The 
EDUCABLE MENTALLY 
HANDICAPPED CHILD 
in Illinois 
(Second Edition) 
Illinois Commission for Handicapped Children 
1946 STATE OP ILLINOIS 
Dwight H, Green, Governor 
COMMISSION FOE HANDICAPPED CHILDREN 
Mrs. Harry M. Mulberry, Chairman, Chicago 
Irving F. Pearson, Vice-Chairman, Springfield 
Bert I. Beverly, M.D., Oak Park 
Robert Bell Browne, Ph.D., Urbana 
Roland R. Cross, M.D., Springfield 
Robert L. Gordon, Chicago 
Mrs. Margaret Pope Hovey, Chicago 
Vernon L. Nickell, Springfield 
Frank A. Norris, M.D., Jacksonville 
Cassius Poust, Springfield 
Edward H. Stullken, Chicago 
Grand M. Ungaro, Chicago 
Henry C. Warner, Dixon 
Howard E. M. Miller 
Executive Director 
211 West Wacker Drive 
Chicago TABLE OF CONTENTS 
PAGE 
Definition of the Problem 7 
Social and Economic Implications 8 
Extent of the Problem 10 
A State Program for Educable Mentally Handicapped Children 13 
Facilities for the Mentally Retarded in Illinois 23 
Unmet Heeds in Illinois . . 2H 
Recommendations 30 
Bibliography 36 FOREWORD 
The second edition of this study is issued by the Illinois Commis- 
sion for Handicapped Children, in response to numerous requests, in 
order to make available an up-to-date report on what is being done 
and what yet needs to be done to enable the mentally handicapped 
child to make an optimum adjustment to society. 
Since the first edition was published in 1943, considerable 
progress has been made in the Illinois program for children who are 
mentally handicapped but educable. While the gains made thus far 
are encouraging, they are but a beginning and represent perhaps the 
simpler part of the task. 
The major part of that task still lies before us in the provision, 
in local communities, of services which State legislation has made 
possible but has not created. The development of these services now 
depends upon local initiative. 
Acknowledgement was made, in the first edition, of the work of 
Miss Eveline Blumenthal and Mr. Warren Kingsbury and of the 
advice of Mr. Edward Stullken. The revisions incorporated in this 
edition are the work of Miss Jane Bull, Informational Representative, 
Miss Daisy Byler, Research Analyst, and Miss Dorothy L. Cornwell, 
Medical Assistance Consultant, of the staff of the Illinois Commission 
for Handicapped Children. Grateful acknowledgement is hereby 
made to them for their fine services. 
Mrs. Harry M. Mulberry, 
Chairman. Definition of the Problem 
For many years the problem of mental deficiency was associated 
almost wholly with pauperism, immorality, alcoholism, delinquency, 
and criminality. It was not until the introduction and extensive 
application of more accurate mental tests and the refinement of inter- 
pretive techniques that it was recognized that there is another large 
group of mentally deficient—those formerly judged to be indifferent, 
lazy, or lacking in will power, but who are instead inherently limited 
in mental endowment and incapable of meeting all of the demands 
which society makes of them. As children, those in this group benefit 
but little by the traditional formalized education. Yet these mentally 
handicapped children are educable in the sense that the large ma- 
jority can, with special training and education, be enabled to live 
happily and participate successfully in community life. 
Defining what is meant by the educable mentally handicapped 
child is difficult, since diagnosis of mental deficiency has implications 
in many fields—psychology, education, medicine, neuro-pathology, 
biology, genetics, psychiatry, and the social sciences. Thus, a satisfac- 
tory definition for one field would not always meet the needs of others. 
Although classification on the basis of intelligence level offers a con- 
venient starting point, it must be recognized that any boundaries 
which are established should remain flexible to permit the inclusion 
or exclusion of those whose intelligence scores would be affected by 
extenuating circumstances of physical, psychological, or social nature.1 
A relatively simple rural situation, for instance, makes much less 
demand upon the adaptability of a person than does a highly complex 
urban environment. Thus, while mental deficiency might not prevent 
a happy and adequate adjustment in the former case, it would be a 
serious handicap in the latter. It is this variation of social com- 
petence with the situation that justifies opposition to classification of 
mental defectives in hard-and-fast groups. 
With this in mind, the following definition of the educable men- 
tally handicapped child is offered: 
An educable mentally handicapped child is any child whose rate 
of mental development, as measured by individual psychological ex- 
1 Intelligence measurements are generally stated in terms of the I.Q., or in- 
telligence quotient, representing the relationship between the mental age and 
chronological age. An I.Q. of 100 is the mid-point of the normal group measur- 
ing from 90-110; 80-90 is dull normal; 70-80, borderline; and 50-70, feeble- 
minded. The idiot and imbecile, low-grade mental defectives, are not considered 
educable in terms of independent community life. 
7 animation, has been retarded from birth or early age, but who 
requires and “may be expected to benefit from special educational 
facilities designed to make him economically useful and socially ad- 
justed.”1 
Social and Economic Implications 
The social and economic implications of mental deficiency affect 
the entire structure of our national life, sometimes in ways that are 
obvious and measurable, but more frequently in long-range effects 
which cannot be detected and isolated in causal relationship to mental 
defect. 
The increase in industrialization and urbanization of social life, 
while not increasing the number of the mentally deficient, has de- 
creased the number of situations in which they can make satisfactory 
adjustments. As >ve become more industrialized and urbanized it 
becomes increasingly difficult for the unskilled group which contains 
most of the mental defectives to find employment. It should be noted 
in this connection that this group is reproducing itself two to three 
times faster than the professional population,2 and that the propor- 
tion of feeble-minded among dependent families is much in excess of 
that found in the general population.3 Thus, the marginal and sub- 
standard living conditions characterizing a large majority of the 
mentally deficient tend to be perpetuated. 
The emotional solidarity of the family may also be disrupted 
by the conflicts created by the presence of a retarded child in the 
home. After making due allowance for possible inherited tendencies, 
a child’s behavior patterns and personality makeup are the result of 
his association with others. In the case of the mentally deficient 
child, all such associations, whether in home, school, or community, 
are highly colored by the degree of his acceptance. In the home, 
mentally deficient children are often rejected; frequently their men- 
tal defect is willfully ignored or unaccepted, and the children are 
faced with the emotional hazards of enforced competition with those 
1 The last phrase of the definition has been taken from An Act authorizing 
school boards to establish and maintain special educational facilities for educable 
mentally handicapped children. III. Rev. Stat. 1945; Chap. 122, § 12-20, 3. 
2 See Warren S. Thompson, “Some Factors Influencing the Ratios of Chil- 
dren to Women in American Cities, 1930,” Amer. J. Sociology, 45 (September, 
1939), 183-99; Lorimer and Osborn, Dynamics of Population (New York; Mac- 
millan Co., 1934) ; and Frank W. Notestein, “The Differential Rate of Increase 
Among the Social Classes of the American Population,” J. Social Forces, 12 
(October, 1933), 21. 
8 White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, Section IV, The 
Handicapped; Prevention, Maintenance, Protection, (New York; Century Co., 
1933), p. 344. 
8 of superior endowment. In school, these children experience repeated 
failures, lose self-confidence, become habituated to failure, and fre- 
quently suffer further rejection from teachers 'who are resentful be- 
cause of the trouble caused by their inefficient academic work and the 
reflection their failures bring upon the teacher's record. Extending 
the age of compulsory school attendance has accentuated this problem. 
Constant frustration through failure to meet social demands fre- 
quently leads to emotional instability, development of defense 
mechanisms, and negativistic attitudes, in rebellion against situations 
beyond the child's control. In mentally deficient adolescents, the 
problem is made more acute by the fact that they differ physically, 
socially, and emotionally from the younger pupils with whom they are 
grouped because of their mental level. 
A special personality difficulty is presented by the mentally 
handicapped delinquent. Because the mentally deficient cannot con- 
form to group standards of attainment, they tend to develop over- 
reaction in the form of submissiveness or aggressiveness to compensate 
for this failure. Such over-compliance or over-defiance may lead to 
delinquency. The problem of the defective delinquent is of major 
concern since the educational therapy planned for the non-delinquent 
defective is not adapted to the needs of this group. 
