blood is always well marked. The lung capacity also is almost invariably increased.

The educational advantages are also prominent. While the reports on the pupils returned to the ordinary elementary schools bear universal testimony to their quicker response, greater keenness, and higher mental energy, this improvement must be set down as much to the different educational regime as to the increased physical fitness of the scholars. The greater part of the curriculum consists of manual work in some form or other, nature study, and gardening. Around this core of practical subjects the geography, composition, arithmetic, and drawing are grouped. For an original and enthusiastic teacher the openair school provides a limitless field.

Nor must the training in the amenities of social life which the school affords be forgotten. The children are trained in good table manners and to be careful of the rights of others. Many excellent habits, such as washing before meals, the use of the toothbrush after meals, and so forth, are also taught.

Residential open-air schools are intended for more serious cases than can be dealt with in day schools. They are of two main types: (1) sanatorium schools, where children suffering from active tuberculosis are treated and educated; and (2) schools of recovery, where the pupils attending suffer from chronic ailments of a non-infectious character, such as heart disease or severe anaemia.

To sum up: open-air schools provide the following conditions necessary to good health and proper education-fresh air and sunlight, a proper and sufficient diet, rest, a hygienic mode of life, individual attention, medical treatment where necessary, and special educational method. It is a pity that the ideas underlying them cannot be extended to cover the education of all children.

Schools for Mental Defectives.-Another important aspect of welfare work concerns the training of mentally defective children. It has long been known that some children were hopelessly dull, some ineducable, but only recently has a scientific classification into idiots, imbeciles, feeble-minded, etc., been possible. The whole subject is beset with difficulties, especially as to the kind of training which is best suited to each of the classes. From both the educational and social standpoints the class known as the feeble-minded constitute the most pressing problem. The feebleminded shade off at the upper end into those merely dull or

backward; at the lower into the higher grade imbeciles. They are defined in the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, as:

"Persons in whose case there exists from birth or from an early age mental defectiveness not amounting to imbecility, yet so pronounced that they require care, supervision, and control for their own protection or for the protection of others, or, in the case of children, that they by reason of such defectiveness appear to be permanently incapable of receiving proper benefit from the instruction in ordinary schools."

In general it may be said that feeble-minded persons under proper educational guidance can reach a standard of attainment normally found in children from eight to twelve years of age. They can be taught to run errands, make beds, and do general routine work. The higher grades can do fairly complicated work with only occasional oversight, care for animals, and even use machinery. But none of them can plan, exercise forethought, or show good judgment.

This chronic immaturity, combined with the fact that their bodies attain full maturity, constitutes the great social problem of the feeble-minded. The average family of a feeble-minded couple numbers nearly eight, while the normal family averages a little more than four. They are therefore on the increase in civilised communities since the defect from which they suffer is largely hereditary. Routine medical inspection since 1908 has given reliable statistics for England. According to the chief medical officer of the Board, "The total number of mentally defective children of the feeble-minded type, excluding idiots, imbeciles, and the lowest grade of the feeble-minded, is about 25,000 in England and Wales, that is to say, approximately one in 200 of the children in average attendance." Dr. Tredgold, a reliable authority, estimates that in every 10,000 population there are (taking the nearest whole numbers) idiots, two; imbeciles, seven; feeble-minded adults, fifteen; feeble-minded children, fourteen; insane, thirty-six. The same authority states that there are 12,000 to 13,000 moral imbeciles in England. There are more feeble-minded males than females. Among children the ratio is about three to two. Taking all mental defectives into account the proportion is six males to five females. Such a serious state of affairs has caused England to take very drastic steps to deal with the problem. She has now passed more comprehensive measures than any other country. The two acts controlling the situation are the Mental Deficiency

Act, 1913, and the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1914. The former provides for:

1. The constitution of a central authority known as the Board of Control, consisting of fifteen commissioners.

2. The constitution of local authorities which are the county and county borough councils. The councils work through special committees, some members of which must be women.

3. Institutions to which defectives may be sent. These are:

(a) State institutions maintained and controlled by the Board of Control for the accommodation of defectives of criminal, dangerous, or violent tendencies.

(b) Certified institutions maintained either wholly or partly by local authorities.

(c) Certified houses which may be kept by persons for private profit.

(d) Approved houses supported partly or wholly by voluntary contributions.

(e) Guardianship under which defectives may be placed.

