SOCIAL CONTROL OF 
THE FEEBLEMINDED SOCIAL CONTROL OF 
THE FEEBLEMINDED 
A STUDY OF SOCIAL PROGRAMS AND ATTITUDES 
IN RELATION TO THE PROBLEMS OF 
MENTAL DEFICIENCY 
BY 
STANLEY P. DAVIES, Ph.D., 
h/ ’ ’ 
Executive Secretary, Committee on Mental Hygiene 
N. Y. State Charities Aid Association 
THE NATIONAL COMMITTEE FOR 
MENTAL HYGIENE, INC. 
370 Seventh Avenue, New York City 
1923 Copyright, 1923, by 
Stanley P. Davies 
STATE HOSPITALS PRESS 
UTICA, NEW YORK PREFACE 
In this volume the endeavor has been made to present as fair a 
picture as possible of the concepts which have been held from time 
to time regarding mental deficiency, and to outline the various 
stages of the development of social control of this problem. The 
more recent trends of thought and measures of control have been 
particularly dealt with as a means of indicating what a modern 
program in mental deficiency might comprise. 
Much of the material, to which reference has been made herein, 
has been published in a large number of scattered pamphlets and 
periodical articles. The aim has been to interpret these and other 
data in such a way as to show the continuity in the development 
of thought on this subject. Many of the articles referred to were 
originally published in the quarterly journal, Mental Hygiene, of the 
National Committee for Mental Hygiene, to which publication I 
would acknowledge my indebtedness. 
Among those who have generously assisted in the gathering of 
material and the reading of manuscript, in whole or in part, I 
would especially mention Dr. Walter E. Fernald, Superintendent of 
the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded at Waverley, Mass.; 
Dr. Charles Bernstein, Superintendent, and Miss Inez F. Stebbins, 
Social Investigator, of the Rome State School for Mental Defectives 
at Rome, N. Y.; Professor Samuel McCune Lindsay of Columbia 
University; Dr. Howard W. Potter, Clinical Director of Letchworth 
Village for the feebleminded at Thiells, N. Y.; Dr. Sanger Brown, 
2d, Chairman, Dr- Earl W. Fuller, Psychiatrist, and Miss Katherine 
Ecob, Director of Field Work, of the New York State Commission 
for Mental Defectives; Dr. Frankwood E. Williams, Medical 
Director and Dr. Thomas H. Haines, Director of the Division on 
Mental Deficiency, of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. 10 
PREFACE 
A particular word should be said for the unfailing courtesy and 
helpfulness of the corps of librarians of the Russell Sage Founda- 
tion Library, without whose able assistance the work would have 
been rendered very much more difficult. I wish also to express my 
appreciation of the services of Miss Dorothy E. Morrison, of the 
staff of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, in the prepara- 
tion of the index and bibliography. 
Above all, I am under peculiar obligation for guidance and 
inspiration to Professor Franklin H. Giddings, master and friend. 
Stanley P. Davies 
New York City 
April, 1923 CONTENTS 
Page 
CHAPTER I 
The Problem 17 
CHAPTER II 
Early Treatment and the Period of Physiological Education. 25 
CHAPTER III 
Revelations of the New Century: Heredity and Prevalence 
of Feeblemindedness 37 
CHAPTER IV 
The Social Indictment of the Feebleminded 46 
CHAPTER V 
The Alarmist Stage 58 
CHAPTER VI 
Newer Aspects of Heredity and Behavior 71 
CHAPTER VII 
Social Reconstruction at Waverley 85 
CHAPTER VIII 
The Colony Plan; Rome Colonies for Boys 108 
CHAPTER IX 
Rome Colonies for Girls 134 12 
CONTENTS 
Page 
CHAPTER X 
The Public School and the Backward Child 171 
CHAPTER XI 
The Socializing Process 186 
CHAPTER XII 
The Feebleminded in the Social Order 198 LIST OF TABLES 
Page 
Table 1.—Occupations and Earnings of Former Male Patients at 
Waverley 101 
Table 2.—Boys’ Colonies Established at Rome State School 114 
Table 3.—Value of Products and Operating Costs of Rented Farm 
Colonies 115 
Table 4.—operating Costs and Earnings of Kossuth Colony 131 
Table 5.—Mental Ages of Kossuth Colony Members 131 
Table 6.—Status of 200 Girls Sent to Colonies, after Three-Year Period. 139 
Table 7.—Rome Colonies for Girls Established Prior to July 1, 1922.. 140 
Table 8.—Financial Statement of Girls’ Colonies, 1918-19 140 
Table 9.—Financial Statement of Girls’ Colonies, 1921-22 141 
Table 10.—Mental Ages of Colony Girls 142 
Table 11.—Chronological Ages, Mental Ages, and Monthly Earnings of 
Girls in Clayville Colony—(May, 1922) 156 
Table 12.—Status, as of July 1, 1920, of New Girls Sent to Colonies 
during the Preceding Year 159 
Table 13.—Status, as of July 1, 1921, of New Girls Sent to Colonies 
during the Preceding Year 160 
Table 14.—Returns for Discipline Among New Girls Sent to Colonies 
1920-21 162 
Table 15.—Number of Girls Received in Colonies to July 1, 1921 165 
Table 16.—Status, as of July 1, 1920, of Colony Girls Remaining under 
Supervision on that Date 165 
Table 17.—Status, as of July 1, 1921, of Colony Girls Remaining under 
Supervision on July 1, 1920 165 
Table 18.—Reasons for Return to Institution of 86 Former Colony Girls. 166 
Table 19.—Status, as of July 1, 1921, of Girls Discharged Through 
Colonies, Prior to July 1, 1920 167 14 
LIST OP' TABLES 
Page 
Table 20.—Reasons for Return of Girls from Discharge 168 
Table 21.—Children Born to Discharged Girls 168 
Table 22.—Classification of Cases Under Supervision of Field Agents. 181 
Table 23.—Nativity of 20 L Ex-Students of Special Classes 182 
Table 24.—Location of Special Class Graduates.... 182 
Table 25.—Wages of 69 Former Special Class Students 183 CHAPTER I 
The; Proble;m 
The assertion of Aristotle, reaffirmed so strongly by our modem 
Sociologists and psychologists, that man is a political animal, using 
“political” in the broader meaning of social, is subject to the obvious 
qualification that some of the species homo sapiens are more com- 
pletely social than others. In fact the qualification would have to 
take into account individuals whose behavior seems for the most 
part anti-social, non-social or incompletely social. Going further one 
might be led to the conclusion, on the face of many facts being 
revealed today, that the ills of society can in a general way be 
attributed to the failure of many members of this species to act 
as the completely social animal might be expected to act. If any 
goal of social progress has ever been agreed upon, it has been 
centered about that ideal type of completely socialized personality, 
who should recognize that his own best interests and those of 
society are one, and act accordingly. Does this then give us a norm 
by which to measure the units which make up society? May we 
assume that the normal man is the social man, that he is most 
nearly normal who is most completely social in his behavior; that 
contrariwise, he who is least social has deviated in farthest degree 
from the normal? 
It is significant that this assumption is supported by the work 
that has been done in the fields of abnormal psychology and psy- 
chiatry. Psychiatrists, who specialize in the treatment of mental 
disorders, have come to regard social behavior as the practical test 
of mental competency. Whether an individual shall be judged a 
patient needing treatment for a mental difficulty rests ultimately, 
in the opinion of these medical specialists, not on any theoretical 
diagnosis resulting from the analytical probing of the individual’s 
mental processes, but rather on the ability of the individual to get 
along in the world. If the person in question can support himself 
and those dependent upon him, can meet the ordinary demands of 
society, can rub elbows with his fellow-men without undue friction, 18 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
in short if he can make a “go of it”, he is given a clean bill of 
health so far as psychiatry is concerned. 
The proposition also reverses itself. If the social machine does 
not work as it should, if it breaks down at various points and a train 
of ills results; to change the figure, if there are persons who will 
not play the social game, who prevent good team-work and generally 
throw things out of joint; in brief, if there are individuals who 
show themselves by their acts to be non-social and anti-social, then 
we may begin to suspect (in the absence of other apparent factors) 
that such individuals are not entirely normal in their make-up and 
should be dealt with scientifically in the light of the mental factors 
involved. 
Such an approach to all our social problems seems to be funda- 
mental. In piece-meal fashion that approach is already being made to 
an understanding of the more pronounced types of social offenders, 
criminals and delinquents in jails, reformatories and courts; sig- 
nificant work in the same direction is also being carried on with 
other types of social failures by the institutions and agencies for 
mental disease and mental defect. 
These socially maladjusted individuals fall roughly into two 
principal classes: those of normal intelligence with personality diffi- 
culties ; and those of subnormal intelligence, generally known as 
the feebleminded or mentally defective. It is with this latter class 
that this book will deal. 
The purpose of this volume is to discuss the various endeavors 
which have been made from time to time to meet the social problem 
of the feebleminded. Particular emphasis will be placed upon the 
modern program of adjusting the feebleminded to society bv means 
of social control or social self-control. 
Four main stages of development are noted: 
1. The ancient and medieval period, down to the beginning of 
the Nineteenth Century (treated in the early part of Chapter II). 
2. The period of physiological education, beginning with the 
first attempt at the scientific treatment of feeblemindedness early 
in the Nineteenth Century and ending with the establishment of the 
first institutions for the feebleminded in this country in the latter 
half of the same century (covering remainder of Chapter II). 
3. The alarmist period, roughly dating from 1900 to 1915, when 
the emphasis upon eugenics and heredity studies, and the appli- THE PROBLEM 
19 
cation of methods of intelligence testing, awakened public attention 
to feeblemindedness as a social problem of the first magnitude 
(comprising Chapters III, IV, and V). 
4. The modern period, in which the development of an adequate 
program for dealing with the large numbers of mental defectives 
in the population has necessitated the adoption of extra-institutional 
methods of care, training and supervision (comprising remainder 
of volume). 
The accurate definition of mental deficiency has always presented 
a difficult problem and naturally so, because so many subtle elements 
of human personality are involved in the concept which the term 
covers. That is to say, the difficulty of definition arises not with 
regard to the very obvious cases of low intelligence of the idiot 
and imbecile grade but rather with respect to the higher-grade cases 
of the moron group, in drawing a dividing line between those who 
may be regarded as normal and those who may be regarded as sub- 
normal or mentally defective. It is a matter of fact that no satis- 
factory definition of mental deficiency or feeblemindedness7 has yet 
been devised and those definitions which have been most widely 
used have admittedly been incomplete or unsatisfactory. 
The definitions or attempts at definition which have been most 
current may be divided into two types, the social and the psycho- 
logical. The standard definition in terms of social criteria is that 
of the Royal College of Physicians of London who define the 
feebleminded person as “one who is capable of earning a living 
under favorable circumstances, but is incapable, from mental defect 
existing from birth, or from an early age, (a) of competing on equal 
terms with his normal fellows; or (b) of managing himself and his 
affairs with ordinary prudence.” 
This definition was adopted by the British Royal Commission ap- 
pointed to consider methods of dealing with the feebleminded, and 
in various modified forms has been the one most frequently used 
in this country. It has the advantage of being in conformity with 
the judgment and experience of those who have worked most closely 
with this problem, in putting the emphasis upon social efficiency as 
the ultimate test of mental competency. When it is pointed out that 
it has the disadvantage of being general and somewhat vague and 
thus not sharply distinguishing between subnormality and normality, 
1. Note: the terms mental deficiency and feeblemindedness are used interchangeably 
throughout this volume. 20 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
the question may be raised whether in dealing with the complexities 
of human personality, there is any definite criterion or group of 
criteria that could be agreed upon as nicely drawing a sharp line 
between the feebleminded and their mental superiors. 
It is true that the psychological definition in terms of the intelli- 
gence quotient or mental age as determined by an intelligence test 
has the advantage of permitting the establishment of an exact 
quantitative point in the scale of intelligence as a dividing line. 
It is significant, however, of the limitations of this method, that the 
psychologists among themselves have never been able to agree as 
to just where in the scale this point should be fixed. As Dr. 
Porteus, himself a psychologist, has said: “The attempt to fix 
definite age limits of normality was certainly justified. But the 
proposed twelve-year Binet age level was a sieve with a mesh so 
small that, although the sorting out of the defectives proved to be 
a beautifully simple matter, it unfortunately segregated also great 
numbers of normal individuals. Unhappily for other theories, a 
nine- or ten-year Binet age is a measure so wide that it allows too 
many defectives to slip through. That the attempt to evolve a 
psychological definition without reference to a social criterion has 
failed is almost a tragedy.”^ 
It must also be borne in mind that the word “mental” as used 
in the phrase, mental deficiency, covers a broader range of personal 
qualities, or lack of them, than is included in the general intelligence 
which the psychological test measures. As another psychologist, 
Prof. Horace B. English, has stated: “The expression ‘mental age' 
is seductively simple; it seems so unambiguous. Mental age 10 
seems to imply intellectual powers, judgment and behavior like a 
ten-year-old. Now this is not what the tests prove and not what 
any competent psychologist from Binet onward has meant by the 
term. Mental age is merely a conventional expression, indicating 
a certain rather arbitrary attainment in the tests. Such a rating 
may indeed be taken as determining the level of general intelligence 
of the person examined, but general intelligence is not the same 
thing as judgment or wisdom, though these interpenetrate; nor is 
general intelligence the sole factor determining behavior, though 
perhaps the chief.”8 
1. Porteus, S. D. A Study of Personality of Defectives with a Social Ratings Scale. 
1920. No. 23. Publications of the Training School at Vineland, N. J. p. 1. 
t. English, H. B. Is America FeeblemindedI The Survey, October 15, 1922. p. 79. THE PROBLEM 
21 
It would be far out of the province of the present writer, being 
neither psychologist nor psychiatrist, to attempt any other definition 
of mental deficiency than those now current. It would seem how- 
ever that the nearest approach to a satisfactory definition would 
combine both the psychological and social elements and indicate 
an intelligence quotient below a certain level, plus a certain deficiency 
in other personality traits leading to social inefficiency, as determin- 
ing factors in constituting mental defect. 
How large a problem mental deficiency is depends entirely upon 
this definition of terms. So far as social fitness is a criterion, mental 
deficiency is a relative term. Referring to a certain fellow-country- 
man whose home was in a rural province, a noted French physician 
exclaimed: “He is feebleminded in Paris and normal at home!’’ 
In New York State, commitments to the institutions for the feeble- 
minded from the cities of the State so far exceed those from rural 
districts as to be out of all proportion to the ratio of urban and 
rural population. Thus as the demands of life upon the individual 
vary in complexity with time and place, so does the number of 
social effectives vary. 
If the psychological definition alone could be accepted it would 
of course make the determination of the amount of existing mental 
defect comparatively easy. In defining the three grades of mental 
defect, idiot, imbecile, and moron, in terms of mental age, Dr. 
Goddard placed the upper limit of the moron group at twelve years, 
and this has since been frequently accepted to mean those with a 
mental age of under thirteen years. Dr. Leta S. Hollingworth 
states, speaking in favor of the psychological definition of mental 
defect: “We are now tending toward this definition: a feebleminded 
person is one who has originally an intelligence quotient of 70 per 
cent or less, and whose status falls in the lowest two per cent of 
human This reflects the conclusion reached in the 
earlier work of Dr. Lewis M. Terman, namely, “All who test below 
70 I. Q. by the Stanford Revision of the Binet-Simon scale should 
be considered feebleminded, and it is an open question whether it 
would not be justifiable to consider 75 I. Q. as the lower limit of 
‘normal’ intelligence.”2 For any person sixteen or more years of 
age, an I. Q. of 70 means a mental age of slightly over 11 years. 
An I. Q. of 75 means a mental age of 12 years. 
1. Hollingworth, L- S. The Psychology of Subnormal Children. 1920. p. 52. 
2. Terman, L- M. The Measurement of Intelligence. 1916. p. 81, SOCIAL CONTROL OE THE FEEBLEMINDED 
So far as any fixed point in the intelligence rating scale has been 
accepted as indicative of feeblemindedness, an I. Q. of 70 is the 
point most commonly agreed upon. This point has been used in 
practice, for example, in the selection of children for special classes 
in the public schools. 
When the above psychological criteria are applied to a large 
group of persons more or less representative of the population of 
the country as a whole, it is interesting to see where the result leads 
us. In the outcome of the psychological examinations of the men 
drafted into the army we have an application of the tests on a wide 
scale to a large and representative group. The results of these 
tests when tabulated in terms of mental age show that, if in the 
moron group are included those with a mental age of less than 
thirteen years, then 47.3 per cent of the white drafted men and 
39 per cent of the colored drafted men were feebleminded/ If 
75 I. Q. (which is in the adult a mental age of 12) is taken as the 
lower limit of normality, then 30.3 per cent of the white drafted 
men and 79 per cent of the colored drafted men were feebleminded, 
because this proportion was shown to have a mental age of less 
than twelve years. If 70 I. Q. is taken as the dividing line, or in the 
adult a mental age of slightly over 11 years, then 17.6 per cent of 
the drafted white men and 64 per cent of the colored drafted men 
were feebleminded, inasmuch as that proportion registered below 
11 years mental age in the tests/ 
These results have recently been the occasion for many mis- 
givings concerning the future of the American people. These mis- 
givings are reserved for discussion in the final chapter of this 
volume. It is open to some question as to how far the results of 
the army tests may be taken as typical of the population of the 
country as a whole. As is pointed out in the official account of the 
tests the draft was “highly selected at the upper end by reason of 
the fact that men of higher intelligence became officers without 
being drafted or constituted the greater part of the group of pro- 
fessional and business experts that were exempted from draft be- 
cause essential to industrial activity in the war.”2 On the other hand 
it is pointed out that there was some selection, though not as great 
numerically, at the lower end of the scale by reason of the fact that 
1. Psychological Examining in the U. S. Army. Edited by R. M. Yerkes. 1921. 
Memoirs National Academy of Sciences. Vol. XV. Table 333. p. 790. 
S. Ibid., p. 785. THE PROBLEM 
23 
many of the grosser cases of mental deficiency were rejected without 
being sent to camp. This selection at the lower end presumably 
does not completely counterbalance that at the upper end. “It seems 
quite impossible” it is stated, “that it (selection) could have reduced 
the intelligence level of the draft so much as three years. * * * Un- 
doubtedly the intelligence of the draft is somewhat lower than that 
of the country at large, although it is quite unlikely that the differ- 
ence should be so great.”7 
• Suppose, in accordance with the above, we should add two years 
to the scale of intelligence ratings of the drafted men to indicate 
the intelligence of the general population. The percentage of the 
general adult population having an I. Q. of 70 or less, or a mental 
age of under 11, would then be practically the same as the percentage 
of drafted men having a mental age of under nine according to the 
published table. For the drafted white men this was 5.3 per cent 
and for the colored 32 per cent. By this estimate, which would seem 
to be a conservative interpretation of the army tests, over 5 per 
cent of the general adult population, and certainly that percentage 
and more of minors, would be definitely feebleminded, if we adopt 
70 I. Q. as the criterion. Thus, according to this commonly used 
criterion, in New York State alone, there would be over 519,000 
feebleminded persons, or a number in excess of the population of 
an entire city the size of Buffalo. In the nation as a whole, by 
this same standard, there would be 5,285,000 feebleminded, not 
far below the population of the metropolis itself. The writer does 
not believe that any such proportion of the population can fairly 
be called feebleminded but merely indicates where we are led by 
the best available evidence and the only definitely fixed criterion of 
mental deficiency. 
Suppose we were to ignore entirely the evidence of the army 
tests and accept the assumption of Dr. Beta Hollingworth that only 
about two per cent of the population falls below 70 I. Q. and is 
mentally deficient; even so there would be by this low standard 
over 200,000 mental defectives in New York State and over 
2,000,000 in the country as a whole. 
The writer would merely indicate by the citation of these figures 
the impracticability of attempting to segregate all the feebleminded, 
as that term is now interpreted, in institutions. New York State 
has made more than average progress as compared with other 
1. Ibid., p. 785. 24 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
States in the segregation of the feebleminded, and yet its institutions 
for this class are at present able to accommodate about 6,000, a 
rather insignificant beginning as compared with 500,000 or even 
200,000 mental defectives in the population of the State as a whole. 
It costs the State at the present time annually $1,800,000 merely for 
the maintenance of the 6,000 now in institutions without taking 
into account the interest on the investment in physical plant and the 
cost of repairs and new construction. Would the taxpayers of the 
State be willing to support in institutions even ten times that number 
or 60,000 at an annual cost of $18,000,000 for maintenance plus an 
additional outlay of at least $54,000,000 for the construction of 
buildings to house that number? From personal experience in the 
difficulty of obtaining State appropriations for a comparatively small 
amount of much needed new institutional construction, it would 
appear very doubtful. Even if the taxpayers were willing to bear 
this great burden, however, the majority of mental defectives in the 
population according to the above calculations would still remain 
out in the community. To what extent then is it necessary or 
desirable to institutionalize the feebleminded? To what extent can 
they find their places in society outside of institutions? It is to 
these questions that an answer will be sought in the following pages. CHAPTER II 
Early Treatment and the Period of Physiological Education 
Feeblemindedness, if we adopt the social test referred to in the 
preceding chapter, is a relative term. A highly developed, complex 
industrial civilization, demanding a great degree of application, 
specialization, and skill on the part of its working units and making 
many and various social demands upon the individual as a citizen, 
will reveal large numbers of those unable to keep up with the social 
procession and interfering with the march, because of what is 
diagnosed as defective intelligence. In an earlier age, when the 
majority of persons lived a simple rural life in a limited environment 
and performed tasks requiring no high degree of training, the 
standard of mental competency would naturally fall much lower, 
with the result that only the more marked degrees of mental de- 
ficiency would be recognized as such. In these relative terms it is 
then to be expected that feeblemindedness constitutes a much larger 
and more conspicuous social problem today than ever before. 
There is no room for doubt that the more extreme degrees of 
feeblemindedness, idiocy and to a certain extent, imbecility, have 
been familiar enough conditions from early times. For the Spartans 
idiocy presented a social problem that was dealt with in the sternest 
eugenic fashion and obviously defective children are said to have 
been cast into the river or left to perish on the mountainside. The 
laws of Lycurgus countenanced the deliberate abandonment of 
idiots, a practice which was probably followed to a certain extent 
throughout Greece and, according to Cicero, among the Romans 
also. 
Curiously enough the Greek roots from which the word idiot is 
derived are “iditas”, a private person, or “idios”, peculiar, that is, 
a person set apart or alone. Thus both the roots contain the con- 
cept of non-social or extra-social, the idea that these persons lived 
in a world by themselves and were more or less outside the pale 
of society. It was as such extra-social beings that the feebleminded 
for many long centuries were commonly treated—shunned, ostra- 26 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
cised, derided, persecuted, neglected, creatures considered incapable 
of human feeling and therefore undeserving of human compassion. 
The example and teachings of Christ as to the duty of mankind 
to the weak and helpless appear to have brought some alleviation 
to the lot of the idiot and from that time on there were sporadic 
instances of the recognition of social responsibility for the care of 
the feebleminded. The Bishop of Myra (the Saint Nicholas of our 
Christmas time) in the fourth century is said to have shown par- 
ticular compassion toward the mentally defective and to have 
urged tender care of all such unfortunates. 
So far as we know the fate of the feebleminded in the Middle 
Ages, they frequently earned favor and support as fools and jesters 
at the hands of some royal or noble master. Quite commonly in 
certain localities, they unwittingly received homage and reverence 
through the superstitious belief that they were “les infants du bon 
Dieu,” sacred beings having some mysterious connection with the 
unknown. Barr, writing in 1904, stated with regard to the latter 
treatment: “Proof of this commonly accepted belief that these 
creatures walked on earth but held their conversation in heaven is 
shown in the fact that Tycho Brahe had for his close companion 
a fool to whose mutterings the great astronomer listened as to a 
revelation. Among the Turks of today, and in many parts of Ireland 
and of Brittany, this same extravagant idea regarding these 
‘innocents’ prevails. In Brazil an imbecile in a family is considered 
more a joy than a sorrow; rich and poor alike roam the streets 
undisturbed, soliciting alms which are never refused; in this way 
among the poor an idiot may be the sole support of a family. The 
American Indian also allows these ‘children of the Great Spirit’ 
to go unharmed.”7 Here reverence, and there persecution, and all 
rooted in superstition! For the old abuse did not die out. The 
mental defective regarded as a sacred being at one time and in one 
place, at another time and place was regarded as possessed by the evil 
spirit and subjected to all sorts of cruel indignities in the hope of 
exorcising the demon. As late as the days of the Reformation, 
Luther and Calvin regarded these mental incompetents as “filled with 
Satan.” 
It was not until the beginning of the Nineteenth Century that the 
first educational and medical approach to this problem of a definitely 
1. Barr, M. W. Mental Defectives: Their History, Treatment and Training. 1904. 
p. 25. PERIOD OF PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
27 
scientific character was made. A party of sportsmen hunting in the 
woods of Caune, Department of Aveyron, France, in 1798 came upon 
a wild creature of the human species, a boy of 12 years, roaming 
through the woods like any animal, feeding upon acorns and nuts. 
Bonaterre, Professor of Natural History in the Central School of 
the Department of Aveyron, took this boy under his observation 
and described him as unused to our food, selecting his nourishment 
by smell; lying flat on the ground and immersing his chin in the 
water to drink; tearing his garments and trying constantly to escape; 
walking often on all fours; fighting with his teeth; giving few 
marks of intelligence; having no articulate language and even ap- 
parently devoid of the natural faculty of speech. Professor Bon- 
aterre thought that “a phenomenon like this would furnish to phil- 
osophy and natural history important notions on the original 
constitution of man and on the development of his primitive 
faculties; provided that the state of imbecility we have noticed in 
this child does not offer an obstacle to his instruction.”* 
Education of this boy was finally undertaken by Itard, physician 
to the School for Deaf Mutes in Paris, in order, as he stated, “to 
solve the metaphysical problem of determining what might be the 
degree of intelligence and the nature of the ideas in a lad who, 
deprived from birth of all education, should have lived entirely 
separated from the individuals of his kind.” Itard was unwilling 
to believe that the boy was an idiot but was of the opinion that he 
was simply wild or entirely untaught. On the other hand, Philip 
Pinel, Physician in Chief of the Bicetre, the hospital for the insane 
in Paris, warned that the boy was idiotic and therefore incapable 
of education. 
Much interest centered about Itard’s experiments with the boy. 
In fact it was thought that experimentation with him might help 
to shed light on a scientific controversy then being waged between 
two schools of thought, the sensationalists and the nativists. The 
former school conceived of the mind as a “tabula rasa” waiting to 
receive all its impressions from the outside by the pathway of 
sensation. The nativists assumed that the individual comes into 
the world with innate ideas which gradually unfold with the develop- 
ment of the mind. 
1. Seguin, Edward. Idiocy: And Its Treatment by the Physiological Method. 
Teachers’ College, Columbia University. 1907. p. 16. 28 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
In endeavoring to transform this boy whom he believed to be 
only an untutored savage into a civilized man, Itard adopted the 
following program: 
“1st. To endear him to social life, by making it more congenial 
than the one he was now leading; and, above all, more like 
that he had but recently quitted. 
“2d. To awaken his nervous sensibility, by the most energetic 
stimulants; and at other times by quickening the affections 
of the soul. 
“3d. To extend the sphere of his ideas, by creating new wants, 
and multiplying his associations with surrounding beings. 
“4th. To lead him to the use of speech, by determining the 
exercise of imitation, under the spur of necessity. 
“5th. To exercise, during a certain time, the simple operations of 
his mind upon his physical wants; and therefrom derive 
the application of the same to objects of instruction.”^ 
This program was applied by Itard to his subject for more than 
a year when apparently the master began to suspect that there were 
elements of actual defect in his pupil and subsequently the program 
was varied to methods primarily physiological and more in accord 
with the needs of an idiot. This revised program included: 
“1. The development of the senses; 
“2. The development of the intellectual faculties; 
“3. The development of the affective functions. 
When finally Itard, after some five years of work with the boy, 
came to realize that the results he had anticipated could not be 
secured and that his subject was actually idiotic, he gave up in dis- 
couragement and relinquished the care of the boy, exclaiming: 
“Unfortunate! Since my pains are lost and my efforts fruitless, 
take yourself back to your forest and primitive tastes.” The 
French Academy, however, summing up the opinion of that body 
on Itard’s work reported: “If he (Itard) has not obtained a greater 
success it must be attributed not to any lack of zeal or talent but 
to the imperfection of the organs of the subject upon which he 
worked. The Academy moreover cannot see without astonishment 
how he could succeed as far as he did.”2 Thus ended the first 
1. Ibid., p. 18. 
2. Ibid., p. 21. PERIOD OE PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
29 
attempt at the scientific education of an idiot. The literature in the 
mental deficiency field begins with the publication of Itard’s work 
“De l’Education d’un Homme Sauvage” published in 1801. 
It was Edward Seguin, Itard’s pupil, who appreciated more fully 
than Itard himself the significant results of his work with the boy. 
Seguin had noted the important though slight improvements which 
the boy had made in certain directions, such as sensory discrimina- 
tion, recognition of objects, naming things, copying words, reading 
a little, etc., and he recognized these results to be the product of 
Itard’s second program of physiological procedure. Seguin was 
both physician and psychologist. In addition to studying medicine 
and surgery under Itard he had also been a pupil of the famous 
psychiatrist, Esquirol. It was this same Esquirol who had formu- 
lated the first clear definition of idiocy as follows: “Idiocy,” 
Esquirol wrote in 1828, “is not a disease but a condition in which 
the intellectual faculties are never manifested or have never been 
developed sufficiently to enable the idiot to acquire such an amount 
of knowledge as persons of his own age and placed in similar cir- 
cumstances with himself are capable of receiving. Idiocy commences 
with life or at that age which precedes the development of the in- 
tellectual and affective faculties, which are from the first what they 
are doomed to be during the whole period of their existence.”* 
Seguin agreed with Pinel that the savage boy of Aveyron was 
an idiot but disagreed with him in that he believed that idiocy was 
curable. “Can idiots be educated, treated, improved, cured?” 
Seguin asks, and answers: “To put the question was to solve it.”2 
It was in the physiological method which Itard had given up in 
despair that Seguin saw the secret of the successful treatment of 
idiocy. He founded in Paris in 1837 the first successful school to 
be established for the specific purpose of the education of idiots. 
Here his work was so productive that he was rewarded in 1842 
with an appointment to the directorship of the enlarged school for 
idiots at the Bicetre. He left here at the end of the year, however, 
and re-established his private school. His great work, which stands 
as a classic landmark in the literature of mental deficiency, “The 
Moral Treatment, Hygiene, and Education of Idiots and Other 
Backward Children” published in 1846, was crowned by the French 
Academy and received favorable mention from Pope Pius IX. 
1. Barr. p. 19. 
*. Seguin. p. 9. 30 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Itard had held to the theories of his friend and master, DeCon- 
dillac, that “the faculties of our mind are but sensations trans- 
formed” and that “all simple ideas are the result of sensation alone.” 
Seguin, on the contrary, followed Locke, in holding to the theory 
of an intermediate step between sensation and idea, that of an innate 
intelligent reflective power, which reasoning upon the notions re- 
sulting from sensation produces ideas.* 
Seguin gives credit for the development of the physiological 
method to the work of the French instructors of deaf mutes and 
particularly Jacob Rodrigues Pereire. The important principles 
of physiological education as thus developed Seguin states as 
follows: 
“1. That the senses, and each one in particular, can be submitted 
to physiological training by which their primordial capability 
may be indefinitely intellectualized. 
“2. That one sense may be substituted for another as a means of 
comprehension and of intellectual culture. 
“3. That the physiological exercise of a sense corroborates the 
action, as well as verifies the acquisitions of another. 
“4. That our most abstract ideas are comparisons and general- 
izations by the mind of what we have perceived through our 
senses. 
“5. That educating the modes of perception is to prepare pabulum 
for the mind proper. 
“6. That sensations are intellectual functions performed through 
external apparatus as much as reasoning, imagination, etc., 
through more internal organs.”2 
Further describing the physiological method, Seguin says: “Our 
method to be really physiological must adapt itself in principles as 
well as in its means and instruments to the healthy development and 
usage of the functions. * * * * Man, being a unit, is artificially 
analyzed for study’s sake into his three prominent vital expressions, 
activity, intelligence, and will. We consider the idiot as a man 
infirm in the expressions of his trinity, and we understand the 
method of training idiots or mankind as the philosophical agency by 
which the unity of manhood can be reached. * * * * * 
1. Barr. p. 33. 
2. Seguin. p. 20. 
S. Ibid., p. 58. PERIOD OF PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
31 
“Activity, besides its unconscious and organic functions, divides 
into contractility and sensibility, with their specific tendencies; 
intelligence branches into many sub-functions, and will into its 
protean expressions, from love to hatred. 
“The predominance of any of these functions constitutes a dis- 
ease ; their perversion leads to insanity; their notable deficiency at 
birth constitutes idiocy, afterwards imbecility, later yet dementia. 
. “Physiological education, including hygienic and moral training, 
restores the harmony of these functions in the young, as far as 
practicable, separating them abstractedly, to restore them practically 
in their unity. 
“This is the psycho-physiological principle of the method.”^ 
According to Seguin’s system, one of the first things to be done 
in the training of the idiot is to correct the automatic motions and 
supply the deficiencies of the muscular apparatus. “Otherwise,” 
he asks, “how could we expect to ripen a crop of intellectual facul- 
ties on a field obstructed by disordered functions.”2 Thus, subject 
to the particular needs and deficiencies of the individual, the train- 
ing begins with the overcoming of muscular incapacities, the de- 
velopment of movements such as locomotions and special motions, 
prehension, manipulation, palpitation, etc. Such gymnastic work 
is not intended to develop the muscular above all else but rather 
“to create an equilibrium of the functions * * * * by paying more 
attention to the nervous (system) as being the most shattered in 
idiocy.”-7 From these muscular beginnings the plan of education 
outlined by Seguin follows an elaborate system intended to develop 
in sequence the imitative, nervous, and reflective functions. 
Summing up his physiological method Seguin says: “Children 
* * * * never perceive single, but compound phenomena; from sen- 
sational these become instantly idealized by comparison. Mere 
impressions, being compared, become ideas susceptible of combina- 
tion, and of themselves producing any number of new ideas; of 
becoming indeed the mother of actions: for man cannot execute 
anything that has not been previously born into his mind. Sensation 
perceived like a notion, notion fecundated to an idea realized in life 
itself, such is the unbroken spiral of our teaching, and through 
teaching, of our action on idiocy. From collecting the sparse 
1. Ibid., 59. 
2. Ibid., p. 66. 
3. Ibid., p. 69. 32 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
powers of muscles and nerves disconnected by the absence of will,, 
to the gathering of the faculties in the act of thinking, our progress 
has been a constant ascension on the steps leading from isolation to 
sociability.”7 
The methods advocated and used by Dr. Seguin for educating 
the senses and training the muscles to directed, accurate response, 
form the basis of those employed up to the present time by the 
various institutions for the feebleminded. “This physiological edu- 
cation of defective brains, as a result of systematic training of the 
special senses, the functions and the muscular system, was looked 
upon as a visionary theory, but has been verified and confirmed by 
modern experiments and researches in physiological psychology.”2 
For example, at the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded at 
Waverley, Massachusetts, the methods devised by Seguin and care- 
fully worked out and applied by later experts are used in the training 
of the children there. Object teaching, instructive games, manual 
training, educational gymnastics, in fact, many of the methods 
employed in kindergartens in the training of normal children, are 
used to awaken the inactive special senses of the feebleminded 
children and to train their muscles. 
One of the methods of developing the sense of touch, for ex- 
ample, is by blindfolding the child and placing his hand on objects 
and substances of contrasting qualities. At first, he is expected to 
notice only the different sensations produced by the contrasts; 
gradually he is asked to select various objects by the sense of touch 
alone, later to name them, etc. In the same general way, the senses 
of hearing, sight, smell and taste are developed. Then comes the 
discipline of the muscles which is accomplished better by means of 
the simple movements of play and the occupations of childhood 
than by the use of formal gymnastics. These examples are mere 
suggestions of the careful methods employed to enable the child to 
acquire knowledge from sensations, to learn “to see what he looks 
at, to hear, to understand, to obey and to do.” 
Great importance attaches to the work of Seguin because the 
methods he developed and the results he obtained furnished the 
principles of and impetus to organized efforts in behalf of the 
1. Ibid., p. 146. 
2. Fernald, W. E- History of the Treatment of the Feebleminded. Reprinted from 
the Report of the Proceedings of the Twentieth National Conference of Charities and 
Correction, held at Chicago, June, 1893. Fourth Edition, 1912, p. 2. 33 
PERIOD OF PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
feebleminded in practically all of the European countries and in 
America. The published results of his work, together with that of 
Dr. Guggenbuhl, who conducted a successful school for cretins in 
Switzerland, and Dr. Saegert of the Asylum for Deaf Mutes in 
Berlin, were not long in prompting similar endeavors in America. 
Here many States had already organized progressive institutions 
for the care, treatment, and training of the blind, deaf mutes, and 
the insane. The feebleminded, however, had been totally neglected 
and those whose families were unable to provide for them and who 
were incapable of self-support and self-direction had only the alms- 
house and the jail, with all the abuses that centered about these 
places in that day, left to them as a refuge. 
Several attempts to educate mentally defective children in the 
institutions for the blind and deaf had met with more or less 
success. The most notable of these experiments was that under- 
taken in 1839 by Dr. Samuel G. Howe, Director of the Perkins 
Institute for the Blind in Boston. The first step in the direction of 
adequate State provision for the feebleminded was taken in New 
York State in 1846 when on the 25th of March, Dr. F. P. Backus 
introduced in the Legislature a bill providing for the establishment 
of a State asylum for idiots. This bill, however, was defeated. In 
Massachusetts, legislative action directing an inquiry “into the con- 
dition of idiots in the Commonwealth” was taken in the same year. 
As a result, Massachusetts on October 1, 1848, opened in South 
Boston an experimental school for the teaching of idiots. This was 
the first State institution for the feebleminded to be established 
in this country. Three months preceding this, in July, 1848, Dr. 
H. B. Wilbur had opened in Barre, Massachusetts, the first private 
school in the country for the education of idiots. 
In New York State the legislation proposed in 1846 was finally 
enacted in 1851 and in October of that year a State school for idiots 
was opened at Albany. In 1854 this school was transferred to 
Syracuse where the first building in this country planned expressly 
for the education of idiots was erected. This school remains today 
on its original site as a part of the New York system for the care 
and training of the feebleminded and is now known as the Syracuse 
State School for Mental Defectives. 
Pennsylvania was the next to follow the lead of Massachusetts 
and New York in the establishment of a training school for the 34 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
feebleminded. Ohio followed, then Connecticut, and so on until 
now 44 States have made some institutional provision for the 
reception of this class of dependents. 
This early work for the feebleminded, particularly in Massa- 
chusetts, New York and Pennsylvania, was materially aided by the 
personal presence of the master, Edward Seguin. In 1848, Seguin 
received an invitation from Dr. Samuel G. Howe, then the Superin- 
tendent of the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded, to come 
to America and assist him for a brief time in his work. This invi- 
tation Seguin accepted and he spent the remainder of his life in this 
country. He assisted Dr. Howe for a short time in the adminis- 
tration of the Massachusetts school. Later he rendered invaluable 
service in helping Dr. Hervey B. Wilbur to organize the new school 
for the feebleminded at Syracuse. He was subsequently associated 
in the administration of the Pennsylvania School for Idiotic and 
Feebleminded Children in Philadelphia. Early in 1880 he opened 
a private school for mental defectives in New York City but died 
several months later.* 
All these early schools for the feebleminded were organized in 
the hope of curing idiocy by the application of the physiological 
method or at least of so greatly improving the condition of their 
patients that they could be returned to the community, capable of 
self-guidance and of earning an independent livelihood. These 
schools were, therefore, frankly educational institutions. Dr. Howe 
in one of his early reports stated, “It is a link in the chain of common 
schools—the last indeed, but still a necessary link in order to embrace 
all the children in the State.” After some years of effort along 
these lines the physicians in charge of these schools apparently 
reached the conclusion that not all cases of idiocy could be cured or 
even greatly improved. “This institution, being intended for a 
school, should not be converted into an asylum for incurables,” 
wrote Dr. Howe in another place. The insistence was placed, there- 
fore, upon receiving children of the higher-grade and improvable 
types. 
Given then this more favorable material to begin with, what were 
the results actually accomplished by these early training schools 
for the feebleminded? From our knowledge of this problem today 
we know that no case of actual mental deficiency was cured. In 
other words, the best efforts of the best trained physicians and 
1. October, 1880. PERIOD OF PHYSIOLOGICAL EDUCATION 
teachers were unable by the physiological or any other method to 
make up the lack which nature had placed in the child from birth 
or from an early age. Improvements in physical and muscular de- 
velopment, in habits, in behavior, in self-help, and in occupational 
ability were realized in many cases. The feebleminded, while not 
curable as regards their defect, were teachable and they profited by 
the physiological method to the extent of their limited endowments. 
The improvement shown in these cases, however, was frankly not 
nearly so great as had been originally anticipated. A very small 
proportion of the feebleminded could be returned to the community, 
even after years of training, on a self-supporting basis. This placed 
a new aspect upon the whole problem. It created an unforeseen 
difficulty. It had not been intended when these schools were organ- 
ized that the State should assume indefinite custodial care of these 
cases. The State was simply to educate them by a special method 
during the regular school period. Now the institutions found them- 
selves besieged on two sides. The parents and guardians of the 
children who had completed the regular course of training and 
theoretically should have been ready to return to the community, 
begged that these boys and girls (now young men and women) 
be retained in the institution because of their obvious inability to be 
anything but dependents demanding a great deal of care if they 
should be returned to their homes. On the other hand, there was 
an even greater demand from all sides for the admission of new 
cases of all ages and all types. It became more and more evident 
that the State must squarely face the large and less hopeful problem 
of providing indefinite custodial care for low-grade cases.7 
So the idea of the institution for the feebleminded as an educa- 
tional project pure and simple had to be abandoned. More and 
more it was recognized that unless the feebleminded were to be 
permitted to become vagrants and dependents and to drift into alms- 
houses and jails, the State would have to enlarge its institutional 
accommodations to make provision for hundreds of mental defectives 
then at large. In New York State the Syracuse institution has con- 
tinued its policy of receiving feebleminded children of school age 
capable of being benefited by instruction, though it long ago gave 
up the hope of curing mental deficiency. 
In 1870 New York City organized its own hospital and school 
for the feebleminded on Randall’s Island, where it received both 
1. Fernald. History of the Treatment of the Feebleminded. 36 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
low-grade and high-grade cases. In 1878 the State opened a sep- 
arate branch of the Syracuse State institution at Newark, N. Y., to 
meet the serious problem of custodial care for feebleminded women 
of child-bearing age. In 1885 the institution at Newark was sep- 
arately incorporated. The further needs of custodial care for feeble- 
minded persons of all ages and both sexes, and especially for low- 
grade and delinquent cases, led to the opening in 1894 of the 
Rome State Custodial Asylum at Rome, N. Y. 
Thus the early period of the care and training of the feebleminded 
in this country, roughly from 1850 to 1900, saw defeat of the 
sanguine hopes of the great teacher, Seguin, that idiocy was curable. 
On the other hand, it marked the development of the system of 
caring for this class of persons in institutions and brought recog- 
nition of social responsibility for dealing with the problem. CHAPTER III 
Revelations of the New Century: Heredity and Prevalence 
of Feeblemindedness 
Just as the beginning of the 19th century had witnessed the first 
scientific attempts to educate mental defectives and to arrive at an 
understanding of mental deficiency, so the dawn of the 20th 
century marked the first public awakening to mental deficiency as 
a social problem of the first magnitude. Two factors were mainly 
responsible for this rather suddenly aroused and widespread concern 
about a problem which had theretofore existed without any general 
public notice. These factors were: 
1. The development of the eugenics movement together with the 
rediscovery of the Mendelian laws of heredity and resulting 
heredity studies. 