That mental retardation proved a serious handicap in the armed 
forces is evidenced by the fact that up to April, 1943, 12.55 out of 
every 1,000 Illinois selectees were rejected as unfit for military service 
for reasons of mental deficiency.1 
The mentally deficient child who also is crippled, blind, or de- 
fective in speech or hearing presents a doubly serious problem. Speech 
and hearing defects rank high among the physical stigmata associated 
with mental deficiency. In one study, only 37 per cent of the mental 
defectives possessed normal speech.2 In another, it was noted that the 
incidence of defective hearing increased to a certain extent with 
decreased intelligence level.3 Sensory defects are easily confused 
with mental defect and complicate the problem of accurate diagnosis. 
The blind, the mute, and the hard-of-hearing are so deprived of the 
social and sensory stimuli wrhich provide food for mental growth that 
they are frequently classified as feeble-minded and, indeed, occasion- 
ally are so retarded as a result of their handicap that they require 
1 Data secured from Lt. Col. E. Mann Hartlett, State Medical Officer for the 
Selective Service System in Illinois, May 7, 1943. 
2 Jacob Sirkin and William Lyons, “A Study of Speech Defects in Mental 
Deficiency,” Amer. J. Merit. Deficiency, 46 (July, 1941), 77-80. 
3 Grover A. Kempf and Selwyn D. Collins, A Study of the Relation between 
Mental and Physical Status of Children in Two Counties of Illinois, Reprint No. 
1301 from Public Health Reports, U. S. Public Health Service, Vol. 44, No. 29, 
(Washington: Gov’t Printing Office, 1929), pp. 1743-84. 
9 special educational facilities such as are planned for the mentally 
deficient. Certainly, such children deserve special consideration. 
Extent of the Problem 
Studies outside of Illinois Estimates of the extent of the 
problem of mental deficiency are many and varied. They present 
little that is comparable, since the types of tests on which they are 
based, the conditions under which they are administered, and the 
differences in methods used all tend to result in widely varying 
estimates. These differences, plus the lack of any universally ac- 
cepted definition of mental deficiency, make accurate estimates diffi- 
cult. As Doll states: 
The precise amount or kind of intelligence required for self- 
sufficiency has never been determined. There is a futile tendency 
to fix these intellectual limits for social adequacy at a definite 
limen such as I.Q. 70, or mental age 10. As a matter of fact, 
social success being contingent on many factors in addition to 
intelligence, the intellectual limits for social adequacy are repre- 
sented in a border zone rather than a borderline. Use of the 
Stanford-Binet measures alone is of doubtful value for disin- 
gushing the socially inadequate of borderline intelligence from the 
socially adequate.1 
Personality, emotional, and situational factors play so important 
a part in an individual's social competence that no sharp line can 
be drawn between the mentally deficient and the so-called “normal” 
group. This should be kept in mind in considering the following 
estimates of the extent of mental deficiency. 
Of major importance in calling attention to the problem of 
mental handicap throughout the United States was the report of 
the Committee on Mental Deficiency to the White House Conference 
on Child Health and Protection, held in 1930. “Mental deficiency” 
was defined to include not only the lower grades of feeble-mindedness 
but also those of borderline intelligence, and the intellectually sub- 
normal (commonly termed morons). The committee concluded that 
1 per cent of the total population is definitely feeble-minded and that 
another 14 per cent are to some degree mentally deficient, that is, 
possessed of an intelligence below a mental age of twelve years.2 It 
1 Edgar A. Doll, “Criteria of Mental Deficiency,” Psych. Exchange, III, No. g 
(1935). 
2 The White House Conference report states: “This level is variously stated 
in terms of intelligence quotient, I.Q.; scales based upon an upper development 
limit of sixteen years state it as 75 I.Q.; those having an upper limit of four- 
teen years state it as 85 plus I.Q. In either case, the mental age, twelve years, 
is identical. At present some states use the fourteen year upper limit, but many 
states, for example, Massachusetts, use the sixteen year upper limit. I.Q.’s 
throughout this report are on a fourteen year basis. . . . ; the 60 to 85 I.Q. 
limits to which reference is most frequently made are approximately 50 to 75 
I.Q. on the sixteen year basis, all Stanford-Binet.” White House Conference, 
op. cit., p. 331. 
10 is with this latter group that this study is concerned. On the basis 
of the 1940 Federal census, this group would include approximately 
18,500,000 persons. Since 36.3 per cent are under twenty-one years 
of age, there would be 6,715,000 children so handicapped in the 
United States. Many of these are more or less adequately meeting 
the demands placed upon them in community life. It is estimated, 
however, that 35 per cent, or 2,350,000 are socially maladjusted as 
well as mentally subnormal. 
A second source which can be used as a basis for national esti- 
mates is the report on special education issued by the Office of 
Education of the Federal Security Agency. Special education is 
usually found only in cities; therefore, this estimate is from an urban 
point of view. In 1940 the Biennial Survey of Education reported 
the number of mentally deficient in special schools and classes in 
city school systems to be 98,416, less than one-fifth of the estimated 
500,000 mentally retarded children in the United States who are in 
need of special educational adjustment.1 According to Elise Martens, 
Senior Specialist in the Office of Education, incapacity for academic 
achievement to some extent characterizes about 25 per cent of ele- 
mentary school children, while 5 per cent have an I.Q. of 78 or less.2 
Studies in Illinois There has been no systematic effort to 
determine the number of mentally handicapped children in Illinois. 
Estimates as to the extent of the problem in this state must therefore 
be arrived at by applying the percentages presented for the United 
States as a whole, checking these against the information obtained 
by the limited surveys which have been made within the state. 
The Federal census of 1940 listed 2,515,657 children under 
twenty-one in Illinois, or 31.9 per cent of the total population of the 
state. If 14 per cent of these may be classified as intellectually sub- 
normal but not of low-grade mental deficiency, there are approxi- 
matey 350,000 children so handicapped in Illinois. If we omit the 
preschool age group, there remain 275,000 children between the ages 
of 5 and 21 who are in need of special education and training. If, as 
suggested by the White House Conference Report, some 35 per cent 
of these are socially maladjusted as well as intellectually subnormal, 
then there are approximately 100,000 children of school age in Illi- 
nois who are particularly in need of such services to enable them to 
meet more satisfactorily the demands of community life. 
1 Elise H. Martens and Emery M. Foster, Statistics of Special Schools and 
Classes for Exceptional Children. U. S. Office of Education, Federal Security 
Agency (Washington: Gov’t Printing Office, 1942), pp. 6, 7. 
B Elise H. Martens, A Guide to Curriculum Adjustment for Mentally Re- 
tared Children, Bull. 1936, U. S. Office of Education (Washington: Gov’t Print- 
ing Office, 1936), p. 8. 
11 Three limited surveys have been made within the state which 
lend themselves to interpretation in drawing a picture of the extent 
of the problem in the state as a whole. The most extensive effort in 
this direction was the survey made in 1940 under the direction of the 
Superintendent of Public Instruction. A questionnaire was sent to 
183 school districts (116 elementary, 23 high school, and 43 unit 
school districts) representing a total enrollment of 250,270 school 
children. No intelligence tests were requested, and the results were 
highly subjective in that they represented only the opinion of the 
school district officials as to the mental capacity of the children 
reported. For purposes of this survey, a handicapped child was 
considered to be “any child for whom suitable education and training 
involves an expenditure of money in excess of educating less seriously 
handicapped children.”1 The number of mentally retarded children 
reported from all districts was 5,093, or 2.0 per cent of the total 
enrollment, and 31.4 per cent of all the handicapped. Applying this 
percentage to the total number of children reported in the 1940 
Federal census as enrolled in school in Illinois would yield an esti- 
mate of approximately 40,000. This estimate can be taken as repre- 
senting the minimum extent of the problem in Illinois, 
More limited in numbers studied, but more carefully and ac- 
curately carried out was the joint investigation made by the United 
States Public Health Service and the Illinois State Department of 
Public Welfare in 1928. Approximately 5,000 elementary school 
children were given physical and mental examinations in two widely 
separated counties in Illinois. Group mental tests were administered 
to all the children, followed by individual tests for those making low 
scores on the group test. All psychological examinations were given 
by the Institute for Juvenile Eesearch. The results of the mental 
tests indicated that 11.7 per cent of the white children were mentally 
retarded, having I.Q/s below 80.2 Applied to the total school popu- 
lation of Illinois, this would yield an estimate of 230,395 mentally 
handicapped children between the ages of five and twenty-one. If, 
as seems probable, 35 per cent are socially incompetent as well as 
mentally deficient, there are more than 80,000 children so handi- 
capped. It must be noted that the intellectually subnormal group 
with I.Q.’s between 80 and 90 are not included. The estimate would 
be considerably higher if they were. 
