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Abstract
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Although unquestionably to the ailing child, the restoration of health and relief from crippling conditions are of supreme importance, experience has shown that when the necessary measures are spread over a period of years under such conditions has to limit the possibilities of education, still more if they are such as all together to prevent formal education, the child is unduly handicapped on reaching the employable age. This difficulty became obvious so soon as Universal elementary education was made the law of the land.
From the first bylaws of the various school boards laid it down that hill health was a reasonable cost of absence from school but in time it appeared that there were numbers of children whose condition was such that education in an ordinary school was impossible over considerabe periods, if not altogether. In 1893 an act was passed allowing provision for special education for the blind and deaf children and in 1899 for those cripples epileptic or mentally defective. At first the arrangements were of permissive character and were only adopted by some of the larger school boards. After the war such provision was made a duty in all areas of England and Wales. The problems thus raised differ in nature according to whether the area is urban or rural. in large urban areas there may be such a number of children suffering from similar defects and living within a reasonable distance of one another as to permit the establishment of day-schools. In country areas where there may be only one or two defective children in the Village, Day school provision is impractical, and any children who are to be specially educated must be sent to residential institutions or boarded out in urban areas to attend suitable day schools...
Language: en |