2. The development and application of the Binet-Simon method 
of intelligence testing. 
The modern eugenics movement is generally regarded as dating 
from the publication in “Nature” in 1901 of Sir Francis Gabon’s 
paper “Possible Improvement of the Human Breed.” In the year 
preceding the publication of this article, the botanists DeVries, 
Correns and Tschermark, by independent investigations, verified and 
brought to light the long-forgotten Mendelian principle of heredity. 
Stimulated by the fast growing interest in eugenics, it was not long 
until researches had begun to apply the Mendelian theory to the 
transmission of human characters and among them mental defect. 
Heredity as an etiological factor in mental deficiency had been 
recognized in a general way among the early students of this problem 
but it was considered as one of many factors and not of predomin- 
ating importance. Nor was the mode of transmission of the defect 
understood. Seguin, speaking of the etiological factors, said: “The 
circumstances which favor the production of idiocy are endemic, 
hereditary, parental or accidental. * * * It is considered hereditary 
where there have been cases of idiocy or of insanity in the preceding 
or collateral generations.In his discussion, however, of the pre- 
1. Seguin, Edward. Idiocy: And Its Treatment by the Physiological Method, p. 30. 38 
SOCIAL CONTROL 01' THE FEEBLEMINDED 
vention of idiocy, Seguin lays the greatest stress on the parental 
and accidental causes, apparently believing that they were of greater 
importance than the hereditary factors. 
The Massachusetts Commission in a report in 1848 on 574 cases 
of idiocy attributed 22 per cent of them to heredity. The Con- 
necticut Commission in investigations as early as 1856, found 51 
idiots in 17 families and also several large families that were de- 
fective throughout, establishing a strong presumption of heredity. 
In the revived interest in this problem, springing up in connection 
with the eugenics movement, the careful study of family histories 
of defective stock was regarded as furnishing the concrete evidence 
that mental deficiency is strongly and preponderantly hereditary. 
The first of these thorough-going family studies was the record 
of “The Jukes” by Robert L. Dugdale, published in 1877 and re- 
printed in 1910. In writing the introduction to the reprinted work, 
Professor Giddings stated, “When the first edition of ‘The Jukes’ 
was published, it was the best example of scientific method applied 
to a sociological investigation.” While written from the standpoint 
of penology in order to show the combined influence of heredity and 
environment acting on the individual in the production of crime, 
this study, nevertheless, revealed how heredity in a degenerate 
stock, especially when fostered in an isolated community, tends to 
repeat itself generation after generation in all kinds of anti-social 
behavior. The Dugdale study included the progeny of five notorious 
sisters of whom the most notorious was known as “Margaret, the 
mother of criminals.” There were 709 individuals included in this 
study, of whom 540 were of Juke blood and 169 were of “X” blood 
connected by marriage or co-habitation. Of these 709, Dugdale 
states, there were 180 who had either received poor-house care or 
out-door relief aggregating 800 years. Among the social offenders 
were listed 140 criminals and other law-breakers, 60 habitual thieves, 
50 common prostitutes, and 40 women venereally diseased. Dugdale 
estimated that the total cost to the State resulting from the social 
failures of this one stock over a period of 75 years amounted 
to $1,308,000. Although Dugdale reports only one case of 
outright idiocy, one of insanity and one of epilepsy in the 
Juke blood, it is apparent that we have here a typically de- 
fective stock in which by modern methods of examination, 
a large amount of mental defect would be found. This heredity and prevalence OF FEEBLEMINDEDNESS 
39 
assumption has since been verified by a later study of the Jukes made 
by Arthur H. Estabrook of the Eugenics Record Office entitled 
“The Jukes in 1915.” After a comprehensive study, Estabrook con- 
cluded, “One-half of the Jukes were and are feebleminded, mentally 
incapable of responding normally to the expectations of society,” 
and further, “All of the Juke criminals were feebleminded.” 
A study similar to that of the Jukes, and inspired by Dugdale’s 
work, made by the Rev. O. C. McCullough in Indiana and published in 
1K88 under the title, “The Tribe of Ishmael,” added further evidence 
in support of the role of heredity in perpetuating degenerate stocks. 
The first large-scale systematic survey of the care and control 
of the feebleminded was that undertaken by the British Royal Com- 
mission in 1904. The report of this Commission in 8 volumes was 
published in 1908. In its four years of investigation, the Com- 
mission examined 248 expert witnesses; it also appointed medical 
inspectors to make personal investigations of conditions in 16 sep- 
arate typical districts, rural and urban. Twenty-five of the 35 
expert witnesses called on the subject of heredity of mental defect, 
“attached supreme importance to the fact that in a very large 
proportion of cases of mental defect, there is a history of mental 
defect in the parents or near ancestors.”* 
The conclusions of Dr. A. F. Tredgold, well-known British author- 
ity on mental deficiency, as contained in the Commission’s report, 
were as follows: 
“In 90 per cent of patients suffering from mental defect, the con- 
dition is the result of a morbid state of the ancestors, which so 
impairs the vital powers of the embryo that full and perfect develop- 
ment cannot take place. In the milder cases the effects are seen in 
the nervous system only, since this is the most delicate and easily 
injured part of the organism; in the grosser cases other parts of the 
body are also affected, as seen in the various imperfections and ab- 
normalities of structure called ‘stigmata of degeneracy.’ In the 10 
per cent of cases of secondary amentia the condition is due to 
accidental, and, for the most part, unavoidable, causes. Amentia is 
thus not only hereditary, it is also the final expression of a pro- 
gressive neuropathic degeneration.”2 
Commenting on the Commission’s report, Dr. Tredgold further 
stated :3 “With the exception of a very small proportion of cases 
1. An Abstract of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of 
the Feebleminded. 1909. p. 24. 2 Ibid., p. 27. 
3. Article published in The Contemporary Review. June, 1910. pp. 718-719. 40 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
which are due to accidental and unavoidable causes, we now know 
that mental deficiency is the result not of chance, but of law; that, 
in short, it is the consequence of a morbid inheritance, the ancestors 
usually being insane, epileptic, or sufferers from some other marked 
mental abnormality. Another important point is the transmissibility 
of feeblemindedness to a subsequent generation. This is a fact 
which is recognized by every experienced observer; indeed it is 
probable that in the whole realm of medicine, there is no disease 
which shows a greater tendency to be passed on to the offspring 
than does mental deficiency.” 
The most extensive data in support of the heredity of feeble- 
mindedness is that which has been presented by Dr. Henry H. 
Goddard who, from 1906 to 1919, was Director of the Research 
Laboratory at Vineland. In 1910 Dr. Goddard read a paper before 
the American Breeders’ Association/ in which he presented charts 
of the family histories of a number of feebleminded inmates of the 
Vineland institution showing the presence of mental defect, genera- 
tion after generation. These charts were presented at the time by Dr. 
Goddard without comment or conclusion, but in themselves strongly 
suggested the transmission of defect in the typical Mendelian way. 
Referring to this study, Dr. Charles B. Davenport stated :2 “There are 
laws of inheritance of general mental ability that can be sharply ex- 
pressed. Low mentality is due to the absence of some factor, and 
if this factor that determines normal development is lacking in 
both parents, it will be lacking in all of their offspring. Two 
mentally defective parents will produce only mentally defective 
offspring. This is the first law of inheritance of mental ability. 
* * * The second law of heredity of mentality is that, aside from 
‘Mongolians,’ probably no imbecile is born except of parents who, 
if not mentally defective themselves, both carry mental defect in 
their germ plasm.” Thus Davenport gives the first definite state- 
ment of the heredity of mental deficiency in terms of the Mendelian 
formula. 
Probably the two best known works on this subject of the relation 
of mental deficiency and heredity, are Dr. Goddard’s publications: 
“The Kallikak Family.”—1912. 
“Feeblemindedness, Its Causes and Consequences.”—1914. 
1. Goddard, H. H. Heredity of Feeblemindedness. Eugenics Record Office, Bulletin 
No. 1. Reprinted from American Breeders’ Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 165-178, 1910. 
2. Davenport, Charles B. Heredity in Relation to Eugenics. 1911. pp. 66-67. HEREDITY AND PREVALENCE OF FEEBLEMINDEDNESS 
41 
The former publication gave the history of five generations of 
the descendants of an illegal union between Martin Kallikak, Sr., 
and a presumably feebleminded girl whom the former met at a 
tavern while serving in the Revolutionary army. The illegal son 
of this union, Martin Kallikak, Jr., left 480 descendants. An in- 
quiry into available sources showed that of these 480 descendants, 
143 were conclusively proved to be feebleminded; only 46 were 
found normal, while the rest were unknown or doubtful. In terms 
of social behavior, there were among these 480 descendants, 36 
illegitimate children, 33 sexually immoral, mostly prostitutes, 24 
confirmed alcoholics, 3 criminals, and 8 who kept houses of ill-fame. 
These direct descendants married into other families for the most 
part of the same type. Inclusive of these, records of 1,146 individ- 
uals were obtained, of whom 262 were shown to be definitely feeble- 
mindedd 
Later, Martin Kallikak, Sr., contracted a lawful marriage with 
a normal, respectable girl, and of this union there were traced 496 
direct descendants, all normal persons. Three men only were found 
to be somewhat degenerate, but there was no defect. The descend- 
ants of this normal stock belong to the best families in their State and 
became eminent in professions, in the educational world and in 
political life.2 
In his “Feeblemindedness, Its Causes and Consequences,” Dr. 
Goddard gives the results obtained from a study of 327 institutional 
cases at Vineland. There was no selection of cases, every child 
of every age and degree of defect whose home was within the State 
or nearby, being included in the investigation. In 27 of these cases 
there was insufficient data to permit of conclusions. Of the remain- 
ing 300, Dr. Goddard found that 164, or 54 per cent of the cases 
showed “other feebleminded persons in such numbers or in such 
relation to the individual case studied as to leave no doubt of the 
hereditary character of the mental defect.”3 Goddard concludes: 
“In these cases it is evident from the charts themselves that we are 
dealing with a condition of mind or brain which is transmitted as 
regularly and surely as color of hair or eyes.”4 Besides the above, 
.34 cases or 11.3 per cent, were regarded as probably hereditary 
1. Goddard, H. H. The Kallikak Family, 1912. p. 18 and ff. 
2. Ibid., pp. 29-30. 
3. Goddard, H. H. Feeblemindedness, Its Causes and Consequences. 1916. p. 437. 
4. Ibid., p. 437. 42 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
which, if included, would make the hereditary group represent 6-> 
per cent of the total. In still another 12 per cent, representing 
37 cases, heredity was shown in the form of neuropathic ancestry 
with the forebears suffering from such maladies as paralysis, 
apoplexy, epilepsy, insanity, blindness, and various neurotic con- 
ditions. “Accidental” cases numbered 57 or 19 per cent, while 
in the remaining 8 cases, or 2.6 per cent, there was found no 
definite assignable caused 
As to the application of the Mendelian law to the transmission 
of normal-mindedness and feeblemindedness, (the latter being con- 
ceived as the absence of a determiner for normality) Goddard 
states, after studying the offspring of 324 matings: “Since our 
figures agree so closely with Mendelian expectation and since there 
are few, if any, cases where the Mendelian formula does not fit the 
facts, the hypothesis seems to stand: viz., normal-mindedness is, 
or at least behaves like, a unit character; is dominant and is trans- 
mitted in accordance with the Mendelian law of inheritance.”2 Thus 
Goddard concludes: “It is clear from the data already presented 
that feeblemindedness is hereditary in a large percentage of the cases, 
and that it is transmitted in accordance with the Mendelian 
formula.”3 
A number of other well-known studies of mental defect in fam- 
ilies, similar to that of the Kallikaks and the Jukes, and producing 
the same general evidence as to the hereditary character of mental 
defect need not be considered in detail here. They include: “The 
Nam Family” by Arthur H. Estabrook, 1912; “The Hill Folk” by 
Davenport and Danielson, 1912; “The Pineys” by Elizabeth H. 
Kite, 1913; “The Jukes in 1915” by Arthur H. Estabrook, 1915; 
“The Family of Sam Sixty” by Mary S. Kostir, 1916. 
Simultaneously with these discoveries of the perpetuation and 
multiplication of defective stock by biological principles, there was 
developing on the psychological side, the machinery of measuring 
intelligence and thus of determining more or less accurately, the 
degree of mental defect and the extent of mental deficiency in the 
general population. The results of the work of Dr. Alfred Binet 
and Dr. Th. Simon in France in devising these intelligence tests 
were published for the first time in 1905 in “L/Annee Psychologique,” 
the French psychological journal. When visiting Europe in 1908r 
1. Ibid., p. 437. 
2. Ibid., p. 556. 
S. Ibid., p. 560. heredity AND PREVALENCE of FEEBLEMINDEDNESS 
Dr. Henry H. Goddard learned of the tests and though skeptical as 
to their practicability, tried them shortly after his return upon the 
inmates at Vineland. Dr. Goddard was surprised to find that the 
grading of the inmates by the tests accorded closely with the classifi- 
cation of the pupils on the basis of institutional experience. 
In 1909, the Binet-Simon measuring “scale” with the grading by 
years was published in “I/Annee Psychologique” and in January, 
1910, the first abstract of the scale was published by the Vineland 
Laboratory. The further practical application of the tests by per- 
sons who had become skilled in their use, quickly proved their value 
and with later refinements and revisions the tests soon came to be 
regarded as an indispensable aid in the diagnosis of mental deficiency. 
To the refinements of the intelligence test must be given the credit 
of having discovered an entirely new class of the feebleminded, at 
the same time the most numerous and the most socially dangerous. 
This class consisted of those so-called “high-grade” feebleminded 
persons, above the imbecile in intelligence and yet below normal. 
They were persons, for the most part, who would ordinarily pass 
for normal; persons of the type whom committing judges even 
today, in spite of the findings of the intelligence test and an undenied 
history of social incompetency, often refuse to recognize as feeble- 
minded. To designate this class of high-grade and borderline mental 
defectives, Dr. Goddard in a paper presented in 1910 before the 
American Association for the Study of the Feebleminded, suggested 
the term “moron” from the Greek work meaning foolish. In this 
paper, Dr. Goddard proposed a classification of degrees of defective- 
ness according to mental age which has since been generally adopted. 
The term, idiot, accordingly designates those having a mental age 
of one and two years; the term, imbecile, those having a mental 
age of from three to seven years; the term, moron, those having 
a mental age from eight years to normal. 
The Binet-Simon tests and other later revisions and adaptations 
of them, provided for the first time a means of estimating the extent 
and degree of mental deficiency in the country at large. Given the 
machinery for testing, there were, however, many difficulties of a 
practical nature in the way of obtaining anything like a complete 
census and classification of all the feebleminded. Estimates were 
made, however, on the basis of various samplings as to the extent 
of mental deficiency in the general population. These indicated a ratio 44 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
of one feebleminded person to every 250 of the population, thus 
placing the estimated number of feebleminded in New York State 
outside of institutions at about 40,000d 
The great opportunity of the psychological test to prove its real 
utility and to operate on an extensive scale, came during the World 
War. The credit quite universally given the tests for their war 
service in weeding out the mentally unfit, and in classifying the 
enlisted and commissioned personnel for various assignments, is 
recent enough to be well recalled. The war over, the published 
results of the tests afforded a basis of generalization such as had 
never before been offered as to the extent of mental deficiency and 
in fact the distribution of all degrees of intelligence among the popu- 
lation at large. The results of these tests and their significance are 
discussed in Chapters I and XII. 
It should be noted here that rejections from the military service 
for mental deficiency could not be referred directly by the psycho- 
logical officers to the commanding officers for action but such 
recommendations had to pass through the hands of the medical 
officers of the Neuropsychiatric Division. As a matter of fact, 
the late Dr. Pearce Bailey, chief of this latter Division, during the 
war, stated that, “Only a small number of mental defectives were 
referred to the neuropsychiatric division by psychologists.”2 This 
is explained as being due to a failure in administrative arrangements. 
On the basis of the experience of the Division of Neuropsychiatry, 
therefore, as distinguished from that of the Division of Psychology, 
1. In 1917 the Committee on Mental Hygiene of the New York State Charities Aid 
Association made a study of various surveys made up to that date and applied the 
estimates given to the New York State population as follows: 
PROPORTION OF FEEBLEMINDED TO GENERAL POPULATION AS SHOWN 
BY VARIOUS SURVEYS AND ESTIMATES 
Applied 
Ratio 
to New York 
1909 
Royal Commission of Great Britain 
1—217 
45,000 
1915 
Porter County (Indiana) Survey 
1—136 
71,000 
1916 
New Castle County (Delaware) Survey 
1—262 
37,000 
1917 
Nassau County (New York) Survey 
1—183 
53,000 
Average of above figures 
51,00.0 
ESTIMATES OF AUTHORITIES 
H. H. Goddard 
1—250 
39,000 
E. R. Johnstone 
1—250 
39,000 
1915 
W. E- Fernald 
1—250 
39,000 
1915 
New York State Commission to Investigate Pro- 
vision for the Mentally Defective 
1—242 
40,000 
1916 
Report of Charles H. Strong in Investigation of 
New York Charities 
1—294 
33,000 
Average of above estimates 38,000 
2. Bailey, Pearce, and Haber, Roy. Mental Deficiency. Mental Hygiene, Vol. IV, 
No. 3, July, 1920, p. 569. HEREDITY AND PREVALENCE OE FEEBLEMINDEDNESS 
45 
“the total number of individuals seriously handicapped by mental 
defect (including rejections by local boards) brought to light by 
the mobilization reaches 26,54s.”1 The cases thus identified by the 
neuropsychiatrists, it should be said, were of the very definite type 
of defect, in other words, “The mental defect was so pronounced 
that the bulk of these recruits were considered unfit for any kind 
of military service.”1 On the basis of the findings of mental defect 
by this Division of medical officers, Dr. Bailey estimates that “there 
would be 353,210 male defectives in the United States if mental 
deficiency ran uniform among persons of all ages; if uniform for 
the ages between 18 and 45, there would be 164,710 male defectives 
in this group.”2 On the basis of the more conservative of these 
figures, he estimated the number of mental defectives of both sexes 
in New York State outside of institutions at 40,000, thus according 
substantially with the earlier estimates above mentioned. 
The discovery, as the result of these methods of intelligence 
testing, of the wide prevalence of mental deficiency was responsible 
for bringing the problem of feeblemindedness out of its institutional 
seclusion into the glare of social notoriety. There was a rather 
rapid multiplication in the number of known mental defectives and 
these additions to the ranks of the feebleminded were found not 
in the institutions for the most part but in the very midst of the 
community. Moreover, the more thoroughly the mental defective 
was searched for and found, the more completely was he apparently 
involved in all manner of offenses against the social order. The 
social indictment found in the case of the Feebleminded vs. Society 
will be reviewed in the following chapter. 
1. Ibid., p. 564. 
2. Ibid., p. 566. CHAPTER IV 
The; Social Indictme;nt of the: Feebleminded 
The findings of the hereditary character, the rapid multiplication, 
and the wide prevalence of mental deficiency, were of moment only 
in the light of the social shortcomings of the feebleminded. Prior 
to the opening of the twentieth century when the feebleminded were 
thought of in terms of the lower-grade cases, idiots and imbeciles, 
the question of the anti-social conduct of the mentally defective 
had scarcely received attention. The irresponsibility of certain 
types of the feebleminded was apparent, to be sure, but the ready 
recognition of the lower grades of defect and the comparatively 
small number of such low-grade cases facilitated the necessary 
custodial care and supervision. It will be recalled, for example, 
that by the standards of his day, Dugdale noted only one case of 
mental deficiency, an idiot, among all the Jukes of his study. By 
the standards of 1915, as has been mentioned, Dr. Estabrook found 
that “one-half of the Jukes were and are feebleminded.” Thus what 
was regarded in 1877 as primarily a problem of criminal degeneracy, 
became in 1915 primarily a problem of mental deficiency. 
The Report of the British Royal Commission in 1908 was the 
first comprehensive study to reveal the close connection between 
mental deficiency and social inadequacy. It is significant that the 
definition of feeblemindedness adopted by the Commission, which 
has since been recognized quite generally as standard, made social 
competency the test of normality. According to this definition, the 
feebleminded are “persons who are capable of earning a living under 
favorable circumstances, but are incapable from mental defect exist- 
ing from birth or from an early age (a) of competing on equal 
terms with their normal fellows; or (b) of managing themselves 
and their affairs with ordinary prudence.”^ 
The great amount of evidence which the Commission gathered 
was of a disturbing nature. This evidence revealed in striking 
manner the relation existing between feeblemindedness and various 
social ills. 
1. Definition suggested by the Royal College of Physicians of London. Report of 
the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feebleminded, 1908, Vol. VIII, 
p. 4. THE SOCIAL INDICTMENT OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
47 
In dealing with the question of mental defect and crime, “the evi- 
dence points unmistakably to the fact that mentally defective children 
often have immoral tendencies; that they are greatly lacking in 
self-control; and moreover are peculiarly open to suggestion, so 
that they are at the mercy of bad Thus they drift 
into ways of crime at an early age. The medical officer of Penton- 
ville Prison reported 40 per cent of the juvenile offenders received 
in his institution as feebleminded.2 The medical officer to the 
London County Council stated that if he could have fingerprints 
made of every child in the special classes, probably during the suc- 
ceeding ten years a great number of them would be found under 
assumed names in maternity hospitals or in the hands of the police. 
He stated that he had frequently recognized in police reports in the 
newspapers, feebleminded children known to him.3 
The testimony of prison medical officers generally estimated 20 
per cent of the prison population to be feebleminded. It was 
especially noted that great numbers of the habitual criminals were 
feebleminded; in one case there had been 105 previous convictions.'* 
The statement is made that “at the House of Detention, a large pro- 
portion of the prisoners are feebleminded or lunatic.”5 It is also 
stated that of 111 weak-minded convicts in Parkhurst prison 
at the close of the year, March 31, 1904, 58 were adjudged 
affected with congenital deficiency.3 The nomadic habits of these 
persons undoubtedly brought the number of habitual criminals con- 
siderably lower than it otherwise would be. Besides the more serious 
offences of murder, rape, arson, etc., there was found on every 
hand to be a great amount of begging, vagrancy, sleeping-out, petty 
thieving, etc. Ten per cent of the tramps admitted to reformatories 
were shown to be feebleminded. “At the Holloway Prison, out 
of 803 women there on Nov. 29, 1904, 83 were of that type (men- 
tally defective), 41 of them chronic inebriates, 39 feebleminded, and 
3 insane; and of 1,297 convicted prisoners received during that 
month, 56 were feebleminded.”7 
On the general question of feebleminded criminals, the Commis- 
sioners have this to say: “Many competent observers are of 
opinion that if the constantly recurring fatuous and irresponsible 
1. Abstract of Royal Commission Report, p. 6. 2. Report, Vol. VIII, p. 123. 
3. Abstract, p. 7. 4. Vol. VIII, p. 124. 
5. Ibid., p. 122. 6. Ibid., p. 125. 
7. Ibid., Part II. The Problem of the Metropolis, p. 60. 48 
SOCIAL, CONTROL, OR THE FEEBLEMINDED 
crimes and offences of mentally defective persons are to be pre- 
vented, long and continuous detention is necessary. The experience 
of the prison authorities fully confirms this opinion. From the 
earliest age, when they appear before the magistrates as children 
on remand or as juvenile offenders, until and throughout the adult 
period of their lives, the mentally defective, at first reprimanded and 
returned to their parents, then convicted and subjected to a short sen- 
tence and returned to their parents, and then later continually sen- 
tenced and re-sentenced and returned to their parents or friends till, 
for crimes of greater gravity, they pass to the convict prisons, are 
treated, as this reiterated evidence shows, without hope and without 
purpose, and in such a way as to allow them to become habitual 
delinquents of the worst type and to propagate a feebleminded 
progeny which may become criminal like themselves. This, as has 
been said, is an ‘evil of the very greatest magnitude.’ The absolute 
and urgent necessity of coping with it is undeniable.”1 
It was no new finding that habitual inebriety is closely associated 
with feeblemindedness. Dr. Branthwaite, Inspector under the In- 
ebriates Acts, asserted that two-thirds of the persons admitted to 
reformatories were probably irreformable, mainly because of feeble- 
mindedness. He states: “It is more or less useless to treat drink- 
caused crimes with punishment only, leaving the original cause as 
active as ever.”2 And to continue from the same report: “Very 
many of these cases sent to us from courts under this Act are none 
other than just feebleminded persons, drunkards simply because they 
are feebleminded, their drunkenness being merely one evidence of 
their mental condition. * * * The majority of persons classed by me 
as practically irreformable are persons of this type. * * * The women 
inebriates of this class, when out of control, go to swell the immoral 
classes.”3 Of 771 cases admitted to Brentry Reformatory, the 
Superintendent stated that only 30 per cent were of fair mental 
capacity and capable, but for their drunken habits, of earning their 
own living. With regard to the other 70 per cent he said: “I cannot 
conceive the possibility of their ever acquiring sufficient self-control 
to be able to keep them from drunkenness and support themselves.”•* 
The prevalence of immorality among the feebleminded was strik- 
ingly shown in the report of the Commission. The York Rescue 
1. Abstract of Report of Royal Commission, p. 13. 2. Ibid., p. 14. 
8. Ibid., p. 14. ],. Ibid., p. 17. THE SOCIAL INDICTMENT OE THE FEEBLEMINDED 
49 
Home reported 30 per cent of those applying for admission as feeble- 
minded—“many too bad for us to keep as they lower the standard of 
work too much and require such special treatment.”* Supt. Helen 
Bennington, who made the statement, went on to say: “If sent to the 
workhouse they can take their discharge unless certified, and often 
go back several times for the birth of illegitimate children, thus 
perpetuating the feebleminded race.”* Persons working with these 
girls everywhere urged the need of detention for them. No matter 
hoW carefully taught in the various institutions, many would return 
again and again to give birth to children with miserable existences 
ahead of them. Mrs. Ruspini, representative of the Church Peni- 
tentiary Association, said, “These cases of feeble minds and weak 
wills are a danger to the community. However carefully taught 
and trained during their two years’ stay in a House of Mercy, they 
are sure to fall back into their old lives of sin from their inability 
to resist the temptation around them. * * * Compulsory detention at 
the outset in a suitable home or asylum is the only means of meeting 
the difficulty and preventing the spread of vice and disease, which 
such lives ever carry with them.”* Dr. Clouston, Physician Super- 
intendent of the Royal Edinburgh Asylum states: “Of late years I 
have been devoting special attention to the previous history of the 
feebleminded who have been sent to the asylum as certified patients, 
especially the young women. Through conversations with the patients 
themselves and through the inquiries by nurses and the information 
supplied by parents and relatives and from bodily indications where 
they have had children, I have come to the conclusion that such 
persons in a large city are subject to overwhelming temptations and 
pressure toward sexual immorality. Many of them have had illegit- 
imate children and this often at very early ages. One had seven 
such children. I look on this source of immorality as an extremely 
grave one in our social life. When illegitimate children are borne 
by such young women, the chances are enormously in favor of their 
turning out to be either imbeciles, or degenerates, or criminals.”* 
The conclusions of the Commission were stated as follows: “In 
connection with the workhouses we have pointed out how strong 
is the argument for the detention of the mentally defective in suitable 
institutions; and we have shown also that, except in cases in which 
the home fulfills the purpose, supervision and control should follow 
1. Ibid., p. 21. 50 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
immediately on their leaving a special class or being found unsuit- 
able for day school education. The evidence we have now quoted 
emphasizes the necessity of segregation or detention on the widest 
grounds of public policy. It is very representative and comes from 
the authorities of prisons, medical officers of special schools, super- 
intendents of county asylums, members of county councils, Poor 
Law inspectors, medical experts on questions of insanity and dis- 
order of the mind, and from men of general culture and large 
legal experience; and others, as we shall see, such as the managers 
of voluntary asylums and voluntary societies, support it. And we 
should add that this mass of evidence is absolutely consistent with 
our own experience and with the results of our personal investiga- 
tions.”1 
The Report of the British Royal Commission coupled with work 
being done in the eugenics field was not long in arousing widespread 
concern about the problem of mental deficiency in this country. 
There began a series of studies, investigations and reports. One of 
the earliest of these was that made in New York City in 1910 by 
Dr. Anne Moore and published by the State Charities Aid Associ- 
ation.2 
In the introduction to the above report, Dr. Moore states: “My 
study of the situation in New York convinces me (1) that the 
horrors attendant upon feeblemindedness have in no way been ex- 
aggerated; (2) that the condition is neither circumscribed nor 
local; * * * (3) that there is crying need for concerted action look- 
ing toward control of the situation.” In giving the consensus of 
opinion of the time on this subject, Dr. Moore stated that those who 
have studied the question “realize that the feebleminded are a menace 
to our present-day civilization and that the problem of caring for 
them can no longer with safety be ignored. They agree that the 
defect is often hereditary and incurable, that it leads to poverty, 
degeneracy, crime, and disease, and that the only way to deal with 
it effectively is to provide supervision and care that will last during 
the whole lifetime of the feebleminded individual, certainly during 
the reproductive period.”3 
1. Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feebleminded, 
Vol. VIII. p. 121. 
2. Moore, Anne. The Feebleminded in New York. A report prepared for the Public 
Education Association of New York. Published by State Charities Aid Association, 
June, 1911. 
.1. Moore, Anne. The Feebleminded in New York. p. 11. THE SOCIAL INDICTMENT OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
51 
By the detailed presentation of a number of actual cases which 
she had studied, Dr. Moore showed concretely the prominent role 
of feeblemindedness in many of the most familiar social problems. 
Cases were cited showing how greatly feeblemindedness contributed 
to the work of relief agencies, diverting “resources which should be 
used for the relief of normal Other cases showed the 
social consequences of permitting feebleminded women, of child- 
bearing age to be abroad. Still others showed the relation of feeble- 
mindedness to crime and others the general burden of the feeble- 
minded upon the whole community. On the basis of the evidence 
presented by a large number of individual instances, Dr. Moore 
concluded that “without supervision feebleminded persons are in- 
capable of developing their own powers and incapable of restrain- 
ing their impulses, yet they are constantly held accountable for 
failure to reach an acceptable standard of efficiency and morality. 
Through poverty or punishment they pay an immediate price for 
existence, but the end is not there. The ultimate cumulative burden 
of their criminality, of their immorality and of their defective, 
illegitimate children is ever growing. For this the public is paying 
and will continue to pay until by proper segregation, crime, immoral- 
ity and increase of their kind are effectively prevented among the 
feebleminded.”2 
Under the leadership of Dr. Bernard Glueck, former Director of 
the Psychiatric Clinic, Sing Sing Prison, a study was made of about 
600 consecutive admissions to Sing Sing during a period of nine 
months.3 Since this study revealed the fact that not less than two- 
thirds or 66.8 per cent of the admissions studied had already served 
one or more previous terms in prisons or reformatories, the reasons 
for such a state of affairs were diligently sought. It became neces- 
sary to find a more scientific explanation than the one heretofore 
advanced, that such individuals were instinctive criminals or pre- 
destined to spend lives of crime. In this connection, Dr. Glueck 
found that no less than 59 per cent of the 608 cases evinced, in 
addition to the various conduct disorders, some form of nervous 
or mental abnormality, which had in some way affected their be- 
1. Ibid.., p. 13. 
2. Ibid., p. 60. 
3. Glueck, Bernard. Concerning Prisoners. Reprinted from Mental Hygiene, Vol. II, 
No. 2, April, 1918. 
Dr. Glueck is at present Director of the Bureau of Children’s Guidance, New York 
City. 52 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
havior. Twelve per cent were insane or mentally deteriorated; 18.9 
per cent were classified as psychopathic; while 28.1 per cent were 
intellectually defective. Recidivism was found in 80.6 per cent of 
the intellectual defectives. 
To quote Dr. Glueck: “Nor is it a mere coincidence that the 
group of sexual offenders, on the whole the most dangerous to social 
integrity, contained 70 per cent of mentally pathological cases as 
against a proportion of 58.8 per cent and of 57.2 per cent among 
the men sentenced for pugnacious and for acquisitive crimes re- 
* * * One hundred and seventy-one or 28 per cent of all 
the cases studied by us were found intellectually defective. Con- 
sidering the 98 natives alone, because better studies were possible 
among them, we find that 79 or 80.6 per cent of this group were 
repeated offenders who had already undergone an average of 3.5 
sentences, and no less than 58.2 per cent had been confined in some 
juvenile reformatory on one or more occasions. The above estimate 
of the extent of intellectual deficiency among our prisoners has been 
very carefully and very conservatively made.”2 
Alarm concerning the social consequences of feeblemindedness 
soon became country-wide. Along with the studies just considered, 
there was published during this period a great mass of material on 
the subject.3 The published material ranged from cautious, careful 
collections of information open, at the present time, merely to 
modification and shifting of emphasis, to the more precipitate ones 
which made of feeblemindedness a terrifying social spectre. Prac- 
tically all, however, agreed that feeblemindedness “is the mother of 
crime, pauperism and degeneracy.” 
The report of the Massachusetts Vice Commission in 1914 regis- 
tered as feebleminded 51 per cent of 300 cases of prostitution and 
included among those rated as normal, 71 or 23 per cent of the 
1. Ibid., p. 2. 
2. Ibid., p. 10. 
3. To name just a few of the publications: 
Neff, J. S., Laughlin, S. and Cornell, W. S. Public Provision for the Feeble- 
minded. 1911. 
Carlisle, C. I,. Problem of the Mental Defective and Delinquent. 1918. 
Kostir, Mary S. The Family of Sam Sixty. Ohio Board of Administration. 1916. 
Johnson, A. and Lane, M. J. The Menace of the Mentally Defective. Boston. 
Barr, M. W. The Prevention of Mental Defect—The Duty of the Hour. 
Penna. 1916. 
Peyton, D. C. Crime as an Expression of Feeblemindedness. Indiana. 1913. 
Hart, H. H. The Extinction of the Defective Delinquent. 1913. 
Crocker, Courtenay. Defective Delinquents. Boston. THE SOCIAL INDICTMENT OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
53 
whole number who measured up only to the eleven-year level.7 
Tests made by Dr. Edith L. Spaulding of the Reformatory for 
Women, South Framingham, Massachusetts, in eleven houses of 
prostitution resulted in the following figures: 
23 or 46 per cent—normal 
18 or 36 per cent—10 years 
5 or 10 per cent— 9 “ 
3 or 6 per cent— 8 “ 
1 or 2 per cent— 7 “ j 
54 per cent tested between 7 and 10 years 
mentally. 
Four of the normal ones were “madames.” 
Average mental age, 10 years.2 
An exhaustive study was made by the Prison Association of New 
York of 700 present and former inmates of Elmira Reformatory.3 
To quote from this report: “To the reformatory may be committed 
male persons between the ages of 16 and 30 convicted for the first 
time of a felony. Reformatory methods are based upon the assump- 
tion that prisoners of normal or average mentality will be benefited by 
their career at the institution. Yet the senior physician of Elmira 
Reformatory, Dr. Christian, has stated recently that his records 
—extending over several years—show that at least 39 per cent of 
the inmates are mentally defective and 70 per cent below a normal 
standard.”7' In a similar connection, Dr. Max G. Schlapp states: 
“The New York Reformatory at Elmira finds 37 per cent of its 
inmates clearly feebleminded; the New Jersey Reformatory at 
Rahway 33 per cent; the New York Reformatory for Women at 
Bedford, 37 per cent; the Mass. Industrial School for Girls at Lan- 
caster, 50 per cent and the Maryland Industrial School for Girls, 
at Baltimore, 60 per cent.”5 
A careful study made by Dr. V. V. Anderson cannot be over- 
looked.6 Quoting briefly from his report: “One of the most im- 
portant, if not the most important, group of which society needs to 
take cognizance is the feebleminded. The feebleminded furnish the 
substantial nucleus of that most expensive body of individuals who 
clog the machinery of justice, who spend their lives in and out of 
1. McCord, C. P. One Hundred Female Offenders. Read before the Capital District 
Conference of Charities and Correction, Albany, March, 1915. p. 3. 
2. Ibid., pp. 3-4. 
3. Lewis, O. F. The Feebleminded Delinquent. 
If. Ibid., p. 1. 
5. Schlapp, M. G. The Mentally Defective as Cases in the Courts of New York City. 
Reprinted from the Medical Record, 1915, p. 19. 
6. Anderson, V. V. Mental Disease and Delinquency. Mental Hygiene, Vol. Ill, 
No. 2. April, 1919. pp. 177-198. 54 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF TIIE FEEBLEMINDED 
penal institutions, and furnish data for the astonishing facts of 
recidivism7—facts which are serving to awaken our social conscience 
to the need of more adequate treatment under the law for repeated 
offenders.”2 * * * ‘‘The relationship that these two conditions 
(syphilis and gonorrhea) bear to feeblemindedness need not be 
enlarged upon here. Venereal disease and feeblemindedness form 
a combination as productive of human wretchedness and misery as 
any scourge that has ever afflicted mankind. Twenty-three per cent 
of the women at the Reformatory at Framingham, Mass., who were 
fit subjects for permanent segregation on account of mental defect, 
showed 90 per cent of gonorrhea, and 60 per cent of syphilis.”3 Dr. 
Anderson states in his report that at least 30 per cent in represent- 
ative penal institutions for women in New York are feebleminded. 
In a pamphlet entitled “The Degenerate Children of Feebleminded 
Women” is found the following: “Practically all poor, feebleminded 
women at large become the mothers of illegitimate children soon 
after reaching the age of puberty. * * * The histories of these feeble- 
minded women and their feebleminded children are practically the 
same. Their unfortunate birth, helplessness, pauperism, and ruin 
is part of a continuous series whereby the community is constantly 
supplied with the elements of degeneracy.”•* “The Mentality of the 
Unmarried Mother,” by Jean Weidensall, reports the percentage 
of feeblemindedness as determined by two supplementary systems 
of mental tests among an unselected series of unmarried mothers, 
from the obstetrical service of the Cincinnati General Hospital. 
“An analysis of the data reveals a high percentage of feebleminded- 
ness and points clearly to the fact that the disposal of cases is 
bound to be entirely unsatisfactory, no matter how efficient the social 
service work, until there is enacted a law providing at least for 
the permanent segregation of the defective delinquents in institutions 
of the industrial type.”5 * * * “The combined results of the two 
systems of tests lead to the conclusion that not more than 20 per 
cent of the unmarried mothers can be safely pronounced normal. 
1. “Justice Rhodes of England, writing in the British Medical Journal, asks what can 
it mean that of 180,000 convictions in a given year, more than 10,000 have been con- 
victed upwards of 20 times before.” Ibid., p. 2. 
2. Ibid., p. 4. 
3. Ibid., p. 12. 
4- Neff, J. S., Laughlin, S., and Cornell, W. S. The Degenerate Children of Feeble- 
minded Women. Dept, of Public Health and Charities, Phila., Pa. 1910. p. 4. 
5. Weidensall, Jean. The Mentality of the Unmarried Mother. Reprint of report 
at National Conference of Social Work, Pittsburgh. 1917. p. 1. the; social indictment oe the feebleminded 
* * * From 40 to 45 per cent of the unmarried mothers are almost 
without question so low-grade mentally as to make life under insti- 
tutional care the only happy one for themselves and the most 
economical and the only safe arrangement for society.”7 
The Bureau of Juvenile Research reported in 1915 mental exam- 
inations of 671 boys—nearly ten months’ admissions to the Boys’ 
Industrial School of Ohio and 329 girls—almost twelve months’ 
admissions to the Girls’ Industrial Home of that State.2 By the 
regular year scale, Binet-Simon examinations, 57 per cent of these 
juveniles (570 of the 1,000) were found to be mental defectives— 
definitely feebleminded. 
Especially in the light of the chapters following this, the follow- 
ing quotation is of interest: “The feebleminded are unable to 
follow regular employment and therefore add to the number of 
‘floating’ or irregular employees. Owing to their tendency to become 
criminals and paupers, and to their inability to comprehend the 
principles of right living and personal hygiene, this group of indi- 
viduals forms a large proportion of the penal population and adds 
materially to the spread of communicable diseases. From an econ- 
omic, sanitary, and sociological standpoint the State of Arkansas 
should provide an institution for the segregation, care and training 
of its feebleminded.”3 
One could go on with such statements indefinitely, so great is the 
bulk of material published on this side of the question. To do so 
would be merely to rehearse what has been said heretofore. To 
give the consensus of these scattered opinions, “Our data here reveal 
that illegitimacy, attempted murder, theft, forgery, arson, prosti- 
tution, drunkenness, destitution, and disease are salient features 
of the social careers of these incompetents.”4 
In 1912, Dr. Walter E. Fernald, widely known authority on 
feeblemindedness, who has since frankly modified his views, gave 
a comprehensive address before the Massachusetts Medical Society, 
on the subject of feeblemindedness as it was then regarded—“the 
synonym of human inefficiency and one of the great sources of 
1. Ibid., p. 7. 
2. Haines, T. H. The Mental Examination of Juvenile Delinquents. Bureau of 
Juvenile Research, Ohio. 1915. 
3. Treadway, W. L,. The Feebleminded: Their Prevalence and Needs in the School 
Population of Arkansas. Reprint No. 379 from the Public Health Reports. 1916. p. 17. 
J. Schlapp, M. G. An Economic and Social Study of Feebleminded Women. Re- 
printed from the Medical Record, June, 1914. p. 14. 56 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
human wretchedness and degradation.” To quote from this address: 
“The past few years have witnessed a striking awakening of pro- 
fessional and popular consciousness of the widespread prevalence 
of feeblemindedness and its influence as a source of wretchedness 
to the patient himself and to his family, and as a causative factor in 
the production of crime, prostitution, pauperism, illegitimacy, in- 
temperance and other complex social And again: “The 
social and economic burdens of uncomplicated feeblemindedness are 
only too well known. The feebleminded are a parasitic, predatory 
class, never capable of self-support or of managing their own affairs. 
* * * They cause unutterable sorrow at home and are a 
menace and danger to the community. Feebleminded women are al- 
most invariably immoral, and if at large usually become carriers 
of venereal disease or give birth to children who are as defective 
as themselves. * * * Every feebleminded person, especially the high- 
grade imbecile, is a potential criminal, needing only the proper en- 
vironment and opportunity for the development and expression of 
his criminal tendencies.”2 
Dr. Fernald did not stop with a presentation of the serious facts 
in the case but went on to make recommendations, features of which 
were a program for taking a census of the feebleminded, complete 
segregation of the feebleminded, especially the women of child- 
bearing age and increased institutional provision. In speaking of 
this latter recommendation, Dr. Fernald said: “The cost of this 
provision will be great, but not as great as the present cost of car- 
ing for these same persons, to say nothing of their progeny, in 
future generations. It would cost less money, be more economical 
in social life, and of immense value morally. These people are never 
self-supporting, but are eventually supported by the public in some 
way.5 * * * It is most important that the physician should recognize 
the so-called ‘borderline cases,’ where the intellectual defect is 
apparently slight, and is overshadowed by the immoral and criminal 
tendencies. These cases may be glib and plausible, often bright- 
looking and attractive, but are unable to apply themselves at school 
1. Fernald, W. E. The Burden of Feeblemindedness. Reprinted from the Medical 
Communications of the Mass. Medical Society. Vol. XXIII. p. 3. 
2. Ibid., p. 7. 
3. Ibid., p. 10. THE SOCIAL INDICTMENT OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
57 
or at work without constant supervision, and are wholly indifferent 
to the consequences of their behavior and actions. The inability 
to get or keep a situation or to support themselves is most sig- 
nificant.”1 
Such was the social indictment of the feebleminded. The views 
herein expressed from many sources reflect the general opinion which 
prevailed until very recently with regard to the social implications 
of this problem. What the results of this attitude were in terms 
of social action or measures of control is shown in the following 
chapter. 
.1. Ibid., p. 14. CHAPTER V 
The; Alarmist Stage 
With such an array of evidence, a true indictment of mental 
deficiency as a social evil of tremendous proportions had been found. 
