IMPORTANT SCHEME FOR BIRMINGHAM: Mrs. Hume Pinsent, the chairman of the Special Schools Committee of the Birmingham Education Committee, foreshadowed an important scheme for Birmingham district for the treatment of epileptic children. The Monyhull Hall Colony at King’s Heath was, she said, a modern colony for the treatment of the feeble-minded and sane epileptics. The joint committee of the three unions of Birmingham, King’s Norton, and Aston, who were responsible for the conception and management of that colony, were proposing now to establish schools for epileptic children in the immediate future. The Education Committee proposed to ask the Guardians, when they were building these schools. Land which was already in their possession was sufficient accommodation not only for the epileptics for whom they were responsible, but those for whom the Education Committee were responsible. A complete scheme would be submitted later to the Education Committee. Preliminary negotiations had been carried on. The Special School Committee felt that the Guardians would display the same care and wisdom it had been shown in the building and management of the adult colony. The small homes they were intending to build would afford full facilities for careful classification. They would be erected a safe distance from the parent colony. The schools would be certified by, and under the inspection of, the Board Education. The Sub-committee asked for approval for the general idea, which is a step towards the unification and complete organisation of the work done for mentally defective children in Birmingham. In the city elementary schools 129 children had been classified as actually suffering from epilepsy. In addition, 15 children were being maintained by the committee in residential schools for epileptics in different parts of the country. The new scheme had relation to those needing institutional care and treatment; Alderman Sayer, as chairman of the Joint Committee which has the management of the Monyhull Hall Colony, seconded a resolution approving the general principles testified the marked improvement affected the mental condition of the children. Miss Burrows said she did not like the idea of handing over children for educational purposes to boards of guardians. It was a new principle associating them with the workhouse regime, and she moved that the clause relating to the provision of residential quarters be deleted from the resolution. She thought consideration should be postponed. Mr. Coley seconded. The Mayor said the Monyhull Colony was not a workhouse in any sense. The Chairman pointed out that the Education Committee was already paying for maintenance of a number of epileptics in several institutions. The committee was not committing itself to any filial scheme. Councillor Lord thought it would be preferable for the Education Committee to build a school of its own and then receive, if need be, children from the workhouses. He did not like placing their children under a workhouse system. Mrs. Pinsent, in reply, said purely residential educational institutions were unsatisfactory because the children left at 16 years of age. At MonyhuJl, however, they would be drafted into the seniors’ colony. Thus the danger of multiplying the trouble would be averted. The Education Committee was dealing with the same class of children as the Boards of Guardians. The “pauper idea’’ was only a sentimental objection. If the committee refused to adopt the scheme they would be jeopardising one of the finest schemes for defectives that had been brought before the English public. The scheme was approved.
Transcribed in whole or part from scanned originals: Presented with or without modified text and punctuation. For absolute accuracy refer to the original newspapers. Source: The British Newspaper Archive.
Referenced
GRO0245 Devonport: Ellen Frances Parker: 1866 – 1949