1 “Summary of Reports Received by the Illinois Superintendent of Public 
Instruction in Regard to Handicapped Children in Illinois,” unpublished report 
dated September, 1941. 
B Kempf and Collins, op. cit., p. 7. 
12 A third study in Illinois was the survey of Chicago Public 
Schools conducted in 1932 under the direction of Dr. George D. 
Strayer, Institute of Educational Research, Teachers College of Co- 
lumbia University. The Strayer survey indicated that 4.7 per cent 
of school-age children were mentally retarded.1 Applied to the 1940 
Federal census of Illinois, this would mean that some 90,000 children 
in Illinois are so handicapped. 
Summary and evaluation In summary, although surveys of 
the extent of mental deficiency vary greatly because of differing 
definitions of type and degree, the midpoint between the lowest and 
highest estimates indicates that there are at least 70,000 children 
of school age in Illinois in need of an educational program especially 
planned for the mentally handicapped. 
A State Program for Educable Mentally 
Handicapped Children 
The development of a state program for educable mentally 
handicapped children requires careful consideration. It should take 
full advantage of the experience which such states as Pennsylvania, 
Wisconsin, New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Minnesota 
have had in attacking this problem. It should include: 
1) Adequate facilities for early recognition and diagnosis. 
2) Provision for opportunities for education and training, 
both through state schools and special classes in the 
regular schools. 
3) Adequate institutional facilities, including colony care. 
4) Extra-institutional supervision of all mentally deficient 
children who cannot be admitted to institutions or for 
whom institutional care is undesirable, including guid- 
ance and assistance to parents of those children who are 
cared for in their own homes. 
5) Vocational guidance, training, and placement. 
6) Planned teacher-training. 
7) Continuing research to determine more adequately the 
nature of the problem of mental deficiency and the 
needs, capacities, and welfare of the mentally deficient 
child. 
1 George D. Strayer, Report of the Survey of the Schools of Chicago (New 
York: Columbia University Press, 1932), II, 94. 
13 Identification and diagnosis A state-wide program of case- 
finding is of first importance, not only to determine the extent of 
the problem so that an adequate program may be planned and organ- 
ized, but also to make available to the handicapped child proper 
educational and training facilities at an early age when they will be 
most beneficial. Early recognition and treatment help to prevent 
development of personality disorders and undesirable behavior pat- 
terns, and afford a maximum amount of time to foster development 
of desirable traits, habits, and attitudes. In addition, much costly 
waste of time and effort in attempts to educate the child in the 
standard school program is eliminated. 
Compulsory education laws assure a contact with all children 
at the age of six or seven. At that time of first entrance into school, 
a careful social, medical, educational, psychiatric, and psychological 
study should be made of each child who presents a special problem. 
Competent staffs should be provided to conduct such examinations 
on a state-wide basis. This step will prevent confusing mentally 
deficient children with those who are psychotic, who present behavior 
difficulties, or whose retardation is caused by sensory defects or other 
physical disorders. 
In every community having a school population of 5,000 or more, 
there should be a permanent full-time child guidance clinic staffed 
by a psychitarist, a psychologist, and the necessary social workers. 
For thinly populated and rural areas, the traveling clinic is a solu- 
tion to the problem. This should operate full-time, making every 
possible use of existing facilities and local resources such as state 
schools, hospitals, teachers colleges and universities. The traveling 
clinic plan has been eminently successful in Massachusetts, where a 
staff made up of a psychiatrist, a psychologist, and in some instances 
a social worker, operates from each of fourteen state mental institu- 
tions. Every city and town is covered periodically. Over 9,200 chil- 
dren were examined in 1940, at a cost of $5.19 for each examination.1 
Each case was studied with respect to physical condition, family his- 
tory, personality adjustment, developmental history, school progress, 
and mental status. 
Provision for such diagnostic services should be accompanied by 
a state-wide registration and continuing census of all mental de- 
fectives. This is necessary to provide accurate information as to the 
extent and nature of the need. Massachusetts, South Dakota, Minne- 
1 Henry A. Tagdell and Bernardine Truden, “Traveling Psychiatric School 
Clinics: Twenty Years of Statewide Operation in Massachusetts,” Amer. J. 
Ment. Deficiency, 47 (October, 1942), 220. 
14 sota, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are 
states having such a capital registry and continuing state census.1 
Special classes Having determined the number of children 
needing such care, provisions should be made for education and 
training with a flexible, individualized course of study adapted to 
the needs, capacities, limitations, and interests of the individual. 
Although the conventional “three R’s” are an integral part of the 
training, such education should emphasize good work habits and 
desirable social responses as well as health and useful forms of manual 
and industrial skills. In the large communities, special classes with 
a maximum enrollment of eighteen to twenty, in charge of well- 
trained teachers, are a partial answer to the problem. Or there may 
be classes which the mentally retarded attend for special training 
and drill, while taking the remainder of their work in regular classes. 
In other cases provision of “slow sections” in regular grades using 
a modified curriculum is a practical solution when there are only a 
few children so handicapped. 
In thickly populated areas, special schools or centers may be 
established with highly trained personnel, special equipment, and 
a curriculum designed to help the pupil to adjust himself satisfac- 
torily in the community and to prepare him for some unskilled voca- 
tion. Special vocational schools have been established in many 
communities. Care must be exercised in planning the activities of 
such centers, however, to avoid giving the pupils a feeling of isolation 
and exclusion. The environment must not be controlled to such an 
extent that the pupils do not experience the type of social situations 
which they must meet in the community. 
Rural areas are faced with a very real problem in providing 
special education for the mentally handicapped. The number of 
such pupils is few and represents a wide age range as well as differing 
problems. In addition, school terms are shorter, distances between 
schools are greater, transportation is difficult, a large percentage of 
teachers are inexperienced, school staff turns over rapidly, and intelli- 
gent supervision and experience in utilizing special education facili- 
ties are usually lacking. 
To meet these problems, adaptations must be made of several 
types of plans, according to the community to be served. Regular 
teachers may be given special training for individualized instruction 
of handicapped children in country schools and, where feasible, special 
1 Letter from Elise H. Martens, Senior Specialist in the Office of Education, 
Federal Security Agency, Washington, D. C., to the Illinois Commission for 
Handicapped Children, June 15, 1943. 
15 classes may be formed for counties or districts, with transportation 
provided for the children attending. The necessary supervision of 
this work can be provided by traveling teachers, traveling clinics, 
and by appointment of county supervisors, as is the practice in Penn- 
sylvania. A further possibility is provision of boarding care at State 
expense for non-resident pupils at larger centers. 
By 1942 schools and classes for educable mentally handicapped 
children had been instituted in forty-two states.1 Twenty-five states, 
in addition to Hawaii and the District of Columbia, now have pro- 
grams of special education operating on a state-wide basis. All but 
five of these have one or more full-time supervisors.2 
Service to rural areas was extended in 1942 by the appointment 
of county supervisors of special education in Pennsylvania, the first 
state in the Union to advance the program this far. These county 
supervisors are required to have state certificates as elementary or 
secondary school teachers, or as public school psychologists. Counties 
having more than 550 teachers have full-time supervisors, while those 
with fewer are served jointly with others. Activities of the super- 
visors are confined to special education and do not encroach upon 
the administration or supervision of the schools. 
Another interesting phase of the Pennsylvania program is pro- 
vision for transportation. In 1919, all Pennsylvania schools with an 
average daily attendance of ten or fewer pupils were closed,3 and 
transportation to other schools provided, financed jointly with the 
local communities on an ability-scale of reimbursement. For the 
1939-41 biennium, Pennsylvania appropriated $3,500,000 for trans- 
portation alone.4 This is of great help in providing for students 
needing special education. 