It had all taken place in an exceedingly short space of time as those 
things go. In 1900, with the exception of the small beginnings 
of the special class movement in the public schools, mental deficiency 
appeared almost entirely as an institutional problem and interest 
in it was confined for the most part to those directly concerned in 
the custodial care of the inmates of these institutions. In the country 
at large, some 12,000 cases of feeblemindedness, principally of the 
obvious and low-grade type, were being cared for in State institu- 
tions. Judged by the number of cases under care and the public 
recognition it received, or rather failed to receive, feeblemindedness 
in 1900 was an exceedingly small and insignificant social problem. 
By 1915, as a result of the revelations shown in the preceding 
chapters, mental deficiency had focused public attention as perhaps 
the largest and most serious social problem of the time. The many 
articles, pamphlets, and official reports which appeared, the many 
commissions, agencies and committees that were organized to cope 
with the problem were an evidence of this. There was widespread 
alarm. A number of States, among them New York, Pennsylvania, 
New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas, Min- 
nesota and Virginia, appointed official investigating commissions to 
make a survey of the problem and recommend what action should 
be taken. 
The principal concern was over the large number of mental de- 
fectives discovered to be at large in the community. Estimates 
based on various surveys which preceded the findings of the army 
tests, placed the number of the feebleminded outside of institutions 
in New York State, for example, conservatively at 40,000. This 
estimate taken together with the current views on the biological and 
social implications of feeblemindedness was rightly occasion for 
grave concern. There were some in whom that “must do something” 
attitude described by Spencer rapidly developed, who suggested the 59 
TIIE ALARMIST STAGE 
taking of radical measures. Among the most familiar of these 
radical programs, which would have aimed at wiping out all mental 
deficiency at one fell blow, was that of euthanasia, putting the feeble- 
minded to death by some merciful means. The many reasons why 
this solution was not adopted or even seriously considered by many 
need scarcely be enumerated here. 
Wiser counsel after reviewing various possible methods of control 
centered attention upon two measures, either or both of which were 
considered desirable and practicable, viz., sterilization and segrega- 
tion. 
At the meeting of the Research Committees of the Eugenics 
Section of the American Breeders’ Association at Palmer, Mass., 
in May, 1911, a resolution was adopted appointing a committee to 
study and to report on the best practical means of cutting off the 
defective germ-plasm in the American population. The member- 
ship of this Committee included Bleecker Van Wagenen, Alstead 
Center, N. H., chairman; Dr. W. H. Mitchell, Hathorne, Mass.; 
Dr. Everett Flood, Palmer, Mass.; Dr. W. H. Carmalt, New Haven, 
Conn.; and H. H. Laughlin, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island. An 
expert advisory committee was subsequently appointed consisting 
of: medicine, L. F. Barker; physiology, W. B. Cannon; surgery, 
Alexis Carrel; biology, Herbert J. W.ebber; thremmatology, Ray- 
mond Pearl; anthropology, Alex. F. Chamberlain; psychiatry, Stew- 
art Paton; psychology, H. H. Goddard; woman’s view point, Mrs. 
Caroline B. Alexander; criminology, Warren W. Foster; sociology, 
Franklin H. Giddings; economics, James A. Field; statistics, O. P. 
Austin; immigration, R. DeC. Ward; law, James M. Beck and 
Louis Marshall; history, James J. Walsh; public affairs, Irving 
P’isher; international cooperation, E. E. The purpose 
of the committee was stated as follows: “To investigate all phases 
of the problem of cutting off the supply of defectives, and to publish 
from time to time data which will aid the student of social affairs 
in weighing any particular phase of the problem that may present 
itself.”2 
Ten remedies suggested as possibly efficacious “for purging from 
1. Laughlin, H. H. Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best 
Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population. 
I. The Scope of the Committee’s Work. Eugenics Record Office. Bulletin No. 10-A. 
Cold Spring Harbor, 1914. p. 5. 
2. Ibid., p. 6. 60 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
the blood of the race the innately defective strains” were listed by 
the committee as follows: 
“1. Life segregation (or segregation during the reproductive 
period). 
“2. Sterilization. 
“3. Restrictive marriage laws and customs. 
“4. Eugenical education of the public and of prospective marriage 
mates. 
“5. Systems of matings purporting to remove defective traits. 
“6. General environmental betterment. 
“7. Polygamy. 
”8. Euthanasia. 
“9. Neo-Malthusianism. 
“10. Laissez-faire.”* 
Of these the committee was of the opinion that the first two—life 
segregation and sterilization—held out the greatest hope of most 
immediate and effective results. As to the first, life segregation (or 
segregation during the reproductive period) it was stated: “This 
remedy must, in the opinion of the committee, be the principal agent 
used by society in cutting off its supply of defectives. Defectives 
must be, and with continually finer discrimination are being, 
segregated from the general mass of society; and it will require 
but little modification from the present custodial systems in effecting 
the eugenical end as well as protecting the immediate present-day 
society from the socially inadequate individual, and administering 
to the latter’s most pressing needs.”2 
As to the second, sterilization, the committee reported: “Among 
the students of the eugenical status and movement of mankind 
there is a wide range of opinion as to the extremity to which society 
itself should go in applying sterilization, and concerning the part 
this remedy should play in relation to other remedial agencies. It 
would be possible theoretically to sterilize wholesale those individ- 
uals thought to carry defective hereditary traits, and thus at one 
fell stroke cut off practically all of the cacogenic varieties of the 
race. On the other hand, belief in the efficiency of natural selection 
under existing social conditions is held by some. Between these 
1. Ibid., pp. 45-46. 
8. Ibid., p. 46. THE ALARMIST STAGE 
two extremes what effective and practicable working basis can be 
found? 
“In the program proposed by the committee sterilization is advo- 
cated only as supporting the more important feature of segregation 
when the latter agency fails to function eugenically. The relation 
between these two agencies is automatic, for it is proposed to 
sterilize only those individuals who, by due process of law, have 
been declared socially inadequate and have been committed to State 
custody, and are known to possess cacogenic potentialities. The 
committee has assumed that society must, at all hazards, protect its 
breeding stock, and it advocates sterilization only as supplementary 
to the segregation feature of the program, which is equally effective 
eugenically, and more effective socially.”-* 
Summarizing its findings the committee stated: “Of the several 
remedies reviewed, segregation and sterilization are the ones deemed 
by this committee to be most feasible and effective in cutting off 
from the human population the supply of defectives. Restrictive 
marriage laws and customs, eugenic education of the public, of 
prospective marriage consorts, and in youth of potential parents, 
and general environmental betterment are all eugenic agencies of 
great value. In this particular problem, however, they rank greatly 
below segregation and sterilization, although in other social pro- 
grams they are of prime importance. We condemn Neo-Malthusi- 
anism because in it we fail to find an agency able to cut off the supply 
of defectives, but, on the other hand, we find it fraught with great 
danger, in that it is more apt to strike at fecundity in our better 
classes than among degenerates. Systems of matings purporting 
to remove defective traits, polygamy, euthanasia, and laissez-faire, 
are condemned unreservedly.”2 
Eugenical sterilization was adopted by a number of States in rather 
rapid succession as a means of ridding the race of its defective 
germ plasm. The State of Indiana was the pioneer. Its steriliza- 
tion measure became law on March 9, 1907. The States of Wash- 
ington, California and Connecticut enacted similar statutes in the 
order named in 1909. Nevada, Iowa and New Jersey followed in 
1911. In 1912 New York State passed its sterilization law. Other 
States to pass such laws to January 1, 1922, were Oregon, North 
Dakota, Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin in 1913, Nebraska in 
1915, and South Dakota in 1917. Some of the States mentioned 
1. Ibid., pp. 46-47. 
2. Ibid., pp. 59-60. 62 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
passed more than one statute on the subject. In all 15 States en- 
acted such laws.2 
Curiously the sterilization law in New York State seems to have 
been enacted without any apparent organized public opinion back 
of it. It was passed without any action for or against having been 
taken by the individuals and organizations in the State who would 
naturally have been interested in the measure. There was evidently 
some persuasive force that was effective with the Legislature, how- 
ever, for the bill was passed in the Assembly with but few dissenting 
votes, in the Senate unanimously, and was promptly approved by 
the Governor. There apparently was not at that time in New York 
State nor has there been since sufficient general public sentiment to 
pass such a law. 
In its operation the New York State sterilization law was a 
complete fiasco and is an instance of how much any law will ac- 
complish without public opinion behind it. The law created a 
Board of Examiners consisting of one surgeon, one neurologist and 
one practitioner of medicine who were charged with the duty “to 
examine into the mental and physical condition and the record and 
family history of the feebleminded, epileptic, criminal and other de- 
fective inmates confined in the several State hospitals for the insane, 
State prisons, reformatories, and charitable and penal institutions 
in the State, and if in the judgment of the majority of said board 
procreation by any such person would produce children with an 
inherited tendency to crime, insanity, feeblemindedness, idiocy, or 
imbecility, and there is no probability that the condition of any such 
person so examined will improve to such an extent as to render 
procreation by any such person advisable, or if the physical or 
mental condition of any such person will be substantially improved 
thereby, then said board shall appoint one of its members to perform 
such operation for the prevention of procreation as shall be decided 
by said board to be most effective.”2 All cases were made subject 
to court review before action could be taken. 
The net results of the New York sterilization statute were prac- 
tically nil. Thirty state institutions were subject to the act and yet 
only one operation was performed under its authority. In the spring 
of 1915 a test case was introduced in the New York State courts and 
the statute was held unconstitutional and invalid by the State Su- 
1. Laughlin, H. H. Eugenical Sterilisation in the United States. 1922. Chapter II. 
Analysis, by States, of Sterilization Laws Enacted Prior to Jan. 1, 1922. 
2. Ibid., p. 25. THE ALARMIST STAGE 
preme Court—Albany County. The case was appealed and con- 
tinued in litigation until the statute was repealed on May 10, 1920. 
The failure of the New York statute might not be so significant 
in view of the circumstances under which it was passed, were it not 
for the fact that the sterilization measures did not make great 
progress elsewhere. In reviewing the progress of eugenical steriliza- 
tion in the United States to January 1, 1922, Dr. Uaughlin points 
out that of the 15 states originally enacting such statutes, nine states 
still had such laws nominally in force, viz., California, Connecticut, 
Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, 
and Wisconsin. He considers the law as “functioning in a very 
satisfactory manner” only in California and Nebraska. The law 
is being applied “to a very limited extent” in Connecticut, North 
Dakota and Wisconsin. In Kansas, Iowa, and South Dakota, the 
law is not functioning at all.7 
From this summary we may readily see that sterilization as a 
measure of eugenic control instead of making headway, is tending 
to fall into disuse. It is of interest to note how much has actually 
been accomplished to date by this method. According to the figures 
which Dr. Laughlin gives, the total number of such operations in 
the entire fifteen states, which at one time or another had these 
statutes, from 1907 to 1921, was 3,233. Of this total, 1,853 of the 
operations were performed on males, and 1,380 on females. Only 
403 of the operations were performed on the feebleminded, the re- 
maining being on the insane (2,700) and the criminal (130). Com- 
pare these 403 operations with the estimated total number of the 
feebleminded, and it will readily be seen how little eugenical steril- 
ization has accomplished as a measure of control.2 
Among the careful students of the eugenics problem, sterilization 
was never recommended as a panacea or as a substitute for segrega- 
tion. It was only less informed persons who seized upon the idea 
and regarded it as a quick solution for a pressing problem. The 
second report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best 
Practical Means of Cutting off the Defective Germ-Plasm stated 
clearly that the relation between segregation and sterilization is 
“automatically complementary.”3 It was the idea of this Committee 
1. Ibid., p. 97. 2. Ibid., p. 96. 
H. Eaughlin, H. H. Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best 
Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population. 
II. The Legal, Legislative and Administrative Aspects of Sterilisation. Eugenics Record 
Office. Bulletin No. 10-B. 1914. p. 9. SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
that sterilization should be performed only when segregation was 
impossible or the institutional patient was about to be returned to 
community life.J 
There seem to be several reasons why sterilization has thus far 
failed as a practical measure of control, aside from legal consider- 
ations of the infringement of the rights of the individual. Among 
these reasons, the following may be mentioned as the most important: 
1. Public opinion has apparently disapproved of sterilization on 
humanitarian grounds. 
2. The question of doubt as to diagnosis and prognosis, and the 
difficulty of drawing the fine line between those who should and 
should not be deprived of procreative powers have served as de- 
terrents in making the decision on a concrete case. 
3. Many informed persons have opposed sterilization as tending 
toward the spread of immorality and venereal disease by giving 
liberty to the individual together with the assurance of immunity 
from pregnancy and its consequences. 
4. The changing aspects of the relation of heredity to mental 
deficiency which will be described in the next chapter, have served 
to raise doubt as to how much may be gained by sterilization. 
While there was from the first much disagreement on the subject 
of sterilization, there was a very general consensus of opinion in 
favor of segregation as the most practicable and acceptable means 
of control. As we have seen, the Committee to Study and to Report 
on the Best Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective Germ- 
Plasm in the American Population, believed that “this remedy 
(segregation) must, in the opinion of the Committee, be the principal 
agent used by society in cutting off its supply of defectives.”2 
We shall consider particularly here the experience of New York 
State in the development of the segregation program. In 1900 New 
York State had three institutions for mental defectives; Syracuse 
with a capacity of 545; Newark with a capacity of 400; and Rome 
with a capacity of 446. In addition, the New York City institution 
on Randall’s Island provided for 460 feebleminded persons, making 
a total bed capacity of 1,851 in New York State in that year. 
1. Iyaughlin, H. H. Report of the Committee to Study and to Report on the Best 
Practical Means of Cutting Off the Defective Germ-Plasm in the American Population. 
II. The Legal, Legislative and Administrative Aspects of Sterilisation. Eugenics Record 
Office. Bulletin No. 10-B. 1914. p. 9. 
2, Laughlin, H. H. Bulletin No. 10-A. p. 46. THE ALARMIST STAGE 
65 
Ten years later the institutional provision for the feebleminded in 
New York State was still limited to these four institutions, but their 
capacity had been considerably increased. In 1910 Syracuse had a 
bed capacity of 548, Newark 788, Rome 1,200 and Randall’s Island, 
1,100, making a total capacity of 3,636 in that year. This represented 
an increase during the decade of 96 per cent in institutional pro- 
vision for the feebleminded, as compared with a general population 
increase of 25 per cent. This increase in institutional capacity was 
doubtless the result of the general awakening to the significance of 
mental defect in that decade. 
In 1907, the degree of overcrowding in the existing State insti- 
tutions for the feebleminded had become so dangerous and the 
waiting lists of urgent cases so long that the Legislature in that year 
was prompted to take action in creating a new institution for the 
feebleminded which is now known as Letchworth Village, located 
at Thiells, Rockland County, N. Y. This institution was planned 
to accommodate 2,500 patients and to be a model of its kind. There 
were many delays, however, in its development, and it was not until 
July 11, 1911, that it received its first patients. 
It was in the year 1910 that the first organized effort to develop 
a more adequate segregation program for New York State was 
begun. In that year the Public Education Association of New York 
began a study of the after-life of feebleminded children who had 
gone out from the New York City public schools. This study, which 
has been previously referred to, was made under the direction of 
Dr. Anne Moore and was published in June, 1911, by the State 
Charities Aid Association.1 The published study, while based on 
feebleminded children in New York City, came to have a wider 
significance and was the means of calling attention to feebleminded- 
ness as a State problem. Dr. Moore emphasized the fact that “The 
only way to deal with it effectively is to provide supervision and 
care that will last during the whole lifetime of the feebleminded 
individual, certainly during the reproductive period.”2 As a program 
of control and prevention, Dr. Moore recommended: 
“1. Adequate provision for the feebleminded in institutions de- 
signed for their education and welfare. 
“2. A proper segregation law involving separation of the sexes 
1. Moore, Anne. The Feebleminded in New York. 1911. 
2. Ibid., p. 11. 66 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
which will prevent propagation of their kind and ill-advised 
contact with the world at large. 
“3. A marriage law which will require a clean bill of health and 
evidence of normal mind before a license is issued.”^ 
The publication of this report was the means of stimulating the 
first extensive public interest in New York State in the control of 
this problem. An immediate result was the appointment by the 
State Charities Aid Association of a special committee on Provision 
for the Feebleminded which was organized to carry on an educa- 
tional campaign and to secure more satisfactory care for the mentally 
defective. The Committee worked principally along publicity and 
legislative lines and stressed particularly the importance of develop- 
ing adequate institutional facilities. The State Charities Aid Associ- 
ation through this Committee and later through its Committee on 
Mental Hygiene was active, together with the New York Committee 
on Feeblemindedness (later merged with the Committee on Mental 
Hygiene of the State Charities Aid Association) in urging upon the 
Legislature from year to year the necessity of increasing institutional 
provision for the feebleminded. Careful studies of the problem were 
made by the Association from time to time and appeals to the 
Legislature were based upon telling, concrete evidence. Several 
special numbers of the S. C. A. A. News were given over to the 
problem of feeblemindedness, portraying the overcrowding in the 
institutions, the evils which resulted from allowing the feebleminded 
to be at large, the way in which the problem of feeblemindedness 
complicated problems of child-care, family rehabilitation, public 
health, etc. In one of these special numbers of the S. C. A. A. 
News,2 it is stated in display type “State Fumbles With a Serious 
Situation: Out of a Feebleminded Population of 32,000, Only 4,900 
Are Cared For in Institutions Intended For Their Care. One Thou- 
sand More Beds Needed Immediately. Special Session of the Legis- 
lature Will Be Asked to Appropriate $500,000.” Under these head- 
lines is the following statement: “New York has been temporising 
too long with the problem of the feebleminded. The State has long 
known that segregation of the feebleminded is the only means of 
protecting the public, not only from moral menace of the feeble- 
minded, but also from the danger of murderous assault, arson and 
crimes of sexual perversion. The need and the means for meeting 
1. Ibid., p. 93. 
2. April, 1914. THE ALARMIST STAGE 
67 
it have long been recognized, but the State has done little and is 
doing practically nothing.” 
In an article in the same issue, Mr. Homer Folks, Secretary of 
the State Charities Aid Association, after calling attention to the 
State’s faltering policy and the failure of the Legislature to meet 
the demands made upon it for the development of an adequate insti- 
tutional program, asks: 
“Now, what as to the future? What would a wise, vigorous, truly 
conservative State policy imply? What is it, humanly speaking, 
practicable to expect the State to do? What would it be justified 
in doing, and how should it go about it? 
“First, as to institutional provision. Suppose we accept Dr. 
Fernald’s conservative estimate of one feebleminded person of a 
type definitely calling for custodial care to each 300 of the popula- 
tion, involving a total of 19,000. Toward this we have a State 
provision for 4,000. Is it practicable to expect custodial pro- 
vision in the near future for the remaining 15,000? This would 
involve in first cost for construction, $15,000,000. It need not in- 
volve more than that. Would not $15,000,000 for the segregation 
of the feebleminded be vastly more practicable using the word in 
its hardheaded sense, than a like sum expended for some of the 
purposes for which the State has recently acquired a large indebted- 
ness—namely, good roads and the enlargement of the barge 
canal ? * * * * 
“The capital investment for the segregation of the feebleminded 
would be one-half that which the State has already made for the 
insane; it would be twice that which it is now proposed to spend for 
other office buildings; it would be the equivalent of less than a per 
capita tax of two dollars on the entire population of the State, 
but, of course, no tax is laid on a per capita basis. Professor Daven- 
port, an authority on heredity, says that if we would really do this 
we could have most of these institutions back for other uses at the 
end of one generation, say thirty years. I can think of no real 
reason why this expenditure should be regarded as unwise or im- 
possible. I am certain that if the matter could be brought up for 
popular vote, after an adequate campaign of information, it would 
be carried. 
“If we do not provide for our 19,000 feebleminded custodial type 
within the next decade, it will not be because the task is administra- 68 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
tively impossible, but because we do not appreciate it, do not really, 
seriously feel the truth of what we are saying about eliminating 
defective stock.” 
Likewise the State Board of Charities, under whose inspection 
the institutions for the feebleminded come, pointed out the need of 
increased bed capacity for this class. In an address before the 
State Conference of Charities and Correction in 1912, Robert W. 
Hebberd, Secretary of the Board, said : “We must be bold in suggest- 
ing the expenditure of large sums for the purpose we have in mind.”1 
He urged a program of institutional development which would pro- 
vide for seven institutions to care for the feebleminded, with a 
capacity of 15,500. 
In 1914, as a result of the manifest public concern about the 
problem of feeblemindedness, the New York Legislature created a 
“State Commission to Investigate Provision for the Mentally De- 
ficient.”2 This Commission, which reported in 1915, obtained the 
testimony of a large number of persons relating directly or indirectly 
to the problem of mental deficiency in New York and other states. 
It also visited a number of institutions outside the State. The 
report of this Commission confirmed the inadequacy of the exist- 
ing State institutions for the mentally defective. These institutions, 
it pointed out, then provided for not more than 3,000 of the feeble- 
minded, whereas the Commission had definitely learned of 21,000 
known mental defectives in the State outside of institutions who 
needed or were likely to need institutional care. “The mentally 
defective man or woman at liberty,” the report states, “constitutes 
a serious menace to the State. In many cases, the mental defect 
is hereditary and is liable to be transmitted with almost unerring 
accuracy to succeeding generations. This danger is in turn aggra- 
vated by the well-known propagating tendency of the feebleminded, 
and because, owing to their lack of mental balance, they are in most 
cases potential delinquents or criminals, peculiarly susceptible to the 
suggestions of evil-minded associates. There is, therefore, urgent 
need for a large extension of the present facilities of the State 
institutions for the care and custody of the dependent mental de- 
fective.”3 This Commission also strongly urged separate institutions 
for the confirmed male and female defective delinquents where such 
habitual social offenders might have indefinite custodial care. 
1. p. 185. 
3. Report of the Commission, p. 253. 
2. Laws of 1914, Chapter 272. THE ALARMIST STAGE 
69 
Notwithstanding the determined efforts of organizations and in- 
dividuals, of official boards and commissions, the segregation pro- 
gram did not make significant progress in the decade 1910-1920 in 
New York State or in any other State. As we have seen, the New 
York State institutions, together with the New York City institu- 
tion on Randall’s Island, provided in 1910 accommodations for 3,400 
feebleminded persons. In this decade, no new institution was 
created, although Letchworth Village, which was established in 
1907, was first opened for the reception of patients in 1911. Ap- 
propriations were dealt out, however, on such a meagre scale from 
year to year, for the development of Letchworth Village, that by 
1920 it provided accommodations for only 811 inmates. On July 1, 
1920, the four State institutions for the feebleminded, Newark, 
Rome, Syracuse and Letchworth Village, together, provided a total 
bed capacity of 3,781 (exclusive of beds in colonies). At the same 
time, Randall’s Island had a bed capacity of 1,515, making a total 
of 5,296 beds in public institutions in that year. This may be 
compared with 3,636 bed capacity in 1910, representing an 
increase of 46 per cent in institutional provision in the decade. In 
the same period, the general population increase was 14 per cent. 
Thus it will be seen that in spite of the alarms that were spread 
regarding feeblemindedness and the concentration of effort on the 
part of all concerned toward rapid enlargement of institutional 
facilities for the feebleminded, the segregation program did not 
make substantial headway in comparison with the then-known size 
of the problem. In other words, the provision in ten years’ time of 
1,660 additional beds after the expenditure of so much effort, did 
not loom large as compared with the conservative estimate of 40,000 
feebleminded persons in the State outside of institutions, especially 
when it is kept in mind that the aim of the segregation program was 
to segregate all of the feebleminded during their lifetime or at the 
least during the reproductive period. The interference of the war 
may perhaps be blamed for the failure of the State authorities to 
provide more liberally for new construction. There is no doubt 
that war conditions did result in a reduction of appropriations for 
such purposes at Albany, but even if the appropriations of the years 
before and after the war for new construction for the feebleminded 
were spread out over the ten-year period, the result would not be 
a very much greater number of beds than that now provided. In 70 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
fact to date, (February, 1923) the capacity of the State institutions 
for the feebleminded, together with Randall’s Island, amounts to 
only 6,650 (exclusive of beds in colonies). This total includes the 
600 beds available (396 of which are occupied) at the new State 
institution for male defective delinquents at Napanoch, which was 
transferred from its former use as a reformatory to this new use 
in 1921. 
If provision at all approaching that required by the segregation 
program as formerly conceived were made, that is, if institutional 
accommodations were made available for all the feebleminded in 
the State during the reproductive period, there would need to be at 
least 20,000 institutional beds and if the results of the army exam- 
inations be taken, the provision would need to be very much greater 
than that. 
As a matter of fact, the State Commission for Mental Defectives, 
after a careful analysis of the problem, and consultation with many 
experts, has set as a goal of institutional provision for the immediate 
future, 10,000 beds. In other words, this means that the practical 
impossibility under the greatest pressure of obtaining from the 
Legislature and ultimately the taxpayers of the State, appropria- 
tions sufficient to provide anything like complete segregation of the 
feebleminded, has led to the development of a program of much 
more modest demands. These more modest demands have resulted 
not merely from the inability to obtain institutional accommodations 
on a large scale, but also from the belief, as the problem is further 
studied, that by no means all of the feebleminded need, for their own 
protection or for the best interests of the community, institutional 
care. 
Inasmuch as the two former accepted measures of control have, 
therefore, been able to meet the problem of feeblemindedness only 
in small part, it has been a matter of practical necessity to develop 
other methods of social control. It is with these other methods that 
this volume particularly deals. CHAPTER VI 
Newer Aspects of Heredity and Behavior 
The growing estimates of the number of mental defectives in the 
population and the apparent failure of the programs of sterilization 
and. segregation to cope with the problem in any extensive way 
would have been the cause of ever-increasing alarm, had it not 
been for the development at this time of certain extra-institutional 
methods of control, and the finding, as a result of further studies, 
of data more or less modifying previously accepted views as to 
heredity and behavior. The development of the extra-institutional 
measures will be considered in the chapters following this. In this 
chapter the newer aspects of heredity and behavior will be discussed. 
The “Hill Folk” study by Davenport and Danielson, published by 
the Eugenics Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor in 1912, yielded 
data that apparently did not bear out the first law of heredity 
enunciated previously by Dr. Davenportd In this study it was found 
that in the number of matings which occurred between two definitely 
feebleminded persons (nulliplex for normality), the proportion of 
defective offspring was not 100 per cent as should have been ex- 
pected, but only 77.3 per cent. Dr. Samuel J. Holmes2 discounts 
these results because in the published study the description of the 
mental state of the individuals listed as feebleminded does not con- 
vince him that they were actually feebleminded. The evidence for 
feeblemindedness in these cases, however, seems to be just as sub- 
stantial as in previous studies of the family history of defective 
stock which have been so commonly accepted at face value. In 
any event the findings of Davenport and Danielson in this study 
and the hypothesis which they advance to explain those findings 
are in accord with a view of the problem which is coming to be 
increasingly accepted by the closest students of mental deficiency. 
This suggested hypothesis is that feeblemindedness instead of being 
a unit Mendelian character in itself, may be rather a composite term 
for a number of different kinds of mental deficiencies, each of which 
may singly operate as a unit character. To quote the authors: 
1. See Chapter III. 
2. Holmes, S. J. The Trend of the Race. 1921. p. 34. SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
“These facts (differences in type of the feebleminded) raise the 
question whether an analysis on the basis of high and low grades 
of feeblemindedness is not too broad. We may find one case of 
feeblemindedness wherein the individual is cruel and keen in the 
pursuit of mischief, but unable to learn, and another case in which 
he is kind and learns quite readily, but is shiftless and devoid of 
judgment and the ability to apply his knowledge. Such instances 
seem to indicate that these different traits which characterize the 
types of feeblemindedness may furnish a truer basis for a theory of 
inheritance. One combination of certain traits presents one sort 
of feeblemindedness, and another combination, another sort. Work- 
ing on this hypothesis, the possibility of obtaining from two parents 
whose defects are due to different traits (or the lack of them) a child 
who may be superior to either parent as a member of society is to 
be expected. For instance, if such traits follow the Mendelian 
principle, a man who is industrious but apathetic and unable to 
connect cause and effect (i. e. lacks good judgment) so that he 
cannot compete in business, married to a shiftless woman who is 
keen and shrewd, even to a vice, may have offspring in which the 
father’s industry and the mother’s mental ability are combined so 
that they may be superior to either parent.”* 
Thus the authors of “The Hill Folk” conclude: “The analysis of 
the data, then, gives statistical support to the conclusion, abundantly 
justified from numerous other considerations, that feeblemindedness 
is no elementary trait, but is a legal or sociological rather than a bio- 
logical term. Feeblemindedness is due to the absence, now of one 
set of traits, now of quite a different set. Only when both parents 
lack one or more of the same traits do the children all lack the traits. 
So if the traits lacking in both parents are socially important the 
children all lack socially important traits, i. e., are feebleminded. 
If on the other hand the two parents lack different socially significant 
traits, so that each parent brings into the combination the traits that 
the other lacks, all of the children may be without serious lack and 
all pass for ‘normal’.”2 
An interesting confirmation of the above point of view is made 
by Dr. Abraham Myerson, Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts Medical 
College, whose scientific contributions to psychiatry have given him 
a high standing in the mental hygiene field, in a review of Dr. 
1. Davenport and Danielson. The Hill Folk. 1912. p. 9. 
2. Ibid., p. 11. NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
73 
Holmes’ book on “The Trend of the In this review, Dr. 
Myerson states: “This is introduced to emphasize the fact that the 
author who is not a psychiatrist or a medical man serenely speaks 
of insanity, feeblemindedness and delinquency as if they were nice, 
easily juggled characters instead of constituting ranges and ranges 
of problems of entirely diverse natures. * * * But there is no such 
thing as insanity, no such thing as feeblemindedness, no such thing 
as delinquency; these are mere terms used to cover entirely different 
types of conditions.”2 
To quote Dr. Myerson’s review further with reference to one 
of the best known of the heredity studies: “And here again we 
meet the famous Kallikak family. The reviewer must confess that 
a sense of incredulity is raised to the n-th power whenever he hears 
of the two lines of descendants of Martin Kallikak. On the one 
hand he bred a family absolutely bad, and on the other a family 
absolutely good. The whole story is too good to be true. Nothing 
like it is seen anywhere else. Everywhere else one finds, instead, 
good people breeding bad people and bad people breeding good 
people. Saints are descendants of prostitutes and prostitutes are 
sprung from the loins of saints, but not so with Martin Kallikak. 
By marrying into a respectable family, he had nothing but respect- 
able descendants; by having illegitimate relationships with a feeble- 
minded girl (who made the diagnosis after a century had passed?) 
he had nothing but feebleminded and delinquents. If this story is 
true, it is too exceptional to be of any value. * * * It is far too early 
for us to make Mendelian laws for that group of x’s we call feeble- 
mindedness and that group of more mysterious x’s we call insanity.”5 
Dr. Holmes himself after reviewing the evidence bearing on the 
supposed Mendelian inheritance of mental deficiency, reaches a con- 
clusion not much different from that advanced by Davenport and 
Danielson. He says: “Most of the facts of the inheritance of mental 
defect are conformable to the hypothesis that such defect is de- 
pendent upon a number of factors instead of a single one.”* And 
again: “I very much doubt if the facts concerning the inheritance of 
defect are as yet known with sufficient precision to warrant our 
trying to force them into simple Mendelian formulae. Of course 
/. Published in the journal, Mental Hygiene for July, 1922. 
2. Myerson, Abraham. Review of Dr. Holmes’ The Trend of the Race. Mental 
Hygiene. July, 1922. p. 625. 
3. Ibid., p. 625. 
4. Holmes. Trend of the Race. p. 39. 74 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF TI1E FEEBLEMINDED 
if two stocks differ by a single factor only, their progeny would be 
expected to afford an illustration of simple Mendelian inheritance. 
Rut since the inheritance of any human family probably differs in 
very numerous ways from that of any other, and since any change 
in any part of the germ plasm could scarcely help having a certain 
influence on the mentality of the individual concerned, it is a priori 
very improbable that the inheritance of mental defect is adequately 
describable in simple Mendelian terms. Most of the charts which 
group human beings categorically as feebleminded or normal, as we 
class mice as gray or albino, take no account of the varied mani- 
festations of mentality which really occur. They are liable to give 
a false or misleading appearance of simplicity which in fact has no 
existence.’^ 
It is apparent from the foregoing that we can be certain of only 
one thing at present with regard to the mode of transmission of 
hereditary mental defects, and that is of our uncertainty. In other 
words, the existing state of knowledge on the subject permits of 
reaching no final conclusions. It merely indicates the importance of 
much further study and investigation. At the same time it is clear 
that the apparently final conclusions expressed some years back are 
no longer tenable. The problem is a vastly more complex one than 
the popular heredity chart of not so long ago made it. Nor are 
we in a position at present writing to form definite conclusions as 
to the degree of social menace that resides in the marriage and 
parenthood of so-called feebleminded persons. Neither are we 
ready to say that they should marry, and to be on the safe side, it 
would seem the part of wisdom to discourage marriage so far as 
possible. 
Plain facts must be faced, however, and among those plain facts 
stands this: that in no State has the program for the social control 
of the feebleminded developed far enough to include by institutional 
care and extra-institutional methods combined more than a fraction 
of the reputed number of feebleminded persons in the population 
(including in feebleminded those who would be so regarded by 
present psychological standards). This means that willy nilly 
thousands of feebleminded persons are annually marrying and hav- 
ing children, some mating with so-called normal persons, others 
with so-called feebleminded persons. What is the biological and 
social import of this? We must admit frankly we do not know. It 
1. Ibid., pp. 39-40. NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
may be tentatively suggested, however, that perhaps the result is 
not quite so alarming as we would formerly have judged it. If 
mental deficiency is not the definite entity it was at first thought to 
be, then as Davenport and Danielson have pointed out, the defective 
traits of the parents, if both are feebleminded, may very probably 
be of different type and instead of combining and becoming dominant 
in the offspring, may remain recessive, while the more favorable 
traits of one or both parents may become dominant, raising the off- 
spring above the level of either parent. Where the feebleminded 
person should mate with one of normal mentality the chances of a 
favorable outcome would seem to be much greater. Even the 
notoriously bad Juke stock, as Dr. Arthur H. Estabrook has shown 
in his study of “The Jukes in 1915,” was lifted to a higher social 
plane in the descendants of those members of the tribe who migrated 
to new environments and mated with better stock.7 This leads Dr. 
Davenport to conclude: “It is probable that, in the long run, the 
cheapest way to improve a bad germ plasm is to scatter it.”2 While 
the present writer agrees with Dr. Davenport in not recommending 
that method, it nevertheless shows that mental deficiencies may some- 
times tend to be bred out. 
A much more important and definite modification of previous 
theories as to the relation of heredity to mental deficiency is indicated 
by accumulating evidence which reveals that a much smaller pro- 
portion of existing mental deficiencies than was formerly thought 
is of the familiar hereditary type. According to this evidence 
eugenics and biological considerations would seem to apply only to 
the smaller part of the problem. The need for such a modification 
of former views on this question is shown in a recent article by 
Dr. L. Pierce Clark, prominent neurologist and psychiatrist of New 
York City, who is Chairman of the Advisory Medical Board of 
Eetchworth Village, and a member of that institution’s Special 
Committee on Scientific Research Into the Causes and Prevention of 
Feeblemindedness: “From Goddard’s data, although the validity of 
his evidence has recently fallen into disrepute, it would seem that 
a few years ago the genetic view of feeblemindedness purely as a 
hereditary causation could be accepted.5 The experimental work 
/. Estabrook, A. H. The Jukes in 1915. Published by Carnegie Institution of Wash- 
ington, 1916. p. 70. 2. Ibid., p. iii. 
3. See A Contribution to the Etiology of Feeblemindedness, with Special Reference 
to Prenatal Enamel Defects, by L. Pierce Clark and Charles E. Atwood. New York 
Medical Journal, May 17, 1922. Vol. 115, pp. 543-79. 76 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
of Stockard on animals, however, and the biologic work of Daven- 
port on the eugenics of family studies tend to discredit the purely 
genetic view of feeblemindedness and to prove that it must be 
seriously modified as the basis for even a tentative program. In 
point of fact, various accidental factors of imperfect development of 
germ plasm either before or after conception (Davenport), the 
exogenous factors or modifiers of the rates of development of the 
embryo and fetus (Stockard), the endocrine and toxic factors dur- 
ing gestation, both in the mother and the child, which later are 
expressed in mental defect (Weygandt), must give us pause in the 
evaluation of the genetic view that has been until recently held 
valid”* 
It begins to be clear that the conclusions about feeblemindedness 
published a few years back were largely based upon a selected and 
therefore non-representative group of cases. These studies had as 
their case material either notoriously defective stocks (selected be- 
cause of their notoriety) or the feebleminded found in institutions 
and the families of these institutional feebleminded. Goddard’s 
famous study of the Kallikaks was suggested by the presence of a 
member of this family in his institution. Likewise the conclusions 
in his book on “Feeblemindedness: Its Causes and Consequences” 
were drawn from a study of the cases at Vineland and their kin. 
Dugdale traced the Jukes through the members of that family who 
were found in prison. “The Hill Folk” study was the outgrowth of 
inquiry into the pedigrees of some inmates of the Monson State 
Hospital at Palmer, Massachusetts, who belonged to this stock. It 
was altogether natural that institutional cases or well-known defective 
families should have been selected for study because the data con- 
cerning them was ready to hand, and observation was comparatively 
easy. What is more, until recent years the known feebleminded 
consisted almost entirely of these classes. 
Naturally to show by means of elaborate investigations and a 
series of carefully prepared heredity charts that feeblemindedness 
was transmitted regularly in one family from generation to genera- 
tion did not prove that all cases of mental deficiency originated in 
the same way. Likewise institutional cases were not typical of all 
the feebleminded. They were a selected group and the selection 
worked in two ways: 
1. Clark, L- P. The Importance of a Special Educational Training for Mental Defect 
Dependent Upon Organic Lesions. Mental Hygiene, Vol. VI, Oct., 1922, No. 4, p. 709. NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
77 
1. 1 he chief social offenders among the feebleminded and the 
very low grade cases, in short, the most troublesome, were the 
ones who were sent to institutions. The quiet, orderly, in- 
dustrious ones could get along outside. 
2. lhe hereditary type was most likely to require institutional 
care-because of the inability of the parents, also feebleminded, 
to care for properly and so bring up their offspring as to 
keep them out of difficulty. 
What was said and written about these institutional feebleminded 
with regard to their evil propensities and the hereditary character 
of their defect may have been all true. Yet more recent evidence 
has shown that what was said and written of this familiar type of 
the feebleminded was not typical of the feebleminded as a class, 
either biologically or socially considered. 
In recent years, in an endeavor to discover and be of help to the 
large number of feebleminded in the community, certain of the 
more progressive states have organized free clinics to which parents, 
social workers, and others are invited to bring mentally defective 
children for examination, and advice as to care and training. Similar 
clinical studies have been made of feebleminded children found in 
the public schools. These clinics are bringing to light a type of 
the feebleminded heretofore almost unknown as a class. Many of 
this class come from homes of the better type and have parents who 
are quite intelligent. Careful investigation of the family history 
discloses no trace of hereditary taint. Very many are of the quiet, 
obedient, affectionate type, capable of instruction and kept at home 
without great difficulty. 
Authoritative evidence with regard to this class of the feeble- 
minded has been furnished by Dr. Walter E. Fernald, Superin- 
tendent of the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded at 
Waverley, Mass. Dr. Fernald has been conducting at his institution 
for 37 years, an outpatient clinic at which thousands of cases of 
feeblemindedness have been brought for examination and carefully 
studied. Dr. Fernald has also been associated in a study of retarded 
children in the public schools of the State, in which 4,500 children 
have been examined. Basing his opinion on all these cases and 
having in mind both the negative evidence of the lack of mental 
defect in the family history, and the positive evidence of infantile 
accident or diseases, Dr. Fernald concludes that considerably over 78 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
half of all cases of mental deficiency are of the non-hereditary type. 
It is to Dr. Fernald and his work that primary credit should be 
given for this very important modification of the biological aspects 
of mental deficiency. Dr. Fernald’s scientific temper, his long ex- 
perience in direct work with the feebleminded, and his standing as 
one of the foremost authorities on mental deficiency in this country 
add great weight to his conclusions. 
In the 1916 Annual Report of the Massachusetts School for the 
Feebleminded, Dr. Fernald wrote: 
“The relations of the school to the feebleminded child, the parent, 
the school authorities, etc., show that in this State we are now deal- 
ing with an advanced stage of the movement to adequately deal with 
the problem of the feebleminded. It is beginning to be realized that 
we have been a little too ready perhaps to make generalizations. 
There has been too great a tendency to regard feeblemindedness as 
a definite entity and to assume that all defectives are equally danger- 
ous as to the probability of dependency, immorality, or criminality, 
or as to the possibility of the transmission of their defect to their 
progeny. As a matter of fact we know of many unmistakable 
defectives who in sheltered or even unsheltered homes lead beauti- 
ful, serene, moral, and useful lives, and we also know of cases of 
definite defect due to some environmental cause where there is 
not the slightest danger that the defect would be transmitted even 
if the person should become a parent.” 
Another interesting fact that begins to stand out as a result of 
Dr. Fernald’s observations is that the most desirable social traits 
are usually connected with the non-hereditary type of mental de- 
fectives, and that for the most part they are found to be orderly, 
obedient, trustworthy, teachable, and more or less industriously in- 
clined. No definite correlation of this sort has yet been established, 
but if further findings show that non-social and anti-social traits 
are limited largely to the hereditary type of the feebleminded, it 
would, of course, greatly simplify the whole problem of social 
control. 
Dr. Fernald’s findings with regard to the large proportion of non- 
hereditary cases among the feebleminded in general are confirmed 
by independent investigations which have been carried on at Letch- 
worth Village in New York State by Dr. Howard W. Potter, Clinical 
Director of that institution. Careful clinical studies of the cases NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
79 
in Letchworth Village have revealed the fact that at least half of 
the inmates of the institution are of the non-hereditary type. If 
this is true of institutional cases, it is more than probable that the 
percentage of non-hereditary cases among the feebleminded outside 
of institutions would be well over 50 per cent. 
As stated in the annual report of Letchworth Village for 1922, 
“Factors of a causative significance are found four times more 
frequently among non-hereditary cases than among hereditary cases. 
These causes consisted of brain diseases and injuries and disorders 
of the ductless glands.”7 In the same report it is stated that the 
studies made by Dr. Potter “showed that practically all cases of idiocy 
are not hereditary, but have their origin in some disease or injury of 
the central nervous system.”2 Another interesting fact brought out 
in the report is that “The hereditary cases were under-developed 
physically as well as retarded mentally, while the non-hereditary 
cases showed only a mental retardation.”2 In other words, the 
familiar stigmata of degeneracy which have been associated with the 
feebleminded in the past, are those of the hereditary type. This 
fact again simplifies the problem of social control of the feebleminded 
in that the physical under-development of the hereditary types may 
both serve to identify them and in a practical way make it impossible 
for them to make their livelihood in the community. 
Another fact of much significance which has been brought out 
through the studies at Letchworth Village is that most of the de- 
fectives of the hereditary type come from certain definite geo- 
graphical areas which seem to be isolated pockets of people belong- 
ing to an inferior race, environments such as that isolated region 
where the degenerate Juke stock thrived. 
One other indication resulting from Dr. Potter’s investigations, 
which he would wish to confirm further before suggesting it in more 
than a tentative way, is that the majority of the hereditary type of 
mental defectives are of the imbecile and low-grade moron level of 
intelligence and that for the most part the higher-grade morons and 
borderline defectives are of the non-hereditary type. If this on 
further inquiry proves to be the case, it would be an added reason 
for retaining in the community, so far as possible, mental defectives 
of the higher intelligence levels inasmuch as there would not be 
/. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Letchworth Village. 1923. 
p. 25. 
