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explanatory notes, indicates that the Board's intention is that
Table III. should be the basis upon which the Authority considers
the need for provision of Special Schools for the different
categories of mentally and physically defective children in its
area. For this reason alone the table is, in a sense, the most
important of the tables compiled annually by School Medical
Officers and submitted by them to their Authorities and to the
Board.
Blind.—There is generally no difficulty in determining
whether a child is "totally blind or so blind that he can only be
appropriately taught in a school or class for totally blind
children." There is also no room for doubt that a blind child
requires education in a Special School for blind children.
The chief causes of total blindness are (1) congenital defects
of the eyes and (2) the condition called "Ophthalmia
neonatorum," which if not adequately treated, destroys the newborn
infant's eyes in a few days. The more effective prevention,
and the more adequate treatment of this condition when it occurs,
is causing a steady diminution of the numbers of totally blind
children.
The sub-group, "partially blind," includes two classes of
visual defects:—
(a) Children suffering from some disease or defect of the eye, such
as scarring of the cornea, which so interferes with vision that
the child cannot read ordinary school books. There can be no
doubt about the wisdom of sending such children to a special
school or class for the partially blind.
(b) Children whose eyes show the error of refraction, called
myopia—that is, short-sighted children or myopes. Myopia is
a defect of the eyes which may appear in early childhood, and
tends to increase during school life. In rare cases (malignant
myopia) it leads to partial or total blindness.
Special schools or classes for partially blind children may
include children of class (a) only or class (b) only, or (a) and (b)
together.
Classes for myopes are sometimes called "sight-saving
classes" on the ground that the special education provided tends
to retard the progress of the myopia. That, indeed, is the object