A major concern throughout in establishing any such program 
should be its interpretation to the community, instruction of parents 
as to the needs and problems of defective children, and interpretation 
of the special-class program to the regular teachers and pupils. Such 
interpretation would be conducive to the more effective carrying out 
1 Martens and Foster, op. cit., p. 7. 
0 Letter from Elise H. Martens, Senior Specialist in the Office of Education, 
Federal Security Agency, Washington, D. C., to the Illinois Commission for 
Handicapped Children, January 25, 1946. 
3 Transportation of Public School Pupils in Pennsylvania, Bull. 100, Depart- 
ment of Public Instruction (Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1941), 
p. 1. Illinois has almost one-tenth of all the school districts in the United 
States, having over 12,000. In 1938 there were 400 schools with fewer than six 
enrolled pupils, 2,000 enrolling between six and ten pupils, and 5,002 with fewer 
than fifteen. (See Laura Hughes Lunde, “The Small Schools of Illinois," De- 
partment of Government and Education, Illinois League of Women Voters, 
Chicago, 1938, p. 1). 
4 Transportation of Public School Pupils in Pennsylvania, p. 2. 
16 of the aims of special classes and would prevent the placing in them 
of children other than those for whom they are organized. 
Teacher training The need for highly trained personnel in 
conducting special education procedures cannot be over-emphasized, 
since a major factor in success or failure of the program is compe- 
tence of personnel. A teacher conducting classes for the mentally 
deficient should possess a state elementary or secondary school certifi- 
cate; must be well qualified by reason of health, personality, adapt- 
ability, and interest in the welfare of the children to be served; and 
should have successfully completed a special curriculum in teaching 
and handling mentally deficient children. This type of curriculum 
is well illustrated by the special certification requirements adopted 
by the Pennsylvania State Council of Education for teachers of the 
mentally retarded. These include training in the psychology and 
education of exceptional children, diagnostic and remedial teaching, 
mental or educational hygiene, special class arts and crafts, class 
methods, corrective physical education, educational and vocational 
guidance, and in addition, teaching experience or successful experience 
in social service, public health work, or psychiatric clinic service.1 
Various plans are being tested to provide in-service training for 
teachers. In 1943, the Superintendent of the Austin State School 
in Texas and the authorities of the University of Texas collaborated 
in making needed training available by offering summer courses in 
the education of the mentally deficient. An unusual experiment was 
conducted by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in three counties in 
southwestern Michigan in the summer of 1935. Twenty-two teachers 
from the grade schools in these counties were given scholarships for 
an eight-week intensive course in speech correction at the North- 
western University School of Speech in Evanston. They returned 
to provide instruction in speech correction in county-wide service for 
rural schools in addition to carrying their regular work.2 Such a 
plan could be extended advantageously to offer special services to 
mentally handicapped children where the school systems are too small 
to justify organization of special classes. 
Institutional training Adequate institutional facilities should 
be provided for the mentally deficient who are so severely handi- 
capped that they need full-time care, for those whose educational 
needs cannot be met by the community, or those for whom placement 
1 Lester K. Ade, Meeting the Needs of the Mentally Retarded, Bull. No. 420, 
Department of Public Instruction (Harrisburg: Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 
1939), p. 35. 
a Henry J. Otto, “Utilizing Teachers’ Special Talents in Small Schools,” 
Educ. Adm. and Supervision, (January, 1937), pp. 41-42. 
17 is desirable because of complicating personality or behavior problems 
or unfavorable home environment. The educational programs of 
such institutions should be made an integral part of the educational 
system of the state and should be differentiated from the custodial 
programs. As Elise Martens has observed: 
When a child has been committed by order of the court to a 
State institution for the “feeble-minded” it is popularly supposed 
that his intellectual condition is hopeless. In the eyes of the com- 
munity he is ostracized—relegated to institutional life for the 
rest of his days—unsuited to live among normal people. The 
door of community interest is closed upon him and he becomes 
a “forgotten man.”1 
Safeguards against the assumption by state schools of a purely 
custodial aspect would include: (1) making the schools an integral 
part of the educational system of the state by placing the educational 
phases of their programs under the assistant superintendent in charge 
of the education of exceptional children, whose responsibility it is to 
plan and supervise that program under the direction of the State 
Superintendent of Public Instruction; (2) establishment of high 
personnel standards to insure staffing the institutions with highly 
trained and competent teachers; and (3) segregation of low-grade 
mental defectives from the educable mental defectives, with expanded 
facilities to include the colony system, and with a program of educa- 
tion, recreation, and vocational training designed to return the pupil 
to the community where he may live and work with a minimum of 
supervision or no supervision. 
To fulfill its twofold purpose of custody for protection of the 
individual and society and for rehabilitation of the educable defective, 
therefore, the state institutional program should consist of the fol- 
lowing : 
1) Institutions for low-grade defectives who are in need of 
permanent custodial care, such as idiots and imbeciles. 
3) Special facilities for mentally defective delinquents. 
3) Cottage and colony systems supplementing the residential 
school program for educable mental defectives who can be trained 
to return to the community as self-supporting individuals, even 
though they may require some supervision. Such schools as the 
Syracuse State School in New York and the Wayne County Train- 
ing School in Michigan, established on the cottage system, have 
proved quite successful. Social and medical studies, intelligence 
and educational tests, and vocational training are an integral part 
1 Elise H. Martens, Residential Schools for Handicapped Children, Bull. 1939, 
No. 19, U. S. Office of Education (Washington: Gov’t Printing Office, 1939), 
p. 83. 
18 of the program. Such schools offer training for boys in farm and 
factory work, mechanics, and various types of unskilled labor; and 
for girls in personal and domestic service, laundry and restaurant 
work, and certain types of factory work. Certificates of completion 
are granted by the county school authorities to pupils of the Syracuse 
State School who have made satisfactory progress. 
It is especially desirable that a colony system be established to 
care for high-grade mentally deficient children for whom outside 
supervision is inadequate but institutional care too confining and 
regimented. The colony may be a mobile or permanent unit set up 
away from the parent institution, providing practical vocational 
experiences. 
Twenty-seven years ago Rome State School in New York began 
the colony system as an experimental farm unit and now has twenty- 
six colonies for men and boys (with an average population of nine- 
teen per colony) and twenty-two for girls (with an average population 
of twenty-four). The certified capacity of Rome State School is 
2,500 but the actual inventory is 3,880, through use of colonies.1 
For two years, a highly successful reforestation experiment was 
conducted by mobile colonies under the direction of the New York 
State Conservation Commission. Approximately 400,000 trees were 
planted at a cost to the state of only $400. One colony of fifty-eight 
boys boasted a net maintenance cost of $1.46 per boy weekly, or 
approximately $80 a year in 1940, in contrast with the minimum 
annual institutional cost of $363.2 
According to reports, the domestic colonies for women are the 
“backbone” of the system of female colonies. For example, the per 
capita earnings of twenty-nine girls in the Syracuse colony in 1940 
exceeded by $143.34 the cost of maintenance. Maintenance included 
spending money as well as food and clothing. In another instance, 
thirty girls in two homes operated as a unit in Rome had a deficit of 
only $498.79, a weekly per capita cost to the state of sixty-nine cents.3 
The colony system relieves overcrowded conditions in institu- 
tions, provides practical experience in a working situation, stimulates 
the more promising children, and permits economy of organization 
and maintenance. It also provides a transitional state of experience 
between the institution and community life, and a good background 
for later family care or boarding-out care. One of the chief obstacles 
to successful operation of industrial colonies is opposition of labor 
1 Ward Winthrop Millias, “Thirty Years of Colonies,’’ Amer. J. Ment. De- 
ficiency, 45 (January, 1942), 415. 
3 Ibid., p. 419. 
3 Ibid., pp. 420-21. 
19 groups and outside industry, a problem which would have to be met 
by compromise and understanding. 
Family care Less than one-tenth of the feeble-minded are 
now confined in state schools, even in states with excellent institu- 
tional facilities such as Ohio, New York, and Massachusetts. Few 
states make extensive use of supervision for those who are not institu- 
tionalized. Most of those who are out in the community comprise 
the high-grade intellectually subnormal, who are making a more or 
less satisfactory adjustment to community life, but whose assets have 
remained unrealized for lack of any comprehensive effort to develop 
their capabilities. It is neither possible nor desirable to expand 
institutional facilities to. care for them. Thus, if they are to be 
properly guided and helped, a plan for extra-institutional supervision 
must be established, not only to care for those who have not had and 
do not need institutional care, but also those who have benefited from 
years of training in institutions. 