2. Ibid., p. 25. 80 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
great danger of passing on even this comparatively small degree of 
defect to the offspring. 
Evidence to the same general effect as the foregoing is furnished 
by the New York State Commission for Mental Defectives on the 
basis of the study of 1,955 cases of mental deficiency seen at the 
outpatient clinics conducted by the Commission over a period of 
several years: “Out of 1,955 cases seen at regular clinics since their 
inception, 1,145 (58.5 per cent) cases give histories of good heredity 
and 810 (41.5 per cent) show bad heredity. Most of these cases 
were referred to the clinics by social agencies and therefore it is 
very probable that a larger percentage of these show histories of 
neuropathic taint than would be the case if all mental defectives in 
the communities where clinics were held were examined. 
Just as the opinions concerning the heredity of feeblemindedness 
are assuming new aspects as the subject is more thoroughly studied, 
so also conclusions such as those voiced in Chapter IV as to the 
behavior of the feebleminded are being subjected to some revision. 
There has been a tendency in the past to judge the feebleminded as 
a whole by those who have come to public attention by falling into 
difficulty, thus leaving out of the reckoning the large numbers lead- 
ing blameless, harmless and frequently useful lives who did not 
come to public attention. A study of case histories reveals the fact 
that many of the feebleminded in institutions, from whose numbers 
most statistics as to the relation of feeblemindedness to crime and 
delinquency have been drawn, come from degenerate stock and from 
wretched environments. Because this type of the feebleminded so 
easily fell into social misconduct, it has not been uncommon to think 
of the feebleminded as born criminals, predestined to lives of crime, 
instead of considering them as the unfortunate products of a bad 
environment to whose evil influences they succumbed because they 
did not have the mentality to resist these influences. 
In his article on “Backward and Defective Children,” the late 
Dr. Pearce Bailey, formerly chairman of the New York State Com- 
mission for Mental Defectives, wrote, “A practical difference be- 
tween normals and defectives is that the latter require more special 
training. They can be taught to do useful things and thrive and 
blossom under kindness, approval, praise and reward. Their affec- 
tions are lively and attach readily to whoever wins their confidence. 
/. New York State Commission for Mental Defectives, Fourth Annual Report. 1923. 
p. 14. NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
If all defectives could be brought up in good homes they would 
cease to be the social menace they are now. But many of them are 
brought up under the most horrible surroundings. Half the cases 
which appear before the New York City Children’s Court are 
brought there on account of improper guardianship, which means 
that they have no home life at all, or that their home surroundings 
are such as to turn into criminals any but the strongest characters. 
In such surroundings, being credulous and imitative, they take on 
the ways of the adults with whom they are thrown. The Lombroso 
theory of the born criminal must give way to the modern theory of 
the criminal created by his early surroundings.”1 
Dr. William Healy, formerly director of the Psychopathic Insti- 
tute of the Juvenile Court of Chicago, and now the director of the 
Judge Baker Foundation in Boston, which deals with problem 
children of the delinquent type, has specialized for a number of 
years in the study of problems of delinquency as manifested in the 
hundreds of concrete cases of delinquent children brought before 
him from the courts and elsewhere. Dr. Healy is now led to the 
conclusion that “there is no necessary relationship between feeble- 
mindedness and delinquency.” 
Studies of the relation of feeblemindedness to crime and delin- 
quency have very generally been made of selected groups, those in 
custodial institutions, in prisons and reformatories, in disorderly 
houses, etc. Naturally in such groups there is found to be a large 
proportion of feeblemindedness as the offenders who are detained 
are the “caught” ones and the most stupid. Their cleverer comrades 
are quick enough to slip through the fingers of the law. It is usually 
the criminal of normal or superior intelligence who is the instigator 
and who uses the feebleminded as his dupes. The feebleminded 
criminal is apprehended and the normal criminal is so often left 
to become the beneficiary of the wrong-doing. 
In “A Research on the Proportion of Mental Defectives Among 
Delinquents,” Miss Augusta F. Bronner, who is associated with Dr. 
Healy in the work of the Judge Baker Foundation in Boston, writes,* 
“Now, in all studies of offenders, we must recognize at once the fact 
that we are dealing with a selected group, for, of course, such in- 
vestigators can take into account only the caught offender. Those 
1. Bailey, Pearce. Backward and Defective Children, pp. 1-2. 
2. Bronner, A. F. A Research on the Proportion of Mental Defectives Among De- 
linquents. Reprinted from the Nov., 1914, issue of the Journal of Criminal Law and 
Criminology, p. 561. 82 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
who, because of unusual cleverness or because of fortunate circum- 
stances, escape detection and arrest, may be equally or more culpable 
than those apprehended. Though intelligence is not the only factor 
responsible for the lack of detection and arrest, yet it is undoubtedly 
a large one. This means that in all studies of offenders there is a 
selective force operating which tends to eliminate the brightest and 
most capable.” At the conclusion of her study Miss Bronner states,1 
“On the basis of a study of more than 500 cases in a group as little 
selected as is possible to obtain, we find the percentage of feeble- 
minded to be less than 10 per cent while the group of those normal 
in ability exceeds 90 per cent.” 
Similar conclusions are reached by Dr. J. E. Wallace Wallin, 
director of the Psycho-Educational Clinic which is conducted in 
connection with the St. Louis public schools in an article, “Feeble- 
mindedness and Delinquency.”2 In this Dr. Wallin states, “During 
the last few years it has been repeatedly affirmed that ‘every feeble- 
minded child is a potential criminal' and that ‘the majority of 
criminals are mentally defective.’ These claims have been buttressed 
bv figures purporting to show that from 50 per cent to 85 per cent 
and even 90 per cent of different groups of delinquents and criminals 
have actually proved, upon examination, to be feebleminded. So far 
as it is possible to judge from the scanty data that have been supplied 
in the publications, it is apparent that the examinations made in many 
of these studies have consisted solely of a Binet-Simon test, and the 
diagnoses have been based upon certain arbitrary quantitative 
standards of intelligence deficiency. The surveys have almost in- 
variably been based upon selected groups of offenders, juvenile de- 
linquents (so-called) found in juvenile courts, detention homes and 
industrial or training schools, juvenile and adult prostitutes found 
in homes and in institutions, and juvenile and adult criminals found 
in jails, reformatories and penitentiaries. Some of the adults have 
been 70 or 80 years of age and have undoubtedly presented various 
grades of deterioration and dementia. Sometimes the person who 
has prepared the contribution and made the diagnoses has not ex- 
amined nor even seen any of the cases diagnosed. A survey of the lit- 
erature on the relation of feeblemindedness to crime and delinquency 
reveals clearly the fact that the studies which have been made by 
examiners who are cautious and of sober judgment and who have 
1. Ibid., p. 568. 
S. Mental Hygiene. Vol I. pp. 585-90. October, 1917. NEWER ASPECTS OF HEREDITY AND BEHAVIOR 
brought to the work a wide experience with the feebleminded and 
an intimate knowledge of feeblemindedness, have yielded estimates 
very much more modest, usually falling below 25 per cent or 30 
per cent. In fact, some of the trained examiners report only from 
5 per cent to 10 per cent or 11 per cent of feebleminded cases among 
the delinquents whom they have examined.’^ 
Trustworthy evidence to the same effect is given by Dr. V. V. 
Anderson, now Director of the Division on Prevention of De- 
linquency of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, in a 
study based on an examination of 100 unselected court cases studied 
while Dr. Anderson was Medical Director of the Municipal Court 
in Boston, entitled “Feeblemindedness As Seen in Court.” Dr. 
Anderson states, as a result of this study, “The fact is that the most 
reliable work done indicates that not more than 10 per cent of 
offenders in general are feebleminded, but this 10 per cent give al- 
most as much trouble as all the rest together. It is this 10 per cent 
that form the very backbone of recidivism, whose treatment has been 
so unintelligent, so expensive, and so futile.”2 
While it is to be expected that there would be a large percentage 
of feebleminded women among prostitutes in disorderly houses and 
houses of refuge, a review of this situation would indicate that the 
proportion of immorality is perhaps not so much greater among 
feebleminded women than normal women as has been frequently 
indicated. Mrs. Mary E. Paddon, formerly Director of Field Work 
of the New York Magdalene Home, states: “The groups tested were 
women who had been arrested. Is it not reasonable to believe that 
the more mentally alert among these women will stand the least 
chance of detection and arrest? The very lack of initiative and 
judgment which may be partly if not largely responsible for the 
occupation of the woman would bring her into the hands of the law 
and ultimately into court or an institution where she could be in- 
vestigated and tabulated.”s 
In making a fair estimate of the percentage of feeblemindedness 
among delinquents, one other factor to be considered is that not 
infrequently, as has been pointed out by those who have carefully 
checked the results of intelligence testing, the low score of an in- 
1. Ibid., p. 585. 
2. Anderson, V. V. Feeblemindedness as Seen in Court. Reprinted from The Boston 
Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. CIXXVI, No. 12, pp. 429-431. March 22, 1917. p. 
X Paddon, Mary E. Study of Fifty Feebleminded Prostitutes. Reprinted from 
The Journal of Delinquency, Vol. Ill, No. 1, Jan., 1918. p. 1. 84 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
dividual in the test may be due not to inherent mental deficiency, 
but to some psychopathic condition which has manifested itself in 
behavior disorder. In other words, when an intelligence test is given 
and the mental age is found to be below normal, that fact in itself 
cannot always be taken as evidence of mental deficiency because of 
these other elements of personality difficulty which may affect the 
result of the test in the same way as actual mental deficiency. 
In a study of problem children from the New York City public 
schools made in 1917, Dr. L. Pierce Clark, Psychiatrist and Neuro- 
logist, after carefully analysing the conduct disorders in question, 
stated, “I have never seen a delinquent, feebleminded child of what 
I call the benign type whose conduct disorder was not done away 
with by correcting the school training and the home and social 
environment. By benign I mean one who has no essential inborn 
defect of instincts, and there are more than three-fourths of this 
group even in the worst types I have had to pass upon. This is the 
hopeful message I am able to bring to you with my experience in 
handling this group. Most often the feebleminded delinquent only 
slowly and finally retaliates upon us for the long list of wrongs we 
visit upon him, and my plea is for us in all fairness to make a new 
effort to understand him.”1 
The indications set forth in this chapter as to the heredity or 
non-heredity of feeblemindedness and the behavior of the feeble- 
minded are presented, not as final and conclusive, but as suggesting 
the direction in which the most recent evidence on this subject is 
tending. There would appear however, to be enough data in this 
chapter to show that at least certain types of the feebleminded have 
distinct social possibilities and that perhaps a portion of this group 
of intellectual subnormals may be able through proper training and 
assistance, to take their places in society and become desirable and 
useful members of it. The chapters, which immediately follow this, 
review some of the work which has already been done along that 
line with selected groups of institutional cases. 
1. Clark, L,. Pierce. A Consideration of Conduct Disorders in the Feebleminded. 
Mental Hygiene. Vol. II. No. 1. p. 23. Jan., 1918. CHAPTER VII 
Social Reconstruction at Waverley 
Not only on the biological side has the necessity of modifying 
previously accepted views of mental deficiency been indicated. In 
the even more important matter of social behavior, recent studies 
and experiments have begun to show the social possibilities of the 
feebleminded as contrasted with their well-known anti-social pro- 
clivities. It is the more significant that some of the most important 
of these studies and experiments have been with institutional, and 
therefore, the least hopeful cases. 
We shall consider here the work of two institutions in particular 
in these respects: the Massachusetts School for the Feebleminded 
at Waverley; and the Rome State School for Mental Defectives at 
Rome, New York. In this chapter the work at Waverley will be 
reviewed. 
To borrow a simile used by the late Dr. Pearce Bailey, former 
chairman of the New York State Commission for Mental Defectives, 
the idea of institutional care for the feebleminded, which has quite 
generally prevailed until recently, would compare the institution with 
a still lake which receives a slow influx of new waters and loses its 
contents only by gradual evaporation. Thus the institution of the 
accepted type slowly received patients as its capacity permitted, and 
kept them until death took them away. This was the familiar 
custodial care which the segregation program urged. In its favor 
be it said that it did securely restrain from further social damage 
those whom it kept within its walls, d his was done, however, at 
such considerable public expense that no state was able to make 
provision for more than a small proportion of its feebleminded. 
To the rest the institution had to shut its eyes. It was a case of 
giving elaborate care to one irresponsible, contemplating on how 
much had thereby been accomplished, and letting nine or more others 
drift to disaster and add to a fast accumulating pile of social 
wreckage. 
Mr. Homer Folks, secretary of the State Charities Aid Associa- 86 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
tion, writing about the institutional program for the feebleminded in 
New York State in 1914, showed exactly how such a situation had 
developed: 
“The institution at , for instance, has regarded itself as 
charged with the duty of receiving a small number of feebleminded 
women, free from disease, not turbulent or disturbing, and of main- 
taining a quiet, orderly, spacious, presentable resort, making upon 
the visitor, with the exception of the faces of the inmates, something 
of the impression of a young woman’s seminary. 
“It apparently has never lifted up its eyes to look over the State 
and behold all those other feebleminded young women who are in 
imminent danger in almshouses, or who are going to the almshouse 
from time to time to bear illegitimate children, or are spreading 
immorality and venereal disease broadcast through rural and village 
communities as well as cities, or swelling the ranks of the recognized 
or the still more dangerous clandestine prostitutes. 
“In other words, has been thinking of itself as an insti- 
tution, of its laundry, its routine, its external appearance—not of 
the real, substantial, underlying needs of the State which it was 
established to serve.”7 
The problem which faced those broad-visioned workers in this 
field who insisted upon seeing the problem as a whole was not one 
of theorising how well the situation might be controlled if there 
were permanent institutional care for all; it was rather a case of 
facing the plain fact that despite valiant effort the segregation pro- 
gram had not and probably would not soon be realized. It became 
a question, therefore, of making the existing institutions of the great- 
est possible service within the limits of their capacity. To go back 
to Dr. Bailey’s simile, the newer conception of the institution which 
has gradually been developing is that of a lake fed and drained by 
a running stream, with ample inflow and outflow. Such an insti- 
tution is not for custodial care primarily (though certain cases will 
of course need such care) but rather for training and finally restor- 
ing to society all those capable of social rehabilitation. 
In Chapter V it was seen how, in spite of special effort, the 
segregation program had been impossible of realization on anything 
like a complete scale. The question therefore arose: Will these 
institutions wflth their limited capacity render a greater public service 
as still or flowing lakes? The answer to that question depended 
1. Folks, Homer. S. C. A. A. News, Vol. II, No. 3, April, 1914. p. 5. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
87 
upon the ability of the institution to train a given proportion 
of its inmates in such a way that they might safely be returned to 
the outside world. The followers of Seguin, who opened the first 
schools for the feebleminded in this country, had done so with 
sanguine hopes, it will be recalled, of curing or so greatly improving 
the feebleminded that they could take their places in society after 
their “education” had been completed. We have seen how this 
hope was blasted and how these institutions subsequently became 
largely custodial in character. The hope which has again sprung 
up of restoring the feebleminded to community life has been based 
upon an entirely different assumption. Feeblemindedness appears 
as incurable now as it was when Howe and Wilbur were reluctantly 
compelled to admit the defeat of their hopes. However, with the 
“discovery” of the moron and the recognition of the delinquencies 
of many of this class, the institution, which had formerly existed 
for the care of idiots and imbeciles, began receiving a larger and 
larger proportion of these higher-grade cases. Dr. Charles Bern- 
stein, in the 21st annual report of the Rome State School for 1915, 
writes: “It is especially noticeable that up to eight or ten years ago 
when speaking of the feebleminded we had reference to idiots and 
imbeciles, and in not more than ten per cent of the cases coming to 
our notice were we referring to what today we designate as border- 
line or moron cases. Whereas today among the feebleminded apply- 
ing for admission here fully eighty per cent are for the reception of 
such higher-grade cases.”7 
Likewise Dr. Walter E. Fernald, in the 1916 annual report of the 
Waverley institution, says: “It should not be forgotten that until 
within a few years the various synonyms of mental defect were used 
to include only what are now known as the idiot and imbecile groups. 
Particularly the whole of the so-called moron group, of whom there 
are perhaps more than of the idiot and imbecile groups combined, 
and whose presence in the community is of far more sinister sig- 
nificance, were not then recognized as being mentally defective and 
irresponsible until improved diagnostic methods came into use.” 
Here was a different proposition from that which confronted the 
superintendents of the early institutions. And the approach to re- 
habilitation was not by the method of physiological education with 
a view to curing idiocy, as it had been earlier, but through social 
/. Twenty-first Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Rome State Custodial 
Asylum. 1915. p. 14. 88 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
education with the object of enabling these individuals to get along 
by making the most of their innate capacities. 
One of the first published studies to attract general notice to the 
reconstructive possibilities of the institution was Dr. Fernald’s 
“After-care Study of the Patients Discharged from Waverley for 
a Period of Twenty-five Years.” The great importance of this 
study is that it includes cases which were discharged from the insti- 
tution during the time when life-long segregation was believed to 
be the best policy. The majority of the cases, Dr. Fernald tells us, 
were discharged under protest, against the advice of the institutional 
authorities. Quite a few were run-aways. A small number, how- 
ever, were permitted to go because they had no vicious tendencies. 
The total number of discharges for the twenty-five years was 1,537. 
The small number of discharges, Dr. Fernald states, with an 
average census ranging from 640 in 1890 to 1,660 in 1914, shows 
that the policy of long continued segregation was consistently fol- 
lowed during the entire period. “We honestly believed that nearly 
all of these people should remain in the institution indefinitely.”1 
Of the 1,537 discharges, 891 were not included in the study, for 
the following reasons: 187 were directly transferred to other insti- 
tutions for the feebleminded, 153 were directly transferred to hos- 
pitals for the insane, 89 were directly transferred to hospitals for 
epfleptics, 8 were directly transferred to other custodial institutions, 
175 from other states had been returned to those states, 279 could 
not be located.* 
The method of investigation of the cases consisted, first, in sending 
a circular letter to relatives or friends of the discharged patients, 
asking for information, as follows: 
“We are reviewing the last twenty-five years’ work of the school, 
and are especially studying the influence of the school upon the 
boys and girls who have been with us during the period, in the hope 
that our future work may be of more help to the boys and girls who 
come to us. 
“For this reason we are anxious to know all that we can of our 
former pupils,—whether they are now living, where they are now 
living, how they have occupied themselves, whether they have been 
useful and helpful at home, or are able to wholly or partially support 
themselves by work at home, or for wages, whether they have been 
1. Fernald, W. E. After-care Study of the Patients Discharged from IVaverley for 
a Period of Twenty-five Years. Reprinted from Ungraded, Vol. V, No. 2, Nov., 1919. 
p. 2. 
2. Ibid., p. 2. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
89 
able to look out for themselves, their problems, trials, experiences, 
etc. 
\\ e especially want to know whether their stay at the school was 
of benefit to them, and as to what part of their training was most 
beneficial, whether the school work, the manual training, etc., and 
especially as to how they might have been better fitted to take care 
of themselves. 
“We should very much appreciate a little note from you, telling us 
these facts in regard to . Perhaps you would be willing 
that we should call upon you some day to talk about these matters. 
I need not tell you that we should be very glad to be of service to 
our former pupils in any way. I am enclosing a stamped, addressed 
envelope, and shall be grateful for a reply.”1 
The social worker of the institution followed up these letters with 
personal visits to the family; she also talked with persons in the 
community such as ministers, social workers, police authorities, etc. 
“The information obtained was checked up from several sources 
in each case.”1 
Prom the concept of mental deficiency that had been prevalent 
up to this time, disastrous social consequences were naturally to be 
expected in sending these feebleminded persons and especially the 
women out into the world. Histories were obtainable on 176 dis- 
charged females. Of these only 27, or 15 per cent had married. 
Nearly all the women had married above the social level of their 
own parents. They were all, with one exception, of the moron 
group. Eleven of the 27 married women “were living useful and 
blameless lives; had neat, attractive homes, bore good reputations 
in the community, went to church, and apparently were making 
good in every way.” To these 11 women 34 children were bornP 
Three of the 11 women had been discharged from the institution 
without protest and at the request of responsible relatives. But the 
other 8 had been discharged very much against the advice of the 
institution and only upon the order of the Supreme Court on a writ 
of habeas corpus. These 8 had all appeared to be unpromising cases 
for discharge. Before coming to the institution they had led immoral 
lives, and had given difficulty while in the institution because of their 
active sex interest. They had therefore turned out unexpectedly 
well in being returned to the community.3 
There was of course a debit as well as a credit side to the careers 
3. Ibid., p. 2. 
1. Ibid., p. 1. 
2. All the children appeared normal. 90 
SOCIAL CONTROL OK THE FEEBLEMINDED 
of the women. The other 16 married women had records of bad 
behavior and their marriages had turned out poorly. All of these 
16 had been discharged under protest. The result in these cases 
was of the expected sort. All were failures as home makers. Four 
developed syphilis. They had records of sex promiscuity, alcohol- 
ism, and thievery. There were 24 children born to this group, of 
whom one woman had had 10. Two of these cases, one woman with 
6 children and another with 2 children, were later returned to the 
institution.1 
Of the total 176 discharged women, 48 were found to have been 
sexually immoral after discharge. These 48 immoral ones included 
the 16 married women mentioned above, 11 unmarried mothers 
who had born in all 13 illegitimate children, and 14 others who 
were subsequently committed to other institutions. No record of 
venereal diseases was found excepting the four cases of syphilis. 
This is a surprisingly small percentage of the 176, and indicated 
that they were not great factors in the spread of these social 
diseases. 
The 48 immoral women who registered as social failures, repre- 
senting 27 per cent of the group studied, were cases whose sex 
proclivities were well known in the institution and therefore re- 
luctantly discharged. In practically none of these cases were there 
responsible relatives or friends to give counsel and supervision. The 
women who got into trouble were those who were left to drift. 
There was everything therefore to make for social failure and 
nothing to make for social success. Dr. Fernald concludes, “Ap- 
parently women who had friends capable of understanding them 
and of properly protecting them did not have illegitimate children 
and did not become sex offenders.”2 
Twenty-nine women of the 176 had been admitted to other insti- 
tutions : 10 to hospitals for the insane; 4 to institutions for epileptics; 
3 to reformatories; and 1 to prison. Only 4 of the entire 
group, or little more than 5 per cent, in the period of twenty-five 
years had been committed to penal institutions.2 
On the economic side there could be counted as assets the 11 
women who were making good as wives and home makers. There 
were 8 others fully and “independently self-supporting and main- 
taining themselves in the way of getting their own jobs and paying 
their own bills as ordinary working women do.” In addition, 32 
1. Ibid., pp. 2-3. 
2. Ibid., p. 3. SOCIAL, RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
91 
women were capable workers at home to the extent of “earning 
their salt” and not becoming economic burdens. Thus nearly 30 
per cent of the group were economic assets to the extent of at 
least earning their own way in the world. Twenty-three of the 
idiot or imbecile group were living at home. Ten of these were 
more or less troublesome, but 13 were quiet and well behaved and 
able to do simple housework, the result apparently depending not 
so much on the feebleminded girl herself as upon “the character 
of the home and the intelligence of the family,”2 in Dr. Fernald’s 
opinion. 
The following summary of the records of the women is quoted 
from Dr. Fernald’s published article: 
“For 176 discharged female patients, we have the following 
report: 
Married (11 doing well) 27 
Self-supporting and self-controlling, unmarried. ... 8 
Working at home under supervision 32 
Living at home, not able to do much work 23 
Committed to other institutions 29 
Died 24 
Re-admitted to Waverley 33 
Total 116 
“Of the 90 discharged females now at liberty, 52 are apparently 
giving no trouble, viz.: 
Married, living at home 11 
Self-supporting 8 
Of those working at home 20 
Of those living at home 13 
“In the following table, some persons are counted in more than one 
classification, so the totals apparently do not check,— viz: some of 
the unmarried mothers are in the immoral group, illegitimacy cases 
in the re-admitted group, etc. The following groups have behaved 
badly, viz.: 
Married women, sex offenses 16 
Unmarried mothers H 
Sex offenders not included above 21 
1. Ibid., p. 4. 92 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Sent to other institutions 29 
Of those working at home 12 
Of those living at home 10 
Re-admitted to Waverley 33”1 
This analysis of the records of the discharged women must con- 
stantly be interpreted in the light of the fact that it was on the whole 
an unfavorable group of cases to begin with. We must bear in 
mind the statement that “the majority were discharged under pro- 
test.” The results obtained under these largely unfavorable cir- 
cumstances were little short of a revelation. The fact that there 
was among the women such an apparently small amount of delin- 
quency and immorality, so few illegitimate children, and so few 
children in general, that many were making good wives and that 
many more were so materially contributing to their maintenance, 
was a result not fully looked for even by Dr. Fernald himself. In 
short, the findings lent comparatively little support to former rather 
sweeping statements about the general anti-social proclivities of the 
feebleminded. Dr. Fernald told the writer that he had hesitated 
for two years to publish the results of this study because it had 
seemed so much at variance with the then accepted theories of deal- 
ing writh mental deficiency. In publishing the study, Dr. Fernald 
led the way to a fuller understanding of the social possibilities of 
the feebleminded. With such results from an unselected and largely 
unfavorable group of cases who had simply been “let go” without 
further supervision on the part of the institution, it at once became 
clear that there were hopeful possibilities for successfully restoring 
to the community cases carefully trained and carefully selected as 
having developed the qualities necessary for extra-institutional life. 
Add to training and selection a trial period on parole during which 
the former inmate would have the close guidance and supervision 
of the institutional social w'orker, and the proposal seemed worthy 
of serious consideration. 
The findings of the same survey with regard to the discharged 
males were even more encouraging. The histories of 470 discharged 
males were obtained. Only 13, or less than 3 per cent of the entire 
group had married. There were only 12 children to these marriages.2 
The homes of the married men neat and clean and the children 
behaved. Two of the 11 married men wdio had been making 
1. Ibid., p. 4. 
2. All the children appeared normal. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
93 
wages capable of supporting their homes, had been sent to the re- 
formatory for larceny. The other 11 were included in a group 
of 28 morons who were earning a good living without supervision. 
The occupations of these 28 included teamsters, elevator man, 
laborer, factory hand, farm hand, soda clerk, tin smith. The weekly 
earnings ranged from $8.00 to $36.00. One of the men had saved 
$2,000, and another owned his own home. “These 28 men seemed 
to have a blameless record in their community. They are good 
citizens, regarded as simple-minded men, and recognized as such 
by their employers and by their wives, for where they had married 
normal women (as they nearly all did) the wives spoke very kindly 
of the mental limitations of their husbands.”* A second group of 
nearly 86 discharged cases had regular employment and lived at 
home under close supervision of their families. This group in- 
cluded a few high-grade imbeciles, but consisted mostly of morons. 
The types of employment covered 39 occupations, such as factory 
hand, painter, baker, laborer, printing pressman, freight handlers, 
railroad brakeman, machinist, barber, etc. Only a few were common 
laborers. The average weekly wage of this group at the time of 
the study was $9.60. A few earned as low as $3.00 or $4.00, but the 
majority made from $7.00 to $16.00 weekly. The behavior of these 
86 was very satisfactory. They had been away from the school 
for an average of nine years, yet none had been sexually trouble- 
some or evinced any criminal tendencies. Steady work, good homes, 
and the careful supervision of relatives had enabled these former 
institutional cases to become useful and desirable members of 
society.* 
The third group of 77 cases described as of low moron or high 
imbecile grade, and of various ages, were not working for wages 
but were able to do some work at home. Eight were attending 
public school. “These persons all seemed to be harmless and in- 
offensive. No record of sex offence could be ascertained. * * * 
In this group also the lack of serious character defect and the fact 
that they were closely supervised were important factors in their 
good behavior.”2 
The fourth group of 59 cases was made up of still lower-grade 
imbeciles and idiots. This group consisted entirely of dependents. 
The report on these 59 cases was quite favorable because the 
1. Ibid., p. 5. 
2. Ibid., pp. 5-6. 94 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
homes were good and the families were able to assume the burden 
of support and protection. In both the third and fourth groups, Dr. 
Fernald explains, the cases which had proved troublesome had al- 
ready been returned to the institution. 
A fifth group of 24 men had been committed to penal institutions 
following their discharge. “Without exception,” Dr. Fernald states, 
“they were voluble, plausible, incorrigible, and apparently inherently 
criminalistic from early childhood.”7 They had been at Waverley 
on an average of less than one year. Eleven had run away from 
the institution; 9 had been taken away by parents, and 4 had been 
discharged as unsuitable for this institution. In addition to these 
24, 8 discharged boys had been sentenced to juvenile reformatories. 
Besides this total of 32 who had “served time,” 23 others had 
been arrested for crimes or misdemeanors but had not been com- 
mitted to penal institutions. Two of these had run away from the 
institution and the others had been removed by their parents. “This 
group,” says Dr. Fernald, “also showed distinct character defects 
from early childhood and, as well as the preceding group, should 
never have been released except under strict parole. Both groups 
were typical ‘defective delinquents’ and could not be adequately 
cared for or restrained in a school for the feebleminded.”7 
Another group of 43 of the discharged males were committed 
to other institutions such as hospitals for the insane, epileptic, etc. 
Sixty-eight others were re-admitted to Waverley, of which number 
7 were idiots and 42 imbeciles, and only 19 morons. None of those 
re-admitted to the institution had gotten into serious difficulty, but 
were re-admitted because they did not get on well or were a burden 
at home, or were not easily controlled. 
Finally, 54 of the 470 died after being discharged. 
The following summary lists the successes and failures of the 
470 discharged male patients included in this after-care study: 
“Earning a living without supervision 28 
“Working for wages, supervised at home 86 
“Working at home, no wages 77 
“Living at home not able to work 59 
“Arrested but not sentenced 23 
“Sentenced to penal institutions 32 
“Committed to other institutions 43 
1. Ibid., p. 6. SOCIAL, RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVEREEY 
“Re-admitted to Waverley 68 
“Died 54 
Total 470”* 
In interpreting these results, it should again be recalled 
that many of the cases, especially those which turned out unfavorably, 
were not selected for discharge by the institution, but had run away 
or were withdrawn from the school at the demand of relatives and 
against the advice of the superintendent. Furthermore, there was 
no after-care supervision or guidance of these cases on the part of 
the institution. The results, therefore, are the results of an un- 
controlled experiment with a partially unselected group of cases. 
The chief difference in the better record of the boys as compared 
with the girls is in the matter of sexual behavior. Feebleminded 
boys in general are not aggressive in the satisfaction of their sex 
desires. Few of them have the initiative to win the affections of 
the opposite sex. Many of the girls, however, unless guided and 
protected, are inclined credulously to accept the attention of men 
and fall an easy prey to those with evil design. On the other hand, 
the number of cases with apparently ingrained criminalistic ten- 
dencies was considerably greater among the men than the women. 
With both sexes the survey gave substance to the hope that a certain 
number of the feebleminded, after training, could successfully take 
their places in the life of the outside world. 
Dr. Fernald’s own summary of the survey as given in the con- 
cluding paragraph of the printed study is as follows: 
“The results of this survey should be interpreted with great 
caution. As a rule, the most promising cases are allowed to go 
home. They have received careful training. The parents have 
been properly instructed. Still many unpromising cases did well. 
There was a surprisingly small amount of criminality and sex 
offense, and especially of" illegitimacy. We may hope for a much 
better record when we have extra-institutional visitation and super- 
vision of all discharged cases. Those with definite character defects, 
especially those with bad homes, should be discharged with great 
caution.' The survey shows that there are bad defectives aiM good 
defectives. It also shows that even some apparently bad do ‘settle 
down.’ And it shows much justice in the plea of the well-behaved 
adult defective to be given a ‘trial outside’ for apparently a few 
defectives do not need or deserve life-long segregation. It is most 
1. Ibid., p. 7. 96 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
important that the limited facilities for segregation should be used 
for the many who can be protected in no other way.”1 
Consider one sentence of the above paragraph: “The survey 
shows that there are bad defectives and good defectives.” That 
simple statement of the case has since been much quoted by those 
who know the feebleminded best. It seems to be the key to the 
whole problem. Certain mental defectives are apparently defective 
in moral sense and unteachable in that regard; others have already 
become so well skilled in ways of crime and delinquency that to 
teach them differently requires long and painstaking effort. These 
cases can be recognized by the expert and they are the type that 
should be selected for segregation and institutional care and train- 
ing for an indefinite period. This is the type whose particular 
acquaintance was made during the alarmist period. But there is 
coming to be known that much larger number of the inherently 
“good” feebleminded, by nature affectionate, trusting, confiding, 
loyal, industrious, craving respectability, anxious to be like other 
people, ready to seize the opportunity under guidance to make the 
most of themselves. They are in a sense always children, sug- 
gestible and easily led. Thus, the influences of a bad home and a 
bad neighborhood, the scorn or ridicule of society, the sense of 
being a social outcast, readily make of these people the familiar 
feebleminded social offender. Society in the past has not even 
given these people the fundamental opportunity of being trained 
for useful employment, with the natural result that enforced idle- 
ness leads to anti-social conduct. The responsibility for such an 
outcome is obviously the community’s. Dr. George Wallace, Super- 
intendent of the Wrentham State School for the Feebleminded in 
Massachusetts, has succinctly said of this problem: “In considering 
what class of feebleminded individuals may safely remain in the 
community, it is of more importance to study what communities 
are safe for the feebleminded,” and, he adds, “the number of feeble- 
minded that can be safely cared for in the community is in direct 
ratio to the supervision that the community is willing to provide.”2 
In a paper entitled “A State Program for the Care of the Mentally 
Defective”3 written shortly after the publication of the study of the 
discharged cases, Dr. Fernald, referring to that survey, wrote: 
1. Ibid., p. 7. 
2. Wallace, G. N. The Type of Feebleminded Who Can Be Cared for in the Com- 
munity. Ungraded. Vol. II, No. 5. p. 107. 
S. Reprinted from Mental Hygiene, Vol. Ill, No. 4, pp. 566-74. October, 1919. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
97 
i t \\ averley, a careful study of the discharges for twenty-five 
vears showed that a very small proportion of the discharged male 
morons had committed crimes, or had married, or had become 
parents, or had failed to support themselves, or had been bad 
citizens. 
“It has been fairly well demonstrated that the average male moron, 
without naturally vicious tendencies, who has been properly trained 
in habits of obedience and industry, and who is protected from 
temptation and evil associations during his childhood, can be safely 
returned to the community when he has passed early adolescence, 
if his family are able to look after him and give him proper super- 
vision. A very much larger proportion of these trained male de- 
fectives would be suitable for community life if the above-described 
extra-institutional control and supervision could be provided. 
“The average citizen is not yet convinced that he should be taxed 
to support permanently an individual who is capable of 30 or 50 or 
70 per cent of normal economic efficiency, on the mere theory that 
he is more likely than a normal individual to become a social prob- 
lem. Thousands of morons never give any trouble in the community. 
“The after-care studies of the female morons who have received 
training in the institutions were not so favorable, but many of these, 
too, led moral and harmless and useful lives after their return to 
the community. The study of discharged female cases at Waverley 
showed a surprisingly small number who became mothers or who 
married. While it is true that defectives with undesirable habits 
and tendencies are not easily controlled, it is equally true that de- 
fectives who are obedient and moral and industrious are apt to con- 
tinue these traits permanently. It is as difficult for them to unlearn 
as it was to learn. Those defectives whose tendencies are such as 
to make them undesirable members of the community should not be 
allowed their liberty, but should be permanently segregated in insti- 
tutions. No other class of human beings so surely avenge neglect 
in their childhood, socially, morally, economically and eugenically.”* 
Since 1918 the institution at Waverley and the other Massa- 
chusetts institutions for the feebleminded have developed the system 
of paroling inmates. By this plan cases deemed suitable for outside 
life are permitted to return to the community on trial to remain 
under the continuing supervision of the institution as exercised by 
the field agent or social worker of the institution until such time as 
they give evidence of having sufficiently stabilized themselves in their 
new life to warrant their discharge. In supervising these cases 
the social worker does not rely solely upon her own oversight, but 
makes a special effort to interest in the welfare of the boy or girl 
1. Fernald, W. E. A State Program for the Care of the Mentally Defective. 
pp. 571-572. 98 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
responsible men and women of the community so that they may 
have somebody to whom to go for friendship and counsel, somebody, 
in other words, who will furnish that direction and leadership which 
the feebleminded person of whatever age, as a child, naturally craves 
and needs. There are many such persons willing to give such a 
helping hand who can be discovered and interested by a well-trained 
social worker. It is not so much a matter of giving a great deal of 
time as it is a matter of regularly keeping in touch with the persons 
on parole and making them feel that there is someone genuinely 
concerned as to whether or not they make a success of the oppor- 
tunity which has been given them to establish themselves in the 
world. 
It is significant to note how the confidence in the ability of this 
better type of feebleminded boy and girl to get along outside the 
institution has steadily increased in the minds of those who have been 
responsible for this important experimental work at Waverley. In 
the annual report of that institution for November, 1918, we find 
the following statement, “It has long been assumed that a feeble- 
minded person could not support himself independently. The war 
has taught us that this is not a static problem, for scores of our 
former patients are now working for high wages. Some of these 
boys have been receiving $18, $20, $25, $30, and even $38 per week. 
The demand for labor has been so great that employers have learned 
to provide the constant supervision that makes a producer even 
of a feebleminded boy. Practically every able-bodied boy of 15 
years or over who went home this summer for a vacation is still 
at home steadily working for good wages. So many of our male 
patients have been kept at home to work that our industries have 
been greatly reduced. Nearly all of our milkers, for instance, went 
home at one time. We have few painters, teamsters, etc., left. 
Many of the boys make regular visits to the school and are clean, 
well-dressed and bear themselves with dignity and evident self- 
respect. There is a strong suspicion that in the past the difficulty 
of getting work and the resulting idleness has had much to do with 
the anti-social behavior, at least of the male feebleminded. 
In the annual report of the same institution for 1920 we find the 
following: “The fact that practically all of the male morons who 
have no innate propensities for evil, who have finished our course 
1. Annual Report of the Mass. School for the Feebleminded at Waverley, Mass., for 
November, 1918. p. 14 and ff. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
99 
of training in the schools, the workshops and on the farm are re- 
turning to their homes at the age of 18 or thereabouts, if they have 
good homes, and are nearly all doing well in every way, gives the 
impression that the training at the school is practical and useful. 
Each year we feel more strongly that with a male moron, the crucial 
period is from 14 to 17 or 18 years, when he either forms habits 
of obedience and self-control, or gives himself up to self-indulgence 
and anti-social conduct. If he can be safely led through this critical 
period and made to feel that he has a place in the world, he is likely 
to become a useful and law-abiding citizen. We know full well that 
we cannot change the innate intellectual capacity of a defective in- 
dividual. We know that each defective seems to have very definite 
intellectual limitations, but that he also has very definite possibilities, 
and our task is to develop these to the fullest possible extent, to keep 
him sweet-tempered, to give him self-respect and to make him useful. 
“We formerly kept our brighter boys and girls in the schoolroom 
classes until they were 21 or 22 years of age. We discovered that 
these boys and girls seldom amounted to much after this long school- 
ing. About 15 years ago we decided to graduate all from the school 
classes at the age of 17 at the most, as accurate individual school 
records showed that it was very seldom that any real scholastic im- 
provement was reached after the age of 16.” In this year, (1920), 
62 boys and 21 girls were out “on trial,” agreeing to report at regular 
intervals to the institution. Aiding the social worker in the super- 
vision of these cases were clergymen and their wives, social agencies, 
court and school officers, and other representative citizens. A total 
of 92 “on trial” and former patients in this year were -receiving 
wages as follows :l 
9 $10 weekly 
24 15 
24 20 
19 25 
9 30 
2 35 
2 40 
2 45 
1 50 
1. Annual Report of the Mass. School for the Feebleminded at Waverley. 1920. 
pp. 17-21. 100 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
This amounts to a yearly total of earnings of $102,000. Comment- 
ing on this showing, the report states: “There is no doubt as to the 
feeblemindedness of any of the above group. It seems that a well- 
trained defective with no bad personality traits, who is properly 
advised and helped, makes a useful citizen.” 
At latest report (April, 1923) 220 former male patients were 
working steadily for wages and during the year had earned a total 
of over $198,800. 
The parole work for girls at Waverley has developed more slowly 
than that for boys and the reasons for this are obvious. On this 
point Dr. Fernald in the 1920 report states: “Hitherto we have 
allowed the female patients to go out only in exceptional cases where 
home conditions are very favorable. The fact that nearly all of 
these cases so released have done well has encouraged us to believe 
that it is only fair that a larger number of well-behaved girls who 
have been here for a long time should be given a trial. If the legis- 
lature had enacted the long-asked-for law providing for extra-in- 
stitutional supervision of the feebleminded * * * at least 100 female 
patients now present could be returned to their homes.”1 In other 
words, the matter of restoring some of the girls to outside life after 
they have completed their institutional training is not so much a 
question of the ability of these girls to make good under supervision, 
but rather a question of providing adequate supervision. In the last 
published annual report of the institution at Waverley for 1921, 
we find that 80 boys and 24 girls are on the “on trial” list, reporting 
regularly. With the exception of two of the boys, all these people 
are reported as being industrious and well-behaved in every way. 
This work is still being carried on without a definite parole law which 
would enable many patients to have their liberty who are now in 
custody. In addition to the above group, 82 former male patients 
are known to be working for wages and receiving practically the 
same scale of wages as the “on trial” cases. In this report there 
is given a sample list of the work records of 21 former patients of 
the Waverley institution in the alphabetic order as taken from 
the files:2 
1. Ibid., p. 21. 
2. Waverley Report. 1921. p. 22. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
101 
Table 1. Occupations and Earnings of Former Male Patients 
at Waverley 
Patient 
Age 
(Years) 
Mental Age Years in 
(Y ears and this 
Months) School 
Occupation 
Wages 
A 
15 
9-6 
2 
Errand boy 
$9.00 week 
B 
28 
10-3 
6 % 
Locomotive fireman 
24.64 “ 
C 
24 
9-2 
14 
Machinist’s helper 
24.50 “ 
D 
18 
6-10 
2 
Helper on express truck 
12.00 “ 
E 
33 
11-1 
9 
Care of stock room 
28.00 “ 
F 
19 
6-8 
2 
Farm helper 
Bd. and clothes 
G 
29 
8-1 
9 
Helper in mill 
17.00 week 
H 
25 
6-2 
8 
Roofer 
24.00 “ 
I 
15 
13-10 
1 
Messenger boy 
7.00 “ 
J 
17 
7-2 
5 
Carpenter’s helper 
30.00 “ 
K 
27 
7-4 
8 
Laborer 
25.50 “ 
L 
18 
7-2 
3 
Mill, spinning room 
22.43 “ 
M 
17 
6-8 
2 
Errand boy 
7.50 “ 
N 
20 
8-3 
5 
Fruit handler 
30.40 “ 
O 
17 
8-1 
7 
Cutlery factory 
12.00 “ 
P 
26 
7-3 
3 
Teamster 
23.00 “ 
Q 
21 
9-3 
10 
Packer 
23.28 “ 
R 
32 
9-2 
10 
Porter 
11.00 “ 
S 
37 
Imbecile 
12 
Odd jobs in shop 
15.00 “ 
T 
18 
7-2 
6 
Farm helper 
35.00 month 
U 
18 
9-1 
6 
Farm helper 
40.00 “ 
The most recent study which has been made of this work at 
Waverley is that published by Miss Mabel A. Matthews, the Head 
Social Worker of the Waverley institution, in an article entitled 
“One Hundred Institutionally Trained Male Defectives in the Com- 
munity Under Supervision.’’1 The group included in Miss Mat- 
thews’ study was not a selected one, but embraced all those who 
were within a given radius of the institution. 1 he boys studied 
had not been discharged but were still under the control of the 
institution on a parole status. They had been permitted to return 
to their homes either because their parents or friends had asked 
that they be given a chance outside, or because, having secured 
work while home on vacations, they were put “on trial.” Two of 
the one hundred boys had run away from the School and were later 
allowed to go “on trial.” Seven were thought to be sufficiently 
trained to be self-supporting and were allowed to take positions 
outside. 
