University of Virginia Library

THE BACKWARD CHILD, A STUDY OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF BACKWARDNESS: A PRACTICAL MANUAL FOR TEACHERS AND STUDENTS. By Barbara Spoffard Morgan. G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, 1914. Pp. xvii plus 263.

This book by Mrs. Morgan, which is somewhat unique and certainly very different from other books on the same subject, promises to be one of the most widely read educational works which has recently appeared. It is based on two years' experience in an experimental clinic for backward children in New York City and the author states that, "It is an effort to persuade teachers and parents, in spite of a hide-bound educational system, to study the children that interest them as individuals and to recognize their faculties and tendencies." It "Looks to a future when teachers will so understand every child's mental structure that his whole education will be directed to the fortifying of his weak points and the development of his tendencies."

The author terms her process "mental analysis" and says it differs from the Binet and Simon tests in that they are merely to classify children, and her method discovers peculiarities and also gives the training necessary to bring the child up to normal. She gives a psychological basis for her work which will be surprising to many readers because of its great divergence from the usual psychological treatment. The child's mind is considered as having four primary processes, namely: (1) Sense Impressions, (2) Recollections of Sense Impressions, (3) Association Channels

(4) Abstraction Processes. As the child grows older these are elaborated into Imagination, Reasoning, and Expression. Attention is of three kinds: (1) Homogeneous Attention or concentrating, which consists in attending to one thing for a period of time; (2) Simultaneous Attention or observing, which consists in giving attention to a number of things at once; and (3) Disparate Attention, or giving attention to two or more things over a period of time. Memory may be (1) Automatic, (2) Voluntary, or (3) Retentive. The function of the tests is to determine just which one of these processes are weak or strong and discover a method of education which is suited to the individual. Other mental processes, such as sensation, perception, abstraction, and judgment are discussed, and an interesting treatment distinguishing between the analytic and synthetic type of mind is given.

One of the most important parts of the book is the discussion of the way in which the tests are given. She insists that the relation of the child and the examiner be very personal and informal and that the process be varied as much as possible in order to prevent crystallization. Many of the tests are the same, or much the same, as those of Simon and Binet, but the greatest of liberty is taken in adapting them to the particular case. Much use is made of conversation, puzzle-pictures and other little friendly means by which the personal characteristics of the child may be learned. After this is done, the proper training of the child is to be selected and the effort made to bring him back to normality, for which purpose, some quaint and interesting devices are used. One case given is that of a little girl whose senses of sound and form were defective and who therefore could not learn her letters. These letters were pasted on the keys of a piano and she was taught to play a piece with one finger, meanwhile chanting over the names of the letters as they were struck. In this way her sense of sound was trained, she learned her letters and gained ability to learn more and faster. Abstraction may be strengthened by having the child measure distances with a rule, first calculating the distance with his eye. The power of association may be made stronger by having the individual sort words or pictures which are pasted on slips of cardboard; he is to arrange them according to meaning or according to the activities with which they have to do. Simultaneous attention may be trained by such games as "Hide-the-thimble" or Jack-straws, and homogeneous attention may be trained by some such action as hammering nails in the upper left hand corners of all the squares on a board. Imagination is developed by retelling stories, and invention by solving puzzles; voluntary memory is strengthened by

writing original rhymes and automatic memory may be strengthened by having the child write out a list of all the things in his kitchen or any other room with which he may happen to be familiar.

Different types of backward children are described and a few pages are devoted to a discussion of hysteria.

It is a book which will, in all probability, arouse considerable discussion and which will find some warm friends and some determined enemies. As one more publication calling attention to this important problem, it is of great value and it will probably be read more widely than any other book in this field which has appeared. Perhaps its greatest practical value lies in its suggestiveness as to the ways in which one may use his personality and initiative in dealing with backward children, rather than sticking so closely to prescribed tests and methods.

RAYMOND BELLAMY.
Emory & Henry College, Emory, Va.