EDUCATION IN YORK 69 



of 18 years. When circumstances necessitate, persons 17 years old are 

 accepted for one year. 



Care of Sub-Normal Children. 



Twelve years ago the Education Committee began to make special 

 provision for children unable by reason of physical or mental defect to 

 keep pace in the ordinary school classes. A large residence in its own 

 grounds at Fulford Cross, Fulford Road, was purchased and adapted for 

 the purposes of special schools. An Open Air School for delicate children 

 (120) is conducted in hutments in the grounds. The permanent building 

 is used for classes of children (no) who are too backward mentally to 

 profit by ordinary class instruction in the elementary schools. Both 

 sets of special scholars receive meals at school, and under these conditions 

 it is possible to make the special arrangements necessary for the welfare 

 of these types of children. Children whose defect is that of eyesight 

 and who, whilst far removed from actual blindness, are still so weak- 

 sighted that they also are unable to benefit in the ordinary school class 

 are organised in a special class for myopic children held on the premises 

 of the Castlegate Council School. Those whose handicap is more pro- 

 nounced are sent to one or other of the residential institutions available 

 in different parts of the country. At present blind children from York 

 are in the Yorkshire School for the Blind (York) and in the Sheffield 

 Institution for the Blind. York children suffering from deafness are 

 educated at special schools at Doncaster,at Manchester and at Boston Spa, 

 and arrangements are made for epileptic children at Stornthwaite, near 

 Kendal, and Lees Moss, near Manchester. Children requiring institutional 

 treatment for mental defects are sent to the Beacon School at Lichfield. 



Now that an orthopaedic hospital has been opened at Kirbymoorside, 

 near York, the crippled children in our schools found to require operative 

 and residential treatment are sent there. 



The child whose defect is that of nonconformity to moral and ethical 

 standards, or whose home circumstances are such as to make it hopeless 

 for him to develop in any wholesome manner in his home environment, 

 is sent away to some industrial or truant school. 



In 1894 we had no children in these schools which are scattered up 

 and down the country. The total has now been reduced to 13. It is 

 gratifying to know that the falling off in the number of committals to 

 industrial schools is not peculiar to York, as 200 industrial and reform- 

 atory schools throughout the country have been closed in the last decade. 

 This improvement is probably due to (i) the happier school conditions ; 

 (ii) improvements in the homes ; (iii) restrictions placed on the sale of 

 intoxicants. 



The Fairfield Special School consists of a class conducted by the Health 

 Committee of the Corporation in their Fairfield Sanatorium, situated 

 some three miles north of the city, on the Skelton Road. In this class 

 the children from time to time resident in the sanatorium are able to 

 continue their elementary education during the process of their restoration 

 to health. In these circumstances the number of scholars in the class is 

 variable, but there are generally about twenty children of different ages. 



