428 REPORT— 1897. 



In presenting our fifth annual report we now give an account of 

 1,120 children who appear to require special care and training as being 

 sub-normal in their mental or physical status. The cases dealt with are 

 derived from three sources : — (1) Records of children seen in public 

 elementary schools, 1888-91 ; (2) children similarly examined, 1892-94 ; 

 (3) cases collected by the Charity Organisation Society in various parts of 

 London and presented for report as to mental and physical status. These 

 were examined and individually reported on by Dr. Francis Warner. 

 This portion of the work is new, and was specially selected, as evidence 

 concerning these childi'en was asked and obtained from these inquiries 

 by departmental committees of the Local Government Board, the Home 

 Office, and the present Committee of the Education Department on 

 Defective Children. The evidence is published in their parliamentaiy 

 reports, and some of the recommendations made have been adopted. 



The class ' children who appear to require special care and training ' 

 includes all cases given as ' exceptional children ' (see Group 5), and in 

 addition ' all children mentally dull, with defects in development, abnormal 

 nerve-signs, and low nutrition,' i.e., Group 27. 



Exceptional Children. — This includes all children whose physical or 

 mental conditions show them to be obviously at a permanent disadvantage 

 therefrom in social life. This group includes : Idiots (76) ; imbeciles 

 (77) ; ' children feebly gifted mentally ' (78) ; children mentally excep- 

 tional (79) ; epileptics and children with history of fits during school 

 life (80) ; dumb children (81) ; and all children crippled, deformed, 

 maimed, paralysed. All these exceptional children need to be considered 

 individually as to their special requii'ements. 



Idiots includes all children who on account of their bodily and 

 brain defects and the absence of mental power might be certified as. 

 idiots under the Idiots Act and sent to an asylum. 



Imbeciles. — This includes all children who might be certified as men- 

 tally imbecile and transferred to an asylum. Speaking generally, these 

 are less hopeless cases than the idiots, and more educable under industrial 

 training. Some of these cases were the result of disease, not of congenital 

 defect of brain. 



' Children feebly gifted ntentally.'— These children are distinctly 

 deficient in mental power, but might not be certified as imbeciles, and 

 are therefore not fit for such medical certification. No child was regis- 

 tered in this group unless it was believed upon evidence observed and the 

 teacher's report combined to be incapable of school work in the ordinary 

 classes. It is difficult to define what physical conditions seen, as apart 

 from mental tests, indicate the child as unfitted in mental capacity for the 

 usual methods of education, and an arbitrary attempt to do so has not 

 been made. There appears, however, to be a large class of 'children 

 feebly gifted mentally ' with defect of mental power short of imbecility, 

 but still with some deficiency. 



Children mentally exceptional. — These children, while not necessarily 

 mentally dull, and without brain power, appeared deficient in certain 

 mental characteristics and in moral sense, such as habitual liars, thieves, 

 and incendiaries ; others were liable to attacks of total mental confusion, 

 or periods of total mental ineptitude or violent passion, or were moral 

 imbeciles. Some of these children were the offspring of insane parents 

 or criminals. It is quite possible that some of these children were really 



