ceiving
in our normal schools.

There is, however, the greatest need of clinic work being carried on in
our rural schools. The problem cannot safely be left with local
authority. The demand is for some state-wide method of mental
examination of school children. This service, which in most states could
be given over to the superintendent of public instruction, ought to be
given wider scope than merely the mental measurement of school children.
The problem requires the service of the alienist. Only by this more
fundamental treatment of the problem can we expect to obtain the full
social relief that the preventive side of mental hygiene promises. As a
matter of fact, however, it is likely that the problem will be
considered first from the viewpoint of retardation in our rural schools.
It will be unwise to force the mental hygiene movement into our rural
school administration more rapidly than the need of it can be made clear
to our rural leadership.

It is an unhappy fact that we are at present doing so little. The state
certainly must try in some way to provide, for the country children who
need it, the special class instruction now given backward children in
the cities. This will give relief by providing a basis for the
separation of the curable and the incurable defective children. At
present the defective child who requires treatment and improves in the
special class suffers a great handicap by being in the country rather
than in the city.

Without doubt epilepsy and psychopathic cases, as well as
feeble-mindedness, receive relatively less attention in the country than
in the city. This situation certainly hinders rural progress and adds to
the social burdens of rural communities. Any one familiar with the life
of a typical rural town will know of peculiarities of conduct and
strange attitudes of non-social persons which indicate mental
unsoundness. These abnormalities express themselves in various forms and
I happen to know of some New England communities that have been
hopelessly separated into two hostile parts as a result of the influence
of persons whose subsequent careers have proven that the originators of
the difficulties were socially irresponsible. One such case was a church
quarrel that finally had to receive a state-wide recognition because of
the serious situation that finally resulted. The later suicide of the
individual, who first started the dispute, a suicide that had little
objective explanation,