Defective

“ NOTHING is more strange and touching than is the part played by the defective child in the history of education. Long ago the feeble minded as well as the insane were treated sternly. It seems that people felt they were to blame in some way for their misfortunes. Even among those who did not blame them, there were many who thought that the feeble minded are a burden. ”

“ But through an impluse that some call unreasonable the most forlorn found helpers, and then it was found that even the very defective can be of great use, and not only in small, but in great ways. Many processes, so rapid that they cannot be observed in the well endowed, are slowed down as it were in the feeble minded. ”

“ To-day, even in the best institutions, the doctors of the feeble minded and defective prescribe treatment, and supervise education. But there is no provision made for research work, or the application of the most recent discoveries in the methods of teaching, and this deprives the work of its highest value as well as of its greatest interest.
········
We have seen that some people, who are notably defective, are yet very far from being inferior to the average in mental or moral qualities. They are like people, who being rich, have not access to some shops. ”

“ If the work is not too difficult, he will acquit himself tolerably well. If, however, the work involves words, phrases, composition—in a word, abstract ideas expressed in speech—the defective immediately reveals wherein his inferiority lies. ”

“ But it is obvious at once that tests of this type are of great use to an employer in eliminating, from among the candidates for work, those who are hopelessly mentally defective, feeble-minded, and irresponsible. There are many sorts of work in which the employment of feeble-minded persons, unrecognizable as such by their physical traits or by a casual inspection, not only entails loss and annoyance but may constitute a positive danger and constant menace to those who rely on [Pg 76] the defective individual. ”

“ And now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause. ”

“ Our ignorance on such matters is boundless.
It has always appeared to me that these unfortunate defective people are truly our sin-bearers, for they reap to the full the consequences of our mistakes; they inherit the results of a pernicious order of affairs. The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge. ”

“ Premature and defective development is a symptom closely allied to the two preceding. When it cannot be traced to such natural causes as overstudy, overwork, lack of exercise, and other influences of a similar nature, it should be charged to self-abuse. ”

“ Conventional restraint often, no doubt, produces dwarfed and defective human nature. I suppose that if souls could be put under a microscope, the undeveloped rudiments of almost everything would be discovered. ”

“ In enabling the weak, the incompetent, and the defective to live and to live comfortably, it makes it easier for those on the borderland of these classes to fall into them, and it furnishes the conditions which enable them to propagate their like, and to do this, moreover, without that prudent limitation which is now becoming universal in all classes above those of the weak, the incompetent, and the defective. ”

“ Conclusion: The ill-balanced leaves school early, and takes his place in society, where, owing to his character, he may very easily become a danger. To sum up, the simply defective remain at school, while the ill-balanced leave early. ”

“ That element too often causes us to run off with the sentiment, having left the substance behind. Another cause, and, perhaps the main one, is to be found doubtless in the same way in which we find the causes of defects in our race along other lines, i. e., from defective leadership and instruction along this particular line. ”

“ When a person who is physically defective falls into evil courses, it appears likely that he should find it more difficult to return to the right path than one who is healthy and complete in all his parts ”

“ Further study has shewn this defect to be hereditary—the parents or grandparents of such people shew defective intelligence, and their offspring are likely to do the same; indeed, if two mentally defective people marry it is fairly certain that their children will all be mentally defective. ”

“ Yes, if he acts freely, and if the knowledge of his guilt makes him more forgiving and more active in good works. Errors, irregularities, or what are termed faults, are the result of excessive or defective endowment, and may, to a certain extent, be described as the basso relievo or alto relievo of character. ”

“ Psychological defects, we know, are much more frequently acquired than biological defects and much more easily remedied. The work of scientific philanthropy in dealing with this class of individuals must be, therefore, a work of remedying defects in individual character. This is, perhaps, best done through personal relations between the dependent person and those who may help him. Defective character is, on the whole, therefore, best remedied by such means as education, religious influences, friendly visiting, and the like. ”

“ And here it may be noticed that those who neglect the consideration that they form part of the social body and refrain from the taking due part in maintaining a healthy social state suffer from the defective arrangements which they permit to remain uncorrected. ”

“ The study of the normal and the abnormal side by side proved very fruitful. When one begins to look into the exercises he gave to his defective scholars one finds, as we have already said, that he was just following the order in which a normal child develops. ”

“ From the moment the imbecile proves himself unable to learn to read or write, his place is in the workshop. We must find out to what extent he can profit by special education.
True and False Defectives.—We shall formulate a rule which will surely meet with no objection. It is that none but defectives should be admitted to schools for defectives. ”

“ In the action of physical causes we may distinguish between the operative agencies themselves and the subjects in which the effects of these operations are produced. Sometimes the effect is wanting in due perfection, or is in other words imperfect, physically evil, because of some defect in the agencies: the statue may be defective because the sculptor is unskilled, or his instruments bad; offspring may be weak or malformed owing to some congenital or accidental weakness or unfitness in the parents. ”

“ Similarly the defective and criminal classes that make up so significant a part of the population of even our highest present-day civilizations, are no longer regarded with anger or contempt, as beings who are suffering just punishment for wilful transgressions, but are considered as pitiful victims of hereditary and environmental influences that they could neither choose nor control. Insanity is no longer thought of as demoniac possession, but as the most lamentable of diseases. ”