1. Mental Hygiene. Vol. VI, No. 2, April, 1922, pp. 332-342 102 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
At the time the results of this investigation were published, ninety- 
seven of the one hundred boys studied were living in the com- 
munity. The other three had been returned to the School: one for 
committing an immoral act, one because he could not or would not 
hold a job and his relatives wished him to be returned, and one, who 
because of his youth and incomplete training, had lost his job during 
the business depression and was returned for further training. 
By having a careful follow-up system and by requiring that all 
the boys report at the institution at regular intervals, the School 
was able to keep in close touch with these ninety-seven extra-insti- 
tutional cases in the community. Some of the boys had excellent 
homes and required very little supervision, but the less fortunate 
ones were given constant oversight. When the investigation was 
made, these boys had been living in the community from ten months 
to five years. Most of them had been out of the institution from 
two to three years. The following outline indicates, in general, the 
circumstances of the ninety-seven extra-institutional cases concerned 
in this study: 
Young boys with fairly high I. Q. who are living at home and 
attending public school 5 
Boys with mentality of less than 8 years doing farm work at 
home 2 
Boy, 24 years old, mentality less than 8 years, and half paralyzed 
besides, lives at home and is of much assistance in the 
housework 1 
Boy, mentality 6 years, lives at home and is of some assistance 
about the house 1 
In the Army 2 
In the Navy 1 
Taking Government Vocational Training work 1 
Out of work, because of hard times, living at home and closely 
supervised 4 
Sent to reform schools 2 
Working and self-supporting 78 
Total 97 
Returned to Institution 3 
Grand total 100 
Of the 78 boys found to be entirely self-supporting, Miss Mat- 
thews has to say: “Notwithstanding the present scarcity of work, 
and the fact that a number have had to find new jobs, 78 boys are SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
103 
working and are self-supporting, although many of them have been 
reduced in pay or have had to take inferior positions. 
The following summaries show the minimum and maximum wages 
earned by those of different mental ages: 
Minimum Weekly Wages Earned by the Different Groups :2 
Those with less than an 8-year mind earn a minimum of $ 8 
Those with an 8-year mind earn a minimum of 10 
Those with a 9-year mind earn a minimum of 12 
Those with a 10-year mind earn a minimum of 10 
Those with over a 10-year mind earn a minimum of 10 
Maximum Weekly Wages Earned by the Different Groups:2 
Those with less than an 8-year mind earn a maximum of.... $26 
Those with an 8-year mind earn a maximum of 28 
Those with a 9-year mind earn a maximum of 30 
Those with a 10-year mind earn a maximum of 32 
Those with over a 10-year mind earn a maximum of 34 
It is of interest to note briefly the types of work done by the 
different groups. Several of those under eight years mentally were 
doing hard or dangerous work, such as that of hod-carriers, roofers’ 
helpers, etc., and were comparatively well paid. Others were work- 
ing on farms, on milk wagons, in factories, etc. One boy of this 
group was learning the upholstering trade. 
The wages for those having eight-year minds ranged from $10 
to $28 a week. The one earning the highest wage is a fire-tender 
in a roundhouse. Another of this group takes boards from a saw 
in a lumber yard; one repairs radiators in automobiles; one nails 
boxes in a chocolate factory; others are farm or factory hands, 
errand boys, etc. 
Those with nine-year minds receive from $12 to $30 a week. Of 
the two receiving $30 weekly, one is a painter and the other a 
machinist’s helper. One boy of the group is an elevator boy, another 
packs glass, and so on. 
Those with a mentality of ten years earn from $10 to $32 weekly. 
Among them are found team and truck drivers, an errand boy in 
a bank, a canvasser, a railroad employee, etc. 
The boys with minds over ten years are receiving from $10 to 
$34 weekly. One is a broom-maker, one an errand boy, another a 
painter, several are factory workers, etc. One boy has charge of 
1. Ibid., p. 333. 
2. Ibid., p. 336. 104 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
a certain simple part of the work in a factory and has seven men 
under his direction. 
Miss Matthews states that probably the largest group of boys 
working is composed of laborers and factory workers.* She tells 
the case of a boy with a mental age of less than seven years who 
earned as a laborer $29.76 a week. A good part of his work was 
to mix lime and carry a hod. Although there were several normal 
children in the family to which he belonged, he was the only one 
working and his money supported the family. While at Waverley, 
he had been very carefully trained in the only kind of work for 
which he was mentally fit and he went directly from there to his 
job.2 
The majority of the boys are employed in mills and shops where 
so much of the work does not require very high intelligence but does 
require the constant, automatic handling of simple machines. 
There are many other simple types of work about factories where 
the well-trained feebleminded boy is an excellent and steady worker. 
On the farms, too, the boys are “willing, faithful plodders.”* 
One instance of the remarkable results which have come from 
handling these cases with great patience and understanding is fur- 
nished by the case of one of these boys with a mentality of nine 
years who, Miss Matthews said, was perhaps the most serious case 
when admitted. He had fallen among bad companions and, follow- 
ing their example, drank heavily. While trying to rob a gas meter 
one night in order to buy more liquor, he broke the pipes and a 
drunken companion was killed by the gas. The court was wise 
enough to send the boy to Waverley instead of to prison. While at 
the School he was taught habits of right living and industry and 
was allowed to go home “on trial” about three years before the 
study was made. His people, in the meantime, had learned to under- 
stand his difficulties and were giving him splendid supervision. It 
was found he had been working steadily since leaving the institution 
and was earning $30 a week which his mother managed for him. 
He was enjoying wholesome amusements with a brother as com- 
panion and was faithful in his church attendance. 
Concerning the fact that these boys were found to be successful, 
Miss Matthews says: “That these boys are a success is due to the 
1. Ibid., p. 337. 
2. “This boy came to the School at the age of 12 years, a quick-tempered, excitable 
imbecile: he went out at the age of 18 years quiet, obedient, and with some degree of 
self-control.” Ibid., p. 337. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
105 
fact that they are faithful, conscientious, methodical, unquestioning 
workers. While at Waverley they were trained to work steadily 
and faithfully, and to take pride in their work. They are pains- 
taking with uninteresting details of their work and it matters not 
how simple it may be they take pride in doing it well. True, this 
pride needs to be stimulated by the interest shown by someone in 
authority. With this and a bit of praise the boys take pride in 
digging a ditch with smooth even sides, or in packing bricks into 
a hod firmly and evenly. They will do the same thing in just the 
same way day after day, and they will work until the bell rings. They 
seem to enjoy monotony instead of,tiring of the repetition. As 
a rule they will take a direction (if they understand it) and will 
follow it without questioning or stopping to debate whether it is 
really their job or whether it belongs to someone else to do. They 
do what is expected of them. They will be there at seven a. m. and 
will not stop to reason whether eight o’clock would be better. * * * If 
they can only be made to feel that they are expected to do a certain 
thing there is something compelling about this feeling, and they 
do the expected thing.”* 
Another reason for their success is that they long to be thought 
respectable. A great many of them come from homes that have 
been supported by charity and visited by police. They have been 
ridiculed and scorned because they have been slow in school work 
and at play. “The joy and satisfaction they show at having anyone 
notice and praise them, either upon their appearance and conduct, 
or upon their savings or work is strong evidence that the love of 
approbation is a great factor in their success. Now that they have 
what they call a ‘chance’ they exert every effort to suppress their 
unfortunate traits and habits, as they had been trained to do while 
at Waverley.”2 They are anxious that those about them should 
not know they have been at Waverley or that there is anything they 
cannot understand. “They try so hard to be and to act like their 
fellow-workmen that with constant encouragement they succeed 
fairly well.”2 
While at Waverley these boys had been taught habits of clean- 
liness and neatness. The officials of the School became their ideals 
of respectability. The boys wanted to be as well-dressed and as 
well thought of as were the School officials. These ideas went with 
the boys upon leaving the School and were reflected in their manner 
1. Ibid., p. 338. 
2. Ibid., p. 339. 106 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
of dressing as in other things. “They almost never get clothing 
that is flashy. Either their native taste is good or else it is because 
in buying clothing, they get things which are as nearly as possible 
like those worn by people who have been their ideals.”1 
At Waverley they had been taught to save and when they left 
the School they took with them the conviction that one must some- 
how have a bank account in order to reach a higher level of society. 
With encouragement these boys have been found to save quite well, 
though it is thought that they save rather because “respectable” 
people do so and the School has advised it, than because they 
actually appreciate the value of money or realize that it will be of 
great help to them in time of need. 
Their amusements were found to be of a simple, wholesome sort 
—“movies” once or twice a week, athletics of various sorts, long 
walks on Sundays, etc. “Few of them want or expect excitement. 
* * * On the whole, their evenings are short, and most of them 
are spent at home with a victrola or games, or with books and 
papers, their evenings usually closing about nine o’clock.”1 
The case of one of these boys well illustrates what has been said. 
“Billy” came to the School in 1905, dirty, dishonest, untruthful, 
selfish, impudent and with bad sex habits. He stayed in the School 
for eleven years during which time he was taught to overcome these 
bad characteristics to a great extent. Although he still felt the 
same inclinations he was taught to recognize the desirability of not 
“giving in” to them. He became a “slow, plodding boy” and was sent 
out “on trial” to live with his mother and grandfather. He spent 
his evenings playing checkers with his grandfather and the latest 
report was that he had “beaten his grandfather 10,005 times at 
checkers, while his grandfather had beaten him only 3,025 times. 
His having played so many games of checkers in four years may 
account for his keeping out of trouble.”2 He was working for 
a meat-packing place at $12 a week. 
Only three of the one hundred boys studied were arrested. One 
of the three was returned to the School (the only one whose mis- 
conduct was of an immoral nature), and the other two to reform 
schools. All but two of the adults of the group have been self- 
supporting and the majority of these have helped support their 
families. “It is noticeable that after a boy’s training has made him 
an asset to his family his people become interested in him and co- 
1. Ibid., p. 339. 
2. Ibid., p. 341. SOCIAL RECONSTRUCTION AT WAVERLEY 
107 
operate in his supervision.”1 By sending into the community the 
older, trained boys, it is possible to admit young, teachable boys who 
would otherwise become delinquents. 
It was found that with very few exceptions, these one hundred 
boys had made good. “Their success seems to be due to painstak- 
ing, constructive training received while at the School, and to proper 
supervision after going into the community. We feel that with con- 
tinued friendly helpful supervision and no humiliating circumstances 
connected with it, the average trained feebleminded boy, properly 
brought up and trained to work, can live in the community and 
play his part.”2 
The splendid work of the institution at Waverley in the social 
reconstruction of many of its inmates, as shown in this chapter, can- 
not be better summed up than in Dr. Fernald’s own words: 
“The keynote of a practical program for the management of 
mental defectiveness is to be found in the fact, which seems to 
have been proved, that those defectives whose defects are recognized 
while they are young children, and who receive proper care and 
training during their childhood, are, as a rule, not especially trouble- 
some after they have been safely guided through the period of 
early adolescence.”3 
1. Ibid.., p. 342. 
2. Ibid., p. 342. 
3. Fernald, W. F. “A State Program for the Care of the Mentally Defective." 
Mental Hygiene, Vol. Ill, No. 4. pp. 566-74. October, 1919. CHAPTER VIII 
The Colony Plan; Rome Colonies For Boys 
Two of the chief difficulties standing in the way of the fuller 
development of the segregation program, it will be recalled, were: 
(1) the high cost of institutional construction and maintenance; 
(2) the social and economic waste of institutionalizing thousands of 
high-grade feebleminded persons capable of useful employment. 
At the same time, to many of those who knew the feebleminded 
best, it seemed essentially inhumane to confine in the wards of an 
institution many strong, able-bodied persons who had never com- 
mitted any serious offence, simply because they were not quite up 
to par in their mental functioning. Recognizing the need of safe- 
guarding many of the feebleminded, for a period at least, for their 
own protection and that of society, these workers with the feeble- 
minded believed that it was both possible and desirable to remove 
groups of the inmates from the institution proper, place them in a 
more normal living and working environment where they could be 
practically self-supporting, and still maintain the necessary degree 
of supervision to protect the individual and the community. 
This was the colony idea and to Dr. Charles Bernstein, Superin- 
tendent of the Rome State School for Mental Defectives at Rome, 
N. Y., goes the credit for having developed it in an extensive and 
practical way. In 1915 Dr. Bernstein wrote: “It seems the time 
has arrived when we must do other than make the support of the 
defective and dependent classes a dead load or burden on the State. 
* * * Instead of asking the State to go on providing beds at $500 
to $1,000 each (pre-war costs) and maintenance at from $200 to 
$400 per year for each of these unfortunate individuals, and thus 
rendering them even more unfortunate because more dependent, 
we must provide other means of care wherein $50 to $100 beds as 
in colonies may be provided.” Dr. Bernstein gave it as his opinion 
that “something more economical and many times more humane 
than brick and stone walls and iron fences may meet the need.”1 
Dr. Bernstein in fact had anticipated this statement with actual 
1. Twenty-First Annual Report of the Rome State School. the; COLONY plan ; ROME COLONIES POR BOYS 
109 
demonstration and had established his first farm colony for feeble- 
minded boys in 1906 and his first domestic colony for feebleminded 
girls in 1914. 
Considerable discussion has prevailed about the beginnings of the 
colony system of care for the feebleminded. This has been due 
largely to the fact that the term has been applied to several different 
types of care. The Century Dictionary describes a colony as “a 
company or body of people who migrate from their native country 
or home to a new province, country, or district, to cultivate and 
inhabit it, but remain subject to or intimately connected with the 
parent state.” By analogy, therefore, the institution for the feeble- 
minded itself may be regarded as a colony since it is made up of 
individuals who have migrated there from homes elsewhere in the 
State. Thus the institution for epileptics at Sonyea, N. Y., is 
called the Craig Colony. In this sense the expression, colonizing 
the feebleminded, has been used frequently in the literature on 
mental deficiency, as a synonym for institutional care. 
The word “colony” in relation to the feebleminded, however, has 
come to be more properly applied to groups of inmates from the 
parent institution who have been settled at points more or less 
distant from the institution but who still remain subject to its 
jurisdiction. In accordance with such an interpretation, the first 
colony for the feebleminded on record in this country was that for 
feebleminded women established at Newark, N. Y., in 1878 as an 
offshoot of the institution at Syracuse. The Newark group re- 
mained for seven years under the direction of the Syracuse Board 
of Managers but it rapidly developed into a custodial institution of 
the accepted type and in 1885 was incorporated as a separate 
institution. 
A colony for the feebleminded according to the prevailing con- 
ception may be defined as “any group of inmates living together 
under supervision outside the parent institution, while remaining 
under its jurisdiction and contributing to a greater or less degree 
by labor to their own support.” 
The first distinctly organized working colony of this defined type 
to be established in this country, so far as the records show, was 
opened in 1882 on a farm at Fairmount near Syracuse, N. Y., by the 
Syracuse State School for Mental Defectives. This colony is still 
in existence and has served a useful purpose in giving employment 110 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
and training to the boys of the institution. In 1893 the Indiana 
School for Feebleminded Youth opened a farm colony of the same 
type. The colony was successful from the first and is still operating. 
It has been administered without serious difficulty and the products 
of the labor of its members have contributed materially toward the 
maintenance of the parent institution. This colony has 509 acres of 
land and a population of about 200 boys. The boys are employed 
at farming, gardening, dairying, stock-raising and fruit-growing. 
Custodial groups of lower-grade cases have from time to time been 
placed at the colony where they have been cared for by the brighter 
boys, under the general supervision, of course, of trained employees. 
The institution at Fort Wayne now has several colonies in addition 
to this original one. So fully has the colony plan proved its value 
in Indiana that a new institution for the feebleminded recently 
opened in that State at Butlerville is being developed entirely along 
colony finest 
Massachusetts followed Indiana. At the School for the Feeble- 
minded at Waverley as early as 1899, Dr. Fernald, the Superin- 
tendent, became aware of the urgent need of an outlet for some of 
his pupils. The excellent school training patterned on the Seguin 
model, supplemented by intensive industrial training, had reared a 
group of inmates recognized to be capable of supporting themselves 
in whole or in part. Yet many of these the institution found it 
difficult or unwise to discharge. As Dr. Fernald has explained it: 
“We were appalled to find that, instead of a school, we were rapidly 
becoming a receptacle for chronic adult imbeciles, trained to the 
extent of their ability. There was no opportunity to exercise the 
trained capacity.”2 This, it must be borne in mind, was more than 
a decade before there was any thought of developing a parole sys- 
tem. It was also in the days before the “discovery” of the moron 
when the institution comprised largely idiots and imbeciles. 
As a solution of this problem which confronted the Waverley 
institution, so far as the males were concerned, the trustees pur- 
chased 2,000 acres of land in the northern part of the State, sixty 
miles from the parent institution, as the site of a farm colony for 
boys. The land consisted of “abandoned” but fertile farms, to- 
gether with woodland, gravel, sand and building stone. It was 
1. Thirty-Second Annual Report, Board of State Charities. Indiana. 1921. 
2. Fernald, W. E. The Templeton Farm Colony for the Feebleminded. Reprint from 
The Survey, March, 1912. p. 2. the COLONY plan ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
procured for less than $10 per acre. The area was large enough 
so that the boys while still under supervision might have a feeling 
of complete freedom within the limits of such an extensive estate. 
And this in fact has proved to be the case. The Templeton colony 
was the first of its kind to be operated at any considerable distance 
from the parent institution. 
There are now at the Templeton Colony 300 boys and men from 
sixteen to forty years of age, with mental ages of from six to eight 
years. They are all of the able-bodied, industrious type. They are 
living a wholesome, active, outdoor life and are happy and contented. 
Boys who are sent here on trial and do not adapt themselves to this 
kind of life are permitted to return to the institution so that a 
group of congenial comrades may be assured. The boys live in 
renovated farm houses and dormitories of the farm-house type. 
They themselves do all the construction and repair work under the 
direction of their supervisors. Many carloads of food products 
raised here are shipped each year to the parent institution. In this 
simple life many of the restless, dissatisfied inmates of the institu- 
tion have found a release for their energies and have settled down 
upon this estate of the great outdoors with a real feeling of pro- 
prietorship and a high sense of pride in the product of their labors. 
In some cases the farm life has so brought out the dependable 
qualities of the boy that his relatives have been glad to take him 
back home, finding in him a steady wage-earner and an acceptable 
member of the household. 
The colony plan of care and training has had its most extensive 
development in New York State where it first began. This colony de- 
velopment has been due almost entirely to the work of Dr. Charles 
Bernstein at the Rome, N.Y., State School for Mental Defectives. The 
Rome colonies have been particularly noteworthy, not only because 
of their extent and the large number of persons colonized, but 
especially because of the application of several new principles to 
colony operations: (1) colonizing of women as well as men; (2) 
establishment of industrial colonies in town for both men and women 
in addition to farm colonies for men and domestic colonies for 
women; (3) using the colony as a definite training center for com- 
munity life and as a midway station between the institution and 
parole. In other words the Rome colonies have not been merely a 
modified form of institutional care, but they have been made a 112 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
definite part of the institution’s system of training looking toward 
social rehabilitation of all cases which upon trial in the colonies show 
themselves capable of community life. The colony is one stage in 
the moving-up process. At the same time the Rome colonies also 
provide indefinite care for those “boys” and “girls”1 who can 
safely enjoy the degree of freedom which the colony affords but 
probably can never be entrusted to the outside world. 
In this chapter the Rome colonies for boys will be considered, 
and in the following chapter the Rome colonies for girls. 
The first Rome colony experiment was made in 1906 when a 
group of eight boys was placed on a farm of 187 acres about a mile 
distant from the institution. This was the more familiar farm 
type of colony. The boys were placed under the immediate super- 
vision of a farmer and his wife who were made members of the 
institution staff with the status of supervisor and assistant matron. 
The number of boys in this colony was later increased to twenty. 
At the end of the first six months, the account of this colony with 
the parent institution stood as follows :2 
Credited with supplies to amount of.. $1,573.05 
Charged with supplies to amount of. .. . $904.26 
Salary of farmer and wife 360.00 
Profit to colony’s credit $ 308.79 
The success of this first colony, known as the Brush Farm Colony, 
led to the establishment two years later of a second farm colony 
adjoining the first and known as the Bailey Farm Colony. By 
dividing the acreage of the Brush Farm, both groups were given 
100 acres. Like the Brush Colony, the Bailey Farm was operated 
with twenty boys, supervised by a man and wife. Both of these 
two first farm colonies were purchased outright, the Brush property 
for $10,000 and the Bailey property for $5,000. 
Again at two-year intervals, in 1910 and 1912, the third and 
fourth farm colonies were established, the Rathbun and the Lam- 
phere. Each of these accommodated 30 boys. The first was rented 
for $600 annually, while the second was purchased for $5,000. The 
Rathbun farm which was situated five miles from the institution 
1. The terms “boy” and “girl” are here used to denote the feebleminded of whatever 
actual age. 
2. Bernstein, Charles. Colony and Extra-Institutional Care. Mental Hygiene, Vol. IV 
No. 1, pp. 1-28. Jan., 1920. THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
113 
covered 300 acres and was used for raising fodder and pasturage 
and for stabling the institution’s large herd of young cattle. The 
work was of course done by the boys. The Lamphere farm of 50 
acres lying very near the institution was devoted to truck gardening 
and here the boys raised practically all the vegetables excepting 
potatoes needed for the large institution population of 2,300. 
In 1915 and 1916 two dairy farms were rented at $1,000 each 
annually for colony purposes and twenty boys placed on each of 
these. They were named respectively the Stook and Talcott after 
the families who had formerly possessed them, a custom followed 
in the designation of all the farm colonies. These two dairy farms 
have produced much of the milk and butter needed for the institu- 
tion.1 
The further development of the farm colonies was simply a 
repetition of the above. Aside from the three mentioned, no other 
colonies have been purchased. It has been found in many ways 
more advantageous to rent. The opening of new colonies has there- 
fore required no additional outlay by the State. A small fund which 
represents the surplus from colony earnings has accumulated which 
is sufficient to cover the rent and initial expenses for seed, equip- 
ment, etc., during the brief period until the new colony is able to 
meet these items from the earnings of its members. 
In all, 22 different colonies for boys have been established by the 
Rome State School to date. Four of these have been closed, the 
purpose for which they were established having been accomplished, 
or more suitable accommodations having been found elsewhere. 
This leaves 18 boys’ colonies in active operation at the present time. 
All but two of these eighteen are farm colonies. The two excep- 
tions are industrial colonies in town, a type of colony which will 
be described at a later point. Three of the sixteen farm colonies,, 
now in operation, as already noted, are located on property pur- 
chased by the institution. Another occupies the site of a former 
State institution, the use of which property is donated by the State. 
The remaining twelve farm colonies are located on rented farms. 
In Table 3 on page 115, which gives the financial statement of the 
rented farm colonies, only the ten which were in active operation 
during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1922, are listed. 
1. Ibid., p. 3. 114 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
The list of the boys’ colonies in the order of their establishment is 
as follows i1 
Table 2. Rome State School Bovs’ Colonies Established to 
January 1, 1923 
No. 
Boys’ Colonies 
No. of 
Opened Acres Beds 
Cost 
1. 
Brush 
1906 
187 
20 
Purchased 
$10,000.00 
2. 
Bailey 
1908 
15 
20 
Purchased 
5,000.00 
3. 
Rathbun 
1910 
300 
24 
Rented 
800.00 
4. 
Lamphere 
1912 
50 
30 
Purchased 
6,000.00 
5. 
Indian Lake (closed 1918) 
1915 
150 
20 
Loaned by State 
6. 
Stook 
1915 
270 
20 
Rented 
1,100.00 
7. 
Talcott 
1916 
200 
24 
Rented 
1,000.00 
8. 
Kossuth 
1917 
Industrial 
32 
Rented 
900.00 
9. 
Akron (closed 1919) 
1917 
60 
40 
Rented 
700.00 
10. 
Dewey 
1918 
90 
20 
Rented 
600.00 
11. 
Lawrence 
1918 
1,350 
36 
Rented 
1,200.00 
12. 
Spencer 
1920 
100 
16 
Rented 
600.00 
13. 
Valatie 
1920 
395 
60 
Donated 
14. 
Delta (closed 1920) 
1920 
Industrial 
20 
Donated 
15. 
Smith 
1920 
123 
24 
Rented 
1,200.00 
16. 
Jay Street (closed 1921) 
1920 
Industrial 
16 
Rented 
600.00 
17. 
Wright 
1921 
20 
16 
Rented 
600.00 
18. 
Ayers 
1921 
40 
16 
Rented 
900.00 
19. 
Beck 
1921 
78 
20 
Rented 
900.00 
20. 
Rogers 
1922 
175 
16 
Rented 
600.00 
21. 
Hinkley 
1922 
Industrial 
20 
Rented 
480.00 
22. 
Verona 
1922 
75 
20 
Rented 
800.00 
Farms of from 50 to 200 acres, with buildings to accommodate 
16 to 24 boys and the farmer and his wife, can be rented in the 
vicinity of the Rome institution at from $600 to $1,200 a year, (an 
average rate of $25 per year for house room for each inmate and 
$2 to $4 per acre for improved farm land with barns and other 
necessary equipment).2 On the roads leading out from the insti- 
tution the traveler passes not one but a series of these farm colonies. 
They are distinguished by their unusually trim and tidy appearance. 
Run-down farms have rapidly taken on a new aspect when they 
have been converted to this (as yet) rather novel use. As shown in 
the above table, the 16 farm colonies in operation on January 1, 
1923, provided accommodations for 382 boys, as compared with 1,000 
beds available for male patients in the institution proper. The fol- 
lowing table gives figures on the value of products and the main- 
tenance and rental costs of the ten rented farm colonies in operation 
during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1922: 
1. Rome State School Twenty-Eighth Annual Report. 1922. p. 14. 
2. Rome Annual Report. 1921. p. 16. THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
115 
Table 3. Value oe Products and Operating Costs of Rented Farm 
Colonies for Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1922. 
Value 
of 
Products 
Cost 
Total 
Costs 
Colony 
Acres 
Beds 
Rent 
Salaries 
Supplies 
Rathbun 
300 
24 
$3,008 
$1,000 
$1,200 
$1,615 
$3,815 
Stook 
270 
20 
4,293 
1,100 
1,200 
1,650 
3,950 
Talcott 
200 
24 
4,256 
1,000 
1,200 
1,863 
4,063 
Lawrence 
1,350 
36 
6,180 
1,000 
1,200 
2,432 
4,632 
Smith 
123 
24 
3,939 
1,200 
1,200 
1,921 
4,321 
Ayres 
40 
18 
1,200 
300 
1,200 
1,485 
2,985 
Wright 
16 
18 
1,917 
600 
1,000 
1,492 
3,092 
Beck 
90 
20 
853 
800 
1,000 
1,524 
3,324 
Hamil 
40 
28 
2,431 
800 
480 
2,132 
3,412 
Rogers 
140 
20 
1,228 
600 
720 
1,426 
2,746 
2,569 
232 
$29,305 
$8,400 
$10,400 
$17,540 
$36,340 
The earlier farm colonies had been, after the first year, entirely 
self-sustaining, covering from the value of their products both the 
rental or interest on the investment, etc., and the maintenance. The 
foregoing table shows, however, that with the further extension 
of the farm colony operations, most of the colonies have not been 
entirely self-supporting. That is, while the earnings of the inmates 
are much more than enough to pay the rent on the property, they 
are not in all cases sufficient to meet the entire cost of maintenance. 
Complete self-support had been possible in the case of the earlier 
farm colonies after the first year because particularly good farms 
had been chosen and the most capable boys selected to operate them. 
Had colony expansion stopped there this record of complete self- 
support could readily have been maintained. But the purpose of 
the colonies is not primarily to make a financial showing. The 
larger objects which Dr. Bernstein has in mind are (1) to use the 
colonies as a means of greatly increasing the capacity of the insti- 
tution in order that so many of the feebleminded needing the 
opportunity for institutional training might not have to be refused; 
(2) to place as many as possible of the inmates of the institution 
capable of it in this more normal, satisfying, and stimulating environ- 
ment; (3) to use the colony as a stepping-stone to parole and dis- 
charge in many cases. As new farm colonies are opened bo vs younger, 
less trained, and of lower mentality than those of the earlier farm 
groups are'sent out. They are not expected to be entirely self- 116 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
sufficient. Nevertheless their earnings, as may be seen from the table, 
are easily able to cover the rent and a portion of the maintenance also. 
All this means that the State is getting added accommodations for 
the feebleminded, at no cost whatever, with the additional saving of 
having a considerable proportion of the inmates contribute in greater 
or less degree to their own maintenance. Furthermore, the colony 
for many cases means the difference between life-long institutional 
care on the one hand and the possibility of eventually returning 
to the community on the other. For patients to remain indefinitely 
in the institution without enough work to occupy them and absorb 
their interest and attention means in most cases steady deterioration 
into greater and greater dependence until they become total burdens 
upon the people of the State for the rest of their days. 
As subsequent farms have been rented, therefore, more attention 
has been paid to the accommodations which the farm-house will 
afford in caring for inmates than to the condition of the farm itself. 
The main object is to substitute for the inevitable routine of the 
institution the wholesome, normal, home environment of the farm- 
house with its small group, its family spirit, its colony mother, and 
indeed, father, its outdoor interests, its growing things, its live 
stock, and its comparative freedom. Entirely secondary is the con- 
sideration, how good a farm a particular parcel of land makes, or 
even how efficient the boys are as farmers. Therefore the success 
of the farm colonies cannot be measured in terms of economic goods 
produced; it can be measured only in terms of human values. It is 
this emphasis upon the individual rather upon the operation that 
characterizes the Rome colony work. 
In the same way the policy of permitting boys to go out from the 
colony to help neighboring farmers sacrifices the interests of the 
colony as a farming enterprise to the welfare of the individual. 
When a boy has proved his value as a worker on the colony farm, 
he is not kept there in preference to other poorer workers as one 
might expect. On the contrary, this proof of ability as a worker, 
provided it is coupled with good conduct, is an indication that the 
boy is ready to move on a step further in the process of social re- 
construction. While still a member of the colony, he is allowed to 
work out by the day or week for a neighboring farmer. The boy 
may either return to the colony to sleep; or may “put up” at the 
farmer’s house until his work is completed. In these days when THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
117 
many good farmers are leaving the land and going to town because 
they cannot find help, the services of these trained, hard-working, 
reliable boys are more than welcome and there is no difficulty in 
finding in the near vicinity of the institution plenty of opportunities 
for the boys to work out. Naturally the demands for help on other 
farms are greatest when the colony farm needs its labor most 
urgently. But the best workers are always available for the farmers 
and the colony takes what is left. Thus placing first the interest of 
the boy and of the community means that the colony farm does not 
have as good a financial showing as it might otherwise have. 
It is of interest, nevertheless, to consider the colony plan from the 
standpoint of the taxpayer. On July 1, 1922, fourteen farm 
colonies for boys were in operation in connection with the Rome 
State School. These afforded accommodations for 358 boys. Plac- 
ing these boys in colonies made 358 additional beds available in the 
institution just as truly as if a new institutional building of that 
capacity had been erected. Consider, however, what it would have 
cost to construct that number of additional beds at the institution. 
A very conservative estimate of the cost of institutional construction, 
whether of the old congregate or the new cottage type, is $1,000 
per bed. A State expenditure, a taxpayer’s expenditure, of at 
least $358,000 would therefore have been required to add these 
358 beds to the institution. By the colony plan that number of beds 
was added at an annual cost of $8,600 (including rentals and 7 per 
cent on the three owned properties), which is considerably less than 
half the interest alone for one year at 5 per cent on the $358,000. 
However, the rental costs of the colonies were fully covered by the 
earnings of the boys so that this additional bed capacity was actually 
added to the institution without one cent of cost to the taxpayer. 
In addition, the colony plan represented a still further saving to the 
taxpayer in the fact that the boys contributed in substantial measure 
to the cost of their maintenance. 
It is apparent that the colony plan offers an important means in 
helping to solve one of the greatest previous drawbacks to the further 
extension of facilities for the care and training of the feebleminded, 
viz., the high cost of institutional construction and maintenance. 
There remains, however, the more important question: is this sub- 
stitute for the closer confinement of the institution safe and socially 
acceptable ? 118 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
As a rule, persons are sent to an institution for the feebleminded 
not primarily because of their mental defect but because that defect 
causes them to be either burdensome or unmanageable. The insti- 
tution, therefore, in so far as it is more than a place for mere 
custodial care, has two chief functions to perform: (1) to train the 
burdensome, low-grade cases so that they may be able as fully as 
possible to care for themselves personally and to contribute to their 
own support; (2) to correct the troublesome, irresponsible behavior 
of the unmanageable group and to teach them the value of obedience, 
good conduct and industry. The well-organized institution is re- 
markably successful in doing these things. Idiots and the lower-grade 
imbeciles will, of course, remain almost total burdens. However, 
with the higher-grade imbeciles and the morons, who are the most 
numerous group, the habit training, the school work, the expert 
medical observation and treatment, the regularity and precision of 
the institutional life, may usually be counted upon so to improve most 
of them as to make them capable of attending to their own personal 
needs. Furthermore, on the wards, about the grounds, in the car- 
penter shop, the paint shop, the shoe-repair shop, the chair-caning 
shop, etc., and on the institutional farm, the majority have been 
taught how to work and have learned the important habit of industry. 
Of those who presented behavior problems before being com- 
mitted, there will, in all probability, be some cases of defective de- 
linquents, moral defectives, for whom the best endeavors of the insti- 
tution have not availed. The proper disposition of such cases is in an 
institution for defective delinquents such as that established by 
New York State at Napanoch where they can have indefinite custo- 
dial care. With many of the unmanageable type, however, it is 
found that the cause of their misbehavior is not so much in them- 
selves as in the influence of a bad home or neighborhood environ- 
ment. Removed to the institutional environment, the individual has 
just as readily learned socially acceptable forms of behavior as 
he had previously learned socially unacceptable ways. Many of 
these latter cases are not markedly defective mentally, the conduct 
disorder having been the principal cause of their inability to get 
along outside the institution. It would be unwise to return them to 
the home environment in which they previously failed. And yet 
their present good behavior, coupled with their ability as workers, 
would not seem to warrant keeping them indefinitely in the insti- 
tution. THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
119 
1 ake a group of these boys who have thus profited by the insti- 
tutional training. Let us suppose they have reached the age of 
fourteen or sixteen beyond which, as has been shown in work with 
the feebleminded generally, school training is of no avail. They 
are active, able-bodied, good workers. The institution has done 
everything for them it can. If they give trouble now it is probably 
because they feel the restrictions of the institutional routine and 
have no adequate opportunity to give expression to the animal activ- 
ity that bounds in them. There is not enough work at the institu- 
tion to occupy or interest them. Their former duties on the wards, 
the grounds, the institutional farm, and in the shops can be done by 
the younger boys coming on after them; in fact, needs to be done 
by the younger boys as an important part of their training. The 
feebleminded boy of the type described, in his limited way, is look- 
ing for new worlds to conquer just as much as the normal boy. 
If he is made to stay longer within the four walls of the institution, 
he may give trouble for a time, but realizing he is facing the in- 
evitable, he will eventually have to adapt himself to circumstances. 
That means that he will become discouraged and lose all hope of 
ever doing anything with the powers he feels within him. Having 
no chance to assert himself, nothing to look forward to, he becomes 
an automaton in the institutional regime. He loses whatever qual- 
ities of self-reliance he may have had and becomes more and more 
dependent upon the direction of those placed over him. There is 
nothing to awaken his utmost capabilities. Not being called into 
use, his faculties grow dormant. He deteriorates mentally and 
probably physically. He becomes more and more completely insti- 
tutionalized. Incapable of initiative, unable now to adapt himself 
to different conditions, he can get along in the institution and no- 
where else. He becomes practically a total burden upon the State 
for the rest of his days. How commonly that has been the story 
of the institutional care of the feebleminded. Wasted man-power; 
heavy taxes; not to say inhumane! A few institutionalized and 
the many left to drift! 
For the feebleminded boy whose institutional training has been 
completed but who cannot yet be trusted to make his way in the 
outside world, the colony is a real salvation. It gets him away from 
the institution and the institutional atmosphere. He no longer feels 
like a prisoner locked up for something, he knows not what. He 120 
SOCIAL CONTROL OR THE FEEBLEMINDED 
finds himself in the open country, on a farm in which he feels he 
has a part interest. He takes a proprietary interest in the place and 
a real pride in everything it produces. He can hold up his head 
in the knowledge that he is working and at least helping to pay his 
way in the world. With all this freedom and sense of freedom, 
this outlet for suppressed energies, the boys are still, without being 
over-conscious of it, under careful supervision. From the stand- 
point of segregation they are just as safe there as in the institution. 
They are, besides (in nearly all the colonies) not more than a mile 
or two from the institution. The penalty which usually assures 
good behavior on the part of any inclined to take advantage of his 
new privileges is the threat of return to the wards of the institution 
for any boy who does not conduct himself properly. Likewise any 
boy who, after fair trial, does not like the farm life is permitted by 
his own choice to return to the institution. Thus there is assured 
in the colony a more or less like-minded group. The boys of a 
particular colony are usually selected so that they may be of one 
type as nearly as possible. 
In addition to the able-bodied boys who are sent out to do the 
farm work, two or three other boys not capable of working in the 
fields, usually crippled, are chosen to be house-boys, to assist the 
colony mother in preparing meals, caring for the rooms, doing 
chores, etc. 
Some of the boys who are successfully adapting themselves to 
the colony life have mental ages as low as six years and thus belong 
definitely to the imbecile group. From this point the mental ages 
range to the high-grade border-line cases, the largest number of 
cases falling in the 8, 9, 10 and 11 year mental-age groups. As 
regards farm work, at least, there is apparently no definite correla- 
tion between mental age and working ability, some of the best 
workers having mental ages of seven and eight. 
The Rome farm colonies are a direct answer to the question 
frequently raised as to whether the segregation program is not 
creating an aristocracy of the feebleminded, housed as some of 
them have been in costly buildings, amidst beautiful surroundings, 
and waited upon by paid attendants. The question would seem 
scarcely a justifiable one with regard to the helpless, infirm class of 
the feebleminded, many of whom need actual hospital care. Certainly 
a civilized society can afford to give these unfortunates the best of THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
121 
treatment and surroundings. But the question is not amiss with 
regard to the able-bodied feebleminded capable of a greater or less 
degree of self-support. In the farm colonies the boys live under 
average farm conditions. The farm-house is clean, tidy and com- 
fortable ; but it is plain and even rough. The house is furnished 
in the simplest fashion; the meals, while wholesome and plentiful, 
are not served in style. Dressed in their working clothes for their 
farm duties the boys would not look pretty in the familiar institu- 
tional drill. In one respect the colony farm-house claims superiority 
over some of its neighbors. Every colony farm-house has an inside 
bath room with running water. No expensive plumbing is installed 
but it answers the purpose. A rough tank is placed in the attic, 
consisting often of a series of old molasses barrels connected up, 
and in the basement is a hand pump which draws water from the 
well. The motive power which keeps the tank filled is supplied by 
the boys who happen to need this minor form of discipline. The 
boys are not permitted to forget their institutional training as to 
regularity of bathing. One of the boys sent out to work for a farmer 
some distance from the colony walked many miles back a 
day or two after to get his bath. The farmer had no tub. In all 
other respects, however, the life at the farm colonies does not place 
the boys above the living conditions on the most modest farm. 
The boys work on the farm eight to nine hours a day. Their 
work is directed immediately by the man who, with his wife, is in 
charge of the colony. This colony supervisor with his squad of boys 
in turn works under the general direction of the head farmer of the 
institution so that the activities on all the farms are coordinated. 
The boys have their evenings, Saturday afternoons (except when 
there is urgent work) and Sundays to themselves. They find their 
own amusements in group activities and friendships. Baseball »s 
usually the order of the day for Saturday afternoon in summer. 
They go to the institution for band concerts, “movies,” dances and 
entertainments. What they earn now and then by helping out a 
neighboring farmer for a few hours or a day or two they are 
allowed under advisement to use as spending money. They often 
have enough to buy clothes for themselves. Then there are such 
incidentals as candy, tobacco, fishing tackle, etc. No boy is allowed 
under any condition to buy, have or use smoking tobacco because 
of the fire risk. If a boy has the tobacco habit he may be allowed 
to chew. 122 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
How do the boys themselves like this life with all its hard work 
and simple pleasures? The writer can answer from personal ob- 
servation of practically all the Rome farm colonies. Look into the 
faces of the colony boys and then into the faces of the boys in the 
institution and the answer stands out plain to see. The institutional 
boy although he has the best of care and really “likes the place” 
has not uncommonly a somewhat indifferent, listless air about him 
and perhaps something of a hang-dog expression. The typical 
colony boy holds his head up. He has his business as well as you. 
With few exceptions he is the picture of contentment. He im- 
presses you as having found the life for which he is supremely 
fitted. He takes pride in his toil, his callous hands. And the spirit 
of the whole colony is one of happiness and congeniality. The 
writer has happened in of an evening at different farm colonies 
after the day’s work is done. A small cluster of boys is playing on 
the lawn; several others are rocking back and forth on the porch 
reading papers from home. One boy sits on the kitchen steps trans- 
planting geraniums for the “lady,” the colony mother, and tells you 
quite in detail how to “slip” the plants. Another boy playing with 
a kitten, noticing that you are watching the animal’s antics, draws 
up and tells you proudly in his stammering, halting voice: “A-a-aat’s 
m-m-my c-c-aat.” An animated circle of boys soon draws about you 
ready to tell you anything about the farm and the crops. They are 
at home and their appearance tells you on their behalf that the life 
here is to their liking. 
From the disciplinary standpoint the boys give less trouble in the 
farm colonies than in the institution. In the institution they feel 
more or less confined; their interests are not closely directed to 
anything; there is a surplus amount of animal activity that has not 
been used; there is greater likelihood of friction with fellow-patients 
or attendants. In the farm colonies the boys like the life to begin 
with; they have an absorbing interest in many things; they have 
plenty of hard, steady work and no time to pick quarrels or get into 
mischief; and they feel free. At night they are tired and after a 
little recreation are ready for a sound night’s sleep. 
It is an interesting fact that there is a smaller proportion of 
escapes among the colony boys than among those in the institution 
proper. These “runaways” among the boys seldom have untoward 
consequences. It must be borne in mind that the boys run away the; colony plan ; rome; colonies for boys 
123 
usually with a motive for which they cannot be severely condemned, 
namely to find a job and make their own way in the world. Having' 
had the benefit of institutional training and not having been of the 
socially dangerous type to begin with (those with serious delinquent 
tendencies not being placed in the colonies) these boys do not go 
out to prey upon society. And they are not likely to commit sex 
offences because feebleminded boys are very rarely sexually ag- 
gressive. 
As before indicated, the colony is not a blind alley but rather a 
proving ground. It is an important stage in the process of 
salvaging human materials. It not only aids in further recondition- 
ing those materials but it also tests them out to determine their 
fitness to become once more a part of the social fabric. 
At a time when many students of social problems were strongly 
ur§9n& permanent segregation of the feebleminded as a menace 
to society, the Rome institution was already beginning to develop 
a parole system whereby boys and girls who seemed to have suf- 
ficiently profited by their institutional training were permitted to 
return to the community on trial, under the supervision of re- 
sponsible relatives or friends. By Chapter 448 of the Laws of 1912, 
the State Charities Law relating to the Rome State School for 
Mental Defectives was amended to give the Superintendent author- 
ity in his discretion to grant a parole or leave of absence to any 
inmate of the institution. 
The parole system furnished another and further means of testing 
the ability and the worthiness of the feebleminded for life outside 
the institution. The institution itself is the first selective agency. 
Certain cases it finds need long-continued or permanent care within 
its walls. Other cases it finds, after a more or less extensive period 
of training, are capable of the fuller and freer life of the colony. 
