In his very
first published mention of adoption, Arnold
Gesell describes the nature-nurture
study done by Margaret Cobb,
his assistant at Yale. According to Gesell, the study implied that
most children available for adoption did not have promising educational
potential. Gesell did worry, however, about the exceptional bright
child who might be deprived of family life.
Miss Cobb concluded that 18 per cent of the children would derive
greater benefit from special class training than from ordinary school
instruction; that 21 per cent could probably finish fifth or sixth
grade and profit by practical continuation instruction; that 35
per cent gave promise of completing the grammar grades, supplemented
with vocational and trade instruction; that 7 per cent would be
competent to finish a high-school course, and 17 per cent more part
of a high-school course; and 2 per cent apparently had mentality
that would qualify them for college training. . . .
The more superior a child is, the more urgently does he demand
placement in a home with optimum opportunity. The more defective
a child is, the less he is harmed by institutional care. Indeed,
he may be very much benefited by institutional training. We should
not, however, go on the theory that all mentally deficient and border-line
children are non-placeable. As a matter of fact, we should develop
a differential type of placement, with quasi-probationary safeguards,
for large numbers of children who are neither candidates for institutions
nor for ordinary foster homes.
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