City Education Committee: Offer from Mr. and Mrs. Barrow Cadbury: Open-Air Schools: After-Care of Defective Children: The Birmingham Education Committee at their meeting yesterday were informed of a generous offer made by Mr. And Mrs. Barrow Cadbury to provide the land and necessary equipment for an open-air school near Kings’ Heath … After-Care of the Feeble Minded: The annual report of the Special Schools After-Care Sub-Committee stated that the necessity for legislation on the lines suggested by the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded had been demonstrated by their records year after year, and each year more clearly than before. … … (discussion of report) … … Mrs. Pinsent said that the report this year presented one or two new features. For the first time, through the kindness of the committee of the Blind Institution, they were able to include some account of the after care of the blind children for whose education they were responsible. The committee of the Blind Institution; seemed to have realized fully that defectives, however carefully trained, were rarely or never able to compete on ordinary terms in the open labour market, and they had, therefore, established their own workshops, where the special conditions necessary for blind workers could be provided. Their pioneer work in this line had been most successful, and it would be well if those interested in other forms of defect would learn their lessons from the Blind Asylum. In regard to cripples for instance, some organised workshops where those children could continue working after they had left school might be of real use. Exclusive of the children who recovered sufficiently to be returned to ordinary schools only 30 per cent of the cripples educated by the Birmingham authority were earning wages — and the wages they earned were so small in amount as to suggest that under more suitable conditions those children might be helped to earn more than they were now doing. Deafness seemed to be the least incapacitating of all the defects, for here it was found that 61 per cent were earning wages while 31 percent earned 10s a week or over. Even here however, there were always a number who could not get along alone, and for these some organised work under special conditions and after the example of the Blind Institution would probably be valuable. PROBLEM OF MENTAL DEFECT: The problem presented by mental defect, went on Mrs. Pinsent, was very different and much more serious. The numbers the subcommittee dealt with were far greater. They were educating about 80 deaf, 240 crippled, and 40 blind children but they had about 200 mental deficient school children on the registers. There was no longer any doubt that to give these children a very expensive training and then turn them out at sixteen, was simply a waste of the community’s money and energy. As far as they went the special schools were doing good work, and schools of that kind would always be necessary; but until the recommendations of the late Commission were carried out and the care of the mentally deficient became continuous, very little permanent good could be affected. “It is pitiable to think of the waste!” Mrs. Pinsent continued. “The money spent on this generation has simply poured into a sieve. The best we can say is that the knowledge and experience we have gained have demonstrated this waste so plainly that all who deal with defectives have come to the unanimous conclusion that we must have continuous control. The only question is how soon the nation will recognise these facts and refuse to allow money to be spent in a manner which gives no hope of any adequate return?” Mr. R. Cary Gilson, moved to add to the Sub committee’s report a rider to the effect that a copy of the report be forwarded to the Prime Minister, together with a memorandum expressing the committee’s conviction that mentally defective children could not be withdrawn from public control at the age of sixteen without grave danger and injury to the national welfare, and their earnest hope that the Government would introduce legislation in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded … … (discussion of desirability of adding the rider) … … Eventually, it was agreed to add the rider to the report: – Mrs. Pinsent concurring, – and it was adopted.
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Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949