Family care for mental defectives is not new. It has been suc- 
cessfully used in Belgium, Germany, and Scotland, and has provided 
a widely used resource in New York and Massachusetts, where 11.0 
per cent of mental retardates are on “parole.”1 New York has 900 in 
foster care, Massachusetts over 300, and Ontario, Canada, about 500.2 
Briefly, such a family care plan for Illinois would include: 
(1) placement of high-grade defectives in boarding homes where 
they may be supervised by a foster mother; (2) multiple placement 
in training homes where they may be trained and supervised in speci- 
fied vocations preparatory to wage placement; and (3) placement in 
wage-homes where they may earn their maintenance and a small sum 
in addition. 
Massachusetts began to experiment in 1915 with a parole pro- 
gram, through which boys and girls considered fitted for community 
life are placed in positions for which they receive pay, and are 
supervised by field workers from the parent institution. By 1940, 
the three state schools of Fernald, Wrentham, and Belchertown 
boasted 223 girls and 106 boys on parole, who had earned $45,747.84, 
or an average weekly wage of $2.60 plus maintenance during the 
period of their parole, thus proving their claim to at least a degree 
of economic independence. 
With the creation of a Division of Mental Deficiency within the 
Department of Mental Health in 1924, a highly specialized family- 
1 Horatio M. Pollock, “Mental Patients in the Community,” Amer. J. Ment. 
Deficiency, 46 (July, 1942), 245. 
a Pollock, "The Future of Family Care of Mental Patients,” Proceedings, 
Amer. Ass’n of Ment. Deficiency, 63 (June, 1938), 235. 
20 care program was developed in Massachusetts. It provides: (1) 
supervisory home training and teaching service for preschool de- 
fectives and those who have been refused admission to the public 
schools or are on the waiting list of the state schools; (2) social 
supervision of special-class pupils in attendance at or released from 
special classes, with regard to personality problems, recreational 
plans, and vocational guidance; (3) placements in training homes 
providing boarding-care and training for potential wage-earners, 
under the supervision of an understanding foster mother who gives 
them special training in child care, cooking, and general housework; 
(4) placement of wage-earners in wage homes for room, board, and 
wages; (5) boarding-out or family care for potential wage-earners 
as well as for low-grade mental defectives who are not suitable for 
wage placements but who have benefited from years of training in 
institutions, and (6) general supervision and consultation for cases 
usually cared for in their own homes but needing guidance and 
assistance in social adjustment. 
Boarding-care for mental defectives costs less than institutional 
care, according to Massachusetts experience. Annual expense for 
boarding-care in 1940 was $360 per patient, against a maintenance 
cost of $363 in the institution.1 Kuhlmann believes that boarding- 
home and wage placements tend automatically to adjust themselves 
to fluctuating economic conditions, since, during depressions there 
would be a demand for them because of the added income to the home, 
and, during good times, mental defectives are more easily employable 
because of the demand for labor.2 
Vocational guidance and placement Even the most elabo- 
rate training program will be futile without adequate provisions for 
vocational guidance, placement, and adjustment. This should be 
available both for the institutionally trained and the special-class 
pupil who has reached the limit of his capability for training and is 
socially mature to the extent that he may be expected to achieve 
adequate adjustment in the community. Community surveys of 
opportunities for placement of retarded children should be made, and 
a program of community education and organization should be con- 
ducted to secure public support, co-operation of employers, and the 
interest of labor groups. 
Adaptation of the training program to permit the child to spend 
one-half of his time during the last year in school in industry and 
*Neil A. Dayton and Marion A. Nugent, "Community Supervision of Mental 
Defectives in Massachusetts,” New Eng. J. Med., 225 (December, 1941), p. 944. 
2 P. Kuhlmann, “One Hundred Years of Special Care and Training,” Amer. 
J. Ment. Deficiency, 45 (July, 1940), 22. 
21 the other half in school, has advantages in that studying the child on 
the job is probably the most effective way to discover his capabilities 
and occupational shortcomings, and it affords an opportunity for the 
employer to evaluate the child’s ability to carry out the job.1 The 
training program should be based upon an analysis of job opportuni- 
ties available, for if graduates are not enabled to find useful occupa- 
tions in the community, the program is futile, however wide may be 
the range of manual and vocational activities offered during the 
training period. This would involve a more adequate program at 
the local level of vocational guidance and placement for all children. 
Organization and administration Implementation of a state 
program should be through a centralized, well organized and admin- 
istered state division of, special education with supervisory service for 
local districts. The functions of this central organization should 
include: (1) establishment of standards of special-class organization 
and teacher training; (2) setting up methods and procedures; (3) 
co-ordinating clinical and educational services in city day schools 
and institutions; (4) providing facilities for vocational guidance, 
education, and adjustment; and (5) maintaining a central record 
bureau. Some of these functions are now being carried out in Illinois 
by the assistant superintendent in charge of education of exceptional 
children and his staff of specialists in the Office of the Superintendent 
of Public Instruction. Although this is not an administrative divi- 
sion, it does in actual ijact function as one. 
Although leadership should come from the State, responsibility 
for the local program should be in the hands of local school officers. 
Such local participation is essential since no program for the mentally 
retarded is adequate without the support and collaboration of all 
agencies concerned—school, home, institution, social welfare organ- 
ization, and the general public. As Elise Martens has stated: 
No person or group of persons, however skilled, can super- 
impose a curriculum upon classroom teachers working in a 
thousand different situations. Specialists can only point out the 
way in which a curriculum can be developed locally. They must 
leave to the State and to the community the task of applying the 
principles evolved to the situation at hand. Community condi- 
tions must be recognized, geographic factors considered, and social 
Interests observed. All of this can be done only by persons who 
are familiar with State and community situations.2 
1J. E. Wallace Wallin, “The Classroom Teacher and Child Guidance Par- 
ticularly with Respect to Handicapped Children,” J. of Ed. Res., (Jan. 1943) 
321-334. 
2 Martens, A Guide to Curriculum Adjustment . . ., p. 3. 
22 Costs and financing For a centrally planned, organized, and 
administered state-wide program, the financing of special education 
for the mentally handicapped child presents a problem of joint state 
and community financing. Assumption by the State of responsibility 
for excess costs for small towns and rural areas is essential. 
The General Assembly of Illinois recognized this fact when it 
appropriated funds for the 1945-47 biennium to reimburse local 
school districts for the excess costs of the education of mentally 
handicapped children up to $100 per year per pupil. Wisconsin and 
Minnesota appropriate like amounts; New Jersey, $500 per teacher; 
Missouri, $300 to $750 per teacher, depending upon the degree of 
handicap of the pupils ;x while the per capita reimbursement from the 
State of California to the Los Angeles City School District in 1940-41 
was $184 for elementary school pupils and $225 for secondary school 
pupils.2 
Prevention Preventive methods in the field of mental de- 
ficiency resolve largely into matters of public health and education. 
There are many positive steps which can be taken in promotion of 
maternal and child health which would be effective in prevention of 
certain types of mental deficiency. Among these are adequate pre- 
natal and post-natal care to prevent mental deficiency caused by 
endocrine disturbances, malnutrition, injuries, and syphilis; public 
health methods to prevent incidence and spread of infectious diseases 
which damage the brain (encephalitis, meningitis, measles, syphilis, 
etc.) ; and better obstetrical care, to reduce the number of birth in- 
juries. Social services in marriage consultation offer a further 
resource. Two negative control measures of doubtful value have been 
suggested: (1) segregation of all mentally handicapped in institu- 
tions, wdiich is neither desirable nor possible, and (2) sterilization, 
the efficacy and feasibility of which is widely questioned. 
Facilities for the Mentally Retarded in Illinois 
Diagnostic services Diagnostic services for mentally handi- 
capped children in Illinois are of two types: (1) those providing 
diagnostic study of the individual child (social, psychiatric, psycho- 
logical, and medical) ; and (2) those providing diagnostic, consulta- 
tive, and advisory services only. Both types of services are provided 
1 Martens, State Supervisory Programs for the Education of Exceptional 
Children, Bull. 1940, No. 6, Monograph No. 10, U. S. Office of Education, Fed- 
eral Security Agency (Washington: Gov’t Printing Office, 1941), p. 8. 
