Mentally-deficient children : their treatment and training / by G.E. Shuttleworth and W.A. Potts.

  • Shuttleworth, G. E. (George Edward), 1842-1928
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Mentally-deficient children : their treatment and training / by G.E. Shuttleworth and W.A. Potts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    shadowed Alpine valleys to the sunshine of the summit of the Abendberg, made a great impression on philan¬ thropists in Europe and America, and demonstrated, as by an object-lesson, the interdependence of physical and mental amelioration. Saegert seems to have laboured somewhat on the lines of the instruction he had been accustomed to give to deaf-mutes, with such adaptations as were necessary to the case of imbecile children. The school he established is still carried on in Berlin, though with the disadvantage of being organised as a department of a lunatic asylum. By a curious coincidence, occurring almost simultane¬ ously in France, Switzerland, and Germany, inde¬ pendent efforts were inaugurated for the benefit of the mentally defective class; and the year 1842 must be looked upon as an epoch memorable in this matter. Although Seguin is entitled to the credit of priority, he himself modestly avers that “ at certain times and eras the whole race of man, as regards the discovery of truth, seems to arrive at once at a certain point, so that it is hard to say who is the discoverer. In 1843, however, the illustrious Voisin publicly re¬ cognised the work and merits of Seguin. His prog¬ nostications that Seguin would “ be entitled by his psychological contributions to take a distinguished place among his contemporaries ” were justified by the publication, in 1846, of Seguin’s magnum opus entitled “ Traitement moral, Hygiene et ^Education des Idiots et des autres Enfants Arrieres.” This book may indeed be regarded as the magna chavta of the mental emancipation of the imbecile class.* * For further particulars as to Seguin, the reader is referred to a recent excellent work, Seguin and his Physiological Method of Education, by Henry Holman, M.A. London: Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons, 1914. 5s.
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