The colony again selects. Certain cases are capable of this degree 
of self-support and worthy of this degree of freedom and no more. 
These cases may stay in the colony indefinitely. Others, after a 
period of colony life of six months or more, prove themselves by 
conduct and industry, ready for the next step in social rehabilitation, 
a trial in the community under supervision, in other words on parole. 
This is at first for four weeks on trial. The parole may be ex- 
tended to a year or more. An inmate is not permitted to remain 
indefinitely on parole. Either he shows himself fit to be discharged 124 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
or he is returned to the colony or the institution. If, when the inmate 
completes the parole period, he has shown himself successful in 
meeting the “world test,” as Dr. Bernstein calls it, he may be dis- 
charged. The discharge is not intended to be granted, however, until 
the authorities of the institution have assured themselves that some 
capable person, relative, guardian or friend, will look after the 
boy or girl and give needed counsel, encouragement, and super- 
vision. 
To come back to the boys in the farm colonies. Many of them 
while in the colony go out from time to time for brief intervals to 
assist neighboring farmers. This paves the way for parole. The 
length of residence in a colony before a boy is ready for parole 
varies. It depends entirely upon the boy. The boys who are steady, 
reliable, and good workers, upon reaching the age of sixteen to 
eighteen, are as a rule allowed to try this further venture in freedom. 
The boy goes now with all his personal belongings to make his home 
with the farmer the year ’round. The farmer who takes him signs 
an agreement with the Superintendent of the institution to the 
following effect: 
“I hereby agree to take (John Smith) to live with and work for 
me, with the understanding that after he has been with me four 
weeks, I will decide whether or not he proves satisfactory. 
“I agree to pay him $ per month with board and lodging. 
“I also agree to report at least once in three months on how the 
boy is getting along, and make complete settlement for his services 
quarterly, on the first day of January, April, July, and October. 
“I will take receipts for all clothing bought for the boy and keep 
close account of the spending money I give him, which is not to 
exceed 50c. per week or $1.00 at any time, if he is going to town, 
and the balance due him at the end of each quarter will be left at 
the School for the boy. 
{Signed) Name 
Address 
"I hereby consent to the above agreement 
{Signed) 
(Name of inmate) 
Notice 
“Boys going out on parole are not allowed to smoke. If they 
have chewed tobacco before going out, they will be allowed to 
chew, but under no circumstances, will they be allowed to smoke.” THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
125 
The wages paid the boy vary with his ability. They range from 
$12 to $25 per month plus board and room. As noted in the form 
of agreement, the wages are not paid directly to the boy but to the 
institution where they are deposited in a savings fund to his credit. 
The farmer deducts from the wages whatever it has been necessary 
to spend for the boy’s clothing and other needs, and the small 
amounts which have been allowed the boy for spending money. 
As a result of their colony training most of the boys adapt them- 
selves readily to the farm life and work. The living conditions 
at the colony as we have seen have not been idealized. They have 
with a purpose been made to conform to those of the average farm. 
The boy has not been “spoiled” by ease and luxury. He is hardened 
to labor and he is ready to accept the accommodations ordinarily 
accorded to the hired man. An endeavor is made, however, to 
have the farmer appreciate the boy and his special difficulties and 
limitations. He is asked to treat him more or less as a member of 
the family; to show him kindness and consideration without coddling 
him. He is not asked to take the boy out of sympathy nor with a 
feeling of giving charity. He takes the boy on his merits as a 
worker and for value received. That being assumed, the farmer is 
made to feel that the boy needs counsel, and understanding and 
kindly supervision and that he cannot treat the boy therefore exactly 
as he would the hired man. If the farmer does not live up to the 
spirit of this arrangement, the boy is removed from his employ. 
To one making himself acquainted with this phase of the work 
for the first time, it is surprising how well the relation between the 
farmer and his family on the one hand and the boy on the other 
works out. From the farmer’s point of view, he is in the first place 
glad to get the help. If he is lucky enough to get a hired man at 
all he probably pays what seems to him an excessively high wage 
for poor or indifferent help. The independent attitude of the farm 
hand annoys him. The farmer does not know at what minute the man 
may leave and perhaps with a crop in the field that must be brought 
in immediately. As to the boy from the Rome School, he realizes 
his limitations to begin with. He does not expect him to plan out 
the work and go ahead with it under his own direction. He realizes 
that he will now and then make mistakes and he allows for that. 
But in practically all cases he knows he can count on having a steady 
worker from morning to night, day in and day out, month after 126 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
month. If the boy is treated right and made to like the place he 
can usually be depended upon to stick. And he will work willingly 
and hard. The fact that the boy works best under direction suits 
the farmer very well. He can do the bossing and the planning so 
long as he has in the boy the dependable brawn that will push the 
work through, perhaps not rapidly, but surely. The farmer knows 
too that when the typical feebleminded boy has learned to do the 
chores and other duties he will do them as regularly as the sun 
rises and sets. And so in the field. He may be slow in learning 
but when he has learned he will not readily forget or do the thing 
in the wrong way. One can find many farmers to say that this is 
the ideal kind of help. Does it perhaps suggest that some of the 
national problem of finding help on the farm has been due to the 
fact that we have locked up our natural farm hands in institutions ? 
As to the supervision of the boy, does that weigh heavily upon 
the farmer? Is that a drawback? So far as my personal observa- 
tions have gone and careful inquiry has shown, it is not. The 
average feebleminded boy of the “good” type with his typical, trust- 
ing, affectionate nature, his childlike need of direction and advice, 
is likely to appeal strongly to the paternal instinct of the farmer, 
even more, perhaps, to the maternal instinct of the farmer’s wife. 
They soon come in many instances to take a great interest in him 
and his welfare. They do many “extra little things” for him. They 
often plan trips to town and short excursions that mean much in 
the boy’s life. He becomes a regular member of the household. 
These statements are not idyllic dreamings of what might be. They 
are based on actual, and unexpected visits to the boys on the farms; 
conversations with the farmer and his family; with the boy, himself ; 
and with the neighbors round about who “pretty much know” what 
is going on over at the other place. And thus again, as with the 
colonies, what seems on the face of it simply a good, economic 
proposition, becomes something very much more than that. The 
profit the boy derives from this experience on the farm is not 
limited to the savings fund which represents his accumulated earn- 
ings. Nor is it limited to the valuable training he receives in industry 
and in farming in particular, important as all this is. The greatest 
gain to the boy is the chance for him, who has probably come from 
anything but a home, a place of degradation, of filth and of discord, 
to enter into a normal family life, to become a member of the house- THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
127 
hold, to have a personal interest taken in him and even affection 
bestowed upon him, to sense the spirit of the home and have it 
become deeply impressed upon him. Such an experience can do 
vastly more than anything else in the whole program of training 
to fit the boy to become a worthy member of society. 
Starting out from the Rome institution one morning to visit 
colonies at Hamilton and Oriskany Falls, some twenty miles distant, 
the writer with the special parole agent for the boys, visited the 
boys who happened to be working for farmers along the roads 
traversed. Entirely unselected instances as they were, the inter- 
views with the boys and the farmers were indicative of the situa- 
tion generally. At the first place we found the boy, a youth about 
18 with a mental age of 9, turning to and helping the “Mrs.” with 
the washing. The farmer was away. The woman said the boy was a 
willing helper. He ordinarily worked on the farm but assisted 
with the heavy work about the house too. We asked permission to 
speak with the boy alone. We talked to him confidentially and he 
apparently was entirely frank with us. “Would you like to go on 
a better farm ?”, we asked, a question which usually draws out from 
a boy any sign of discontentment or dissatisfaction with his present 
place. The boy spoke in a very clear and straightforward manner. 
He couldn’t think of leaving here now. It was a small farm and 
some day he might like to go on a bigger one. “But you see the 
man isn’t very well and he couldn’t get along without me right now. 
I do most of the work running the farm. He just tells me what to 
do. No, I’ve got to run this place. I wouldn’t want to leave.” 
Asked what he did for a good time, the boy said: “Oh, I like it 
here. We get to bed early and up early in the morning and there 
is plenty of work. They treat me fine and I don’t get lonesome.” 
The boy’s good sense and his feeling of loyalty and responsibility 
to the farm and the farmer were to the writer at the time quite 
unexpected findings. 
At the next place, we found the boy working for a family that 
conducted a country boarding place in a little cross-roads hamlet. 
When they had taken the boy, these people had been on a farm but 
had within a few months opened the boarding house. The boy here 
was 24 years old with a mental age of 8. He was of the backward, 
reticent type, and had some speech difficulty. The boy had some 
outside chores such as caring for the chickens and working in the 128 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
garden. Most of the time, however, he helped the “lady” with the 
housework. The woman spoke highly of the boy; said she liked him 
and that they had in every way tried to make him feel that he was 
a member of the family. He was a “good” boy, could work well, 
and was entirely trustworthy. Since they moved in from the farm, 
however, she had been having considerable difficulty from time to 
time to get the boy to stick to the housework, and occasionally he 
had refused to mind. She had just had a little argument with him 
that morning about doing some work in the kitchen. The boy was 
present during this conversation and when asked to speak he slowly 
gave us his side of it. He hated housework; didn’t like to fool 
around with things in the kitchen. He wished he was back on the 
farm. He liked “the heaviest kind of work” but not housework. 
He was willing to stay here as long as the “Doctor” (the Superin- 
tendent, Dr. Bernstein) thought he ought to, but he would like to 
be on a farm. He said there was “too much just standing around” 
about his present job. The woman verified this feeling on the part 
of the boy. She said he disappeared early one afternoon and when 
he did not return by the time of the evening meal, they started a 
search. They discovered him on a nearby farm, having his meal 
with the “help.” The boy had gone out for an afternoon’s good time 
and had accordingly volunteered his services in helping to pitch hay 
all the afternoon. The boy’s desire for more hard work was duly 
reported to the institution so that he might be given an opportunity 
for full self-expression on a farm. 
At the next stop we saw the farmer but not the boy. The farmer 
explained that the boy in question had been with him three years. 
He was greatly pleased with his work and he had been a big help 
on the place. The boy needed direction but once told what to do, 
be went ahead and did it. He stuck to business and was steady and 
reliable. One morning recently the boy did not appear for breakfast 
at the regular time and it was found that he had quietly left with all 
his belongings. There had been no difficulty with the farmer. In 
fact the farmer said he was not altogether surprised. The boy 
had intimated more than once that he thought he ought to get out 
and make his own way in the world. And the farmer, although he 
was not a party to the boy’s running away, said he did not blame 
him a bit. He wished the boy every success and he believed, with 
the excellent qualities he had shown on the farm, he would find it. THE COLONY plan ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
129 
In such a case as this the institution would make every endeavor 
to locate the boy but if it found him well employed, in a good living 
place, and surrounded by proper influences, would not force him 
to go back but would either continue his parole in the new place or 
discharge him and let him try it on his own. Kven if discharged, 
however, the institution would endeavor to keep in touch with him 
and his friends to see that all went well. 
One other farm was visited. Here the farmer and the boy wei'e 
interviewed separately. The farmer said the boy had proved him- 
self entirely satisfactory in every respect but one. He lied habit- 
ually. The bov had been here two years and apparently the farmer 
took a great interest in him. The lying did not seem to interfere 
with the boy’s usefulness and the farmer’s concern about it was from 
the standpoint of the boy himself. The boy came in from the fields 
to see us. We spoke to him about his biggest fault. The boy said he 
realized that the lying was a bad thing and that he wanted to get over 
it. He said he knew he would have to make good here before he 
could be sent home and that he was trying hard to learn how to tell 
the truth. He did not want to go to any other farm, he said, but 
wanted to stay right here until he had done so well that the “Doctor” 
would be willing to send him home. He said his brother was running 
a farm on Long Island and he wanted to go to work for him. 
At this last farm, we happened to meet the family physician on 
his rounds and stopped to chat with him. A physician modern in 
training and bearing, driving an up-to-the-minute motor car, his 
practice is that of the country doctor and covers most of the farm- 
ing section through which we had passed. Many of the families 
he visited had employed boys from Rome year after year. What 
impression did he get, we asked, of these boys and the whole parole 
plan? The doctor replied that so far as he could ascertain the 
system worked out unusually well. He had found in most places 
the best of feeling between the farmer, the farmer’s family and the 
boy. The boys themselves had done very well. They were a great 
help on the farms and he found the farmers glad to get their services. 
The boys had also conducted themselves in splendid fashion and 
he had heard of no serious difficulty on the behavior side. He 
believed it was a plan that should be further continued and extended. 
It was evident that he spoke not only from a knowledge of the work 
but from a keen interest in it, and that his observation therefore 
had been as close as his opinion was frank. 130 
SOCIAL CONTROL OK THE FEEBLEMINDED 
The farm colonies have been given the fullest consideration here 
because they represent much the larger part of the colony work for 
boys. There have been successfully operated, however, colonies of 
other types. A group of twenty-five boys was sent out to the region 
of Indian Lake in the Adirondacks to do reforestation work for the 
State Conservation Commission. The boys were in charge of two 
attendants from the institution and a representative of the Conserva- 
tion Commission. They lived in tents placed in a clearing. In a 
month’s time the boys had set out 150,000 trees. The Commission 
reported that the work had been better done than it ever had been 
by paid or convict labor. The work was worth approximately $1,000 
to the State. The direct cost to the institution for railroad fares, 
supplies, etc., was only $400. The favorable results led to the 
establishment of a year-round reforestation colony on 150 acres of 
open farm land in the same locality. Here twenty boys lived dur- 
ing the entire year. In planting season, spring and fall, they were 
joined by other boys from the institution. It was shown that fifty 
or sixty boys could do the house and farm work and plant 
500,000 trees a year in addition to caring for the nurseries. Besides, 
the boys produced all the vegetables, milk, butter, beef, pork, mutton, 
eggs, etc., required for their own maintenance and had a surplus 
which they sold. War conditions caused the discontinuance of this 
colony in 1918. Its results were satisfactory from every standpoint 
and it proved of particular benefit to the boys. Some of the boys 
who had gone out from the colony from time to time to assist 
neighboring farmers in their work, were left in that region on parole 
with these farmers.^ 
Another reforestation colony was opened in 1918 on a 1,350-acre 
farm, the Lawrence. This colony is listed in Table No. 3, of farm 
colonies. One hundred and fifty acres are devoted to agriculture; 
the rest is devoted entirely to reforestation work. This colony 
houses 36 boys. It is located two miles west of Rome. As noted 
previously, the colony was more than self-supporting in 1921-22. 
A venture of a still different kind with the boys was tried in 
1917 with the opening of the Kossuth colony in the city of Rome. 
The house first occupied by this colony accommodated twenty boys. 
In 1919 a large corner dwelling on one of the main streets of Rome 
was rented, providing accommodation for thirty boys. The boys 
1. Bernstein. Colony and Extra-Institutional Care. p. 4. THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
131 
of this colony are employed at various kinds of odd jobs about 
town, helping in stores, running elevators, serving as janitors, assist- 
ing painters, repairing bicycles, delivering goods, caring for lawns 
and furnaces, shoveling snow, etc. 
The following table shows the total earnings of the boys in the 
Kossuth Colony, together with rental and maintenance costs for 
the last three years: 
Table 4. Annual Operating Costs and Earnings oe Kossuth Colony 
Fiscal year ending 
Rental 
No. of beds 
Salaries 
Maintenance costs 
Earnings 
June 
30, 
1920 
$ TOO 
24 
$1,000 
$4,614.01 
$ 5,120.28 
June 
30, 
1921 
900 
32 
1,200 
8,765.22 
11,609.02 
June 
30. 
1922 
1,200 
42 
1,568 
5,638.00 
9,739.45 
At the present time the boys of this colony earn on the average 
$1.50 a day, or by the hour, 25c. Some of the better workers earn 
$2.50 a day. 
The establishment of colonies in town where boys might be em- 
ployed at miscellaneous jobs is principally in recognition of the 
temperament and aptitudes of certain boys who find this type of 
work more congenial than work on the farm. Experience at the 
Kossuth Colony has shown that satisfactory supervision can be 
maintained over the boys in a town colony as well as in a farm 
colony. The boys of the Kossuth group are on the average of 
about the same mentality as those on farms. The distribution 
of the mental ages of the boys in this colony in June, 1922, was as 
follows: 
Tabi.f. 5. Mental Ages of Kossuth Colony Members, June, 1922 
Mental Age 
5 plus 
6 “ 
Number 
1 
3 
7 “ 
5 
g “ 
4 
Q “ 
4 
io “ 1 
11 “ 2 
“ 1 
Total 
22 
Median Mental Age 
8 yrs. plus 
Modal Mental Age 
7 yrs. plus 132 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
The Kossuth Colony boys are, on the whole, older in chrono- 
logical ages than those in the farm colonies. They represent, at 
the same time, for the most part, more difficult problems from the 
behavior standpoint, many of the boys being of the fitful, quarrel- 
some, violent-tempered types in need of rather strict discipline. Not 
a few of those found in the Kossuth Colony at the time of the writer’s 
visit in June, 1922, had been in reformatories and in their case 
histories were records of more than one escape or attempted escapes 
since commitment to the Rome institution. In spite of these pro- 
pensities of its members, affairs at the Kossuth Colony have run 
smoothly. The boys have responded to the challenge of the chance 
that has been given them “to make good” and many of these difficult 
types are now cooperating willingly as members of the group toward 
the success of the colony. These satisfactory adjustments of 
formerly difficult types are not always made with ease. It is a 
process of shifting and sifting. The boy who attempts to betray 
confidence reposed in him by placing him in the colony is speedily 
returned to the institution for a period of discipline to be given an- 
other chance only when he shows good evidence of an inclination 
to cooperate toward his own success. The careful supervision of 
those in charge of the colony insures that only those boys are re- 
tained there whom it is safe to allow in the community. As a 
result, the colony has been received favorably by the townspeople 
and the services of the boys have been constantly in demand as 
shown by the table of earnings. As workers, the boys have proved 
their ability in the miscellaneous “handy men” employments which 
they seek. The Kossuth Colony, like the farm colonies, has grad- 
uated into the community (that is, has paroled and discharged) a 
number of boys who have become good, steady wage-earners, and 
respectable, law-abiding citizens. 
The Rome colonies for boys, by their constant record of success- 
ful operation since 1906, have more than justified the colony plan 
of care for this class of inmates. From the standpoint of the public, 
the colony system for boys has proved itself safe, practical and 
economical. From the standpoint of the individual, the plan has 
proved itself constructive in restoring to usefulness and happiness 
many boys of good potentialities, although limited in intellect, who 
otherwise would have worn out their lives as institutional automata. 
The colonies, without added expense to the State, have greatly en- THE COLONY PLAN ; ROME COLONIES FOR BOYS 
larged the capacity of the institution for service by permitting it to 
receive for training a larger number of inmates. Most important 
of all, perhaps, the colonies have been the means of restoring to 
society much dependable man-power that should otherwise have been 
wasted. CHAPTER IX 
Rome Colonies for Girls 
From the colony for boys to the colony for girls seemed to many 
a long and a hazardous step. As already noted, the colony plan for 
boys has met with quite general favor. No serious objection has 
been raised to it. The suggestion of establishing colonies for girls, 
however, following the success of the boys’ colony experiments, 
was received with many misgivings. These misgivings are not hard 
to understand when we recall the familiar picture of the feeble- 
minded girl, an easy prey to men, a menace to morality, and a liabil- 
ity from the eugenic standpoint. The Rome State School was the 
first and until recently the only institution in this country to develop 
colonies for girls and women. The Rome experiments have there- 
fore been watched with keen interest and have been the subject of 
much discussion. 
The first colony for girls was opened in 1914, eight years after 
the first colony for boys. It was located in the city of Rome, two 
miles from the institution, in a rented dwelling. It was of the 
domestic service type. The following announcement was sent out 
to prospective employers: 
“Rome, N. Y., October 7, 1914. 
A working girls’ home has been established at 209 West Thomas 
Street—telephone number 172-J—where girls are available for 
domestic work, sewing, etc., by the day, week, or month. The 
girls going out from this place to work are capable of doing all 
kinds of domestic work, except special cooking. They are only 
able to do common cooking. 
Their services may be secured by telephone. The rate is fifty 
cents per day, and their services will be available for employment at 
any time on short notice. 
Settlement for services will be paid direct to the manager of the 
home. Bills will be regularly rendered weekly for such services. 
These girls are not markedly defective but are girls who have 
been orphans or have never known a normal home, and when later 
in life they have gone out into the world, they have been unable 
to get along because of lack of proper home training and normal 
worldly experience. As a result they were sent to this asylum 
for study, care and training, and we are sending them out to work 
after having been thoroughly trained and tested here, to see if they ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
135 
can get in touch with the world under normal conditions, and thus 
learn to be self-sustaining and possibly have their entire freedom. 
1 he colony is carried on in a rented house in the city which con- 
stitutes the girls’ home and social center, presided over by a house- 
keeper or matron, with a social visitor to inspect their working 
places and their street deportment, to accompany them to moving 
picture shows and other social diversions, and to assist them in 
purchasing their clothing, etc. We hope in this way to have many 
of these girls learn through experience, normal social reactions and 
family life, and thus to return the services of many of these willing 
competent domestic workers to society and in this way lighten the 
load and make State care and supervision possible for all this class 
of dependents who positively need such care. Incidentally, in con- 
nection therewith, we have established the most positive test possible 
as to the ability of some of these cases to rehabilitate or support 
themselves, regarding all of which we can never be positive in a 
considerable number of these border-line cases until such world 
test has been actually applied.” 
The above statement gives a good idea of the nature and plan 
of operation of this first colony. The girls selected for the colony 
were more or less trained workers. They had all completed a 
course of vocational training in the institution. This training, which 
is a regular part of the institutional regime, consists in placing the 
girls for certain periods in various departments of the institution 
where they are taught the duties of that department. These depart- 
ments include: laundry, kitchen, serving-rooms, dining-rooms, sew- 
ing, ward work and general training in employees’ quarters. All 
of these, it will be seen, definitely prepare a girl for household duties. 
Some of the girls who come to the institution already well trained 
in domestic work, if their attitude and disposition are satisfactory, 
are sent out to colony life sooner than others. 
At the colony house the girls were placed under the careful super- 
vision of a responsible woman, a matron or house mother, and they 
were not permitted to go out except under the supervision of a 
social worker. Where girls were employed by the day, they went 
directly to their place of employment and were required to return 
directly to the colony house as soon as they were dismissed. If 
the mistress of the house wished the girl to “live in” and work by 
the week or month, she was permitted under certain conditions to 
do so. In this case the colony served as a center for the girl 
where she could go occasionally at the week-end or on an afternoon 
off, to talk over her affairs with the house mother, to visit with the 136 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
other girls, and to attend various social affairs. Though not living 
at the colony, she nevertheless felt herself a part of it and of the 
group. She was subject to the guidance of the supervisor. If she 
fell sick she could return there or to the institution hospital for 
care and treatment. When her employment ceased she returned to 
the colony house as to her own home to await other work. 
The house itself was able to accommodate fourteen girls. As some 
of the girls began living at their places of employment, others could 
be added to the colony, an extra bed or two always being available, 
however, for the working-out girl who might have occasion to 
return. 
The housekeepers in the city of Rome quickly recognized in the 
colony girl an opportunity to solve their most vexatious problem, 
that of finding satisfactory domestic help. The demands for the 
girls’ services soon became greater than the colony was able to 
fill. Not every offer of employment was accepted, however. No 
girls were allowed to work at hotels, boarding-houses, hospitals, or 
places where there were transients, nor were they permitted to be em- 
ployed in homes where there was an older boy or an unmarried man. 
Every home desiring the services of a colony girl was carefully in- 
vestigated in advance by the social worker. A definite form of agree- 
ment to abide by certain rules aimed at safeguarding the girl’s conduct 
was required to be signed by the employer in all cases where girls 
were regularly employed for an indefinite period. A girl thus em- 
ployed was placed on a parole status but still felt herself a member 
of the colony group and was free to return there in her time off 
or when her employment ceased. 
During the first year 67 girls were sent to and worked out from 
this first colony, called the Evans Colony. At the end of the year 
42 girls remained in this colony or in the places of employment in 
the city to which they had gone from the colony. Twenty-five girls 
were returned to the institution for the following reasons: nine for 
social offenses, including flirting, boisterous conduct on the street, 
or being noisy about the house (only two of the nine being for 
serious social offense) ; nine younger girls because of insufficient 
training; seven because of sickness or because they preferred to 
return to the institution where their services were worth more than 
they were able to earn outside/ 
7. Bernstein, Charles. Colony and Extra-Institutional Care for the Feebleminded. 
Mental Hygiene, Vol. IV, No. 1, January, 1920, p. 8. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
137 
The 42 girls who had made good in and through the colony showed 
by their demeanor and their increasing ability as workers how greatly 
they had benefited by this approach to a more normal environment 
and the chance to work for their living like other people. The previ- 
ous histories of the large majority of these girls showed a series 
of social failures. Most of the girls were quick to prove that when 
relieved of the handicap of a bad environment, and given some 
incentive to decency and self-respect, they could not only go straight 
but could earn their way in the world besides. 
During the year, the girls worked for 226 different families in the 
city of Rome. About half of the girls had regular places of em- 
ployment while the others worked here and there by the day. At 
the end of the year the girls’ combined earnings totalled $3,278.91, 
an amount which made them entirely self-supporting. Only about 
a third of this amount was needed for the support of the colony, 
including the rent, furnishings, provisions, etc. Of the balance the 
girls were allowed a reasonable amount for necessary expenses such 
as clothing. This varied with the individual girl. In addition, every 
girl was given twenty-five cents a week for spending money, and 
fifty cents a week for a personal savings account. The remainder 
went into a general fund for colony operations. 
At the end of this first year of colony work with girls, Dr. Bern- 
stein wrote: “I do not hesitate to declare that the results of our 
year’s experience amply justify us in deciding to go on with the 
work. Surely the general interest manifest in the experiment, as 
especially indicated by the many letters of inquiry, warrants the 
assumption that organized charity is awaiting avenues of social re- 
lief along these lines.”^ 
A second girls’ colony, also of the domestic service type, was 
opened in Rome in the fall of 1916. This was known as the Mason 
Colony and was located two blocks away from the Evans, the first 
girls’ colony. The Mason Colony occupied a rented house with ac- 
commodations for eighteen girls. It was operated on a somewhat 
different principle from the first colony. It was half a working home 
and half a training center. Eight older girls made this their home 
and worked out from here as did the girls at the Evans Colony. 
Their house-mates, however, consisted of ten younger girls between 
fourteen and sixteen years of age who had completed their school- 
ing at the institution and were sent here for practical training m 
1. Ibid., p. 9. 138 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF TllL FEEBLEMINDED 
house-work until they should become old enough and efficient enough 
to be employed. It was felt that the younger and older groups in 
the same house would have a good influence upon each other, the 
older girls taking a motherly interest in the younger ones and 
desiring to set them a good example; the younger ones naturally 
aspiring to be like their older sisters in working ability, in the where- 
withal to buy nice clothes, and in the larger degree of freedom 
which they enjoyed. One special feature of the Mason Colony 
was its night school. Here the girls might continue their education 
in reading, writing, and the ordinary school subjects. They could 
also join special classes in cooking and sewing. The night school 
was very well attended. The girls took a great degree of interest 
in it. Many of the girls, who were living at their places of employ- 
ment, voluntarily took their free evenings to come and attend this 
school 
War conditions played their part in suggesting a new industrial 
outlet for the girls, especially those who did not take kindly to 
housework. The textile factories were hard pressed with govern- 
ment orders. Help was scarce. Dr. Bernstein believed that some 
of his girls could be of aid in meeting this war emergency, and he 
found the Utica Knitting Mills so anxious to get help that the com- 
pany purchased a house practically adjoining its plant at Oriskany 
Falls which it rented to the institution at a moderate rate for colony 
purposes. This colony was opened in 1917. Twenty-four girls were 
placed in it and all but three or four, who were retained to help 
in the house, went to work in the mill. The fact that this colony 
is still in operation proves the usefulness of the colony girls as 
workers, not only under war conditions but in the more normal 
times which followed. A closer view of the industrial colony will 
be taken presently. 
In the first three years of colony work with girls, 200 girls had 
been sent to the colonies. Only thirty-five of these failed to adjust 
themselves satisfactorily to the extra-institutional life and had to 
be returned to the institution. One hundred and sixty-five of the 
200 were still out at work and largely or entirely earning their living 
at the end of this period. Not only had these 165 girls who remained 
out “proved worthy of their hire” but on the conduct side they were 
showing that they were amenable to social standards. Those whose 
1. Rome State School for Mental Defectives, Rome, N. Y., 27th Annual Report, 
1916, pp. 27-30. ROME COLONIES BOR GIRLS 
139 
behavior did not so measure up were among those returned to the 
institution. On the other hand it is not to be assumed that all of the 
35 girls who were returned to the institution were sent there because 
of misbehavior. Some were simply incapable workers; others m 
a poor physical condition needed the institutional care; still others 
because they had become so completely institutionalized that they 
could not be happy in the colony or on parole. Only three of the 
35 had to be sent back to the institution because of serious social 
error. The following table summarizes the first three years of 
colony operations for women: 
Table 6. Status of 200 Girls Sent to Colonies, After Three-Year 
Period, 1914-1917 1 
Girls paroled from colonies 
Girls returned to institution 
Girls remaining in colonies 
77 (63 later discharged) 
35 
88 
Total girls sent to colonies 
200 
Colony expansion has continued along the lines above indicated 
until now (July 1, 1922) fourteen colonies for girls are in active 
operation. Not all of these are primarily of the wage-earning type. 
Two of them, the Hamill and Mason colonies, are devoted to the 
training of younger girls. The former takes girls from about ten 
to fourteen years of age where they are given school and vocational 
training. From here at the age of 13 or 14 they are transferred 
either to the vocational department of the institution or to the Mason 
Colony for further occupational training before being transferred 
to a working colony at sixteen. 
The list in the order of their establishment showing location, 
number of beds, rental cost and type is as follows: 
1. Bernstein, Charles. Colony and Ertra-lnstitutional Care, p. 12. 140 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Table 7.—Rome Colonies for Girls Established Prior to July 1, 1922 
No. 
Girls' Colonies 
Opened 
Kind of 
Colony 
No of 
beds 
Cost 
1 
Evans (Closed 1919) 
1914 
Domestic 
14 
Rented 
$420 
2. 
Mason 
1916 
“ 
18 
i t 
600 
3. 
Staten Island (Closed 1918) 
1917 
“ 
10 
( i 
480 
4. 
Parry 
1917 
“ 
18 
i i 
480 
5. 
Oriskany Falls 
1917 
Mill 
24 
i l 
480 
6. 
East Aurora No. 1 (Closed 1921) 
1918 
Domestic 
20 
i i 
480 
7. 
Syracuse 
1918 
( 1 
60 
i t 
1,200 
8. 
Robinson 
1918 
“ 
18 
«t 
600 
9. 
Richfield Springs 
1919 
Mill 
40 
i» 
720 
10. 
Hamilton 
1919 
Domestic 
24 
it 
720 
11. 
Isaac Hopper Home 
1919 
( t 
20 
Donated 
12. 
East Aurora No. 2 (Closed 1921) 
1920 
(« 
20 
Rented 
900 
13. 
Lake 
1921 
( t 
20 
Purchased 
2,100 
14. 
East Aurora No. 3 
1921 
«t 
60 
Rented 
1,600 
15. 
Clay ville 
1921 
Mill 
32 
“ 
720 
16. 
Hamill 
1922 
Domestic 
24 
f ( 
800 
17. 
Frankfort 
1922 
i i 
40 
i i 
800 
18. 
Gloversville 
1922 
i i 
32 
1 * 
800 
The financial statement of the girls’ colonies for the year July 1, 
1918, to July 1, 1919, was as follows: 
Table 8. Financial Statement of Girls’ Colonies 1918-19 
Colony 
Earnings 
Paid Girls 
from 
Earnings 
Operating 
Paid by 
Earnings 
Expenses 
Paid by 
State 
Rome Group 
$ 7,300.70 
$ 4,198.35 
$ 3,293.94 
$ 5,118.45 
Oriskany Falls ... 
9,154.23 
3,832.41 
5,276.39 
94.84 
East Aurora 
4,337.16 
1,155.14 
2,695.81 
672.86 
Syracuse 
3,311.87 
980.56 
2,338.44 
2,493.33 
$24,103.96 
$10,166.46 
$13,604.58 
$ 8,379.48 
Salaries 
3,620.52 
$12,000.00 
In this year, 1918-19, the average number of girls in colonies was 
140 and the average earnings of the 140 were $165 for the year. 
In the same year the cost to the State for the operation of the 
girls’ colonies was $85 per capita (supplies $60 and salaries $25); 
in comparison the per capita cost of maintenance alone in the insti- 
tution was $280, making an annual per capita saving of $195 on 141 
ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
every colony girl, or in this year, $27,300. In addition, without any 
cost to the State whatsoever, inasmuch as the girls’ earnings always 
more than covered the rent of the colony houses, 140 beds were 
released at the institution for new cases. To have undertaken new 
construction at the institution to provide that number of additional 
beds would have cost in round numbers a minimum of $140,000. 
The most recent financial statement of the girls’ colonies, that 
for 1921-22 which is given in the table below, shows a record of 
earnings more than twice as large as in 1918-19. This merely 
reflects the increase in the number of colonies and in the number 
of girls so employed. It is significant, however, that the percentage 
of the total operating expenses, including salaries, paid from the 
girls’ earnings remains about the same as in the previous year, or 
approximately 55 per cent. Thus the economic advantages of the 
girls’ colonies are obvious. 
Tahle 9. Financial Statement of Girls’ Colonies 1921-22 
Colony 
Earnings 
Paid Girls 
from 
Earnings 
Operating Expenses 
Paid from Paid by 
Earnings State 
Rome Group 
$ 9,382.46 
$ 5,311.60 
$ 3,621.20 
$ 3,932.02 
Oriskany Falls 
4,224.70 
1,478.18 
2,947.75 
680.79 
Syracuse 
8,128.70 
2,509.28 
5,737.84 
2,636.26 
East Aurora 
10,057.74 
3,709.96 
7,087.17 
687.02 
Richfield Springs .. 
12,919.73 
4,816.92 
5,246.44 
1,315.03 
Hamilton 
3,219.14 
1,175.03 
2,486.70 
1,289.28 
Clayville 
6,822.56 
2,898.41 
2,581.41 
3,006.94 
$54,755.03 
$21,899.38 
$29,708.51 
$13,547.34 
Salaries 
10,318.20 
$23,865.54 
In proceeding to evaluate the Rome colony work with girls from 
the vastly more important aspects of the welfare of the individual 
and of society, it must constantly be borne in mind that one is 
dealing with comparative values. The fact cannot be pointed out 
too frequently that the segregation program on the old basis of in- 
definite institutional care for the large proportion of mental de- 
fectives was going forward at a snail s pace. Despite the many and 
various alarms sounded, legislative appropriations for new con- 
struction were being doled out on a meagre scale. At the same 
time the estimated number of mental defectives in the community 142 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
was growing by leaps and bounds. The repeated warnings of the 
menace of the feebleminded were striking home among poor-law 
officers, social agencies, and others concerned in community prob- 
lems, with the result that the demands upon the institutions for the 
admission of urgent cases became unprecedented. Waiting lists 
grew so long that some of the institutions like Rome gave up trying 
to keep them. Constantly was it brought to the attention of the 
institution authorities that because of their failure to admit a certain 
case, this, that and the other dire social consequence had ensued. 
But construction, sufficient to make any tangible headway did not 
follow. What were the institution authorities to do in a situation 
like this? 
At Rome the colony plan was developed by Dr. Bernstein with 
the approval of the Board of Managers of the institution, frankly 
as an experiment with the primary object of releasing beds in the 
institution for the many needy cases seeking, and theretofore, denied 
admission. Considerably more than one-third of all the female 
patients on the books of the institution are at the present time in 
colonies.7 In striking a balance, therefore, in terms of social values, 
between the gains and losses of the colony work with girls, there 
must always be included in the reckoning the solid gain of admitting 
to the institution for training a similar number of urgent cases who 
would otherwise have continued to be sore spots in the community 
life. 
It is of interest first of all to note the distribution of intelligence 
among the colony girls as indicated by the following tabulation of 
their mental ages: 
14+ 13+ 12+ 11+ 10+ 
9+ 
8+ 
T+ 
6+ 
5+ 
Not 
Tested 
Total 
East Aurora 
1 
1 
2 
9 
7 
8 
13 
11 
7 
59 
Hamilton 
3 
5 
1 
1 
5 
5 
2 
22 
Mason 
1 
1 
2 
2 
6 
3 
1 
1 
17 
Parry 
5 
2 
6 
5 
2 
2 
1 
1 
24 
Richfield Springs.. 
7 
9 
4 
5 
1 
1 
2 
29 
Robinson 
4 
5 
1 
5 
2 
1 
1 
19 
Syracuse 
3 
2 
7 
10 
4 
6 
2 
34 
Oriskany Falls .. 
1 
1 
i 
2 
2 
1 
3 
11 
All colonies.. 
2 
o 
15 
32 
37 
37 
37 
28 
8 
2 
15 
215 
Table 10. Mentai, Ages oe Girls in Colonies January 1, 1921 
1. Nov. 1, 1922: Total female population, 930; girls in colonies, 334. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
143 
Of the 200 colony girls tested, 162 or 81 per cent were clearly 
of at least moron grade, while 28 or 14 per cent more having a mental 
age of 7 plus were imbeciles of such high grade as nearly to approach 
the moron classification. Only ten or 5 per cent of those tested had 
a mental age of below seven years. It is a question as to how many 
of these girls might be adjudged “definitely feebleminded,” particu- 
larly as to the 19 having mental ages over 12 years. 
One measure of the social value of the colony plan is the economic 
utility of the colony girls as workers. Concrete evidence on this 
point has already been given in the fact that out of their earnings, 
the girls in the colonies clothed themselves, provided their own 
spending money, put money in the bank to their personal credit 
at the rate of about fifty cents per week per girl, and in addition con- 
tributed more than half to the operating expenses of the colony 
house. As pointed out in the case of the boys, if colony operations 
had been limited to one hundred or one hundred and fifty of the 
more able girls, or if the best trained girls had been retained in- 
definitely in the colony instead of being moved on to parole and dis- 
charge, the girls’ colonies would readily have made a showing of 
complete self-support. This was not their purpose. 
The majority of the girls to date have been employed at domestic 
service. The large number of girls now employed for domestic 
duties, and the rapidity with which new colonies have been estab- 
lished and have won favor in various communities are evidences 
enough of the fact that the girls have satisfactorily met the demands 
of their employers. Starting out at the rate of $.50 a day, the 
girls’ services now command $1.50 a day. The success of the colony 
girls is shown especially in the length of time many girls have been 
employed in the same household and in the reliance which their 
employers place in them. The following cases are illustrative 
(written as of March 26, 1923) : 
1. Mary C. (mental age 8 years) went to East Aurora Colony 
August 17, 1918. Went to work for Mrs. J. where she remained 
for two years and was most satisfactory. Sometimes Mrs. J. would 
go away for a day or two and at these times Mary would return to 
the colony to sleep but went every day to open the house, look after 
the fires, and see that everything was satisfactory. Owing to a 
change in the family it was necessary to return Mary to the colony. 144 
SOCIAL, CONTROL, OF TIIE FEEBLEMINDED 
She was then placed in the home of Mrs. P. where she is still 
working. 
2. Another colony girl is also employed in the home of Mrs. P. 
and the work of both girls seems to be most satisfactory apd there 
is no friction between them, as so often happens when two colony 
girls work in the same home. This second girl, Elizabeth W. (mental 
age 12 years) has been working for Mrs. P. since July 1, 1921, and 
is happy in this home and has no desire to be paroled out of East 
Aurora, nor is she anxious about her discharge. She says that she 
is much better off than she would ever be anywhere else. Her 
employer, also, is much pleased with her work. Elizabeth has 
charge of the kitchen and the preparation of the meals. The em- 
ployer has worked out a very systematic schedule so that each girl 
knows exactly what her work is and what work she is to do at a 
certain hour of the day. 
3. Julia C. (mental age 9 years) went to Rome Colony October 
27, 1914, and began to work for Mrs. G. on September 1, 1915. 
Julia is sleeping at the colony. She has been giving excellent satis- 
faction in this home and her employer would not like to part with 
her. Julia herself, feels that she has found her place in the world. 
(She sleeps at the colony as it is not convenient for her to remain 
at her place of work.) She is trusted both by her employer and by 
the colony matron. At the recent effort to secure subscriptions for 
her church she pledged $50 which she has saved from her spending 
money. She has hoarded her money very carefully, feeling that 
she can look after it better than any bank. 
4. Alice B. (mental age 11 years) was first connected with the 
Rome Colony in April, 1915. After a period of parole and a further 
period at the institution, she returned to the colony again and has 
been employed at the home of Mrs. N. since October 16, 1919. 
She has sometimes felt that she would like a change but always her 
employer persuades her otherwise. She has been so satisfactory 
that finally Mrs. N., upon the illness of her mother, felt that she 
must allow Alice to become housekeeper and nurse for the older 
woman and this continued for about a year. Now, upon the death 
of her mother, Mrs. N. has again taken Alice into her own home. 
The following statements are from letters received from employers 
concerning colony girls working in their households: ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
145 
h. is very happy here. She has become most orderly. You 
would have been pleased to have seen her room yesterday afternoon. 
We have found L. most trustworthy, both within our home and out 
of doors. She is most reliable and we like her very much.” 
(Employed here for nearly a year until family moved away.) 
A. has earned the respect and good will of our entire family 
and we have come to recognize her as one of us. Of course, she 
has her little faults, we all have those, but we have never found 
anything seriously wrong in her conduct or character since she has 
been with us which is about nine months. I have two little children 
and they just think the world and all of ‘A. that lives with Grand- 
ma/ because of her kindness to them and we feel confident and 
safe to have them in her care—something we would not do with 
many girls.” 
“J. is doing as well as she is capable of doing. In some ways, 
she improves steadily. She attends Church regularly. Last week, 
she was asked to serve at the Baptist Church Supper and was given 
a ‘birthday table.’ So many nice things were said about her ap- 
pearance, service, nice manners, and so on. She seems very happy. 
She is considered a marvel by those who have watched her develop- 
ment.” (This girl has been in the same place from May 11, 1917, 
to date, March, 1923.) 
“B. has been an excellent girl with us, very faithful in her work 
and giving us no cause for complaint. Under supervision she has 
greatly advanced in efficiency and promises to be excellent help in 
the future. I have been surprised to see how well she has done the 
plain cooking necessary. She has been very faithful in her work 
and a great help to us. In fact, I do not see how we could possibly 
get along without her,—and for us to lose her would be a great 
calamity.” (Has been employed here since September 25, 1919.) 
“I am very much pleased with E. in every way. It is very easy 
to see she knows how to do things. I feel very grateful for having 
the good fortune to get her.” (Has been employed here since March 
4, 1922.) 
“M. has not given us the least bit of trouble and she gives every 
indication of being happy and contented. She is industrious, and 
is able to do all that I expected she would. She is very willing, and 
has become fond of the children, and her fondness for them is 
reciprocated by their confidence in her.” (Has been employed in 
this place since March 17, 1922.) 
It is of course not to be assumed that all the girls adapted them- 
selves to the homes in which they were employed as well as the 
cases here cited. That fact will be brought out later in a review of 
the statistics of the amount of adjustment needed in adapting some 146 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
girls to life and work outside the institution. Adjustments of the 
type mentioned are not unusual, however, and they serve to show the 
possibilities of the colony plan. 
We may take the colony at East Aurora as representative of the 
domestic service type. This colony is the farthest from the insti- 
tution, being 150 miles distant. It was opened on July 1, 1918, 
in a rented house which accommodated a matron and 20 girls. 
From the very beginning the colony has been largely self-supporting. 
