this purpose. Even with the ordinary methods of common-sense inspection, however, it has developed that in large school systems there is a considerable number of children, whose specific needs are not only failing to be met, but whose presence is a constant menace and handicap to normal pupils. In Providence, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, the "special school" is making its appearance in connection with the public-school system, and I am glad to be able to say that the special schools started in Philadelphia two years ago, under the initiative of voluntary associations and individual contributions and enterprise, have in the last month been taken fully and formally under the control and support of the municipal authorities.

But the attitude of the state toward the defective child is not and should not be wholly negative. A second proposition I wish to lay down, touching the relation of the state to the defective child, concerns the necessity of a clearer conception and a stronger conviction of the needs, powers, and possibilities of the so-called defective: the state should distinctly recognize the defective as a subnormal rather than as an abnormal class, to be carefully distinguished, on the one hand, from the diseased, and, on the other hand, from the degenerate, and liberally provide with the specific training necessary to make these individuals useful members of society and capable of some measure of individual perfection and pleasure.

If, under a wise system of school organization, no child who falls into any of the abnormal, or even subnormal, classes should find a place in schools organized for the normal child, the determination of what constitutes abnormality becomes a scientific question of more than academic importance. In another connection I have ventured to suggest that the most complete type of the abnormal individual is characterized by disordered body, disordered consciousness, and disordered conduct; and that within each of these types we may distinguish classes which may be scientifically distinguished as diseased, defective, and degenerate. The physically diseased, the physically defective, and the physically degenerate are types clearly made out. The mentally diseased, the mentally defective, and the mentally degenerate, as well as the morally diseased, the morally defective, and the morally degenerate, are only beginning to receive clear recognition. This classification suggests that society has yet failed to observe the desirability and importance of distinguishing between the abnormal and what, to borrow a term from Professor Cattell, may be called the subnormal. The blind and the deaf should not be placed under the same ban as the degenerate, the idiotic, and the criminal. On the other hand, the operation of compulsory school laws, and increasing psychological intelligence in the management of private institutions, are forcing upon public attention the question whether we do not grossly abuse the terms "idiotic," "imbecile," and "feeble-minded."

It is an open question whether there is not a class or classes of subnormal children, previously carelessly classified as feeble-minded, idiotic, or imbecile, who are simply defective in more or less definite brain-centers in the same way in which the blind and the deaf are defective, and who, therefore, under proper psychological and pathological diagnosis, might have their cases met pedagogically as effectively as we now meet those of the blind and the deaf. The practical elimination of the adjective "dumb” in connection with the deaf, which as a consequence of higher scientific intelligence has now been accomplished, suggests similar possibilities in connection with other unfortunate children whose defect may be chiefly physical and local. The movement for special schools for backward children is one of the most hopeful and wholesome in connection with our educational system. The development of day schools for the deaf in connection with public schools, and of books especially adapted for the blind in connection with public libraries, are among the most encouraging phenomena in the organization of modern society. We may only ask that the enthusiastic promoters of these movements shall preserve a proper sense of proportion, and not become oblivious to the primary and pressing importance of meeting the urgent needs of the normal child. It is to be hoped that we shall always have enthusiasts for every cause. It is sufficient if we remember with Hobbes that it is not those who carve the images, but those who worship them, that really create false gods.

Concomitant with the need of legislation which shall free our schools from the hampering influence of both the absolutely abnormal and the subnormal, and concomitant with the development under state supervision and state support of adequate, sufficiently diverse, and intelligently organized and administered institutions for subnormal individuals, we have a right to expect stronger state measures for the prevention of dependent, defective, and delinquent classes. So far as these classes are caused by hereditary rather than by social conditions, the duty of the state is plain. The physically diseased can only beget the physically diseased; the idiot and the imbecile can only procreate and perpetuate the idiot and the imbecile; from criminals only criminals can come. These are beginning to be recognized as sociological laws which have as sound a scientific basis as the law of gravitation or that of multiple proportion. Again and again has the state been advised of the remedy which lies within easy reach. It must do more than acknowledge the dictates of science and of experience; it must act upon them. In the sterilization of the sexes it has a remedy as simple as vaccination -- easy, harmless, sure, and benevolent. My last proposition, therefore, is that the state in its treatment of the abnormal individual must combine with its policy of protecting benevolence a policy of progressive elimination and annihilation.

If the principles which I have set down are correct - and I believe

they are the program of progress for this section of the National Educational Association seems to me to be plain. The first need of educational science is facts, accurately observed and recorded. With these we may proceed to interpretations upon which future educational policies may be based. I believe this section would render great service to the cause of education if it were to promote (1) a compilation of the constitutional, statute, and municipal legislation of the United States which makes provision for subnormal and defective classes, classified on some scientific principle and with some regard to the types of defect for which provision is made; (2) an investigation of the actual number of subnormal and abnormal children who are daily attending public schools; and (3) a compilation of marriage laws in their bearing on the prevention of pauperism, insanity, and crime, and of other legislation the purpose of which is the prevention of the procreation and perpetuation of diseased, defective, and degenerate members of society. I believe, further, that this department would do perhaps much in promoting a better public understanding of the cause which it represents if it were to change its name to the Department for the Education of the Subnormal.

