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APPENDIX B
THE ASCERTAINMENT, CARE, EDUCATION AND TRAINING
OF EDUCABLE MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN
Introduction
The earliest statutory recognition of mental deficiency as a separate mental disability
from mental illness was in the Idiots Act of 1886 which differentiated between 'idiots
and imbeciles' and 'lunatics', as the mentally ill were then called, made provision for
the reception of the former into hospitals etc., licensed by the Commissioners in Lunacy
(The Board of Control) and required that suitable registers be kept, and notices of
admission, discharge and death be sent to the Commissioners.
Section 24 of the Lunacy Act, 1890, gave power for 'lunatics', which by definition
still included idiots, to be kept in workhouses in special circumstances. In London
some mentally defective children were accordingly placed in the institutions, legally
workhouses, provided by the Metropolitan Asylums Board.
In 1911 the Metropolitan Asylums (Mentally Defective Persons) Order, 1911
provided that persons under 21 years of age who were not certified as lunatics but were
incapable of receiving proper benefit or training in schools, protecting themselves from
injury, improper usage or treatment, or of maintaining themselves by work, could be
admitted to a workhouse for care. A disadvantage of the Order was that young persons
admitted under it (in London, generally to Darenth training colony, one of the
institutions mentioned above) remained there indefinitely, in many cases without
subsequent re-examination to determine whether they should be discharged. Systematic
reconsideration of these cases was not undertaken until after the Local Government Act,
1929, had transferred these institutions to the control of the Council.
The Order, intended to provide for care and protection for low grade and obviously
ineducable persons, did not contemplate anything in the nature of education or training.
Following the recommendation of a Royal Commission* the London School Board,
which had strongly urged the setting up of the Commission and had already
formed a statistical committee to deal with problems, decided in 1891 to provide special
centres for the training of physically and mentally afflicted children who could not be
taught in ordinary schools or by ordinary methods and combined centres were set up
for this purpose in the following year. This was the first step towards the provision of
regular schooling for mentally defective children. School activities typical of this period
are illustrated opposite page 174.
Provision of
special
schools
The Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1899 empowered
school boards to maintain special schools for mentally and physically defective children
from the age of 7 to 16 years and laid down, where this was done, that medical officers
should certify the children. In 1914 the provision of education for mentally defective
children became mandatory.†
The Mental Deficiency Act, 1913, which came into operation in the following year,
dealt comprehensively with all classes of mentally defective persons. Grades of mental
defect were defined and one of the grounds for dealing with a child under the Act was
that a child was over seven years of age and had been notified by the education
authority as incapable of benefiting from education in a special class or school or who
could not be so educated without detriment to the other children. Those about to leave
special schools could be notified as requiring care or supervision after leaving school
where the education authority considered that this would be to their benefit.
* Report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf, the Dumb etc., of the United Kingdom, 1889.
† Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act, 1914.