“ Doctor Barr, is a fair sample of what happens when such defective individuals are not restrained from propagating their kind:
“My own study and observation alone, of over 4,000 degenerates, shows such examples as: A man 38 years of age, the father of 19 defective children, all living, he and his wife both under par mentally; as was another couple, with 9 imbecile children; an idiot woman with 7 idiot children. A forcible instance is that of a man with two daughters and one illegitimate grandchild, all feeble-minded.... ”

“ He can hardly open his mouth without saying something of universal application to all defective persons in all ages. From the statement of abstract principles to the details of ward management—whether he is writing advice to an anxious mother or addressing the legislature—there is no side of the subject on104 which he is not great. ”

“ To be more precise, let us say that, since the defectives reach, as an upper limit, the intermediate course, and that in the proportion of two-thirds, one may conclude that they make nearly half the progress of the normal children. ”

“ He would only wearily note the fact as another indication of my condition. "That's the way they all talk. These defectives can never be made to see their conduct in its true light. They always explain their misfortunes by pretending that their thoughts were on higher things." ”

“ Since defectives occur in the general population, it must be realized that far from being less rigid with them in the matter of meting out punishment for things they do that are harmful to others, we must be even more strict with them. ”

“ Small attainments are sources of pride in a class of defectives which if exhibited among the normal would give bitter experience of contrast. By making the standard of behavior and of attainment suited to their little power, the delight of conquest over difficulties need not be denied to the feeble-minded. ”

“ Went (at least in its current sense) is without a present. The two words, however, compensate their mutual deficiencies, and are to each other complementary.
The distinction between defectiveness and irregularity, is the first instrument of criticism for coming to true views concerning the proportion of the regular and irregular verbs. ”

“ It is consoling to think that, in a world of defects, a defect often carries with it its own compensation—that strength, as the preachers say, may be made perfect in weakness. But, when one looks round and enumerates the miseries of human beings, one wonders how far this is, after all, true except for men whose gifts are naturally greater than hog, dog or devil can imperil. ”

“ When I knew him best, in the nineties, the virtues and at least one curious defect were exceedingly impressive upon one in general sympathy with his rationalism in all fields of its application, The defect was an excessive combativeness which was apt to pursue every detected falsehood or fallacy to its remotest origins and a related failure to assign the proper scale of importance to the several errors of his “enemies.” ”

“ Speakers and writers often fail to discriminate in the use of these words. A defect implies a deficiency, a lack, a falling short, while a fault signifies that there is something wrong.
“Men still had faults, and men will have them still,
He that hath none, and lives as angels do
Must be an angel.”
“It is in general more profitable to reckon up our defects than to boast of our attainments.”
Few, Little
These words and their comparatives, fewer, less, are often confounded. Few relates to number, or to what may be counted; little refers to quantity, or to what may be measured. ”

“ That is what is called the corruption of human nature. I shall attempt, on another occasion, to go into some further details, and show, by common examples, how strangely our judgment and practice contain, with much that is right, just that one taint or defect which, as a whole, spoils them. And this one defect will be found to be, as the Scripture declares, a defect in our sense of our relation towards God. ”

“ Such defect and overbalance, it is easy to see, may arise either in a time of novelty and enterprise or in a time of dissolution, since in both there are likely to be movements of thought and fancy ill-related to the general development of judgment and knowledge. ”

“ But the possession of a naturally decisive and influential character is just what requires digested method in small and necessary things; otherwise the defect is more ridiculously anomalous than in a scatter-brained fellow, whom no one looks up to, or consults. ”

“ The first point I shall mention is that universal defect which was in all their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or wherein to place the happiness of mankind, nor had any of them a tolerable answer upon this difficulty, to satisfy a reasonable person. ”

“ No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character. ”

“ And if it is shown that a majority of these individuals do their work in a somewhat erratic fashion, and behave somewhat erratically while they are doing it, such defects must be condoned, at least, if not counted to them for positive righteousness. ”

“ Excess of a particular power, which in itself is a perfection, becomes a defect; the organs of touch may be so refined as to show a diseased sensibility; the ear may become so exquisitely sensitive as to be more susceptible to the uneasiness produced by discords than to the pleasures of harmony. In the nations which have been long civilised the defects are generally those dependent on excess of sensibility—defects which are cured in the next generation by the strength and power belonging to a ruder tribe. ”

“ The consciousness of defect has strongly prompted me to keep them back from public criticism; the assurance of truth has emboldened me to hope that those who took an interest in their delivery, may derive some profit from their study. ”

“ It was unavoidable that defects should have crept in here and there, which I certainly felt, but could not possibly prevent. If private persons have suffered, the intention always was to employ such persons again, and give them compensation. ”

“ These results of physical defects of certain kinds remaining totally unknown, either to the subject of them or his friends, even when all are educated and intelligent, are certainly very curious; but it will readily be seen that they are inevitable in the present development of our faculties. In almost everything, whether moral or intellectual, we measure our fellows by our own standard. ”

“ But, it will perhaps still be said, where is the rule by which you may distinguish the accidental defect, from that which belongs to the nature of things, and which it is impossible to exclude?—Men to whom nature has given only ears, ask questions of this kind; and those who have an ear shrug their shoulders. ”

“ I am far from wishing to blazon the defects of my own country, and I know from observation, that corresponding evils, differing in their exterior aspects, and in their mode of acting, exist elsewhere; but these are the forms in which some of our defects present themselves, and he is neither a friend to his country, nor an honest man, who wishes them to be bundled up and cloaked, instead of being exposed, understood, and corrected. ”