In these days, when we no longer confound state and government, we are frightened by no cries of "paternalism," nor have we any misgivings as to what the state may not undertake in preserving life and liberty and in promoting equality of opportunity in the pursuit of happiness. It only remains for the educator, therefore, to arouse public opinion and to guide those in immediate charge of the affairs of state, that they may act intelligently in dealing with the least among God's creatures, the defective child.

SOME RESULTS OF HEARING TESTS OF CHICAGO SCHOOL

CHILDREN

D. P. MACMILLAN, PH.D., DEPARTMENT OF CHILD STUDY AND PEDAGOGIC INVESTIGATION, CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS

In this age of books and laboratories it still remains true that wherever instruction is imparted the unimpaired use of the sense of hearing is an almost indispensable necessity. I need only remind you of this to be assured you will agree with me that the ability to hear well is intimately connected with the pupil's power to make satisfactory progress in ordinary school work. The department of child study and pedagogic investigation of the Chicago public schools, since its inception in September, 1899, has made, merely as part of its work, careful tests of the pupils' hearing in every school it has visited. The data obtained are all

the more valuable as those schools were chosen which were as free as possible from the disturbing noises of the city, and which would represent, as far as could be expected, normal, healthy Chicago children.

The tests were made with the use of the audiometer invented by Professor C. E. Seashore, of the Iowa State University, and which is described in detail by him in Vol. II of Studies in Psychology, issued from that university. Of course, before anything like a comparison of hearing. tests of children can be made by investigators, some standard or basis must be decided upon. So far the problem of making a universal standard has not been solved. Results given in terms of the investigator's watch or voice certainly cannot be compared, nor satisfactory conclusions deduced from them. It is believed that the audiometer has merits never before seen in an instrument used for the purposes of testing hearing. The apparatus consists of an induction coil, a battery, a galvanometer, a resistance coil, switches, and a telephone receiver, all done up in a convenient and portable hand-box. By turning a switch the dry. battery can be thrown into the primary circuit of the induction coil. Another switch turns the galvanometer into the circuit. Then, by varying the resistance by means of plugs, the fall of potential over the primary coil can be made constant as indicated by the galvanometer. The primary circuit can be opened and closed rapidly by means of a key, and, as no stimulus can be produced save when the current is closed, the making and breaking of the current makes sharp clicks, which serve as a stimulus whose intensity can be varied at will by means of the secondary coil. This secondary coil is wound in forty sections, arranged in a series. on the basis of the number of turns of wire that each contains. Each of these sections is connected with the surface terminals in such a way that the number of sections indicated on the scale can be thrown into the circuit by a spring contact, and by moving the carriage along the scale to the proper terminal one can vary the energy communicated to the receiver in this circuit. In determining the relation of stimulus to sensation the inventor has followed the psycho-physical law, so that the ratio of the increments in the sound is such that the forty grades in the series are as far as possible psychologically equal. A tentative norm was taken by testing the hearing of intelligent, active, healthy persons of all ages. This served merely as a guide for the work, and not as an absolute criterion. The work with the seven thousand pairs of ears, each taken individually, served to make its own standard. In the early thousands the position of the norm began naturally to appear. Thus, if 85 or 90 per cent. of the pupils tested, and who were found by the other tests to be normal, healthy Chicago children, were marked at a certain number, the position of the norm could be determined with reasonable accuracy.

The test was made in the following manner: As the pupil entered the quiet room, he was seated at one end of a table, at the other end of which the operator sat. With the receiver at one ear and the other ear closed to exclude possible disturbances, by slightly pressing the tragus of the ear backward, the pupil awaited the signal for the test to begin. At first

the register was set at such a part of the scale that a distinct clicking sound could be heard. The sound was then made to decrease in intensity until the point was reached where it could no longer be sensed. This descending threshold was then marked. In order to rid the test of the errors of expectation and the trace of after-images, care was taken that the responses were not uniformly in the affirmative. As the limen of hearing was approached, the current was alternately turned off and on, while all the movements of the experimenter remained uniform; and these blanks in the sensation series served as a guide for the subject as the experiment progressed, and as a check upon the accuracy of the responses for the operator.

The experiment was further checked by proceeding in the opposite direction, i. e., from below the threshold of hearing to a point where the sound was distinctly sensed. The results secured in these two ways were averaged and the pupils' record obtained.

In considering such an important subject as the hearing of school children, the number of problems that emerge is almost illimitable. am reminded, however, that there is time only for a brief consideration of a few of them. The first that naturally appears is the relation between hearing and school life, or a comparison of the number of defects found at the different ages. In the study of this problem the pupils were grouped as to age by years, and at each age the per cent. of pupils having defective hearing was calculated. A pupil is classed as "defective" when it is found from his audiometer record that he would be seriously inconvenienced in detecting sounds of medium intensity, i. e., four or more points below the norm.