Wayne County Training School, Aiding Hundreds of Mentally Handicapped Youngsters, Is Noted World Over
"The object of their training is to put them back into society, where, in spite of their mental handicap, they can be useful, honest and dilligent member of the community." Thus did Dr. Robert H. Haskell, widley noted psychiatrist, who is its superintendent, sum up the service the Wayne County Training School does for humanity and especially for its 700 children.
Believing that "You can't make brains where there are none but you can train what brains there are," the training staff of 169 persons tries to bring out in the youthful inmates those facilites with which they are best equipped, give them character and graduate them into life. The children, who range roughly between the ages of 8 and 16, are all mentally deficient. They come to the training school from large public school systems, where special educational department finds them to be of low intelligence quota, and from smaller schools where nurses recommended their attendance.
Sent to Cottage
When a child comes into the school he is first given a prelimininary physical examination. After he is made to feel at home by chatting friendly and quietly with doctors, he is sent to a cottage which already contains a group with which it is believed he will "fit." There are 16 of these cottages on the training school's 1000 acres, with an average of 45 children to a cottage. Never, said Dr. Haskell, are there more than 50 in a cottage.
In the cottage he learns to associate with other persons his own age. He is taught neatness, responsibilty, obedience. The girls' cottages have a "mother" to look after them, and the boys have both a "father" and a "mother." The cottages, an acme of order and cleanliness, each have a kitchen, dining room, living or assembly room and a dormitory on the second floor.
The food, nearly all of which is is raised on the training school's 500 acre farm, is prepared by the children, under supervision of adults in a general kitchen. But it is served from the cottage kitchens.
Teach Essentials
*** training school exhibit at fairs throughout the state, Rugs, beads, fancy work, knitting, paintings, all craftmanship of an unusually high type produceed.
The school continues untill the child reaches the age of 16. Then under the direction of the vocational guidence department, he is sent the rounds of the shops, tailoring, laudering, cooking, shoe repairing, metal working, printing and many others, in order to determine what type of work he likes best and is best fitted for. After this period of retation, the boy or girl is assinged to a difinite unit where he works untill leaving the school.
Work Saves Money
The products turned out in these shops save the school vast sums of money. the wood turning classes make nearly all the wood objects needed. The metal workers, under the direction of a single man, turn out pails for the farm, wastebaskets, garbage cans and machinery. The laundry washes and presses the clothes of the institution and the (Continued on page 5)