3 Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children—the Child with a Problem. 
Los Angeles City School District, School Pub. No. 373 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles 
City Schools, 1941), pp. 6-7. 
23 on a state-wide basis by the Institute for Juvenile Eesearch, a Divi- 
sion of the State Department of Public Welfare, with headquarters 
in Chicago. At its headquarters clinic and through community 
clinics held periodically throughout the year in many of the larger 
communities of the state, the Institute serves each year approximately 
2000 children up to the age of eighteen. Diagnostic and consultative 
services are also offered by the Institute to county, juvenile, circuit, 
and probate courts and to state institutions for children and youth 
under the Department of Public Welfare. The Institute also partici- 
pates in permanent child guidance clinics maintained by certain local 
communities. 
The Bureau of Child Study of the Chicago Board of Education, 
which provides psychological services to all school children from pre- 
school through junior college, whether enrolled in public school or 
not, maintains clinics for diagnostic reading, speech, behavior, psy- 
chiatric study, audiometer testing, vocational guidance, and examina- 
tion for admissions to special schools and classes. Every IB entrant 
into the schools is given a Kuhlmann-Anderson Group Intelligence 
Test and Metropolitan Eeading Test. Those with mental ages of 6.0 
or less are selected for particular study and special work. In 1940-41, 
a total of 88,048 group tests were given and 6,438 individual psy- 
chiatric studies made.1 The Bureau clinic is operated two days a 
week for examination and treatment of children referred from the 
regular elementary and high schools of the city. Other children are 
referred by parents, social agencies, clinics, private and parochial 
schools, and interested private persons. 
Public services outside of Chicago are comprised of services by 
the Institute for Juvenile Eesearch, Division of Child Welfare, and 
the schools, as well as certain state teachers colleges and the state 
schools for the feeble-minded. 
Two excellent school programs in Illinois are the LaSalle-Peru 
Township Bureau of Educational Counsel at LaSalle and the De- 
partment of Educational Counsel of the Winnetka Public Schools. 
The LaSalle-Peru Township High School was the first school or- 
ganization in the state to establish a mental hygiene program for 
students in attendance. Organized today as the Bureau of Educa- 
tional Counsel, it has a full-time psychiatric social worker and is 
served at intervals by a psychologist and a psychiatrist from the 
Institute for Juvenile Eesearch. Intelligence tests and school achieve- 
ment tests are given to all high school and junior college students 
1 Annual Report of the Superintendent of Schools, (Chicago: Chicago 
Board of Education, 1941), pp. 398-99. 
24 routinely. In Winnetka, full-time psychological and psychiatric 
service is given to children in the Winnetka Public Schools. Occa- 
sionally, on special request, psychological examinations are made of 
children outside of the Winnetka school system. 
Private clinics have been developed in connection with schools, 
universities and hospitals such as the Orthogenic School of the Uni- 
versity of Chicago; the Loyola University School of Medicine; Horth- 
westem University; and various Chicago hospitals. 
Outside of Chicago, child guidance services are offered by private 
clinics operated in several of the larger cities of the state. 
Institutional facilities There are two state schools for the 
mentally defective in Illinois, Dixon State Hospital and Lincoln 
State School and Colony, each of which has an approximate capacity 
of 4,500 beds. There are at present about 450 educable defectives in 
the latter school, and 300 in the former.1 Occupational therapy, aca- 
demic school, recreation, and industrial training are included in the 
program for the educable handicapped in these institutions. 
Defective delinquents are committed to Lincoln State School 
and Colony, but may also be sent to the state correctional schools. 
Although some smaller private homes with limited intake and 
restricted programs are in operation, there are four private institu- 
tions of sizeable capacity in Illinois, caring for an aggregate of ap- 
proximately 300 children. 
Special class facilities The actual number of mentally re- 
tarded children receiving special instruction in Illinois schools is 
estimated at less than 10 per cent of the minimum needing such 
care. The United States Office of Education reported that in 1939- 
40, Illinois had 4,253 mentally deficient children enrolled in special 
schools and classes in city school systems and 896 enrolled in classes 
in public and private residential schools, a grand total of 5,148 chil- 
dren receiving the benefits of special training.2 Illinois stood ninth 
among all states in this regard, being surpassed by Hew York, Penn- 
sylvania, Massachusetts, Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, Hew Jersey, and 
California.3 In 1943, the Illinois Commission for Handicapped 
Children conducted a survey of cities with a population of 10,000 
and over, the results of which indicated several different types of 
special education being offered in various downstate communities.4 
1 Statement to Illinois Commission for Handicapped Children by W. G. Mur- 
ray, M.D., January 29, 1946. 
2 Martens, Statistics of Special Schools and Classes, pp. 12, 115. 
3 Ibid., pp. 12-13. 
4 A list of special classes and schools in Illinois may be found in the Com- 
mission’s report, Facilities for the Education and Institutional Care of Mentally 
Handicapped Children in Illinois (Chicago: Illinois Commission for Handicapped 
Children, 1942), pp. 9-17. Additional classes are reported in the statistical sum- 
mary by Martens and Foster, Statistics of Special Schools and Glasses for Ex- 
ceptional Children, op. cit. The Superintendent of Public Instruction, as required by law, 
has set up standards for special class procedures relating to the size 
of classes, location, admission, equipment, and curriculum, as well as 
standards for teacher qualification and approval of psychological ex- 
aminers who under the law determine the eligibility of pupils for 
special classes. Uniform systems of record-keeping are required.1 
Special schools There are local special schools for mentally 
retarded older pupils in Danville (Promotional School), East St. 
Louis (Eoosevelt School), and Chicago (Pre-Vocational and Vo- 
cational Centers). These schools provide full-time segregated in- 
struction and training adapted to the limitations and needs of the 
pupils, with individualized programs of academic education in addi- 
tion to manual training. In the Lower Vocational Centers of Chi- 
cago, pupils may work toward an eighth grade certificate or direct 
all their efforts toward vocational training. Such centers are main- 
tained for both boys and girls. In 1940-41 there were 101 Lotver 
Vocational classes in 31 elementary schools in Chicago, 66 for boys, 
and 35 for girls, making possible considerable departmentalization.2 
The six Vocational Centers are maintained for those unable to profit 
from courses and materials in the regular schools. One is for girls 
only. These centers offer a two-year course, with Smith-Hughes cer- 
tificates awarded upon graduation. 
In addition, Chicago maintains two special schools for children 
who present special behavior problems which cannot be handled in 
the regular schools. At these two, Montefiore and Mosely Special 
Schools, a psychiatrist and two psychologists from the Bureau of 
Child Study give diagnostic and treatment services. Montefiore has 
a full-time psychologist, special teachers for subnormals who are 
also behavior problems and truants, and a staff of social workers. 
Auxiliary services Finally, as auxiliary services, there are 
the public and private social agencies which are depended upon to 
perform limited services in school adjustment of the mentally re- 
tarded. The education of these handicapped children should not be 
the concern of the schools alone, but should involve as many com- 
munity resources as possible. In Chicago there are several family 
welfare agencies which may be called upon for services needed. Out- 
side of Chicago most of the larger cities have similar resources. 
Public welfare services are provided by the Division of Child Welfare, 
the Aid to Dependent Children and the Child Welfare Advisory 
1 The Illinois Plan for Special Education of Exceptional Children: The 
Educable Mentally Handicapped. Circular Series B, No. 12, issued by Vernon 
L. Nickell, Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
a Annual Report of the Superintendent of Schools, p. 479. 
26 Service and Maternal and Child Health programs operated under the 
Social Security Act. 
Occupational adjustment services are offered to a limited degree 
by the Jewish Vocational Bureau of Chicago and the work relief 
program of the United Charities and the Chicago Welfare Adminis- 
tration. The Division of Vocational Rehabilitation has now extended 
its facilities for guidance and placement to the mentally handicapped 
under the provisions of the 1943 Federal Rehabilitation Act,1 
Of special importance is the program of the Illinois Commission 
for Handicapped Children, a State commission created to stimulate 
private efforts, co-ordinate the services of State departments, and 
promote medical care, education, and vocational training and place- 
ment for physically and mentally handicapped children. The efforts 
of the Commission as a fact-finding and co-ordinating agency have 
found fruition in recommendations to the General Assembly regard- 
ing important action to be considered with respect to administrative 
organization, the drafting of bills providing for the greater welfare 
of the handicapped child, and stimulating of public interest in the 
problems of these children. 
