It will be seen that on their entrance to grade work in school at the age of six years, 154 per cent. of the pupils are found defective in aural acuity. One has only to reflect for an instant upon this fact to recognize its significance. In following the movement of this curve thruout the school years one can readily observe the general trend of these defects. The per cent. of children having defective hearing increases rather rapidly in early school life, reaching its highest point at the early age of eight years. After all allowance is made for the fortuitous character of making tests not entirely objective with children under ten years of age, and for the climatic conditions of Chicago, the rise of the curve is very remarkable. It

probably means that catarrhal affections and children's diseases are beginning to make inroads into the young lives, and indicates quite clearly the inability of the organism to adapt itself readily to this sedentary life.

From the age of eight the curve gradually descends, until between the years of twelve and a half and thirteen and a half the per cent. of defects is at a minimum. At thirteen years of age it is found that only 134 per cent. of the children have defective hearing. This in itself is very important, but doubly significant when one considers that it is the period in which an exaltation of all the powers takes place, a time of greatest growth and development, when not only increased power in all directions is found, but, according to many reliable statisticians, the lowest mortality.

Practically the same story is told when one considers the number of children found defective in both ears. The maximum and minimum

number of defects are found about the same ages, with a general coincidence from point to point to the curve (shown above) obtained by tracing the number found defective in one or both ears.

In general, of the 6,729 school children between the ages of six and eighteen, tested for aural acuity, 1,080 of this number, i. e., 16 per cent., were found defective in hearing in one or both ears, and are liable to be at a great disadvantage unless the presence of such defects is known in each case. Again, 634 per cent. of the total number are found defective in both ears. Further, 91⁄2 per cent. of the total number of children have either the right or left ear defective, and need especially to be cared for and seated on the proper side of the teacher, in order to be able to utilize the unimpaired ear to the best advantage.

Even if one limits oneself to the sense of hearing, one could scarcely advance a more telling argument for the individual care of the children.

This large number of defects will not surprise one when one bears in mind the prevalence of acute catarrhal inflammation of the middle ear which follows in the wake of pharyngitis, or any of the acute infectious diseases. It is a rare parent that has not had experience with the common diseases of measles, scarlatina, whooping cough, pneumonia, and bronchitis. And the cases of tuberculosis, meningitis, and syphilis are by no means uncommon. Further, the presence of adenoid growths, enlarged tonsils, together with nasopharyngeal catarrhs in not a few cases, helps swell the number of after-effects that destroy or mar the delicate mechanism of hearing.

In reviewing these changes of the hearing power thruout school life, one naturally inquires if there is any causal connection between defective. hearing and the pupil's ability to advance in the prescribed school courses. This problem presented itself to the department of child study in its investigation of the wider problem of the physical basis of dullness. It is found that the conclusions advanced by Gratsianoff, of Russia, and W. Townsend Porter, formerly of St. Louis, are substantially correct for the limited range of the tests made by them. The dull and backward pupils were not only smaller and lighter than the brighter and more advanced, but the children who are mentally superior on the average showed physical superiority in every test and measurement.'

This does not mean, in the case of hearing, that no child inflicted with dull hearing can be bright enough to be at or above grade, but it does mean that on the average defective hearing hinders the progress of the child in school work.

In investigating this problem of hearing and school standing, the pupils were divided into two groups. Those in or above the proper grade for the respective ages were placed in one group, while those below grade formed the second. The per cent. of pupils subnormal in hearing, in at least one ear, was calculated for each age in both groups.

I See Report No. 2, Department of Child Study and Pedagogic Investigation, Chicago Public Schools.

By glancing at Chart II one can trace the relative position of these curves thruout. Before the age of eight years a large majority of the pupils are in the first grade, and there is no below-grade group. In the early years of school life a great many adventitious circumstances other than positive defects may combine to place a child below grade, but in the middle and upper grades of the course the great majority of those marked below grade are there because of inability to secure regular promotion. Now, it will be seen that at every year of school life the children below grade have a larger per cent. of hearing defects than those at or above grade. This relative position of the two curves is maintained thruout the years of school life with surprising uniformity. It seems to draw attention to the symptomatic character of hearing defects; for, besides delimiting the field of sense-impression, defective hearing may be an indication of lack of growth, of improper growth, of injury, or of diseased

condition of the child. This means that defective hearing parallels other defects, sensory, motor, or of growth.'

This was strikingly evidenced in the examination made by the department of the six hundred boys found in the John Worthy School, a school which is supported by the board of education for the benefit of the juveniles in the city prison. The per cent. of defects by ages of these boys may be seen on the upper curve (Chart II), the seemingly great variability in portions being due to the comparatively small numbers tested. It is rather remarkable that they show a greater number of hearing defects than the so-called normal pupils who are found below grade.

Further, in marking defects of growth and movement, the department of child study has always made note of defects of speech. This is a

general term on the examination card of each child, and is used to cover such palpable defects as lisping, stammering, hesitation, and imperfect pronunciation of elementary sounds. The number of those having such speech defects in the John Worthy School was counted. Out of 601 there were 90 pronounced cases of such defects, and of this latter number 56 were markedly subnormal in hearing, i. e., 61 per cent. of those having speech defects were defective in hearing. This may not surprise those who have as their concern the education of mutes, for it is very probable that in many cases the child who is subnormal in hearing is backward in using vocal organs, for the same reason that the deaf child does not exercise the power of speech.

I See article by C. C. KRAUSKOPF, "Some Results of Sight Tests of Chicago School Children," Preceedings of Illinois State Teachers' Association, 1900-1901.

When one calls to mind the great complexity of mechanism involved in the acquirement and use of the power of speech, and the relatively large area of brain exercised, one can the better understand this inability of the child who is defective in hearing to utilize vocal organs. It is not a matter of the sensori-motor arc becoming atrophied, but of not being developed, so that in this case the proper co-ordination between the hearing area of the brain and those motor areas governing speech has not been set up, nor made flexible and responsive.

I am sure that this Department of Education for the Deaf, Blind, and Feeble-Minded children needs no urging to broaden its interests to take into consideration the well-being of those children who are neither deaf nor blind nor feeble-minded, but who are the so-called normal children, and nevertheless, limiting oneself to the sense of hearing, present the large number of 16 per cent. as subnormal. It means that the children who come under your immediate charge have such pronounced defects that they become at once the objects of individual attention, and the powers and capacities which are available are appealed to, while the children who are subnormal in sensory power are often branded as stupid and wayward because of their apparent inability to keep pace with their more fortunate companions. Facility and ease in sense-perception cannot fail to induce pleasure in further mental activity. On the other hand, the failure to remove difficulty in sensing is poor economy of mental energy.

The department of child study of the public schools of Chicago is interested in every feature of your work. Your problems we appreciate and your achievements we praise. Time forbids any presentation of the immensely important problems before our department further than the facts relative to the sense of hearing, to which I have limited