are provided for the girls. 



From the start in the special schools half the day is devoted to 

 manual training in some form or other. 



In dealing with such special investigations as have been made it 

 would perhaps be easier to follow the lines of some text-book and 

 indicate how far they have been or could be easily tried. For this 

 purpose Whipple's ' Manual of Mental Tests ' has been used. 



Anthropometric Tesls. 



These can all be easily taken, and most have been tried on a larger 

 or smaller scale. From the standpoint of diagnosis they are of very 

 little use. Stature and weight can be dismissed at once, though I agree 

 with the conclusion that the defective children are inferior to the aver- 

 age. But so they are in social status, on the average, and if compared 

 with those from corresponding poor districts only there is not much 

 difference. Head dimensions are very variable and only characteristic in 

 extreme forms, when they are often associated with imbecility, e.g., the 

 hydrocephalic or the microcephalic. The results are of pathological 

 rather than educational interest; even marked deformity is sometimes 

 associated with an ordinary degree of intelligent educational perform- 

 ance. Grip, vital capacity, and tests with the ergograph or dyna- 

 mometer might easily be taken, though they are not usual at present. 

 In the ordinary way it is clear that the attention flags quicker in the 

 special school than in ordinary children and that the children tire more 

 quickly even of a game. The tapping test could be tried, but does not 

 seem to offer much promise of educational results. The principle of 

 beginning with the massive muscles and larger joints is fully realised in 

 the drill, manual training, and even in teaching writing. 



The target test for aiming is used as a game, but the results have 

 not, so far as I know, been recorded. The electrical tracing test offers 

 some promise, since it could be used as a game, while at the same time 

 giving a valuable training in muscular co-ordination. For this the bell 

 would be the important part of the apparatus. The same applies to 

 the steadiness tester. 



Sensory Capacity. 



Visual acuity is tested by Snellen's types if the children know the 

 letters, or by Cohn's E test, and some experiments have been tried 

 with pictures of animals in place of letters. Visual defects are common 

 among mentally defective children and are a source of trouble, in that 

 the glasses have to be prescribed from the retinoscopy alone, while the 

 careless habits of the children lead to frequent damage to the glasses 

 when obtained. To avoid loss they are often kept at school and not 

 allowed to be taken away. Some tests of eye balance have been under- 

 taken. Colour vision is in a sense tested in the course of instruction 

 and the wool tests are sometimes used. 