It has enjoyed excellent supervision and is indicative of what a 
colony can be under good leadership. So well received was this 
first colony that in 1920, a second colony house, accommodating 20 
girls was opened. Later in the same year the rental of a large 
building, formerly used as a dormitory by the Roycrofters, permitted 
the combining of these two colony groups in one and the addition 
of 20 more girls, making a colony of 60 in all. 
During the fiscal year July 1, 1921, to July 1, 1922, the girls in 
the East Aurora colony earned a total of $10,057. The operating 
expenses of the colony were $8,699. In addition, $1,003 was ex- 
pended for furniture and equipment; $1,208 for the girls’ clothing; 
and $2,068 went to the girls themselves for pin money and savings. 
The net operating cost to the State for this colony during the fiscal 
year was $2,837 or only $48.69 per capita. 
In the fall of 1922, the writer visited East Aurora for the pur- 
pose not only of seeing the colony itself but of gaining the opinion 
of representative people in the community concerning it. The 
cashier of the largest local bank who was also the supervisor of the 
township, was interviewed. He is a man whose activities have 
brought him into close contact with the people of the community. At 
the same time, he has taken a close interest from the first in the 
affairs of the colony. Asked whether the people of the community 
resented the presence of such a large group of feebleminded girls 
in their midst or regarded the colony inmates as a social menace to 
the younger people of the town, this bank official replied that on the 
contrary, there had been practically no criticism during the three 
years on any score, concerning the colony or its inmates. The 
residents of the town had come to have great confidence in and 
respect for the matron of the colony, and knew from experience 
that under her guidance and direction the colony girls conducted 
themselves in an exemplary manner. He said that the town justly ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
147 
took pride in the colony and felt that it was in every sense a credit 
to the community. He had one of his clerks show me the con- 
siderable pile of bank books which represented the personal savings 
accounts of these colony girls. There were 48 individual accounts 
with an average of $34.63 to the personal credit of the girls. The 
largest individual account was $114.38; the lowest, $5. 
the writer interviewed also the leading real estate operator of the 
town, b rom the real estate point of view the best prospects in 
East Aurora are the commuters who work in Buffalo. Asked 
whether the presence of the colony helped or hindered in selling 
real estate, this operator said it was a distinct asset. There was 
nothing about the colony or its members to make it an undesirable 
neighbor, even to those who live close by; on the other hand, the 
fact that such competent help could be obtained at reasonable rates 
through the colony had served in many instances as an actual induce- 
ment to people to locate there. From a purely business standpoint, 
therefore, the real estate man was “for the colony.” 
Another leading citizen who was interviewed was the head of the 
Roycroft organization. He had nothing but praise for the colony. 
Although the colony house was built as a part of the Roycroft plant 
and is situated within a stone’s throw of the famous Inn and the 
Roycroft shops, “the way in which its affairs were conducted,” said 
this head of the Roycrofters, “made it a desirable addition to that 
section of the town.” The wife of one of the ministers of East 
Aurora said that the colony girls are not noticed on the street or 
annoyed more often than girls from the best families. 
So far as can be ascertained from careful inquiry, all of the 
domestic colonies stand well in their respective communities. They 
occupy good houses in the better residential section. There are 
usually close neighbors. If at first the rumor that a house is to 
be occupied for such a purpose causes some misgivings in the 
neighborhood, that feeling is quickly dispelled when the colony 
begins to operate and it is seen how quiet and orderly the house- 
hold proves to be. The next-door neighbor of the Syracuse colony 
spoke highly of the quietness and orderliness of the colony girls. 
The neighbor of the Mason colony in Rome said that the neighbors 
should send their children to the colony house for the right sort of 
training. If the house is somewhat run-down before, it now takes 
on a trim and tidy appearance that would please the most fastidious, 148 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
for the girls are taught to practice their good housekeeping at home 
and are encouraged to make the colony house as attractive as pos- 
sible. In this respect the other colonies have somewhat an ad- 
vantage over the East Aurora colony since they occupy ordinary 
family dwellings. 
While in the colony house, the girls are, of course, under the 
direct supervision of the matron. They do not go out alone in the 
evening or at any time unchaperoned except when going to and from 
their places of employment. The girls realize that they are on their 
good behavior and are particularly instructed as to the necessity of 
careful conduct on the street. They know that a misstep in the 
way of a flirtation, means being returned to the institution. In ob- 
serving the colonies at first hand, one is impressed strongly by the 
fact that many of the girls who have formerly been delinquent have 
become considerably sobered by their past experiences and are now 
extremely anxious to go right and make good. They, therefore, 
give one the impression that they are in the colony with the most 
earnest intention of proving their ability to live outside the institu- 
tion. One of the prominent women of East Aurora, whom the 
writer interviewed, and who has employed colony girls in her home 
for several years, said that she felt that the difficult lives these 
girls had had to lead had done much to sober them and to make them 
the steady, reliable workers that most of them are. Without being 
questioned on that point, she offered the information that in all 
the time she had employed colony girls, she had never had anything 
stolen. She also said that it had been her experience that it was 
only necessary to use those precautions in protecting these girls 
that one would wish to use with one’s own daughters. 
Girls newly received in the colony, who have irresponsible ten- 
dencies, are carefully guarded. If such a girl is to go unescorted 
from the colony house to the place where she works, the colony 
matron advises her employer over the telephone at what time she 
is leaving and at what time she should arrive. The employer im- 
mediately reports to the matron if the girl does not arrive on time. 
In the same way the girl’s return in the evening is checked up. 
During the day while at work the employer must keep these girls 
under careful supervision and is responsible for their good behavior. 
Girls are permitted to be employed only in those homes where the 
influences are right and proper supervision is maintained. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
If these higher-grade mentally deficient girls are ever to be given 
a chance to prove their ability to get along outside the institution and 
to take their places in the community, the colony plan, in the 
writer’s opinion, minimizes the chances of failure. The alternative 
is to parole the girl directly from the institution to the home in 
which she is to work. By this latter plan the girl takes a big step 
all at once from institutional to community life. The direction of her 
conduct is left almost entirely to the woman for whom she works 
who may or more probably may not be competent to undertake to 
guide the girl in making her first adjustment to her new life and 
greater degree of freedom. Furthermore, except for the family in 
which she may or may not find companionship, the girl is alone and 
greatly misses the companionship of the other girls in the institution. 
She has practically no opportunity for making friends with the girls 
in the neighborhood. She is not in their class. Her mistress is 
instructed not to let her go out unchaperoned excepting on short 
errands during the day. How can the girl content herself during 
her spare time, unless she has an employer who is particularly 
solicitous about her happiness and makes a special effort to keep 
her entertained ? Such a girl naturally feels lonesome and friend- 
less and in these circumstances it is quite understandable if she 
finally disregards her instructions and seeks entertainment or excite- 
ment in forbidden paths. 
Linking up the parole system with the colony plan, and establish- 
ing in various communities these home centers for the girls, far 
from inviting trouble, greatly aids the girls in satisfactorily meeting 
the “world test.” As Dr. Bernstein has written: 
“Before we adopted the colony plan, many boys and girls who went 
out on parole became lonely and homesick and longed for associa- 
tion with friends and acquaintances; and when their work was 
done, rather than remain alone, they would tend to drift to the 
streets and associate with whomever they met there. Naturally, 
under these conditions, they either made undesirable acquaintances 
or became so homesick that they begged to be allowed to return 
to the institution, or actually did return of their own accord, having 
no friends or relatives to whom to go. This experience was one of 
the reasons that led us to adopt the colony plan, to help these cases 
gradually get back into touch with the world and learn the ways 
of the world and how to care for themselves, and at the same time 
to give them some place that they can call home while they are 
making their new associations and friendships, thus protecting them 150 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THU FEEBLEMINDED 
from unprincipled people and bad companions during their rehabili- 
tation period.”1 
For those cases which appear capable of restoration to the life 
of the outside world, the colony helps to fill the gap between the 
institution and parole. The colony is, so to speak, the sheltering 
arm of the institution, extended into the community. It is much 
easier for a girl to make good as a member of a group than to 
"go it” entirely alone. The girls serve as an incentive one to the 
other. If a girl is on parole from the colony, (that is, living out 
with a family), she can go to the colony house to find friendship; 
she can go there to her particular chums or the colony mother for 
comfort if she becomes discouraged. She has a strong motive to 
do well in her job and “go right” in order to win the admiration and 
respect of the other girls. 
To the new girl who is ready for her first trial outside the insti- 
tution, the colony offers an easy transition to community life. She 
can live there while working out by the day and thus remain under 
the careful supervision of the colony mother, until she has proved 
herself sufficiently stabilized in her new environment to be moved 
on to parole. Or if she is found to be too irresponsible for this 
larger degree of freedom because of active delinquent tendencies, 
the colony facilitates the discovery of this fact before serious con- 
sequences ensue. 
The colony house for girls, by the actual experience of the Rome 
institution during an eight-year period, far from being a marked 
center of social infection, has been the means of extending the help- 
ful influence of the institution to those trained inmates who are 
taking the first steps back into the world. 
How fully the colony girls show their appreciation of the kindly 
treatment which they receive in the selected homes where they are 
employed is told by Dr. Bernstein as follows: 
“Individual evidences of more than ordinary success could be 
cited by the score where the girl in a household has especially and 
repeatedly exerted herself to please and even surprise ‘my lady,' 
as they always designate the housewife for whom they are working. 
A girl goes and purchases fifteen cents’ worth of graham flour with 
her own money in order to surprise the family at breakfast with 
graham gems. Another tells the garbage man not to pound the can 
to loosen the frozen garbage, as she will get the teakettle of hot 
1. Bernstein, Charles. Colony and Extra-Institutional Care, p. 20. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
151 
water to pour on the outside of the can to loosen it. Another asks 
the housewife if she can sit at her feet on the floor childlike and 
help her mend during the afternoon, rather than go out to the 
colony. Numbers asked to be allowed to take samples of their 
cakes and pastry to the superintendent, for him to sample and see 
how well they did it.”' 
In the above discussion, reference has been made chiefly to the 
domestic service type of colony. The industrial or mill colonies 
deserve special consideration. Of the fourteen colonies for girls, now 
in operation, three of these are of the industrial type: Oriskany Falls, 
Richfield Springs, and Clayville, named in the order of their estab- 
lishment. All three of these colonies are quite similar. At Oriskany 
Falls, the colony occupies a large dwelling of splendid construction, 
adjoining the knitting mill where the girls work. The house is 
owned by the mill company and is rented to the institution for $40 
a month. It accommodates 24 girls. Both the Richfield Springs 
and Clayville colony houses are owned by the companies and rented 
to the institution. Both are within a stone’s throw of the respective 
mills where the girls are employed. 
It was but a logical development of the colony plan that it should 
be extended to other types of employment than household work. 
Many girls not suited by temperament to domestic service have 
taken readily to mill work. The mill colony has the advantage also 
of enabling closer supervision of its members, so that many girls 
who could not safely work out from the domestic colony could be 
placed successfully in the mill colony. In fact, as will be seen shortly, 
the attempt to put the institutionally trained girl “on her feet” 
economically and socially, did not end if she failed to do well the 
first time she was tried in a colony. Miss Inez F. Stebbins, Social 
Investigator of the Rome State School who has immediate super- 
vision of the colony and parole work with girls, states in the 1921 
report of that institution, “Some girls are returned to the institu- 
tion and sent to the colonies a number of times during the year. We 
do not consider the number of returns as an indication of failure, 
either on the part of the girl or on the part of the colony, but a 
legitimate part of the girl’s training, for very often she learns more 
in this process of being sent to the colony, returned for discipline 
or with the knowledge that she is not meeting the requirements, 
1. Ibid., p. 13. 152 
SOCIAL, CONTROL, OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
and then being sent out to the colony again, than she ever would 
perhaps from continued instruction in the institution.” 
To one who studies at first hand the work at Rome, it is this 
patient and repeated effort, this strong faith in the possibilities of 
the girl after failure upon failure, which fully expresses the spirit 
of the work. At first thought it may appear that giving the mentally 
defective girl another chance after she has failed twice or three 
times, represents too much risk. It must be kept in mind that 
“failure” does not in the majority of instances represent a serious 
offense from the social standpoint. 
The industrial colony has proved to be the making of many a 
girl who has failed in the domestic colony. In the industrial colony, 
the girls not only live in a group, but work in a group. Under super- 
vision they can go to work in a group and return in a group. Their 
amusements can be planned in the same way. The girls who need 
it, therefore, can have strict supervision in the mill colony. It 
happens that many, though by no means all, of the mill colony girls, 
have been of the trouble-making type. “What is the use” it may be 
asked, “of colonizing girls who are bound to fall into difficulties 
as soon as supervision is relaxed?” To that question the answer, 
aside from the matter of economic saving to the State, lies in the 
still virgin field of personality adjustment. Empirically, however, 
it has been demonstrated in the colony work, that once a girl suc- 
cessfully falls into the colony regime, she is likely to become stabil- 
ized by it. Give a troublesome girl of this type good home training 
such as the colony offers, kindly oversight, companionship with her 
peers, close supervision to keep temptation away; put her at a job 
that demands her steady attention eight hours a day; let her begin 
to feel her productive potentialities by a record of good, steady- 
weekly earnings; have her open a personal savings account and buy- 
some nice clothes with her own earned money-; see that she sticks 
faithfully at it for six months, a year or two years, and an entirely- 
changed girl is likely to result. From such a regime faithfully fol- 
lowed, self-esteem and the desire for the esteem of others are apt 
to replace former motives. Such results have not been infrequent 
occurrences with the delinquent girls who have been sent to the 
mill colonies. The personality of many has seemed to be completely- 
transformed. Girls who have formerly been great problems have 
come to be trustworthy, hard-working and dependable. With so ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
153 
many of these girls, nothing succeeds like success, and the secret of 
making a socially acceptable person of a socially unacceptable one, 
often lies in trying the girl time and again until she finds the colony 
in which she seems to be able to adapt herself and can remain long 
enough to make good and to have inculcated into her the habits of 
life which the colony teaches. 
A number of former problem girls who are successfully adjusting 
themselves to the life and work of the industrial colonies may be 
found in any one of the three mentioned. At Clayville, at the time 
of the writer’s visit to the institution last summer, there was Elsie C. 
This 16-year-old girl with a mental age of 11, had been a chronic 
delinquent. While in the training school for girls at Hudson, befot c 
being committed to Rome, she had run away several times and had 
had various escapades with men. After she had been in the insti- 
tution at Rome for some time, she was given a trial in the Syracuse 
domestic colony. While there she ran away from the home at which 
she was employed, taking some of her employer’s clothing. After 
a period of further discipline and training in the institution, she 
was sent to the industrial colony at Clayville. The environment here 
has seemed to call out the best in the girl and to eliminate the worst. 
She has become a steady worker and at last report, her earnings on 
piece work were averaging $9 a week. Elsie’s behavior is now 
excellent. She is happy in the colony life. Those who have been 
working most closely with her say that her social prognosis is good 
and believe that she can eventually be paroled and discharged with 
entire safety to the community. 
Another interesting case in the Clayville colony is Ethel C., a 
high-grade girl of 12 years, mental age, 16 years, actual age. Ethel 
comes from a particularly poor home environment in one of 
the rural counties of New York State. She had a bad record of 
sex delinquency before coming to the institution. In the Clayville 
colony she has given no trouble whatever and has worked con- 
sistently. Her weekly earnings on piece work during May averaged 
$6.10. Ethel’s counsellors are confident that if, after further train- 
ing in the colony, she can be paroled to a new environment far 
enough away from her own home, she would become a desirable 
and useful member of society/ 
A somewhat older girl in the Clayville group is June F., 20 years 
1. Noiv paroled and doing well. 154 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
chronologically, 11 years mentally. June is another of the delinquent 
girls committed from the Hudson Training School to Rome. Upon 
her admission to Rome she seemed really worthless. After a time 
in the institution, she was tried in the Syracuse domestic colony but 
was returned, because of her bad deportment, in three days. Later 
she was sent to one of the domestic colonies in the city of Rome, 
but was soon back in the institution. After a further period of 
training, of considerable duration, she was given a last chance in 
the mill colony at Clayville. She readily adapted herself to the 
environment here and has done exceptionally well from the start. 
Her employers praise her work highly. Instead of being on piece 
work, like the other girls, she receives a regular weekly wage of 
$10.35. She is doing what is called in the mill “carry work”; that 
is, she carries bundles to and from the workers. This requires 
a steady reliable worker who can use some initiative. Her conduct 
is exemplary. She was allowed during the summer to go home on 
a vacation of two weeks, conducted herself well while there, and 
returned promptly to the colony of her own accord when her leave 
was up. She is now apparently developing those qualities of in- 
dustry, stability and trustworthiness which will be a part of her 
personality for the rest of her life, and which will subsequently 
warrant her return to the community. 
May H., a 19-year-old girl of 11-year mentality, had been com- 
mitted to Rome from the reformatory at Albion, with a long record 
of sexual offenses and a medical report of syphilis. While in the 
institution she needed constant watching and could not be trusted. 
At the Clayville Colony she has made a very good record. She has 
presented no behavior problems and is a steady worker. Her weekly 
earnings in May averaged $8.16. It is doubtful whether May can 
be entrusted to live outside the colony, at least for some years to 
come, but her case is typical of many others who, though difficult 
to control in the institution, are happy, well-behaved and self- 
supporting in the colonies. Here May and her kind can remain 
indefinitely at small cost to the State, leading happy and useful 
lives and yet carefully guarded from further misdoing. 
A similar and even more striking case of this same type among 
the girls at Clayville is that of Irene B., who is chronologically 29 
years old and has a mental age of only 9 years. Irene also had been 
guilty of many sexual misdemeanors before coming to Rome. Her ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
155 
name appeared first in the first list of girls sent out to open the 
very first colony, the Evans Domestic Colony in Rome. After she 
had worked in Rome a short time, she ran away and, not being ap- 
prehended, was discharged. She was later arrested for vagrancy 
and sent to the reformatory at Albion. She was finally paroled from 
Albion, fell sick while on parole, and asked to be returned to the 
Rome State School for care, a good word for the institution from 
which she had once run away. After her return from Albion she 
went again to the Rome Colony from which she was returned after 
a short time, offense, smoking. Later she was given a trial in the 
East Aurora Colony. She made good in the colony here and was 
then paroled to work for a private family. The life in this house- 
hold did not suit her. She ran away to Rochester and found a job 
there for herself, but her delinquent tendencies again got 'her into 
difficulty and she was returned to the Rome School. In October 
of 1921 she was sent to the Clayville Colony. Here she has seemed 
to be content and her behavior has been above reproach. She is 
quiet and orderly. During the month of May she had the second 
best record of earnings of all the girls in the Clayville group, a 
weekly average of $13.62. She has in the savings bank a personal 
credit of $33.65. 
In all the description of “cases,” it is a natural thing to write up 
the striking ones full of many vicissitudes because they furnish 
colorful material for the pen. These problem cases, though they 
represent one important aspect of the work which the colonies are 
doing, must, nevertheless, not be regarded as typical. Running down 
over the list of the girls at the Clayville colony during the month of 
May, it is surprising, even in this colony which specializes in receiv- 
ing delinquent girls, to find how uneventful most of their case 
histories are. There is practically nothing of special interest to 
write about the records of these girls. They are of a mental age 
below normal. They may or may not have been delinquent before 
coming to the institution. Their delinquencies, however, have not 
been of the adventurous kind, but rather of the type into which the 
girl has fallen through lack of intelligence, poor environment, and 
inability to safeguard herself. In the institution these girls have 
adapted themselves to the life about them in a matter-of-fact way. 
When sent to the colony they do as they are told, are quiet and 
orderly. They work steadily and hard, if not always efficiently. In 156 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
other words, they are prosaic individuals of the dull, plodding kind, 
and yet they are typical of the rank and file of the feebleminded. 
They have been rather sinned against than sinning. Their presence 
in the institution is due simply to the fact that they were unfortunate 
enough to be born and brought up in an unwholesome environment. 
Given decent surroundings, they reflect these better conditions as 
much as they reflected formerly the bad conditions which surrounded 
them. In other words, they are the safe kind who can be depended 
upon not to give trouble if trouble is not put in their way. 
The following table gives the mental ages, actual ages, and monthly 
earnings of the girls in the Clayville group: 
Table 11. Chronological Ages, Mental Ages, and Monthly Earnings 
of Girls in Clayville Colony, May, 1922 
Name 
Age 
Mental Age 
Earnings 
(4 weeks) 
A 
19 
5-10 
House Girl 
B 
23 
6-4 
$24.72 
C 
09 
6-8 
26.14 
D 
14 
7-2 
23.62 
E 
29 
7-3 
24.19 
F . 
28 
8-0 
39.74 
G 
16 
8-2 
19.21 
H 
19 
8-2 
22.11 
I . 
28 
8-4 
23.78 
[ . 
26 
8-6 
House Girl 
IC 
18 
8-6 
27.07 
L 
19 
8-7 
33.37 
M 
29 
8-9 
54.49 
N 
19 
9-1 
34.29 
o 
26 
9-2 
30.04 
p 
20 
9-3 
28.26 
o 
17 
9-4 
27.12 
R 
24 
9-4 
31.48 
s 
29 
9-6 
26.10 
T 
20 
9-7 
21.60 
u 
22 
9-8 
. House Girl 
V 
25 
10-0 
39.13 
w 
20 
10-4 
33.09 
x 
17 
10-5 
35.92 
y 
19 
10-5 
33.93 
2 
26 
10-8 
27.20 
W 
20 
10-11 
41.37 
BB 
19 
10-11 
32.66 ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
157 
Name 
Age 
Mental Age 
Earnings 
(4 weeks) 
cc 
19 
11-0 
30.83 
DD 
19 
11-1 
56.12 
EE 
24 
11-6 
26.92 
FF 
17 
11-8 
26.79 
GG 
20 
12-0 
17.80 
HH 
20 
13-0 
42.80 
II 
21 
13-5 
29.24 
TT 
18 
13-9 
29.89 
Total earnings (33 girls) for 
four weeks 
$1,021.02 
Median chronological age ... 
Average chronological age .. 
Median mental age 
Average mental age 
Median monthly wage 
Average monthly wage 
20 
21 
9-5 
9-7 
$29.24 
30.94 
At Oriskany Falls, the original mill colony, at the time of the 
writer’s visit there, the work in the mill was very slack and many 
hands had been laid off. Only four working girls remained in the 
colony, the others having been transferred temporarily to the insti- 
tution or to other colonies to await the resumption of mill activities. 
The colony house was occupied principally by a group of younger 
girls from 7 to 12, who were enjoying the change from institutional 
life during the summer. 
The mill where the girls were employed was visited, however, and 
the assistant superintendent who had immediate charge of the section 
in which the colony girls worked, was interviewed. This assistant 
superintendent was familiar with the work which the colony girls 
had done from their first employment in this mill in 1917, and 
he was glad to answer questions about them. We suggested that 
of course the colony girls had been the first to be laid off when 
work became slack. No, he told us, the fact was, many others 
had been let go before any of the colony girls were given notice. 
Among the comparatively few workers who had been retained, four 
were colony girls. He showed us these girls at their work. They 
could certainly not have been picked out without his assistance. 
Three were inspecting the finished garments, one was running a 
sewing machine. Naturally, we said, the colony girls only did the 
simpler kinds of work. No, he replied, while the majority did in- 158 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
specting, various colony girls had successfully performed every 
operation in this part of the mill. The colony girl who was working 
on the sewing machine was one of his best operators, he said. Com- 
paring the run of colony girls with normal girls, and judging by the 
piecework earnings, quality of work, etc., how efficient we asked, 
were the colony girls. At least 75 per cent efficient on the average, 
he said, and more so in many cases. We intimated that naturally 
he had to make some allowances for the colony girls, that because 
of temperament, indisposition, misconduct, or what not, they were 
more likely to be irregular in their attendance, late in arrival, need- 
ing time off, etc. Our other questions had brought a slight smile from 
this quite reticent man; this brought a very broad smile and a less 
laconic answer than usual. That idea was all wrong, he said. You 
could set the time clock by the colony girls. They were there on 
the dot and they stuck until the whistle blew. They could be 
depended upon much more than the girls from town. During the 
working hours, moreover, the colony girls had their minds on their 
work and did not indulge in as much gossip and day-dreaming as 
some of their normal sisters. Would the mill want the full quota 
of colony girls back as soon as orders permitted full operation? 
Among the first, was his answer. 
This was the opinion of a mill man whose prime interest was very 
apparently in production. It may, therefore, be taken as an im- 
partial, economic opinion of the girls’ usefulness and characteristics. 
Without doubt, considerable credit for the faithful attendance and 
close application to work of the colony girls is due to the colony 
regime and discipline. Without doubt, credit also goes to those well- 
known traits of the “good” type of the feebleminded, loyalty, faith- 
fulness and perseverance. 
In the industrial colony, the girls compete on an even footing with 
regular labor; that is, they do the same kind of work, have the same 
hours, work side by side with regular workers, and receive the same 
piecework rate of pay. If the feebleminded girl is as proficient as 
the normal girl working beside her, she receives the same amount in 
her pay envelope at the end of the week. 
The records of the girls sent to colonies during the two years, 
July 1, 1919, to July 1, 1920, and July 1, 1920-21, give an indication 
of how the girls coming from the institution adjust themselves co 
this new life. During the year July 1, 1919, to July 1, 1920, a ROME COLONIES I'OR GIRLS 
total of 112 new girls were sent to colonies. Their status at the 
end of the year was as follows: 
Table 12. Status as of July l, 1920, of New Girls Sent to Colonies 
During the Preceding Year* 
Remaining in colonies or on parole 78 
Returned to institution 27 
Transferred to other institutions 2 
Discharged 2 
Escaped 2 
Dead l 
112 
Thus the 78 girls, or 70 per cent of the above group who remained 
in colonies or on parole at the end of the year, may be said to have 
made good in their new environment. In addition, there were good 
reports on the two discharged girls: one was living at home with 
her people and adjusting herself satisfactorily; the other was married 
and maintaining a good home. Of the two girls who escaped, one 
was later found and committed to Letchworth Village; the where- 
abouts of the other are still unknown. 
For the return of the 27 failures to the institution, the following 
reasons are given: 
Lack of ability 6 
Change of place 4 
Health 7 
Difficult, needing further institutional training 5 
Petty thieving 2 
Inclined to run away 2 
Pregnant 1 
Total returned 27 
Of the entire group of 112 new girls sent to colonies during this 
year, there were known or probable serious social consequences in 
only three instances: the one listed in the above table as pregnant; 
the girl who escaped,whereabouts unknown; and one of the two girls 
listed as “inclined to run away” who was found to be pregnant upon 
being returned to the institution. 
In the year July 1, 1920, to July 1, 1921, 99 new girls were sent 
to colonies. Their status at the end of the year was as follows: 
I. Rome State School, 26th Annual Report, 1920. 160 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Table 13. Status as or July l, 1921, or New Girls Sent to Colonies 
During the Preceding Year 1 
Remaining in colonies 52 
Paroled home or working 15 
Returned to institution 25 
Discharged 5 
Escaped 2 
99 
In this year the 67 girls who had definitely made good, that is, 
who at the end of the year remained in the colony or were on 
parole, represented 68 per cent of the group, or about the same pro- 
portion as in 1919-1920. Besides, there have been satisfactory re- 
ports on three of the five discharged girls. Of the other two, one 
was later committed to another institution for the feebleminded and 
the other disappeared entirely. Of the two who escaped, one was 
later found leading an immoral life and was sent to the Bedford 
Reformatory; the other was never located. The reasons for the 
return of the 25 cases to the institution during 1920-21 are as 
follows: 
Lack of ability 9 
Change of place 1 
Health 6 
Difficult, needing further institutional training 7 
Discontented 1 
Escaped 1 
Total returned 25 
Thus in this year there was known or probable immorality in four 
instances among the 99 : the discharged girl whose whereabouts were 
unknown; the two girls who escaped from colonies; and the escaped 
girl noted above who was later returned to the Rome institution. 
The above tables showing at the end of the year the status of the 
girls sent for the first time to colonies during that year do not, 
of course, present an entirely complete picture of the situation. For 
example, a girl might be returned to the institution for discipline 
at some time during the year and be back in the colony at the end 
of the year. The figures showing the changes among the new girls 
during the year are needed to supplement those already given. Of 
1. Rome State School, 27th Annual Report, 1921, p. 30. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
161 
the 99 girls, 29 were not returned to the institution for any reason 
during the year. The remaining 70 were returned once or more 
for the following reasons :J 
To do special work in the institution 2 
Change of place 7 
Paroled home 6 
Lack of room due to fire 4 
Interview 1 
Health 20 
Incompetent and in need of training 12 
Difficult—returned for discipline 32 
Discontented—not adjusted 7 
Bad influence 2 
Immoral 1 
Stealing 3 
Escaped 6 
Total returns 103 
Repetitions 33 
Total girls returned once or more 70 
It should be noted that the 32 instances listed under “Difficult— 
returned for discipline” were not those of moral failure, or anti- 
social conduct. This phrase was used to describe those whose 
personality or disposition was such as to prevent them from living 
on harmonious terms with the other members of the colony and 
those not willing to recognize the rights of the group above their own 
rights. The category,“Discontented—not adjusted,” also represented 
the failure of the girl in a somewhat different way to function as 
a member of the group. The last four listings: “Bad influence”; 
“Immoral”; “Stealing”; “Escaped,” represent the type of failure 
which we have been wont to expect in the feebleminded and to 
fear from the standpoint of society. There are in all twelve in- 
stances of returns for these four reasons—twelve of 103, or less 
than 12 per cent of the total number of returns. 
The following table shows how many girls were returned to the 
institution during the year for discipline of any sort: 
1. Ibid., p. 31. 162 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Tabu: 14. Returns for Discipline Among New Girls Sent to Colonies 
July i, 1920, to July i, 1921-' 
Returned for discipline once 18 
Returned for discipline twice 5 
Returned for discipline three times 1 
24 
Thus only 25 per cent of the girls sent to colonies during the year 
were returned for discipline of any kind. And most of this 25 
per cent were returned for discipline not involving moral miscon- 
duct. 
Thus far we have been considering only the new admissions dur- 
ing the year. A complete estimate of the records of the girls in 
colonies cannot, of course, be obtained merely from a study of the 
new girls who are received each year. The records of the girls 
who have remained over from a previous year must also be taken 
into account. It is, therefore, of value to consider the conduct of 
all the girls in colonies during a particular year. The latest figures 
available are those of the fiscal year, July 1, 1920, to July 1, 1921. 
At the beginning of this year there was a total of 187 girls in 
colonies; at the end of the year there were 200. During the year 
there were 254 admissions to the colonies, representing, however, 
a smaller number of girls than that because some were sent to 
colonies more than once. Of these 254 admissions, 5 were children 
sent to the colonies for care by the older girls; 38 were girls who 
had been tried in colonies in previous years, returned to the insti- 
tution, and were now being sent out again for another trial; 99 
were girls sent to colonies for the first time; and there were 112 
repetitions representing the girls who were transferred to colonies 
more than once during the year. Of these 112 repetitions, 40 girls 
were returned twice; 8 were returned three times; and two were 
returned four times. 
Of the 329 individual girls in colonies at any time during this 
year, 153 were returned a total of 192 times to the institution as 
follows:1 
121 girls returned once . 121 
26 girls returned twice 52 
5 girls returned three times 15 
1 girl returned four times 4 
153 girls Total returns 192 
1. Ibid., p. 31. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
163 
The reasons for these returns were as follows \l 
Difficult in colony and in need of further discipline 56 
Health 33 
Incompetent—in need of further training 28 
Change of place 22 
Fire at Richfield Springs with consequent lack of room.... 10 
Unsettled and dissatisfied in Colony 8 
Mill at Oriskany Falls closed temporarily 6 
To he paroled 6 
Attempted or temporary escape 6 
Stealing 5 
Bad influence morally 3 
To do special work in the Institution 2 
Unfounded charges and investigation 2 
Flirting 2 
Immoral 2 
To appear in Court 1 
192 
The most frequent cause for return, with 56 instances, was, 
“Difficult in colony and in need of further discipline” which, as has 
been shown, did not involve moral misconduct. The only serious 
or potentially serious instances of delinquency among the returns 
were five escapes which resulted in immorality; the three in- 
stances of girls who were a bad influence morally; the five instances 
of stealing; the two cases of outright immorality; and the two 
instances of flirting—a total of seventeen more or less serious 
occurrences. Seventeen delinquencies would seem to be a small 
enough proportion (5 per cent) among the 329 girls who were in 
the colonies at one time or another during the year. 
In addition to the six escapes listed in the above table of returns 
to the institution, there were in this same year six other girls who 
ran away from the colonies and were not returned to the institution. 
Of these, 
4 never located or any information secured. 
1 traced for a short time—then lost. 
1 found married and discharged. 
In five of these six cases there was, of course, a considerable prob- 
ability of social mishap. 
l. Ibid., p. 23. 164 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Shortcomings in behavior on the part of some are to be expected 
even among a like number of average normal girls living together 
in similar groups. Scrutiny of these instances of failure among 
the colony girls is unable to give one the impression that the colony 
plan is inherently unsafe either individually or socially considered. 
The large number of girls who receive, in the colony, training of life- 
long value in industry, discipline, self-control and self-guidance far 
outweighs the relatively small number of those who drift into mis- 
conduct. Judged from a social standpoint, very few, even of these 
instances of misconduct, may be considered of a serious character. 
Two facts must always be borne in mind in making an estimate of 
the colony plan: (1) Under the most careful institutional super- 
vision girls run away not infrequently and fall into similar difficulties 
—in fact, the institutional atmosphere is more likely to incite a girl 
to this course; (2) From a broad social viewpoint, the colony, by 
releasing beds in the institution, makes possible care and training 
for many socially dangerous girls and women whom otherwise the 
institution would be unable to receive. 
In addition to the girls who continued successfully in the colony 
to the end of the year (1920-21), 32 others during the year were 
advanced one step in the process of rehabilitation to a parole status. 
Of this number, 17 were paroled home for an indefinite period. 
Fifteen of these continued successfully at home to the end of the 
year and longer; 1 was regarded as no longer in need of supervision 
and therefore discharged; another who married while on parole, 
was found to be doing well and was discharged. Eleven of the 32 
were given a working parole, of whom 9 continued successfully to 
the end of the year and longer, one was returned to the colony, 
and one, who broke her parole and escaped, was, upon being 
located at home, discharged to the custody of her relatives. The 
remaining four of the 32 were paroled home for brief and definite 
periods. All of these returned to the colony promptly at the ex- 
piration of their time! with the exception of one who broke her parole, 
married, and was later discharged.1 
Reviewing the colony work for girls as a whole, we find that 
from the time of the establishment of the first colony in 1914, a 
total of 573 girls had been admitted to the colonies from the insti- 
tution as follows :8 
1. Ibid., p. 24. 
2. Ibid., p. 28. ROME COLONIES EOR GIRLS 
165 
Table 15. Number of Girls Received in Colonies to July l, 1921 
Received before July 1, 1919 362 
Received during year 7-1-19 to 7-1-20 112 
Received during year 7-1-20 to 7-1-21 99 
Total girls received in colonies 573 
On July 1, 1920, 319 of the 474 girls who had been received in 
colonies up to that date, still remained under the supervision of the 
institution while 155 had been discharged. The records of the 155 
discharged girls will be considered presently. At this point we shall 
examine the status of the 319 girls remaining under supervision on 
July 1, 1920. Of this latter number, 215 were girls who had been 
sent to colonies prior to July 1, 1919, and 104 were girls who had 
been sent to colonies during the year, July 1, 1919, to July 1, 1920. 
The status as of July 1, 1920, of these 319 girls was as follows 
Table 16. Status as of July l, 1920, of Colony Girls Remaining Under 
Supervision on That Date 
Paroled home 18 
Paroled, working 16 
At Isaac Hopper Home 15 
Returned to institution 88 
Escaped, but not discharged 2 
Remaining in colonies 180 
319 
Taking the same group of 319 girls, one year later, that is, as of 
July 1, 1921, we find the following:1 
Table 17. Status as of July l, 1921, of Colony Girls Remaining Under 
Supervision on July l, 1920 
Remaining under supervision: 
Paroled home 52 
Paroled, working 21 
At Isaac Hopper Home 6 
In institution 86 
Escaped, not discharged 1 
In colonies 117 283 
1. Ibid., p. 29. 166 
SOCiAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
Discharged: 
Dead 3 
Home 8 
Married 10 
Working 2 
Sent to other institutions 4 
Escaped 9 36 
Total 319 
It is of interest to note why 86 of these girls who had been given 
a chance in the colonies among those sent out prior to July 1, 1920, 
found themselves back in the institution on July 1, 1921. The 
reasons as given are as follows :* 
Tabee 18. Reasons for Return to Institution of 86 Former 
Colony Girls 
Discipline for escape 5 
Discipline for bad disposition 5 
Discipline for stealing 1 
Discipline for flirting 1 
Immorality or immoral tendencies 12 
Physical inability 14 
Mental inability 6 
For further training 37 
For transfer 5 
Total returned 86 
Following through the above records serves to show the colony 
as a distinct trying-out process. It is apparent from the figures 
given that if a girl after a fair trial fails to adjust herself for any 
reason to the colony life, she is speedily returned to the institution. 
The records especially show the flexibility of the colony plan, a 
quality that seems most essential in dealing with human materials, 
so that the fact of one or two or three returns to the institution 
for failure in the colony does not deny the girl the opportunity 
of another trial in another colony if she seems worthy and capable 
of it. On the other hand, the records show that many of the girls 
who upon trial fell far short of measuring up to the demands of 
colony life, have been returned to the institution and retained for 
indefinite periods of further training. 
The analysis shows also how the colony moves on to parole and 
discharge those girls whose records in the colony have indicated 
that they are ready for a trial in the community, first on parole, 
1. Ibid., p. 30. rome: colonies for girls 
167 
and then, if the parole period passes favorably, to discharge. At 
the same time the figures impress one with the fact that the colony 
is not a radical scheme which rapidly and injudiciously returns girls 
to the community. Of the group of 319 colony girls remaining under 
supervision on July 1, 1920, only 20 were voluntarily discharged 
(home, working, married) during the succeeding year. Nine others 
had to be put on the discharged list because they escaped. In 
addition, 73 were on parole during that year but these were still on 
trial and subject to immediate return to the institution if they failed 
socially or economically. Twelve others had been returned to the 
institution for immorality or immoral tendencies, but these repre- 
sented cases in need of further discipline and training rather than 
cases whose failure in the colony could be regarded as a serious 
menace to the community. 
The most complete test of the value of the colony plan would 
come through a careful investigation of the records of the girls 
who have gone out from the colony, have been discharged and are 
now once more members of the community. No funds have thus 
far been allowed either by the State or from private sources for 
the employment of the necessary personnel to make such an investi- 
gation. In the absence of such special assistance, the Social In- 
vestigator of the Rome institution endeavored last year to obtain 
such information as was possible concerning these discharged girls. 
In all, information was obtained on 113 of the total of 155 dis- 
charges, leaving 42 unknown. It will be of interest here to 
review the results of this investigation. 
The following table gives the status of the 155 girls discharged 
before July 1, 1920 d 
Table 19. Status as of July 1, 1921, of Girls Discharged Through 
Colonies Prior to July 1, 1920 
Living with friends or relatives, wholly or partially self- 
supporting 17 
Working and self-supporting 21 
Married 47 
Dead 14 
Returned to institution 7 
Committed to other institutions 7 
Unknown 42 
Total 155 
1. Ibid., p. 28. 168 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
The reasons for the return of the seven girls to the institution are 
as follows:7 
Table 20. Reasons for Return of Girls from Discharge 
For immorality 3 
For better supervision 2 
From State hospital for second trial in colony 1 
For companionship, because lonely 1 
Total returned from discharge 7 
An item of particular interest is the number of children born to 
these discharged girls, and the number of these that were legitimate 
and illegitimate. The following table gives these facts :J 
Born previous to admission to institution 3 
Born while on parole 1 
Born after discharge, legitimate 37 
Born after discharge, illegitimate 8 
Total children 49 
Table 21. Children Born to Discharged Girls 
Eighty-five of the 99 living discharged colony girls whose records 
could be traced, or 86 per cent, may be said to have settled down 
to orderly, useful, more or less self-supporting lives. This includes 
the 21 girls working and self-supporting, the 17 living with friends 
or relatives and wholly or partially self-supporting, and the 47 wives. 
This is indeed a splendid record that would perhaps need to be 
modified somewhat if the 42 unknown cases could be traced. To 
many the fact that 47 or nearly half of the known living discharged 
girls had married will appear a startling enough fact in itself. This 
is a matter that involves the hereditary considerations discussed in 
an earlier chapter. In the cases of some of the girls who married, 
it is said that what appeared to be “mental defect” seemed to resolve 
itself largely into a matter of personality difficulty resulting from 
a bad early environment. The Rome study gives us no report on 
the type of man whom the girls married; nor does it give us the 
results of the observation of the 49 children of these marriages. 
The men are said to be of the hard-working type, of average in- 
telligence, whose incomes are able to maintain reasonably good 
1. Ibid., p. 28. ROME COLONIES FOR GIRLS 
169 
homes. The girls, with few exceptions, are reported to be good, 
steady wives and home-makers. 
The eugenics question as involving the children of these marriages 
is one that can be better understood in the course of the next decade 
or two. Here ready to hand is human material that should prove 
of the utmost value in throwing light upon a question that is just 
now in great doubt. At this point we may simply recall one or two 
facts: first, that by no means all cases of mental deficiency are 
apparently of the hereditary type and that therefore some of the 
children of these matings stand as good a chance of being normal 
as the average child; second, that Dr. Fernald’s after-care study of 
a similar group of cases discharged from Waverley showed that 
most of the children of such marriages appeared normal; third, that 
even if the deficiency of the mother were of the hereditary type, 
according to the newer interpretation of the Mendelian theory sug- 
gested by Dr. Davenport, the taint would appear in a descendant 
only provided it chanced to mate with a deficiency of the same unit 
type (that is, on the hypothesis that there are many and various 
kinds of mental deficiencies). All of which, as noted in Chapter 
VI, does not mean that in the present state of our knowledge on 
the subject, the marriage of such of these girls as are definitely de- 
fective in intelligence, should be encouraged. It only means that 
where such marriages do occur, we cannot be sure that the results 
are always bad. 
In the writer’s opinion, it comes back to that simple but exceed- 
ingly useful distinction which has been made between the “good” 
and “bad” types of mental defectives. It is the inherently or chron- 
ically “bad” types, that is, the morally defective, who have caused 
the bulk of the social damage that we have laid at the door of the 
feebleminded in general. I should conceive the first function of our 
institutions for the feebleminded, limited in capacity as they are in 
relation to the actual extent of subnormality, to be that of selection. 
Among the cases which the institution receives, studies and observes, 
it will discover some who are by nature morally as well as mentally 
defective, wdio with any amount of discipline and training are con- 
stitutionally unable to change their ways. Such cases should be, 
and are, held for indefinite and even permanent custodial care. 
Others will be found who, though perhaps not morally defective, 
have become so thoroughly confirmed in bad social habits by the 170 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
time they have reached the institution, that it is at least a task of 
many years to teach them different forms of conduct. They, too, 
require indefinite custodial care. The point is that in the weeding 
out of the socially dangerous types of the feebleminded, not only in 
the State Schools, but also in the prisons, reformatories and courts, 
there will come to be a large institutional population in itself. Aside 
from these “moral” defectives, the institution will have to continue 
to provide care for many of the low-grade feebleminded, who though 
harmless, cannot be cared for outside the institution. This is an- 
other class that will need practically life-time care. 
In its capacity as a selective agency, the institution, as shown by 
experience, will also discover a certain proportion of those who 
give indication of possessing personality traits that are socially 
acceptable and useful. For such of these individuals as prove, after 
a shorter or longer period of institutional training, to have adequately 
developed these social characteristics, the institution should have 
means whereby they can gradually and experimentally, subject to 
recall to the institution at any time, be “tried out” in community 
life. After observing the work at Rome, the writer is of the opinion 
that the system there developed, including the three successive extra- 
institutional stages of colony, parole, and discharge when war- 
ranted, is both practical and desirable from the standpoint of the 
individual and of the community. In other words, the system 
is good and worthy of being recommended for adoption elsewhere. 
