Illogical City: Mrs. Pinsent’s Appeal for the Irresponsible: A Grave Social Evil: In the words of Alderman Beale, Mrs. Hume Pinsent delivered at the University yesterday a stirring and convincing address showing that she was engaged in a gigantic task for which the whole community ought to be grateful. She spoke of mental and physical defectives and concluded a lucid discourse with an earnest appeal. Would it not show more wisdom, more common-sense, greater economy, infinitely more humanity and practical Christianity, if provision were made at once for the necessary care and training of these helpless and irresponsible creature, instead of waiting, as had been done, and providing accommodation for them in inebriate homes, rescue homes, hospitals, workhouses, and prisons? Alderman Beale presided over an audience composed mainly of magistrates, councillors, and guardians. Emphasising the gravity of the problem, Mrs. Pinsent pointed out that mental deficiency was increasing to an alarming extent. It had been estimated that in England and Wales there were 100,000 defectives, outside idiots and imbeciles Incapable of self-control or reasonable conduct. These people were allowed to live in absolute freedom and were held by the community as responsible for their actions. The defects they suffered from could not be recognized in a Court of Law, and they had the absurd spectacle of a blundering society seeking to reform them by short terms of imprisonment. Many of them died in the workhouse Infirmary, but not before they had left a future generation of insane, criminals, etc. Their chief characteristic was an absolute lack of willpower, and this was often combined with a strong imitative faculty. It was this combination which rendered them such an easy prey to bad habits and vice. To illustrate her lecture, Mrs. Pinsent threw on the screen pictures of the lowest types she had met. The pictures were in themselves convincing proof that the question is not one that can be dealt with with: COMPULSION NEEDED: Alluding to Acts of Parliament, Mrs. Pinsent said that the provisions made for the blind and deaf were satisfactorily carried out. The Act of 1899 concerning epileptic and defective children was not compulsory, and many local authorities neglected it altogether. Until it was compulsory the work would not be thoroughly done. Birmingham was making an honest effort to provide for its defectives, but not one of the suburbs had made any use of the Act. She was pleased to learn that the subject was now under consideration at Smethwick. The consequence was that a lot of money was spent in Birmingham on children in special schools, and then the efforts were wasted by parents moving to the suburbs. Day schools and boarding schools could be provided for under the Act, and the Latter were necessary for the worst cases. There were children whom it was absolutely impossible to train at a day school. In Birmingham these would probably number one hundred. “I wish,” said the speaker, “I could make the public understand the absolute waste of money in attempting to educate this hundred at day schools.” Industrial colonies worked satisfactorily in the United States, supplying just the supervision and control necessary. In asking for colonies, they did not plead with society to take up a new burden but suggested a means of making the old burden lighter. Defectives should be prevented from giving birth to feeble-minded offspring. [Birmingham’s Position} What was the position in Birmingham? If she had been asked that a few weeks ago, she would have said that they were on the high road to a satisfactory scheme. The education authority had three times approved of the idea of a boarding school and had selected a site. That would be satisfactory up to the age of sixteen. To continue that work the Guardians of Birmingham, Aston and Kings’s Norton had formulated one of the most courageous and enlightened schemes ever submitted to the people, by determining to institute an industrial colony for the feeble minded and epileptics chargeable to their parishes. She sincerely regretted that the education authority of the city had decided to defer the matter (“shame”} Birmingham, which had been held up to the whole country as being the first to formulate a complete scheme had now fallen into the most illogical difficulty, for the Guardians’ Colony was incomplete without the educational work, just as the boarding school would have been nearly useless without their colony. There were over 1,000 defectives in the city who must be trained and educated. They were only attempting to educate a portion of that number, and the majority of these insufficiently. If they did not seriously set themselves to the task, Birmingham would be in the strange position of having petitioned the Board of Education to make education of defectives compulsory while refusing to educate its own defective children. Alderman Beale in proposing a vote thanks to Mrs. Pinsent, said he felt sure that the feeling against the erection of the school by the people near the site was passing away.
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