What of the Backward Child? March 26, 1916

Professor Arthur Holmes, March 26, 1916
“The trouble with many people is that they insist on an individual standard. By that standard all of us are backward because we have not attained to what we conceive to be our full possibilities, and the only normal human being is an idiot who has been educated to the ultimate limit of his power to learn.
“We cannot say that backwardness is bad until we find out what that backwardness means. It is not always a sinister thing to say that a child is backward. One of our most famous educators, a man with a Ph.D. to his name, did not enter the first grade until he was 14 years of age. Backward? Not a bit of it. He was the son of an American missionary in a foreign field and did not come to this country until he was of that age; and he entered the first grade for that reason.
“Remember, all of us were born into the world deaf, dumb, blind, and helpless. Some of us recover and some of us don’t – that’s all.”
Q: How is one to pick a safe matrimonial partner?
A: Love alone is no excuse for marriage. There should be a long courtship, an understanding with an acquaintance among the family and the use of a little common sense. Further, I think the State should insist on a physical examination.