Review of: Les Classes pour Enfants arriérés

Reviews the bulletin "Les Classes pour Enfants Arriérés" by V. Vaney (1911). In 1904 a commission was appointed in France to determine how the compulsory education laws could best be applied to abnormal children, with reference particularly to the types of schools and classes needed, the conditions of admission, the selection of teachers and the pedagogic methods to be followed. The present bulletin contains the conclusions reached by this commission. The commission discussed at length methods of differentiating institutional cases from special-class cases and of defining and classifying the subnormal generally. The commission also recommends the employment of record forms on which may be indicated for each pupil his salient tendencies and aptitudes, considered with reference to their practical bearing and gathered from the daily impressions of the teacher. The bulletin closes with a transcript of the laws and regulations governing the establishment and conduct of institutions for the education of backward children. As this review indicates, the pamphlet contains much of interest to those who are working with mental defectives in the public schools of this country.