4. The circumstances rendering defectives subject to be dealt with. 5. The methods of procedure in dealing with them.

6. The duties of local education authorities under the act.

7. The finance of the measures.

The measure insures that every mental defective is registered, and that every low grade and criminal defective is either incarcerated or placed under responsible guardianship for life. The second of the two acts compels every educational authority to make educational provision for all feeble-minded children between the ages of seven and sixteen.

There are now 183 certified schools for mentally defective children, providing accommodation for 14,082 children. The majority of these are day schools, namely, 172 with a total average number of 12,569 children on the register. The accommodation for mental defectives will be doubled in the near future as the new compulsory act came into force on January 1, 1915.

The curricula of the schools provide for a graded training of the sensory powers, for a large amount of manual work, and for a vocational training, which can only be fully developed in residential schools and colonies, to fit them eventually to earn their own livings, partially, if not entirely. Experience has shown that the efforts made to bring up the mentally defective children to standards acceptable in the ordinary schools in reading, writing, and arithmetic are not only unprofitable, but are not suited to their needs. Some work in the three R's is undertaken, but the emphasis at present is placed upon nature study and observation work, physical exercises and games (on which stress is laid),

drawing and manual work. The ordinary school subjects are taken in the morning as a rule and the manual work in the afternoon. The methods of teaching reading and arithmetic are as varied as the situation demands, the concrete, of course, always predominating. In the former subject the teaching of letters and easy combinations is accompanied by writing in some cases, in others by making the letters and words in clay or other media. To prevent any flagging of interest the pupils are constantly reclassified for reading and arithmetic. But it is in other subjects that the efforts of the devoted teachers are crowned with the greatest success. The drawing, crayon, or brush work in some of the schools for the higher grade feeble-minded will bear comparison, allowing for the additional time given to these subjects, with the results obtained in many schools for normal children, while the ordinary handwork-knotting, knitting, raffia-work, basket-work, bead-work, etc.-is in many cases superior, showing not only better execution, but, when possible, good taste in design and colour.

In recent years industrial training has been added for older children. The girls are taught needlework, metalwork, tailoring, gardening, and agricultural work, including the care and management of horses, cows, and poultry. Where it is found impossible to teach a pupil any of the three R's the instruction in manual and industrial training is increased, provided that it is possible to make the pupil concerned industrially useful.

The annual cost of maintaining the special day schools for mentally defective children is from £10 to £12 per capita, toward which a government grant of £6 for each unit in average attendance is paid. This is more than twice the cost per pupil (£4 13s. od.) in ordinary elementary schools. In the residential special schools for mental defectives the annual cost for each child ranges from £25 to £40. The grants for this type of institution have recently been increased to one-half the total cost of the school, including interest on capital expenditure as well as maintenance charges. These are very generous terms and a large increase in the number of residential institutions may be confidently expected.

Other Types of Welfare Work.-Space forbids extended mention of other very interesting forms of welfare work undertaken in England. The schools for the blind and partially blind, the schools for the deaf and partially deaf, the schools for epileptic children, the industrial and reformatory schools for moral

delinquents, the school banks for encouraging thrift, the voluntary agencies known as after-care committees, are each of them worth further study by the reader interested in them.

VII, CONTINUATION SCHOOLS

continua

There are two distinct connotations of the phrase tion schools" as used in England. In the narrower sense it means evening schools where the elementary instruction of the day school is continued and given either to young ex-elementary pupils or to adults who wish to revive their fading knowledge of the three R's. In its wider meaning, which is the one used in this section, it includes technical schools, evening continuation schools, schools of art, and all other forms of provision of further education in some employment or avocation during the greater part of their time. Continuation schools therefore are designed for wage-earners and this factor has determined their line of development.

In the days before compulsory education many philanthropic and voluntary agencies endeavoured to provide a means whereby the masses could obtain at least a modicum of the knowledge which a defective provision of schools denied to them. The agencies deserving the highest commendation for their efforts are, in order of their origin, the Sunday schools, the adult schools, the mechanics' institutions, the working men's colleges, the various co-operative societies, and the Young Men's Christian Associations.

With the development of state enterprise in education the problem assumed a new form. The continuation and not the beginning of elementary education was now the task confronting educators. In the generous enthusiasm for evening schools in the early days of compulsory education, the founders expected young men and women, and people of maturer years, to crowd into schools after a hard day's work, seeking eagerly those elements of learning upon which they had whetted their appetites or had hitherto been denied the opportunity of acquiring. But they were doomed to disappointment. The fare they provided was too dry and had too little contact with the vocations of the pupils they wished to attract. Gradually, however, by a process of trial and error, the three R's curriculum was enlivened by musical drill, vocal music, lantern lectures, wood carving, clay