dealing with different standards of defect, instead of different
standards of attainment.

Another difficulty encountered in the physically defective schools
is the interrupted school-life. Children will frequently drop out for
three months, six months, or a year at a time in order to have some
operation performed in hospital, or to go to a convalescent home, or
because of an attack of illness. Both branches of the special schools
are faced with the peculiar difficulty of the "spoilt" child--the lame
girl who, by reason of her helplessness, has been indulged and waited
on by the healthy members of her family; the ill-balanced boy whose
brain-storms have been so disturbing that any opposition to his will
has been shirked. It must not be thought that these children are in
the majority at special schools, but they do form a certain proportion
of the children there; they give much trouble, and they call for a
great deal of tact and patience. Patience is so continually needed in
special-school work that women who are not particularly patient would
find themselves definitely unfit for it. Indeed, although patience
and the hopeful spirit do not figure on the list of qualifications
demanded of candidates, they might well head it, for most certainly
an irritable or despondent woman could not find any work for which she
was more unsuited, or in which she was more likely to be miserable and
unsuccessful.

A further difficulty of the special-school teacher lies in the
"all-round" demands made on her. The children she must teach, are
defective in mind or body, or both. Some will respond to one subject,
some to another; some will make poor progress with headwork, but will
do excellent handwork. The teacher must be able to help each child
along its own path, and must be familiar with the various forms