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149
This is particularly so in institutions catering for children
with more than one disability, for whom at the present time accommodation
is particularly limited.
I do hope that you will take every step possible towards this
end, which is, I am persuaded, the only solution of the present
difficulty.
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.
One blind child has been maintained in a residential institution.
During the year under review one child aged five years was
admitted to the Frederick Road Centre.
The number of known epileptics of all grades is six.
Mentally Defective Class, Open Air School.—The problem of
mental deficiency is much more difficult than was at one time
understood.
Actually we have been dealing with children who are educationally
backward, but this is in reality a different thing from
mental deficiency, which is a much wider term.
Once again I want to refer to the children who can only and
do only acquire scholarship under the constant stimulus of an
educational system.
Just as in medicine we learn our most significant lessons in
the post mortem room, so in education much may be learned from
the study of the mentally defective children.
These mentally defective children can be taught to do a
marvellous number of things. The difficulty is that you cannot
teach them to "be" anything.