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(b) Active cases (active troubles to the teachers).
i. Children who are only differentiated from the first of the class above by their violence
and destructiveness in their outbursts of rage almost unprovoked at times and quite irregular.
For the greater part of their time such children are inoffensive, sometimes clever, often dull,
stupid or even sullen, but in a rage behave as uncontrollable lunatics. They are, however,
comparatively rare.
ii. Murderous tendencies from pure cruelty. Quarrelling, pinching, biting others. Infliction
of cruelty on young children or killing of animals. In particular cases these children
are very objectionable in school. Manslaughter has been committed by children of innocent,
pleasant, and in one case almost angelic appearance. There is every grade of mental attainment
among these children afflicted with this lust of cruelty.
iii. Interference with the opposite sex shows itself in boys, but most objectionably in
girls. There is every grade from the natural attraction of the sexes to the most flagrant and offensive
behaviour requiring the attention of the police. Here again, mental capacity may vary from
children who are quite normal in school work to those who are low grade mental defectives.
This particular type of girl is most difficult to deal with. It is of vital importance to place
them in residential schools and separate them from other children of the same age, because
though numerically few, they constitute a most vicious element, a leaven of evil among the
girls with whom they are compelled to mix. It is principally for the sake of others that this
policy is proposed.
In the case of the low grade girl it seems a pressing question, whether with her defects and her tendencies,
she is not likely to become a mother in an exceedingly short time, and this is very probable. There
is also the other question that very many of these children live in bad homes, and in some cases may be
expected not to be shielded, if they are not even abetted by their friends. The question of saving the
last class of children from what is called moral contamination is hardly worth consideration. Apart
from their bad school influence the case of the low grade girl with strongly marked sexual tendencies
can scarcely be separated from the case of any other defective child. Many of them are good looking
apparently healthy children, but all are likely in early adult life, within a comparatively short range of
time, to propagate their defects, some classes perhaps earlier than the others, but for this particular
reason there is hardly any ultimate benefit from segregating one class more than the others. Any segregation
is therefore really on account of mental defect, not on account of purely moral defect;
otherwise the Standard VII. girl with immoral tendencies would also want segregation, which no one
would propose. Moral defect, as pointed out, may exist with comparatively good mental development,
and there is no suggestion of segregating such individuals although they may be just as likely as others
to add to the unsociable elements of the future population. It might also be suggested that in this
particular class wTith very strong desires and passions for the other sex, exclusion from the satisfaction
of these desires and passions bv segregation would be an injustice which they have not deserved.
A much more humane and scientific idea than mere segregation and more economical to the
State would be to deprive such individuals of the objectionable powers and capacities, at the same time
relieving them of the passions and desires, before the time at which these develop.
Report of the Royal Commission.—The long awaited Report of the Royal Commission
on the Feeble Minded was issued in July. The Commissioners propose that all the feeble minded, of whatever
age or degree, shall be under the care of a Board of Control. They also recommend that a register
of feeble minded children should be formed, the names being supplied voluntarily by parents or guardians,
or as a statutory duty by officials of all kinds public and private. The number of non-pauper children
or as a statutory duty by officials of all kinds public and private.
The number of non-pauper children
in London in 1908 who might have been expected to come on such a register would be :—

* The above is incomplete as a return of all mentally defective " London children—(i.) On account of some
who should probably be included, not having been certified ; (ii.) because some who might be classified as mentally
defective, etc., are in workhouses, infirmaries, poor law schools or institutions.
§ Waiting list.
† Reported as under instruction of some kind, though not in Council schools.
‡ Two-thirds of the mentally defective children passed for admission to special schools under the Act of 1899.