Unmet Needs in Illinois 
Although the facilities listed above may seem extensive they are 
far from adequate and are most inequitably distributed. In fact, to 
remedy these inadequacies would of itself require development of a 
complete state program. The needs of such a program are: adminis- 
trative, institutional, educational, vocational, and research. 
The administration of aspects of the program for educable men- 
tally handicapped children is closely related to the whole problem of 
special education—at present the most neglected phase of public 
education in Illinois. There is urgent need for establishing a broad, 
well-planned, well-financed program of special education under the 
direction of a skilled and specially trained administrator. Such a 
program should be developed with careful attention being given to 
the needs of the mentally retarded, numerically the largest of any of 
the handicapped groups in the state. These individuals are widely 
scattered throughout the population. If their diverse problems are 
to be met adequately, an administrative setup must be developed 
which can effectively co-ordinate and utilize all of the child welfare 
services of public and private agencies and institutions. Staff and 
1 Public Law 113, (78th Congress) effective July 6, 1943. 
27 social services of the institutions should be expanded to provide ade- 
quate educational and vocational training, relieve over-crowding, and 
reduce the long waiting lists. The educational planning in the state 
schools should be co-ordinated closely with that of special classes in 
the community, and a clearer differentiation drawn between those 
eligible for special-class placement and those requiring institution- 
alization. Adequate provision for defective delinquents is urgently 
needed. Commitment to correctional schools neither meets the needs 
of such delinquents nor helps to make them socially adjusted or 
socially useful; confinement in state schools for the mentally retarded 
presents equally difficult problems because of the delinquent tenden- 
cies of this group. 
Methods of record keeping in local and state schools need to 
be standardized to facilitate program planning for students who are 
transferred from one school to another. 
Since therapy among the mentally retarded is largely educa- 
tional therapy, there is great need for training physicians, social 
workers, and teachers with special aptitudes for working with these 
children. Throughout, the highest of personnel standards are neces- 
sary, since the success of the program depends upon the care and 
intelligence with which it is carried out. It is not necessary that 
each teacher-training institution have a full curriculum for train- 
ing teachers of special classes, but there should be specified centers 
where this training is available, and each school should offer to 
teachers in training courses designed to develop skills in recogniz- 
ing and handling the problems of exception children, and in use of 
resources available. The establishment of child guidance bureaus 
in each of the teacher-training institutions would do much to fur- 
ther the general knowledge of resources and techniques which every 
teacher should have. 
There is also need for expansion of child-guidance services, in- 
cluding psychiatric social service and psychological service. Among 
psychologists there are wide discrepancies in competence of personnel 
and standards of service, indicating the need for more uniformity in 
standards, procedures, methods, and interpretive techniques. 
One of the most urgent needs in Illinois is the reorganization 
of school districts, consolidating small schools to permit greater 
economy of operation and higher personnel standards, and to facilitate 
the financing of special classes in the larger districts. 
The county school survey law, passed by the 64th General Assem- 
bly, provides for study and action on this problem by authorizing 
28 the creation of county survey committees and gives them the power 
and makes it their duty to study the school districts of the county 
and their organization for the purpose of recommending the reor- 
ganization of districts where such reorganization will afford better 
educational opportunities, better administration, and more equitable 
distribution of public school revenues.1 
Extension of the program of the Division of Vocational Rehabil- 
itation at the state level and development of community resources 
to provide vocational guidance and adjustment services to the men- 
tally handicapped, including inquiries into job opportunities and a 
campaign of enlightenment among employers as to assets and po- 
tentialities of this group as employees are of utmost importance. 
There is an urgent need for intelligent interpretation of the 
problem to the public. Local pressure groups, legislators, teachers, 
and public school officials, as well as the public at large, must be given 
an understanding of the needs of this group of handicapped, so that 
backing and support for an adequate state-wide program may be 
secured. 
And, finally, there is a never-ending need for research into the 
nature and extent of the problem of mental deficiency and means 
of preventing it. At the present time, Illinois is ill-equipped for 
adequate social planning for the mentally handicapped, hampered as 
it is by so great a lack of information. Dp to this time there has 
been no systematic effort to discover the mentally deficient, only the 
obvious or behavior problem cases generally being the ones identified. 
There is need, therefore, for a continuing annual census of the handi- 
capped, with a central registry for cases. The information this 
would provide would greatly facilitate intelligent state-wide plan- 
ning. The research program should also include study of legisla- 
tive practices, programs, and experiences of other states; institutional 
methods; methods and standards of teacher training and curriculum 
organization; child guidance procedures; social adjustment of the 
mentally retarded; co-ordination of state services; and occupational 
adjustment. Without the flexibility of a continuous adaptation to 
research findings, the work would become static and progressively less 
effective and valuable in meeting the needs of those for whom it 
is designed. 
1 House Bill 406, approved June 20, 1945 
29 Recommendations 
In view of the many needs of educable mentally handicapped 
children in Illinois which are not now being met, and the loss to the 
individual and the State resulting from failure to develop to the 
fullest extent the assets and capabilities of this group of handicapped, 
certain suggestions may be ottered with respect to improvement of 
services to these children. 
Administrative and educational All educational services to 
the mentally retarded, whether in public schools or institutions, 
should be co-ordinated under one division or bureau directed by a 
specially trained, full-time supervisor, responsible to the Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction. This responsibility is at present 
divided between the Department of Public Welfare and the Superin- 
tendent of Public Instruction. A centralized administration would 
achieve co-ordination of efforts of the various state and community 
agencies, and would be the logical point for establishment of a cen- 
tral registry of all mental defectives. 
The 64th General Assembly appropriated the sum of $598,000 
for the excess cost of education of mentally handicapped children in 
local school districts during the 1945-47 biennium. Such provision 
for State participation is a tremendous step forward, and continued 
appropriations are a necessary part of future development of a com- 
plete state-wide program. 
Eural areas: should be provided for through supervisory services 
by traveling teachers, transportation of pupils to special-class centers, 
and the use of boarding-home care in larger cities. Throughout the 
state, auxiliary services of visiting teachers and school counsellors 
should be expanded to meet the need for assisting parents in handling 
adjustment problems, to aid in the social and occupational adjust- 
ment of mentally handicapped children, and to interpret the problem 
to the community. At the present time, attendance officers enforcing 
the compulsory education law are in most places the only school 
representatives coming in contact with the child outside his school 
environment. 
These administrative provisions and changes will require the 
consolidation of the many small school districts in Illinois for pur- 
poses of improvement of educational services and better economy. 
Educational opportunities throughout the state should be equalized 
by increasing the state distributive funds so that they cover at least 
one-fourth of school costs. Such consolidation and additional revenue 
would give impetus to the establishment of special classes to serve 
30 the larger districts, whereas limited enrollment in the present uncon- 
solidated districts makes such classes impossible. 
Adaptations of the secondary school curricula should be made 
for the mentally handicapped adolescent, through provision for indi- 
vidual instruction in regular classes or special classes and schools, or 
by a home training and teaching program1 in rural areas under the 
supervision of traveling teachers. This would fill one of the greatest 
needs in the Illinois educational program. 
State-wide standards for teacher training and certification should 
be established and maintained, both with respect to public schools and 
public and private institutions for the mentally retarded, in order 
that teachers be trained to recognize problems and intelligently guide 
the training of their charges. Such teachers should receive higher 
salaries than the regular teachers, since they require training in 
addition to that which is necessary for qualification for regular certi- 
ficates. Organized courses should be instituted for training of teach- 
ers in service as well as for new teachers. Such teachers should be 
selected on the basis of their natural aptitudes and their interest in 
the problem of the educable mentally handicapped child. 
Institutional The inadequacy of present institutional facili- 
ties can be remedied by making various changes and additions.2 In 
the first place, the development of a well-rounded educational and 
vocational program and the minimizing of the custodial aspects of 
institutionalization at Lincoln and Dixon require an increase of 
staff—psychologists, social workers, teachers, occupational therapists, 
physicians, and attendants. In this connection, it must be stressed 
that adequate salaries are imperative to attract competent persons 
and to prevent the disorganizing effects of frequent staff turnover. 
