White House Conference on Child Health and Protection files

Arranged very roughly by subcommittee or by type of report/correspondence.

The series consists primarily of memoranda and preliminary subcommittee reports (often including statistical summaries and charts) produced by the Committee on Special Classes, which was formed as part of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection held in Washington, D.C., in November of 1930. The work of the committee was to examine and set forth existing provisions for the education of "exceptional" children, to comment on their adequacy and efficiency, and to make recommendations for future programs. Dr. Lewis A. Wilson, Assistant Commissioner for Vocational and Extension Education for the State Education Department, was chairman of the Subcommittee on Organization and Administration. These are apparently his conference records.

The records document the work of Section III of the conference, which pertained to Education and Training and Special Classes. The Committee on Special Classes was chaired by Charles Scott Berry, and dealt with the public school education of all types of "exceptional children," defined by the committee as "the handicapped and the gifted, or those children who deviate from the average or modal child to such an extent as to require special treatment or training in order to make the most of their possibilities." Section III of the conference was directly concerned with the prevention of handicapping conditions, and the maintenance and protection of children in such circumstances.

The series also includes transmittal correspondence accompanying the reports, memoranda among committee members and chairpersons, and related correspondence dealing with information requested for committee work. This material includes lists naming committee personnel and their credentials; letters on conference scheduling and attendance; tabular summaries of replies to questionnaires on nomenclature for special classes; and tabulation of survey data carried out on conditions in America related to committee work. Abstracts of several other committee reports are found in the series. Also included is a copy of the official proceedings of the conference published as a supplement to the United States Daily (Vol. V, no. 228) on November 28, 1930.

Instructions to the committee recommended a format for reporting that was closely followed by the subcommittees. Typically the reports include a statement of the problem; summary findings (of existing provisions, statistical findings, appraisal of results); and report summary and recommendations. Suggestions for implementing recommendations are sometimes included, as are bibliographies, appendices, and pertinent statistics (such as cost per pupil of educating, numbers of children in special groups by state/locality, etc.).

The Committee on Special Classes was divided into ten subcommittees, and reports for each group are represented in the series: the blind and the partially seeing (sight saving classes); auditory defects (the deaf and the hard of hearing); the defective in speech; the crippled; "lowered vitality" cases when there is no evidence of physical handicap, yet the child has "not enough strength...for normal competition in life's struggle" (including tubercular, cardiopathic, and encephalitic children as well as hemophiliacs, epileptics, asthmatics, "malnutrites" (congenital malnutrition deficiencies and unsuitable/insufficient diet), children with chronic bronchitis, and convalescents from pneumonia and influenza; behavior problems of "the nervous, emotionally unstable, and deliquent" (concerned with the education and training of groups of such children rather than individual cases): the mentally retarded; the gifted; the training of teachers; and the organization, administration, and supervision of special classes.

Abstracts of reports are present for the following other conference committees: Committee on Milk Production and Control; Committee on the Family and Parent Education; Committee on the School Child; Committee on Vocational Guidance and Child Labor; Committee on Youth Outside of Home and School; Committee on State and Local Orgnizations for the Handicapped; Committee on Physically and Mentally Handicapped; and Committee on Socially Handicapped - Dependency and Neglect.

Microform is available at the New York State Archives through interlibrary loan.

Folder list.

There are no restrictions regarding access to or use of the material.