Why, there remain just the very children with whom the new law will be concerned. In the meantime these are not in any special school; they are attending the primary schools, which cannot shut the door in their faces when they have arrived at school age. But they do not profit much by the instruction given in school, and this fact gives rise to vigorous complaints on the part of the teachers. These children, say they, are not in the least like the great majority of other pupils. A great many of them are mentally defective. Without being completely lacking in intelligence, they are not sufficiently endowed therewith to work alongside normal children; they do not understand, they cannot follow; they profit so little by attending the school that some of them are never able to assimilate the instruction even of the elementary course. Very often they pay no attention whatever to the work of the class; and this is quite a good thing, for then the teacher forgets them in their corner, and goes on as if they were not there. But many of these children are ill-balanced; they are excitable, and their bodies are never at rest; they are not amenable to ordinary discipline. They are a constant source of trouble and annoyance to their master and to their comrades. The supervision of a single ill-balanced child is more trouble, the teachers sometimes declare, than the direction of twenty normal ones. Either one or the other must be neglected, and the alternatives are equally objectionable. What, then, must be done with those children who are not amenable to the ordinary school discipline? At first sight this seems a simple question. Let them be sent to an institution. We actually possess in the hospitals of Bicêtre and of the Salpêtrière, in the colony of Vaucluse--to say nothing of provincial institutions--establishments which make provision, both medical and educational, for children who are idiotic, imbecile, vicious, and epileptic. Is it not possible to send to these institutions all the abnormal children who encumber the primary schools? No; it is neither possible nor desirable to pack them off to an asylum. These abnormal children are not in all cases so severely affected as to require segregation. We admit that such a measure is necessary for idiots of low grade who cannot even feed themselves. We have also no objection to leaving to the asylums cases of very severe nervous disturbance such as epilepsy, for only there can they receive the medical supervision appropriate to their condition. They have more need of the doctor than of the teacher. As for the other abnormal children who constitute the great majority, it seems clear that the proper place for them is not the asylum, but the special school. They have sufficient intelligence to attend a school. What they probably require is instruction specially adapted to their mental state, and such instruction can be profitably given only in classes small enough to permit of individual attention.