CHILD STUDY 487 
in classes. Still another plan that is now being adopted extensively in 
large cities, is that of having special schools or classes for each type of 
exceptional child, the deaf, the blind, the lame, the epileptic, the incor- 
rigible, ete. In Chicago, such children are carefully examined and 
tested by the experts in the child study department maintained by the 
board of education, before being assigned to the school that it is thought 
will best fit the individual. Medical inspection and regular examina- 
tion of eyes and ears of school children have made very clear the neces- 
sity of such special provision for exceptional children. 
A large proportion of these will have their needs met in classes and 
ungraded rooms in the public schools, and others in special institu- 
tions, especially those for the feeble minded, but a few need still more 
individual and expert treatment, such as is given in the school for 
atypical children at Plainfield, N. J., presided over by Dr. Groszmann 
and in the psychological clinic and school established by Dr. Witmer, 
of the University of Pennsylvania. In such schools children who are 
so different from normal children that under ordinary circumstances 
or even in special classes they would become a burden upon society may, 
by individual treatment directed by experts, be developed into happy, 
intelligent human beings and useful citizens. 
Although the first and most evident value of child study has been 
in the treatment of exceptional children, a marked change has also been 
brought about both in the popular mind and in the minds of educators, 
whereby children as children, and not merely as the material out of 
which men and women are to be made, have now become objects of 
popular and literary interest. This is strikingly illustrated by current 
literature. A quarter of a century ago if children appeared in litera- 
ture it was only incidentally or as foils to adults, but now nearly every 
issue of popular magazines contains stories or sketches, in which por- 
trayal of child character is the prominent feature. The literary needs 
of children are also being administered to as never before by writers, 
librarians and teachers, all of whom are giving careful study to the 
questions of child nature and the literature that best appeals to it. 
Children are now recognized as a part of the public with distinct needs 
that must be cared for. 
In our schools, although courses of study are not completely made 
over so as to fit the needs of children in each stage of development, as 
they may be some day, yet they have been greatly modified by this new 
interest in children and by the more complete knowledge of their char- 
acteristics at each stage of development. The aim is now, not merely 
to directly prepare for adult life, but to have them live completely, each 
stage of development, while making some preparation for the future. 
There have been still greater changes in the methods of accomplish- 
ing results than in the ideal of what education should do. Even when 
