LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
THE CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION FOR PHYSICALLY DEFECTIVE CHILDREN
- [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Many practical suggestions emerged from the discus. sions at the recent Teachers' Conference organized by the Central Committee for the Care of Cripples and held last week in Carnegie House. These included co-operation of teachers and medical staff in hospital schools, the employment of a modified Dalton plan of individual treatment, and the difficulties and possibilities of vocational training. The most interesting feature of the Conference was the light thrown upon the psychology of the physically defective child. This was given by a touch here and an anecdote there, until at last a graphic picture of these children was presented to the audience. Dr. Letitia Fairfield gave the first flash of revelation when she told us that the subnormal quality of many of these children's minds was largely the result of their ignorance of the outside problems of life. The delicate child is not the one chosen to go out shopping, and shopping is one of the most important educative factors in a child's life. The truth that function makes the organ applies to mental as well as physical qualities.
A new idea which emerged alike from the formal speeches and from the questions and discussions of the teachers them- selves is that pity is in itself deeply resented by cripple children. As Dr. Fairfield—to whose illuminating words I cannot help constantly referring--said, the cripple child feels instinctively that life is bigger than its accidents, and that it is being alive and being human that matters more than being crippled. But the cripple child can only forget he is a cripple if we remember.
' The hospital with its calm atmosphere of routine, though admirable in acute cases, is quite the wrong thing when the child in its convalescent stage settles down -to a long course of remedial treatment. Then the development of the mind is essential to the welfare of the body, and occupation and mental sunshine halve the difficulties of a cure. One of the best suggestions for providing these necessary elements is that hospital units' of Scouts and Guides should be formed 'within the institutions. These were ably described by Dr. HendersOn, who combines the offices of Medical Officer of Health and that Of Chief Scout Commissioner in West- morland. Cripples who are Scouts and Guides touch hands with the outside world of activity, and their fellow Scouts often carry them to out-of-door festivities. Those well enough to go out do not forget their fellows who cannot leave hospital. Dr. Henderson told a moving story of a small scout carried out on a stretcher to a picnic, who pleaded to be allowed to take a pink sugar cake back to Jimmy " because lie was too ill to come."
No one present at the Conference could fail to endorse the plea published last week by the Central Committee for the Care of Cripples for more local associations, so that the number of cripples who can receive proper treatment may be raised from the present inadequate figure of 20. per cent. Dr. Eichholz, of the Board of Education, who has devoted himself to this subject, went further and boldly advocated a National Organization on the lines of the National Institute for the Blind. No one who realizes how high is the per- centage of these children who, with adequate care and training, can become useful citizens, can turn a deaf ear to the plea of the Central Committee, and it should be remembered that the younger the child is when treatment is begun, the more likely is the cure. My own very small experience in organizing this work already provides a percentage of infants who have actually been cured by orthopaedic treatment and thus prevented from developing into cripples. Let us hope that the aspirations of the Central Committee, the address of which is Carnegie House, 117 Piccadilly, will be fulfilled, and that the nation will wake to its duty towards these tiny citizens wounded before the battle of life has begun.—I am, Sir, &c.,
MEMBER EDUCATION SUB-COMMITTEE, C.C.C.C.
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