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33
(18) BLIND, DEAF, DEFECTIVE AND EPILEPTIC
CHILDREN.
\\'c believe that all the blind, deaf, defective and epileptic
children are known to you.
Your great difficulty is in obtaining the necessary accommodation,
particularly for children who are suffering from more than
one of these disabilities.
It seems to me that concerted action should be taken in order
to obtain the necessary accommodation, and although I do not wish
to make any proposal which could possibly be thought to have in the
least any political aspect, I do think that the possibility of establishing
institutions with an income guaranteed by the State should
be entertained, each Authority paying for their individual cases.
Six deaf and dumb children have attended at Frederick Road
Centre, Custom House, during the year. No deaf and dumb child
has been maintained in a residential institution.
The number of known epileptics of all grades is 8.
Mentally Defective Class, Open-air School.—This class continues
to serve a very useful purpose, and my submissions for last year
on the problem involved remain, in my opinion, quite sound. In
addition to what I said last year I would like to discuss the problem
of the dull and backward child from the health standpoint.
The percentage of physical defects amongst these children
is higher than amongst normal children, and altogether their
average physical development and endurance is considerably
less. These dull children do not stand the same chance in life's
battle as their better endowed brothers and sisters and may become
the hewers of wood and the drawers of water of to-morrow.
It is impossible to endow these children with forceful intellects.
Their only chance in life rests on their physical fitness, without which
they could never hope to obtain the necessities and the comforts of
life.