The Feeble-minded: The address by Mrs. Pinsent last evening Halifax, on the care of the feebleminded, should be sufficient in itself to convince people that this is a foremost question of to-day. Her cold logic. the terrible truths illustrated by her statistics, all compiled from her own investigations, at once brushed aside any “sentimental rubbish,” as she termed it, which ignored the disastrous effects of the intermingling of feeble minded with the normal minded. The aims of the Association for the Permanent Care of the Feeble-Minded, of which a branch has been established in Halifax are to educate public opinion as to the gravity of the problem, and eventually to convince the Government that a Bill providing for the control of the feeble-minded in farm or industrial colony is an urgent necessity. A Bermerside Classes: Mrs. Pinsent pointed out that few places attempted effectively to deal with the mentally defective. Under the Education Act — which only deals with children within school age and therefore it loses control in later life — small but relatively important work is already being done. Indeed, the Halifax Education Committee was one of the first in the country to grapple with the question, and since 1898 a special class for feebleminded children has been held, first at Parkinson-lane Council School. and more recently, Bermerside, having come into the hands of the committee, the class — now containing 24 children—is held there. Their education is entirely different from that of the normal child, attempts being made to teach the mind through the hand. Unfortunately, the Education Committee’s valuable work has to cease when the child is 16 years of age. A great many people interested in this problem have visited the Halifax class, and other authorities have been so pleased with the methods that they have asked to have children from their areas dealt with here, but the committee have had had to refuse, the school not being a boarding school.
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Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949