History Note
Report on ‘mentally defective’ children
reflects past attitude
by Luther Granquist
In 1925, Frederick Kuhlmann, the widely re- spected Director of
the Research Bureau of the Minnesota State Board of Control, wrote
a lengthy report, Outline of Mental Deficiency for Social Workers,
Teachers and Others in Minnesota. (The Board of Control was the equivalent
of the Department of Human Services during that era.)
Kuhlmann included his
estimates of the cost to the schools of Minnesota’s “mental
defectives.” At that time about 20,000 “mental defectives” were
in regular classes in Minnesota’s public schools at a cost
he estimated as more than $1,500,000. Kuhlmann contended that “most
of this is waste, because no useful returns are obtained.”
In his judgment, these
children profited from regular school work “only
in a limited measure, some not at all in any degree, none for the
full period up to the age of 16 years.” Kuhlmann’s
estimate did not include the “custodial cases,” whom
he described as “cases too low in intelligence, or handicapped
by physical disabilities as paralysis” and thus incapable of
receiving any “useful training.” These children,
he noted, never got into the schools.
In Kuhlmann’s view the disproportionate time and energy teachers
had to spend on two or three “mentally defective” children
in a regular class caused a greater expense, although he could not
place a monetary value on it: “The chief cost lies in the
diminished returns for the expenditures for normal children.” He
concluded that providing segregated special classes for the “mental
defectives” would actually be cost-effective because the number
of normal children in a regular education class could be increased.
The language may differ,
but many objections today to special education funding reflect
Kuhlmann’s failure to value education and training
for children with disabilities. His entire Outline is on the Developmental
Disabilities Council web site at www.mncdd.org/past/pdf/25-OMD-Kuhlman.pdf ![]()
The History Note is a monthly column sponsored by the
Minnesota Governor’s Council on Developmental Disabilities,
www.mnddc.org or www.mncdd.org and www.partnersinpolicymaking.com