In the second place, the facilities of Lincoln and Dixon should 
be extended and supplemented to provide segregation of mentally 
defective delinquents and cottage and colony systems for educable 
mental defectives who can be trained to return to the community or 
who need more than outside supervision, but for whom institutional 
care is not necessary. 
The establishment of farm and industrial colonies for mental 
defectives is highly recommended, both to relieve pressure on the state 
1 See “A Home Training and Teaching Program for Mentally Defective 
Children to Be Taught by Parents in the Home,” by Marion A. Nugent in 
American Journal of Mentally Deficiency, Yol. XLV, No. 1, July 1940, for a 
description of the operation of such a program in Massachusetts. 
2 Detailed recommendations for improving the institutional services in Illi- 
nois may be found in the report of the “Sommer Committee on the Release and 
Training Program at Lincoln State School and Colony and Dixon State Hos- 
pital,” (Chicago: Neuropsychiatric Institute, 1942), and the unpublished re- 
port of Dr. Samuel W. Hamilton, "A Survey of the Lincoln State School and 
Colony,” made under the auspices of the United States Public Health Service, 
1941. 
31 schools and to provide specialized training for those potential wage- 
earners who are adaptable to community life. 
A state-financed plan of boarding-out or family care for mentally 
deficient children under the supervision of well-trained workers would 
be of great value, not only to reduce overcrowding at the state schools, 
but also to provide highly effectual treatment service at nominal cost. 
Although the Illinois law provides that mental defectives may be 
committed to the Department of Public Welfare as wards of the State, 
this provision has been operative only when such persons are com- 
mitted to the state schools. This procedure should be utilized to 
full advantage, encompassing all mentally deficient children who need 
the care and supervision of the State, in order that services be pro- 
vided in the home and community for thousands of children now 
neglected, and that there be a continuity of service. In smaller com- 
munities, the extension of school nurse facilities, with nurses trained 
in mental hygiene and psychology, would provide an excellent re- 
source. Such care given now would avoid the expense to the taxpayers 
of years of custodial care in correctional institutions or support as 
dependents in later life for large numbers of these children. 
Little provision is made for social service study and investiga- 
tion of cases committed by the courts to Lincoln and Dixon or to 
private institutions or released to private guardianship. Such studies 
should be made in all eases to facilitate suitable placement plans and 
follow-up care. A well-planned program of habit training and voca- 
tional and industrial training is needed, with a view toward returning 
as many patients as possible to the community. The social welfare 
considerations involved entail considerable expansion of the social 
work staff of the institutions. In this connection, it is recommended 
that parole and discharge, at present a function of the courts, be 
placed under the control of the managing officers and that acceptance 
of voluntary admissions be made possible without court procedure. 
In many cases much of the burden on state schools could be relieved 
through establishment of a small receiving hospital where mentally 
deficient children could be received for short-time care and observa- 
tion and direct boarding-home placement without institutionalization. 
Such a receiving hospital could also serve as a placement agency for 
the state schools and would add to the limited diagnostic services 
existing in Illinois. 
Fullest utilization should be made of child welfare services 
offered under the Federal Social Security program. Under the 
Maternal and Child Health program, identification of defectives is 
facilitated, and counseling service provided for parents in the training 
32 and treatment of retarded children. Of particular significance is the 
Federally subsidized Child Welfare Advisory Service, which has as its 
aim the development of resources for dealing with maladjusted chil- 
dren in rural areas and promoting community organization. 
Identification and diagnosis Fundamental to the establish- 
ment of such a program in Illinois is a state-wide system of case- 
finding and registration of all mental defectives. A selective central 
registry could be started by collecting data now in the hands of 
schools, courts, correctional institutions, and public and private insti- 
tutions and agencies. A continuing official school census should be 
authorized providing for examination of all children retarded three 
years or more in school, with permissive examination of those less 
retarded, and for examination of all entering school children. In 
addition, all children in correctional institutions should be examined 
to determine proper placement. Such examinations require the 
services of school psychologists, extension of the work of the Institute 
for Juvenile Eesearch, and full-time traveling units from each of the 
state teachers colleges and the state schools. 
Since no tests should be given except by experienced clinical 
psychologists, the competence and standards of service of psycho- 
logical personnel are highly important. 
Vocational Extensive and coordinated plans for vocational 
education, guidance, training, and placement, with follow-up care 
and supervision, are urgent. This could be accomplished through 
the services of the Division for Vocational Rehabilitation and by 
extending those of the State Employment Service to handle the occu- 
pational adjustment needs of special class pupils and institutionally 
trained defectives, and provide a liaison between employable retardates 
and employers. Perhaps supervision of the child, upon his reaching 
the age of employability, should be transferred to the Division for 
Vocational Rehabilitation. A cataloging by local, state, and federal 
employment agencies of occupations open to the mentally handi- 
capped, and maintenance of employment lists for them is essential. 
Strategically located sheltered workshops for training of mentally 
handicapped adolescents are necessary to provide for those who have 
passed the compulsory school age limit or who are unable to function 
efficiently within the standard school program. Where no such addi- 
tional educational facilities are provided, it should be made possible 
for such children who reach the age of fourteen to find employment 
under supervision, through certification under the State Child Labor 
Law. 
33 Public education Since progress will depend upon the de- 
gree to which the program gains public understanding, acceptance, 
and support, a fundamental aspect of the work consists of promoting 
community understanding of the problems of the educable mentally 
handicapped child, both among lay and professional persons. Public 
enlightenment can be promoted through publications, public meetings, 
exhibits, conferences, parent-teacher meetings, the radio, demonstra- 
tions, and pageants. If sufficient public demand is created through 
leadership of influential persons and organizations, legislators can 
move ahead with the knowledge that they are doing what the public 
wants them to do. 
Research Basic in development and maintenance of a vig- 
orous program is continuing and well-directed research and its prac- 
tical application to the operation of the program. The following 
surveys should be made on a state-wide basis: (1) the number of 
mentally handicapped children and the nature of their retardation; 
(2) educational facilities available and needed; (3) the mental status 
of children in correctional institutions, to sift out those who should 
not be placed there; (4) occupational histories of children trained 
in special classes and institutions, to determine the degree to which 
the training they have received is adaptable to opportunities for em- 
ployment in Illinois, whether they have been wisely placed, or whether 
other types of training are indicated; (5) employment opportunities 
in Illinois for the mentally retarded; (6) follow-up studies of social 
adjustment of the mentally retarded, with a view to making appro- 
priate curricular changes where needed. 
Although all objectives are not at once attainable, there is a 
definite goal toward which to work: a state-wide program based upon 
development of local resources and facilities, with participation by 
the State at all points in the program where financial support, super- 
vision and co-ordinated planning are needed, and with a system of 
institutions for those children who cannot profit from education else- 
where. 
Adequate educational provisions for the mentally handicapped 
child are a form of social insurance, since the price to be paid for 
dangerous neglect in ignoring the problem and failing to utilize the 
assets and potentialities of these children is far in excess of the cost 
of the program. Kuhlmann has said of the mentally handicapped 
child: 
In most other lines of human endeavor progress has been less 
dependent upon the judgment and will of the public. It could 
hardly have been otherwise. We are dealing directly with human 
34 beings, and not with matters that may only indirectly affect their 
welfare. We are dealing with that part of human nature which 
ever since man became self-conscious has been looked upon as his 
most enviable possession—intelligence. . . . Unlike the physically 
crippled, it looks on mental deficiency as stigma and disgrace 
rather than as a misfortune. 
Thus it has come to pass that we deny him the right to the 
kind of rearing and training that he needs, and which we could 
give; the right to fit into a useful place in the world, which we 
could supply; and the right to happiness, although we demand 
all these for the normal child and adult. And when we have done 
all this, we will speak more of the wrongs he does to society than 
of the wrongs society does to him. Truly, his greatest handicap 
is not the fact that he has failed to grow up mentally, but rather 
the neglect of an uninformed public that holds the key to his wel- 
fare but refuses to unlock the door.1 
1 Kuhlrnann, op. cit., pp. 19, 23-24. 
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