Mentally Defective Children

Mentally Defective Children
Binet and Simon
1914

I like these kinds of books as they are such an anachronism compared to today’s published academic works. It really is a glimpse of history. I can imagine the horror of an average public library patron stumbling on this work and shocked that a book would have such a title. On the other hand, I know people that would assume the title is humorous.I can make jokes all day about “defective” kids, especially my own.

Anyone that had Psych 101 in college, and was even half-way paying attention, would recognize the authors’ names. Of course this submission is not necessarily an “awful” book as Binet is considered an important scholar for psychology. However, you can see that this 100 year + book has seen better days. Is it important to keep this in a circulating collection? This is available in so many digital collections that I can’t believe that this particular edition is needed in a circulating print collection. Is there something special about the book as an artifact that makes this particular edition important? If there is, get it out of regular circulation and preserve it. Slapping on some tape and re-shelving is not preservation.

Mary