E.—s.

The Lancasterian Special School for Crippled Children (Manchester) had, at the time of my visit 168 pupils, and had a staff of teachers, a visiting medical officer, nurses, and nurse attendants, masseuses, as well as a staff to prepare and serve meals. The pupils ranged in age from sto 16—the latter being the upward limit of compulsory attendance for physically defective children. The school provides modified courses in the various subjects and places particular stress on art, handicrafts, needlework, and commercial subjects. In the school were stretchers for the pupils to rest on, wheeled chairs, gymnastic apparatus, ultra-violet-ray apparatus, and baths. I was assured that under proper treatment most young cripples can be taught so that they will become not only employable, but self-supporting. An after-care association of voluntary helpers takes an active interest in the pupils when they leave school. As in London, children too crippled to travel or be conveyed, are placed in hospitals and taught there. In Sydney classes for crippled children are held at the hospital to which the pupils are conveyed in motor-cars at the expense of the Education Department. In San Francisco, the Board of Education has made arrangements for the conveyance of crippled children to and from school in taxi-cabp. When the children are too crippled to attend school they are taught at home by visiting teachers. If I remember rightly, a similar procedure is followed in Edinburgh. In several places I saw special schools for physically defective children. These children receive appropriate medical attention, and are taught in classes of about twenty-five pupils from a programme of work that places emphasis on hand and eye training rather than on book knowledge. EDUCATION OF DEAF CHILDREN. I visited the following schools : Langside School for the Deaf, Glasgow ; Renfrew Street School for the Semi-deaf, Glasgow ; Royal Residential Schools for the Deaf, Manchester ; Crown Street School for the Deaf, Liverpool; Old Kent Road School for the Deaf and Partially Deaf, London C.C. Last year Dr. Ada Paterson, Director of the Division of School Hygiene, also visited some of these schools and others, and will be more competent than I am to speak from the medical point of view. All teachers of the deaf to whom I have spoken agree that education should begin at about three years of age, and I think we must give consideration to making provision for pupils to enter the Sumner School for the Deaf, Christchurch, at three years of age. Most schools have installed instruments to teach children who have any residual hearing, to hear and understand the human voice. Sumner has had two such instruments for the past two years. In the 1935 report of the Manchester schools for the deaf it is stated that the results obtained from the amplifiers are definitely encouraging ; full use is being made of any hearing a child may have ; there is a distinct improvement in voice-production and speech ; the experimental stages have been passed, and the use of amplifiers is now a definite part of the school work. EDUCATION OF MENTALLY DEFECTIVE CHILDREN. Schools or classes for mentally defective children are now provided by all education authorities. The first school of this kind I saw was situated some miles out of Sydney in grounds of considerable size. In it there were about one hundred sub-normal children—all boarders—from various parts of the State. The school accepted no boy with an intelligent quotient lower than 60, and no girl lower than 55. No pupil had a mental age higher than 9 years. The psychologist in charge of the school attends at the office of the Department of Public Instruction, Sydney, on one afternoon a week to examine applicants for admission and to advise parents. The school is liberally stafEed with specially qualified teachers, and the curriculum has been devised to meet the capacity of the pupils. The next school I visited was in Edinburgh where there were five classes of twenty children with intelligent quotients ranging from 50 to 72. The pupils had been selected by the specialist school medical officer from those reported by the teachers. Under the Scottish Acts mentally defective children must remain under instruction till they are 16 years of age. Lunch was provided free for all pupils, and milk free if prescribed by the school medical officer. In addition to suitably modified courses in the usual school subjects, the older boys were taught woodwork and cobbling by a parttime instructor, and the older girls cookery and housecraft. The school had a very well kept garden. In Manchester the school I saw had a roll of 157 pupils between the ages of 7 and 14 years, for whom there was a staff of six assistants and two part-time teachers of woodwork and cookery. The children had been selected by the school medical officer from those reported by the teachers. Provision was made for a midday meal at a cost of one penny, and for baths as often as was deemed necessary. Special attention was given to instruction in— (a) Handwork, including woodwork. The older pupils had made the fittings for the school shop, the properties for the puppet threatre, and some pieces of school apparatus. The pupils gave a delightful demonstration in the puppet theatre. (b) Cookery, for boys and girls. (c) Art, including poster work. (d) Music, including percussion bands and dancing, in both of which the pupils seemed to be remarkably proficient. In Nottingham there is a very fine special open-air school for mentally defective boys and girls up to 11 years of age, and for boys from 11 to 16 ; the 11-16 girls are transferred to another special school. In Nottingham all children at 7 years of age are given an intelligence test by the head teachers, and the results are sent to the Education Office. Those children found by the test to be retarded two or more years, are examined by a specially trained nurse. Those whom she considers to be mentally

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