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72
before and after the passage of the Mental Deficiency Act, it appears that in the first
period from 1902-1913, out of 17,030 children deemed to be mentally defective,
1,480 or, roughly, 8.7 per cent. were deemed ineducable at the admission examination.
In the second period, 1914-1930, out of 23,178 children deemed to be mentally
defective, 2,473 or 10.67 per cent. were considered at the admission examination to
be unfitted for special schools because they were either idiot or imbecile. This
seems to indicate that the clearer definition of the terms on the social side had exerted
some effect.
Since 1914 the records kept for the purpose of the Mental Deficiency Act are
available and they show that beside the children who were never admitted to special
schools, 992 others had, after a period of trial at a special school, to be deemed
imbecile. The corrected figures therefore give the following results:—
Per cent.
Mentally defective, possibly feeble-minded 19,713 85.05
Imbecile 3,193 13.78
Idiot 272 1.17
These figures compare with the proportions, feeble-minded 80.3 per cent.,
imbecile 16.0 per cent., idiot 3.6 per cent., found in urban areas by Dr.
E. O. Lewis, the investigator for the Mental Deficiency Committee of the Board of
Education and Board of Control In view of the fact that during this period the
institutions then under the Metropolitan Asylums Board were taking a number of
the lower grade defectives who thus did not always come to the notice of the education
authority the figures suggest that there is no marked variation between the standard
of the Mental Deficiency Committee's investigation and that used in London.
Numbers
admitted to
M.D. Schools.
From time to time attention has been called to the diminution in recent years
of the numbers of children passed for admission to the special (M.D.) schools, these
numbers in the post-war period having fallen from a maximum in 1919 to a minimum
in 1928. The proportion of M.D. admissions to the number of children on the total
roll of the elementary schools, was as follows:—
Year.
Roll
elementary
schools.
Number of
certifications
M.D. schools.
Percentage.
1918 719,277 1,386 .19
1919 709,381 1,604 .22
1920 727,495 1,399 .19
1921 724,834 1,385 .19
1922 718,793 1,172 .16
1923 700,559 1,034 .15
1924 698,589 1,129 .16
1925 680,190 917 .13
1926 677,171 827 .12
1927 665,125 853 .13
1928 652,919 732 .11
1929 639,014 802 .13
1930 623,728 1,038 .16
On this basis the fall in numbers does not parallel the changes in the roll, although
the general diminution in the number of children due to the falling birth-rate and the
transfer of families from crowded areas to the new housing estates, outside the county,
must be an important factor.
A large part of the change is undoubtedly due to the changes in the numbers of
children at risk in any particular period. The mean chronological age of the children,
at the time of admission, is on the average about 8½ years. The usual ages of
admission lie between 6½ and 9½ years. It may be noted that the fall in the
percentage of certification to roll begins at a time when the children born in
1915 attain the lower age and that the most marked part of the drop covers the
period in which the children at risk, i.e., those on the roll between 6½ and 9½, were
at their minimum owing to the low birth-rate during the war period. In the
latter years of the period it is complicated by the increase of migration outward
from the county of London. The rise in the last two years is probably