Whether its net results are socially good or bad depends entirely 
upon the discretion used by the head of the institution and his staff 
in the selection of those who are ready for this community trial 
in its successive stages. If the institutional inmates are injudic- 
iously transferred to colonies, if they are passed on too rapidly to 
parole and discharge, and if adequate supervision is not provided 
to the extent found necessary at these various stages, then obviously 
evils may befall. It is a “trying out” process that for its success 
needs to be carefully safeguarded all along the way. Observations 
of colony work to date indicate that when the colony plan is care- 
fully administered, it is both a desirable substitute for the wards 
of the institution as a means of care and training for selected cases, 
and a safe and effective method of social rehabilitation of certain 
types of the feebleminded. CHAPTER X 
The Public School and the Backward Child 
Waverley and Rome have been taken as examples of what the 
institution can do and is doing in the social reconstruction of its 
inmates. The institution, as we have seen, receives only a fraction 
of the cases of mental deficiency existing in the general population. 
It receives, moreover, the more difficult of these cases, those who 
by reason of gross defect, troublesome behavior, or unfavorable 
home conditions, cannot continue in community life. The institu- 
tion is also frequently called upon at present to receive individuals 
who so far as personal conduct and social surroundings are con- 
cerned, might well remain in the community, but who are sent to 
the institution because there is no other place where they can receive 
the specialized training suited to their limited mental capacities. It 
is for the education of this latter class of children that the public 
school is coming to recognize its responsibility. 
Since the first special classes for backward children were estab- 
lished in the public schools of Cleveland about 1880, there has been 
developing gradually, but very gradually, the idea that the public 
school is an agency charged with the task of educating all the 
children of the community according to their several and special 
capacities, and that it has as great a duty therefore to provide train- 
ing for the backward or defective child in accordance with his 
capabilities as for the normal or exceptional child in accordance with 
his capabilities. The first special classes for backward children in 
New York State were begun in New York City in 1895, under the 
direction of Miss Elizabeth E. Farrell, who is now the general 
director of this work in the New York City schools. It was not 
until 1917, however, that New York State recognized the obliga- 
tion of all its schools to furnish instruction of this kind. In that 
year there was placed on the statute books of this State the so- 
called Lockwood Law, (Chap. 553, Laws of 1917), which in sub- 
stance directed that special classes be established in every city or 
union free school district where there are ten or more children, 
three or more years retarded. While this law is mandatory in 172 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
its wording, it has not been widely enforced and the organization 
of special classes, especially outside the larger cities, has moved 
very slowly. 
In New York City there are now approximately 5,500 children 
enrolled in special classes. Provision should be made in the opinion 
of Miss Farrell for at least 20,000. In the State outside the city 
there are about 175 special classes, with an approximate enrollment 
of 2,600. Of these 175 classes, 65 are in the two cities of Buffalo 
and Rochester, so that it may be seen the work is not well organized 
in most other parts of the State. 
Various studies and surveys by Terman/ Rosanoff,2 Farrell5 and 
others, indicate in general that at least 2 per cent of all children 
of school age are sufficiently backward or defective to require 
education by special class methods. This would give a total of 
about 35,000 children of school age, 6 to 16, in New York State, 
as compared with the 8,000, who are now actually enrolled in such 
classes. There is also the further problem as to how well equipped 
the existing special classes are for the work in hand. Those in the 
larger cities are well organized, and in the smaller communities there 
are some outstanding examples that compare favorably with those 
in the larger cities. There is in general, however, much room for 
improvement. 
A considerable amount of material has been published from time 
to time by educators, psychologists and special class teachers as to 
the content of the teaching, the methods of instruction, and of in- 
dividual treatment in these classes. That internal aspect of the 
work will not be dealt with in detail here. Consideration will be 
given rather to the place of the special class in the whole program of 
the rehabilitation of the mentally defective. 
It needs scarcely to be said that in the training of the mentally 
defective child, as in the training of his normal brother and sister, 
the best results are accomplished when the child is put under the 
right kind of instruction at a very early age. The axiom that under- 
lies all the training of the feebleminded, so simply expressed by 
Dr. Walter E. Fernald, cannot be too often repeated, that it is just 
as difficult for the feebleminded to unlearn as it is for them to learn 
1. Terman, Lewis M. The Measurement of Intelligence. Houghton, Mifflin, p. 66. 
2. Rosanoff, Aaron J. Survey of Mental Disorders in Nassau County, New York. 
July-October, 1916. National Committee for Mental Hygiene, Inc. Publication No. 9. 
S. Estimate of Miss Elizabeth E. Farrell of number of children requiring special 
class provision in New York City. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
173 
in the first place. If both learning and unlearning, then, are more 
difficult processes for the subnormal, than the normal, it is the more 
important that the subnormal child should be placed under the right 
kind of instruction as soon as the learning process begins. This 
involves first of all the pre-school years, a most important period 
in the child’s development and perhaps doubly so with the defective 
child. It is in this period that mental defect usually becomes 
manifest. It is in this period also that many of the undesirable 
physical and personal habits to which defectives are prone, reveal 
themselves and may be most easily corrected. Here is an important 
field of opportunity for rendering the most effective kind of help 
to the subnormal child that has as yet scarcely been touched. An 
interesting pioneer demonstration is being made in this field by the 
Baby Welfare Association of Boston which has organized a habit 
clinic primarily for children of pre-school age, under the direction 
of Dr. Douglas A. Thom.1 
Significant work in the same field is being done in connection with 
the Psycho-Clinic at Yale University under the direction of Dr. 
Arnold Gesell. Dr. Gesell points out that because the pre-school 
child legally has no educational status in this country, the importance 
of the first sexennium of life from the educational standpoint is 
apt to be overlooked. Yet, as he shows, psychologically, nothing 
could be more erroneous, for the amount of mental growth in these 
first six years is greater than in any equal number of years follow- 
ing. Practically all cases of mental deficiency become recognizable 
in this period. Because the child in these years is developing im- 
portant emotional, moral, and social attitudes toward life, this period 
may easily if neglected, Dr. Gesell shows, become “the soil of 
perversion, inefficiency, and distorted or curtailed development.”2 
The responsibility for the proper training of the child in this pre- 
school period naturally devolves almost entirely upon the home, 
with such assistance as can be rendered by social agencies interested 
in family and child welfare. 
When the age of six is reached, the public school can begin to 
function in dealing with this problem. One of its primary tasks in 
that connection is that of identification. The demand for a complete 
1. Thom, Douglas A. Habit Clinics for Children of Pre-School Age. Mental Hygiene, 
Vol. VI, No. 3, pp. 463-470, July, 1922. 
2. Gesell, Arnold. The Psychological Significance of the Pre-School Period. The 
Public Health Nurse, May, 1922. 174 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
census of the feebleminded has frequently been made from time to 
time as a preliminary to an adequate State program for dealing 
with this problem. To obtain such a census at the present time of 
all the feebleminded in the population of all ages has been shown to 
be practically impossible. Estimates of the number of such persons 
there have been, but anything like complete identification of defective 
individuals has proved to be too stupendous a task for present 
resources. If we lack such important information for the present 
generation, we can begin to get it in full detail for the rising genera- 
tion, through the public school. That agency can identify for us 
defective individuals, whose identity can be made a matter of record 
for future use, if necessary, at any time throughout the life of the 
individual. 
The identification, however, must be for some purpose, and once 
the defective children of a given group are known, the public school 
should stand ready to give those children the type of training best 
suited to their needs. The public school is the one agency capable 
of dealing with this problem in a complete way at a time when 
effort will be most effective. It is easy enough to set up a pre- 
scribed academic curriculum (based on the theoretic but non-ex- 
istent average child) and require all children to conform to that 
or drop behind and repeat grades until they do. Such a system means, 
however, for the defective child that after the first few grades 
he reaches a point where he can go no further; it means shame and 
discouragement in being “left behind” with younger pupils; it means 
every incentive to truancy with its ready concomitants of delinquency 
and crime. It means “putting in time” and wasted years, only to 
drop out of school, as soon as the working age is reached, a failure 
and without any training with which to face the world. In many 
instances such a school program means, moreover, that the defective 
boy or girl is hustled off to the institution because he is in the way 
around the school and retards the progress of other pupils. In other 
words, the whole program is calculated to make social outcasts of 
the mentally defective boy or girl, to ostracize them from society. 
And society pays for this; either by supporting those persons for 
the rest of their days in an institution, or in the larger bill of crime, 
delinquency, pauperism, and social degeneracy of those who are 
left to drift. 
We have seen that the institution never has been and probably THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
never will be large enough to receive more than a fraction of the 
mental defectives in the population. Nor is it desirable that mental 
defectives should be institutionalized if they can be taught to live 
industrially useful, socially acceptable lives outside the institution. 
The responsibility of the public school as a universal, educational 
agency is clear. The training of mental defectives is an educational 
problem as truly as that of normal children. It is only a different 
kind of education. By an appropriate course of instruction, the 
public school should stand ready to give every backward and de- 
fective child who is amenable to special class instruction (and most 
of them are), the kind of training needed to equip him for an 
independent, self-respecting citizenship. The institution should be 
called upon to receive only the more extreme cases who are either 
too low-grade or too troublesome in behavior to be capable of 
special class instruction and those whose home conditions are so 
unfavorable as to make institutional care advisable. The rank and 
file of those who fall below the standard of normality as determined 
by the intelligence tests are rightly the responsibility of the public 
school. 
There are some of those who have come closest to these backward 
children in the public school work who more and more hesitate to 
call them subnormal or defective. True, by ordinary academic 
standards or by the criterion of the intelligence test, they fall short. 
But these workers have come to think of them as merely “differently 
minded” or “hand-minded.” In other words, while their failure co 
keep up with the ordinary class work is apparent, they reveal not 
infrequently ability along practical and mechanical lines, and some- 
times, unusual ability. It is in this direction, as is well known, that 
special class instruction tends. It places the emphasis on industrial 
and technical training. Dr. Henry H. Goddard has written: “The 
one thing that fits all these children, the one thing that draws out 
whatever is to be drawn out of them, is training of the hand,—man- 
ual training, industrial training. These things such children can 
do with wonderful success; in this they are interested; this they 
can do with great joy; it arouses in them a feeling of satisfaction 
at accomplishing something.”7 
Summarizing opinion on this point, Miss Meta L. Anderson 
writes: “The experts all agree apparently on the kind of work 
1. Anderson, Meta L. Education of Defectives in the Public Schools. World Book 
Company, p. 12. 176 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
most worth-while to teach defective children, and it is on this 
curriculum approved by experts that the work in the classes for 
defectives should be based. Therefore, the following subjects 
should be included in the course of study for the classes for de- 
fectives : habits of personal cleanliness, sense training, manual train- 
ing, physical training, vocational and industrial training, gardening, 
academic work; also speech training in so far as it is found to be 
at all worth-while.”1 
The theory seems to be sound. The practice is somewhat more 
difficult. The manual work taught in the school is apt to consist 
of those things that give good, general developmental training, but 
are not specifically useful in an occupational way after the child 
graduates at the working age from the special class. This is 
particularly true of the boys’ training. They are taught such things 
as basket- and brush-making, chair-caning, rug-weaving, toy-mak- 
ing and other kinds of wood-working, which are excellent enough in 
themselves but are not usually wage-earning occupations at which 
the boy can find a job when he gets out. In other words, as we have 
observed from the list of occupations which the boys from the 
Waverley institution have found, the boy is more likely to get a job 
as machinist’s or plumber’s helper, packer, teamster, machine- 
tender in a spinning room and various kinds of factory work more 
or less skilled, painter, barber, etc. The fact that most of the boys 
graduating from the special classes today are compelled to find un- 
skilled work does not necessarily indicate that many of them are 
not capable of doing skilled work but simply that they have not had 
the training for it. Those who are engaged in special class teaching 
are for the most part well aware of this problem of making the 
vocational instruction more practical but it remains a problem how 
to work this out in connection with school instruction. 
Aside from these two problems of (1) giving all the defective 
children in the public school the advantage of special class instruc- 
tion and (2) making this instruction more directly useful from 
the wage-earning standpoint, the question of most immediate interest 
is, how do these special class graduates turn out? There is already 
at hand some data which throws light on this point. 
In 1914 a study was made under the direction of Miss Farrell 
of the records of 124 boys and girls who had been graduated from 
1. Ibid., p. 12. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
177 
typical special classes of New York City public schools since 1906. 
The study included 86 boys and 38 girls. The children had been 
out of school from one to six years, the average length of time 
being two years. The children considered in the study represented 
the total number discharged from these classes upon reaching the 
age of sixteen. 
The general facts brought out by the study of the 124 cases were 
as follows: 
Working 54 per cent 
Cared for at home (some helping) 25 per cent 
In institutions 8.8 per cent 
No information 8.9 per cent 
Dead 2.3 per cent 
Arrested 5 per cent 
104.0 per cent* 
For the girls the following information was obtained 
Working 21 
Cared for at home 13 
In institution 1 
Arrested 2 
Married 2 
Having children 1 
Dead 1 
No information 2 
Total 43* 
For the boys the following information was obtained: 
Working 47 
Cared for at home 18 
In institutions 10 
Arrested ; 5 
No information 9 
Dead 2 
Married 
Having children 
Total 91* 
Among the occupations in which the girls were found to be 
engaged were: millinery, making of linings, factory work, and 
/. Note: There are some duplications in the listings. 178 
SOCIAI, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
laundry work. The boys were working at truck-driving, delivering 
groceries, tailoring, wood-turning, etc.J 
In presenting the results of this study, Miss Farrell called special 
attention to the need of more field workers to undertake the work 
of assisting these boys and girls to adjust themselves to community 
life, to find suitable positions, to see that home conditions were 
satisfactory, to see that the boy or girl was able to find the right 
sort of companionship and recreation, and in general to give them 
supervision over a period of years until they had become stabilized 
in community life. The fact that this study had revealed that 
special class graduates had done so well with little or no follow-up 
supervision was simply an indication of what excellent results might 
be accomplished, were the proper amount and right kind of super- 
vision available. 
It is in this work of social supervision that one finds the keynote 
of the whole program of adjustment of the mental defective to com- 
munity life. The importance of such supervision has been recog- 
nized in New York State by the organization, under the direction 
of the State Commission for Mental Defectives, of a corps of field 
agents or social workers. The work of the field agents is to keep 
in touch with all mental defectives in the community who need 
guidance and assistance in reaching a desirable level of economic 
efficiency and social behavior. The task of the field agent is not to 
interfere gratuitously in the supervision of mental defectives who 
are able satisfactorily to manage themselves and their affairs without 
such help, or for whom adequate supervision is already available 
through family or friends. The field agent offers her assistance 
only where necessary and aims to handle her cases with as light a 
touch as may be consistent with the desired result. While the field 
agents supervise mental defectives of all types and ages, their largest 
and most important single function has come to be in practice the 
supervision of defective children after they leave the public school. 
For the most part, even the school systems which are progressive 
enough to have special classes and visiting teachers, do not make 
provision for following up these cases after they leave school. 
During the last fiscal year ended June 30, 1922, 360 new cases 
were referred to the four field agents of the New York State Com- 
mission for Mental Defectives, of which number 230 or 64 per cent 
1. Farrell, E. E. 16th Annual Report, Superintendent of Schools, N. Y. City, 1913-14, 
p. 28 and ff. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
179 
were referred from the special or ungraded classes of the public 
schools. Obviously the number of field agents allowed the Commis- 
sion is totally inadequate to deal with the problem of community 
supervision in the State as a whole in any comprehensive way. 
Excellent work, however, has been done in certain limited districts; 
for example, one agent whose territory was Orange County, was 
able to follow up practically all of the urgent cases in that district 
as well as to supervise a number of cases in adjoining counties. In 
the district in which this agent worked nearly all of the identified 
mental defectives came under supervision. As examples of the 
kinds of service rendered by the field agents, the following type 
cases are quoted from the report of these agents for the fiscal year 
ended June 30, 1921. It is noted in citing these cases that very 
few cases conform to any one type and that no two present exactly 
the same problem. 
“1. Keeping Children Out of Institutions 
G. A.’s mother came to the office to get information as to how 
to place him in an institution. She had been advised by his teacher 
to send him away. Investigation showed that the boy has no bad 
habits and gives no trouble. The mother, who is a janitress, was 
advised to keep him at home, to teach him to help her, and if 
possible, to find work for him. G. is now earning a little by doing 
odd jobs in the neighborhood, and helps his mother with the janitor 
work. 
“2. Improvement of Physical Condition 
An effort is made in each case to put the child in as good physical 
condition as possible. To this end, clinics of the neighborhood are 
called upon. These include clinics for sense-defects, orthopedic 
clinics, neurological clinics, etc. 
A. G., 16 years old, was badly in need of glasses, when referred 
to us. Her father, then out of work, and with five young children 
dependent upon him, was willing to take her to a clinic, but was 
unable to pay for glasses. The field agent directed him to a good 
eye clinic, and arranged for the Red Cross to pay for the glasses. 
The father then asked for help in finding work. He was referred 
to the A. I. C. P. who found a position for him. A. helps with the 
housework, and the care of the younger children. She is useful 
at home, and well supervised by her mother. 
“3. Parole Work 
The agents are doing a part of the parole work of the State 
Schools, at the request of the Superintendents. This includes first, 
investigation of the home previous to parole and recommendation 180 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
to the Superintendent as to the advisability of returning the child 
to the home; second, supervision during parole. Occasionally it is 
found, after trial, that the child cannot maintain satisfactory conduct 
in the home. In such cases, the field agent must see that he goes 
back to the institution. 
F. L., 25 years old, is on parole. The parents are dead and she 
lives with her married sister. She helps with the housework in the 
morning, and in the evening works at a motion-picture theatre 
managed by her brother-in-law. She is always under strict super- 
vision, is useful at home, and is earning a little money. F. is 
tractable, but the sister says that the knowledge that a stranger 
calls occasionally to inquire about her conduct, is a great help in 
controlling her. 
"4. Placing Anti-Social Cases in Institutions 
A small proportion of cases require institutional care for their 
own protection and that of society. These are mostly children with 
delinquent tendencies. 
V. S., 15 years old, of low mentality, more than once locked him- 
self in his mother’s room, and started a bonfire on the floor. He 
was induced with great difficulty to open the door. He was fre- 
quently in very bad company, and beginning to steal. The mother 
had no control over him. This boy wTas placed through the field 
agent in a State school. 
“5. Finding Employment 
In this kind of work, the field agents have unfortunately been 
able to do very little. Because of the general unemployment during 
the year, and because of the small staff, it seemed best to make use 
of existing employment agencies, rather than to attempt placing 
children directly. A number of cases were referred to the State 
Employment Bureau, and to the Junior Vocational Guidance Bureau. 
A few children were placed directly. 
H. S., 16 years old, mental age 7.2, I. Q. 46, was placed by the 
field agent in a sewing school where dressmaking and fancy sewing 
are taught. A high standard of work is required and the surround- 
ings are very pleasant and healthful. The girls are paid a small 
sum while learning, and are advanced as they become more proficient. 
Though H. is earning only $4.50 a week at present, she is very happy 
at her work, and her parents are glad that she can have this op- 
portunity.” 
The following table shows the classification from an economic 
and social standpoint of 415 consecutive cases coming under the 
supervision of the field agents: THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
181 
Table 22. Classification of Cases Under Supervision of Field Agents 
Number 
Per cent 
Employable 
74 
17 
Useful at home 
44 
13 
Harmless 
110 
27 
Burdensome or troublesome 
155 
39 
Menace 
32 
4 
Total 
415 
100 
The small percentage of cases(4 per cent) who were regarded by 
the field agents as a social menace, is significant, especially in view 
of the fact that the more difficult cases are naturally those which 
come to the field agents’ attention. The New York State Com- 
mission for Mental Defectives is of the opinion that “the work of 
the field agents on the whole is most encouraging. The Commission 
believes that their number should be increased.”1 
A comprehensive study of the careers of an unselected group of 
special-class graduates has recently been made in connection with 
the Mental Hygiene Survey of the city of Cincinnati conducted under 
the auspices of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene. This 
special study of feebleminded ex-school children was made by Dr. 
V. V. Anderson of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene and 
Director of the Cincinnati Survey, and Miss Flora May Fearing. 
The work was supplementary to, and by way of bringing up to date 
a study of the same group made in 1918 by Helen T. Woolley and 
Hornell Hart.2 
There were in all 201 ex-students of special classes for mentally 
defective children included in the study of Anderson and Fearing. 
“The object of this study was to determine what happens to mental 
defectives after they leave the public schools and go out into the 
community to earn a living.”3 Because of the inadequacy of facil- 
ities for examination at an earlier date in the Cincinnati schools, 
a few children got into the special classes and thus into this study 
who were not feebleminded, but the group as a whole, in Dr. Ander- 
son’s opinion, could in all justice be called “defective.”* All of 
those studied had been out of school for at least four years and 
many longer. The range of chronological ages was from 18 to 30, 
with a median age of 22 years. They had therefore been out of 
/. Fourth Annual Report, State Commission for Mental Defectives, 1921-1922. p. 16. 
2. Studies from the Helen S. Trounstine Foundation. Vol. I, No. 7. 
S. Cincinnati Survey. 1922. p. 107. Ibid., p. 108. 182 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
school long enough for a fair test as to their ability to get along in 
the world. 
The nativity of the group was as follows :l 
Table 23. Nativity of 201 Ex-Students of Special Classes 
Number 
Per cent 
Native-born of native parents 
161 
80.1 
Native-born of foreign parents 
27 
13.4 
Foreign-born 
8 
4.0 
Unknown 
5 
2.5 
Total 
201 
100.0 
Nine or 4.5 per cent of the group were negroes. The group 
comprised largely native American individuals who were not handi- 
capped by language or social difficulties, resulting from foreign birth 
and training, in adjusting themselves to American community life. 
In the final tabulation of the results of this study 24 of the 
original 201 cases had to be eliminated: eight who had died; six 
who were found not to be feebleminded; three who were definitely 
diagnosed as psychotic; two who could not be located; and five on 
whom there was insufficient data. This left 177 individuals whose 
records were included in the final tabulation, of whom 113 or 63.3 
per cent were men and 64 or 36.2 per cent women. 
Twenty-six of the girls and 15 of the boys had been married. To 
the 26 married women there were 39 children born. Ten of the 
women had been sexually promiscuous. Five had had illicit rela- 
tions with at least one man. Six were pregnant when married. Five 
girls who were reported in the 1918 study as having had illegitimate 
children were found married at the time of the later study. In 
the entire group in the three years that elapsed between the two 
studies no other cases of illegitimacy had occurred.2 
The location of the 177 at the time of the studv was as follows :2 
Males 
Females 
Total 
Location 
Number 
Per cent 
Number 
Per cent 
Number 
Per cent 
In institution 
9 
8.0 
6 
9.4 
15 
8.5 
At home, never worked 
At home, previous in- 
5 
4.4 
21 
32.8 
26 
14.7 
dustrial record 
15 
13.3 
26 
40.6 
41 
23.2 
Working for relatives... 
11 
9.7 
11 
6.2 
In industry 
65 
57.5 
11 
17.2 
76 
42.9 
Army or Navy 
8 
7.1 
8 
4.5 
Total 
113 
100.0 
64 
100.0 
177 
100.0 
Table 24. Location oe Special Class Graduates 
1. Ibid., p. 108. 
2. Ibid., p. 109. THE PUBLIC SCHOOL AND THE BACKWARD CHILD 
183 
Those who are in industry, in the Army or Navy, and working 
for relatives may be considered as gainfully employed. These in- 
clude 95 of the 177, or 54 per cent. Of the men 84 of the 113, or 
74 per cent were thus gainfully employed, while of the women only 
eleven of the 64, or 17 per cent were in gainful occupations. There 
were 58 per cent of the women, however, who had been in industry 
at some time. The great majority of the women were usefully, if 
not gainfully employed, in household duties. 
Trustworthy information as to earnings was obtained for 69 of 
those engaged in industry. The median wage for this group was 
$15.08. The weekly wages ranged from $5 to $37 a week. Ap- 
proximately 50 per cent were receiving more than $15 a week. 
Following is the wage distribution for these 69 cases on the basis 
of the last wage received at the time of making the study :* 
Table 25. Wages of 69 Former Special Class Students 
Weekly Wage 
Number 
$ 5 to $ 9 
$10 to $14 
25 
$15 to $19 
13 
$20 to $24 
12 
$25 and over 
10 
Total 
With regard to 72 cases, information was obtained as to the 
length of time the individuals remained in one position. Of these, 
58.4 per cent had held the same position for more than a year; 
40.3 per cent for more than two years; and 22.2 per cent for three 
years or more. The kinds of occupations in which the men were 
found engaged were: 27 working in factories, six on construction 
work, eight as machinists, three as salesmen, 21 at odd jobs and 
others as apprentices, farmers and clerks. 
Of the women in industry, nine were employed in factories, one 
as filing clerk, and another at kitchen work.1 
The fifteen of the 177 cases who were listed as being in institu- 
tions were all in institutions for the feebleminded. The remaining 
162 cases were studied especially for evidences of delinquency. The 
following summary is quoted from the published report as to the 
result of this investigation: 
1. Ibid., p. 113. 184 
SOCIAL, CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
“Only 36 individuals (22.2 per cent) have court or institutional 
records (correctional). This certainly does not indicate that the 
majority of feebleminded children are liable to become criminals, 
even if not supervised. It seems as if we will have to revise our 
conception as to the meanness and viciousness of feebleminded 
persons. It may be interesting to note that practically all of the 
individuals who had a delinquent record were likewise handicapped 
by personality difficulties and character defects. It is our belief 
that we need to know more about a person than the mere fact 
that he is feebleminded, if we are going to make any predictions as 
to his conduct later on in life. This study is but in keeping with our 
experience from other investigations, that by far the largest factor 
in delinquent behavior, as far as the individual’s make-up is con- 
cerned, is not to be found in his degree of intelligence but in his 
character and personality.”7 
As indicating the relation of home conditions to the problem of the 
mentally deficient, 136 unselected homes of the 177 children studied 
were visited. It was found that 32 per cent of this group of children 
came from homes of good middle-class type; in 27 per cent of the 
homes conditions were only fair; in another 27 per cent the homes 
were of a distinctly poor character with unfavorable surroundings; 
while 14 per cent lived in the very lowest grade homes. “The chief 
failure in the homes of these individuals was found in parental con- 
ditions. Twenty-three per cent received the very lowest possible 
score on this item.”7 This would seem to bear out the experience 
of the institutions for the feebleminded where it is found in so 
many cases that the failure of the individual and the essential reason 
for his commitment has been the failure of the home. To quote 
further from the Cincinnati report: “One interesting thing that 
stood out in this investigation, was that those children handicapped 
by personality difficulties and serious psychopathic conditions, came 
almost invariably from families where there were a great number of 
social maladjustments; while those children free from these handi- 
caps came from the best type of families, most industrious and 
socially adjusted parents, where home conditions were good.”2 
Do not these findings give substantiation to the indications of 
preceding chapters that the problem of the defective, socially viewed, 
has been primarily an environmental problem, and that with good 
1. Ibid., p. 114. 
&. Ibid., p. 115. the: public school and the: backward child 
185 
environment (i. e. surroundings and training) especially from an 
early age, the defective usually ceases to be a social problem? 
Seventy per cent of the 177 cases come from families which are 
registered with the social agencies of Cincinnati. 
The final conclusions of the Cincinnati report are of particular 
interest here \l 
“This study has led us to believe that mentally defective persons 
may be handled with success by other than institutional measures. 
We have been impressed with the fact that those elements that go 
to make for the failure or success of mental defectives in life are 
in no sense different from those elements that affect the lives of 
normal persons. Those same elements of character and personality 
make-up, those same conditions in the home, and those same factors 
in training that speak for the successful career of a normal child, 
bear with equal force on the career of the feebleminded child. 
“In the light of this study we are convinced that a large propor- 
tion of feebleminded persons can be handled economically and safely 
out in the community if properly trained and adequately supervised. 
With such training and supervision it is clear that feebleminded 
individuals who would otherwise become delinquents or dependents 
can be expected to develop into decent, self-supporting citizens and 
thus save the State millions of dollars for their maintenance. The 
keynote to the whole program is to be found in early recognition, 
adequate training, proper supervision, and in the case of those who 
are a menace—final segregation.” 
Present indications are that the public school before many years 
will be so organized to deal with backward and defective children 
that it will become the largest and most important single agency 
devoted to the work of developing the feebleminded for economic 
and social usefulness. It is far better that the backward child 
should not be separated from the normal life of the home and the 
community in order to receive the specialized training that he needs. 
Where the public school work for these children is well developed 
both from the standpoint of intra-school provision and extra-school 
and post-school supervision, the results as in New York and Cin- 
cinnati, indicate how well the public school can meet this prob- 
lem. In the future the institution will continue to have an important 
function to serve but only for those lower-grade or extremely diffi- 
cult cases that cannot reasonably be retained in the school and for 
those who must be removed from a bad home environment. 
1. Ibid.., p. 126. CHAPTER XI 
The Socializing Process 
The work of training the feebleminded to take their places in 
community life as we have seen it developed at Waverley, Rome, and 
to a limited extent in the public schools, may now be reviewed in 
terms of socialization. The nature of this socializing process can 
be understood only in the light of the mental defective himself and 
his whole make-up. 
The one important bit of information which it has been quite 
generally assumed is needed in order to classify and deal with the 
mental defective is the mental age, as determined by the intelligence 
test. This index of the degree of native intelligence has commonly 
been used as the sole criterion in judging the feebleminded. The 
inference has been that there is a quite definite correlation between 
mental age and ability, even between mental age and behavior. As 
to ability, the mental age does indicate the ability of the individual 
to perform in an intelligence test. But does it by itself indicate the 
ability of the individual to hold down a job, to mix with people, in 
other words to get along in the world? As to behavior, we have 
seen that two individuals of exactly the same mental age may 
differ radically: one may be the most chronic type of vicious 
criminal; the other may be altogether reliable, industrious and 
well-behaved. 
Placing sole reliance in the fact of mental age for the under- 
standing of the mental defective may be compared somewhat to the 
classical economics which based its theories on the so-called “econ- 
omic man.” Just as the economic motive is one, but only one of 
many motives, that may actuate the individual, so the degree of 
native intelligence is one element but only one of many elements that 
go to explain the behavior of the feebleminded. 
What these other elements are is roughly indicated by Dr. 
Fernald’s practical distinction between the “good” feebleminded and 
the “bad” feebleminded. In short it is a matter not of one character- 
istic or a group of characteristics, but of the whole personality make- 
up of the individual. Native intelligence is only one of a number THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 
187 
of elements that go to make up the whole personality. Within 
certain limitations of mental age, it is to be doubted whether it is 
the most important factor in the conduct of the mental defective. 
What is known as “good common sense” for example, is an element 
that does not appear to be closely correlated with mental age. It ap- 
parently varies among the feebleminded of the same mental age, 
just as it does among normal people. As a matter of fact, some of the 
feebleminded whom the institutions are trying to rehabilitate and 
who are of quite high-grade, or even border-line intelligence, fail 
in the community for lack of this quality, while others of lower 
mentality succeed because they happen to have it. 
The same may be said of the innumerable other factors that 
enter into the personality of the mental defective which do not 
register in the measuring scale of native intelligence, such things as 
emotional stability, temperament, disposition, aptitude, teachability, 
sociability, etc. Psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers and 
others who are specializing in this field are becoming increasingly 
aware of this problem and already several outlines of the qualities 
that should be considered in order to get a picture of the whole 
personality have been devised. Two of these will be mentioned here. 
In December, 1920, Dr. S. D. Porteus, while serving as Director 
of the Department of Research of the Training School at Vineland, 
N. J., published “A Study of Personality of Defectives with a 
Social Ratings In this Dr. Porteus states: 
“The whole difficulty of the task of test interpretation lies in the 
fact that behind so-called ‘mental age’ stands the personality 
of the individual. The psychiatrist is entirely right in his emphasis 
on the fact that right social adjustment depends upon the whole 
individual make-up rather than the mentality. A writer in a recent 
medical journal complained that his fellow physicians treated the 
patient only below the eye-brows. With equal truth, it may be 
said, that the psychologist too often tends to observe the patient only 
above the eye-brows. * * * ”2 
Dr Porteus goes on to explain the basis on which he has worked 
out a ratings scale for the personality of mental defectives He 
believes that aside from general native intelligence which the ac- 
cepted mental test measures, there are other general qualities affect- 
ing social adaptation which should be determined by the personality 
rating scale. He points out: 
1. Porteus, S. D. No. 23, Publications of the Training School at Vineland, N. J. 
2. Ibid., p. 5. 188 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
“The community into which an individual must fit is, first of all, 
a working community, hence one of the first things to be determined 
is the earning capacity. * * * In the next place it is to a greater or 
less extent an intelligent working community, so there must be a 
certain modicum of learning capacity to enable the individual to 
profit by training and to assimilate ideas. Earning and learning 
capacity are then closely related to self-support. But even with 
the ability for self-support, the individual is not fit for the com- 
munity unless he has also some capacity for self-management and 
self-control. In other words he must have the ability to manage 
himself and his affairs with ordinary prudence. This capacity for 
self-management depends mainly upon temperament and disposition, 
judgment and common sense, whilst self-control must be exhibited 
in the inhibition of unsocial, instinctive and impulsive action.”7 
Dr. Porteus outlines these “factors affecting social fitness” in 
the following scheme:2 
1. Earning Capacity 
2. Learning Capacity 
Self-support 
Social 
Fitness 
3. Temperament and Disposition 
4. Judgment and Common Sense 
Self-management 
5. Inhibition of Anti-social Instinct 
and Impulses 
Self-control 
From this general scheme, Dr. Porteus goes on and works out in 
detail a method for rating mentally defective individuals in ac- 
cordance with the degree of their possession of the above capacities. 
The above outline of the many factors to be taken into consideration 
for the understanding of the personality of the individual indicates 
how incomplete our information is when we know the mental age 
alone. 
The components of personality are enumerated in even more 
detail in a contribution to this question by Dr. Howard W. Potter. 
Dr. Potter has had an unusual opportunity to study the feeble- 
minded in all their aspects in his position as Clinical Director at 
Letchworth Village, one of the New York State institutions for 
mental defectives. Dr. Potter views the process of fitting the 
mental defective to society as a question of the successful or un- 
successful adaptation of the individual as the result of “correct or 
faulty habits of adjustment.” He finds that “human efficiency de- 
pends upon the adjustment to three groups of factors—namely, in. 
1. Ibid., p. 5. 
2. Ibid., p. 6. THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 
189 
the order of their importance, instincts, emotions, and intelligence. 
On the basis of his close study of hundreds of institutional cases, 
Dr Potter states: “When we come to consider the question of 
adaptation relative to the mental defective, we are at once im- 
pressed with the fact that those cases that are not committed to an 
institution until they approach maturity almost invariably are dis- 
covered to be feebleminded as a result of an investigation into some 
behavior disorder. We know further that there are other defectives 
of the same intellectual level, who are at large in the community 
and able to fill a useful niche in the social and economic organiza- 
tion. Why is one in need of institutional care, while the other is 
able to live satisfactorily in the community? Plainly it is not a 
matter of intellectual endowment. It is, however, a matter of be- 
havior. To understand behavior, we have to consider among other 
things, the personality.”2 Dr. Potter defines personality as “the sum 
of the facilities for adaptation.”3 
Dr. Potter dissects those qualities that go to make up personality 
into eleven principal components as follows: (1) intellectual char- 
acteristics; (2) sense of responsibility; (3) industrial efficiency; 
(4) output of nervous and muscular energy; (5) habitual reactions 
to inferiority; (6) sociability; (7) conduct and behavior; (8) mood; 
(9) reactions related to mood; (10) special aptitudes and interests; 
(11) unique and pathological traits.-* 
By defining two or more types under each of these heads and 
characterizing each type with a group of descriptive traits, Dr. 
Potter works out a guide for obtaining a general summary of the 
personality of any particular case. There is no numerical rating 
scale connected with Dr. Potter’s scheme as with that of Dr. 
Porteus. It is developed entirely on a descriptive basis together with 
a grading of types. For example, traits that tend to indicate the 
sense of responsibility listed under (2) above, are divided into types 
and characterized as follows: 
“Type I. Actively irresponsible, heedless, contemptuous attitude. 
Unconscientious, not orderly, unwilling to be helped, heedless of 
the rights of others, and contemptuous of the usual standards of 
social and economic fitness. 
/. Potter, H. W. Personality in the Mental Defective. Mental Hygiene. Vol. VI. 
No. 3. July, 1922. p. 487. 2. Ibid., p. 488. 
.1 Ibid., p. 439. i- Ibid., p. 490. 190 
SOCIAL CONTROL OK TIIE FEEBLEMINDED 
"Type II. An undeveloped sense of responsibility. Lacking in 
conscientiousness and unappreciative of the rights of others. An 
undeveloped sense of social and economic standards. Not unwilling 
to be helped, but unable to help themselves in any spontaneous, con- 
sistent, constructive fashion. 
"Type III. Fair sense of responsibility, conscientious, orderly, 
appreciative of the rights of others, and realizing the necessity of 
conforming to social and economic standards. Willing to be helped 
and ever ready to take advantage of anything in order to help and 
improve themselves in a constructive way.”J 
Such a comprehensive study of the individual make-up throws a 
flood of light upon the real mental defective and affords a basis 
for thoroughgoing effort in the direction of the development and 
strengthening of those traits that will be helpful to the individual 
socially, and their substitution for those that would interfere with 
social success. 
How far it may be possible to change personality itself by con- 
scious effort is a question open to much discussion. From work 
that has been done in the mental hygiene of childhood with children 
of pre-school age and of early school years, it has been shown that 
if the child can be reached young enough there is much that can 
be done at least to aid the personality to develop in the right 
direction by eliminating at the very beginning of their appearance 
faulty habits and reactions and by fostering right attitudes and 
reactions. In any event, even if the qualities that go to make 
up personality are regarded as innate things that cannot be changed, 
we do know that on the practical side it is possible to change the 
manifestations of personality in behavior, which is after all exactly 
the thing with which we are concerned. The work at Waverley and 
Rome shows this; likewise the work at any well-organized hos- 
pital for mental diseases or psychiatric clinic. 
It is not without meaning that the work which has been carried 
on in the last few years in the direction of the social rehabilitation 
of the feebleminded has developed apace with this newer emphasis 
upon the personality of the mental defective. When the mental 
deficiency problem was conceived of merely in terms of mental age, 
it did not take on a very hopeful aspect. Mental age, we were 
informed, is an index of general native intelligence which in every 
individual reaches its full and final development at a certain chron- 
1. Ibid., p. 493. THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 
191 
ological age. It is generally agreed that this is not later than 
sixteen years in the normal person, and in the feebleminded it is 
relatively earlier, depending upon the degree of mental defect. That 
is, if the individual when he has reached the maturity of physical 
development, has attained a mental age of only ten years, there his 
mental age will remain for the rest of his days. All the King’s 
horses and all the King’s men could not add one cubit to his in- 
tellectual stature. So in this narrow psychological sense, feeble- 
mindedness was a hopeless problem. The best training in the world 
could be applied to the defective individual but it would not increase 
his mental capacity an iota. 
At this impasse the sociological approach to the problem began to 
show a way out. Granted that it was impossible further to intellect- 
ualize the mental defective, was it not still possible to socialize him ? 
Could there not be developed by training those qualities which even 
with a limited intellect would enable the feebleminded person to 
get along in society? This is the question to which the work 
at Waverley, Rome, and in some of the public schools has given an 
affirmative answer. 
Obviously, as has already been noted, not all the feebleminded are 
capable of being thus socialized. Some are, to begin with, so low 
in the scale of intelligence that even good personality traits would 
not be able to overcome that handicap. Others appear to have in- 
nately such ingrained, unsocial personality trends that to develop 
their behavior into socially useful or acceptable forms is, with our 
present knowledge, out of the question. Still others are received 
for training at an age when faulty or anti-social reactions have 
become so confirmed that the best efforts cannot overcome them. 
Cases such as these need indefinite institutional care. They cannot 
take their places in society. Experience is showing, however, that 
many of the higher-grade mental defectives possess such favorable 
personality traits that if they can be placed under training early 
enough, they can later function acceptably in the social order. 
It is the behavior of the mental defective with which we are 
primarily, one might almost say, exclusively concerned. Behavior 
is the product of the interaction of two things: personality and en- 
vironment. The process of socializing the feebleminded, as we have 
seen it carried on in the preceding chapters, may be described as 
one so modifying or controlling the environmental stimuli in relation 192 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
to the personality as to induce on the part of that personality the 
desired responses in behavior. This is in a sense a trial and error 
process until the particular group of environmental stimuli are 
found which bring the sought-for result. After that it is a matter 
of converting the momentary, favorable response into habitual re- 
sponses of the same kind until the individual becomes stabilized in 
that form of behavior. 
What is meant by personality has already been explained. The 
term, environment, is here used in its broadest sense to include the 
entire group of external stimuli acting upon the individual as for 
example, family and friends, living conditions, training and educa- 
tion, employment, etc. Whether or not personality itself is subject 
to change, environment is the movable, controllable element which 
can be brought to bear upon personality in such a way as frequently 
to effect significant changes in behavior. This is the essence of the 
work being done in the social rehabilitation of the feebleminded. 
In many of the cases committed to the institution for the feeble- 
minded because of their bad conduct in the community, the faulty 
behavior reactions disappear soon after they are received in the 
institution. An investigation of the environment from which the 
individual comes frequently reveals conditions there that were the 
inciting factors in the individual’s faulty behavior. In other words 
it was a matter of maladjustment between personality and environ- 
ment. Thus the socializing process begins in many cases by the 
mere fact of removal to the changed environment of the institution. 
The well-organized institution, as we have seen, continues this 
socializing process by other environmental changes. At Waverley 
for example each newly received case is thoroughly studied and 
diagnosed by a group of experts upon arrival in order to reach a 
full understanding of his limitations, his capacities, his physical 
condition, his personality make-up, and his previous experiences. 
This knowledge permits of mapping out a program best suited to 
the individual needs of the case and which has as its aim drawing 
out the very best that is in the individual. 
This process of drawing out or education as developed by the 
well-organized institution is again effected by environmental changes, 
consciously applied by those in charge of the case. If the individual 
seems dull and unresponsive, some form of simple occupational 
work may be the thing which will arouse his interest and awaken the; socializing process 
193 
his formerly unresponsive self. If the individual is actively de- 
linquent and unruly, kindly treatment and understanding as a sub- 
stitute for punishment, may be the means of securing his confidence 
and co-operation and of gradually transferring his activities toward 
some useful occupation. If the individual is of the shut-in and 
depressed type, the dances and other forms of play and recreation 
which the institution provides may be the means of gradually draw- 
ing him out and making of him a sociable being. There are in- 
numerable ways in which different types of personality may be 
handled in order to supplant faulty reactions with desirable ones. 
While not at all a haphazard process, it is, nevertheless, one of 
trial and error and painstaking effort until the means is found which 
will elicit the favorable response. Such work is constantly being 
done in the best organized institutions for delinquents, insane, and 
defectives. 
The socializing process does not cease, however, with what can 
be done in the institution. As we have noted in the work at Rome, 
the objective of developing a social personality is further sought 
by still another change in environment from the institution to the 
colony. It has already been observed in the discussion of the colony 
work, how the limit of what the institution can do for the higher- 
grade cases is reached at a certain point, beyond which further 
detention in the institution might produce unfavorable results in 
personality and behavior. In other words a point of diminishing 
returns in the environmental stimuli of the institution is reached. 
The study, observation, discipline, school and vocational training 
here given are effective in the social education of the individual up 
to a certain point. Then a new group of stimuli more nearly ap- 
proaching those of normal life are needed because this educational 
or socializing process, like any other, must be a progressive thing. 
This is exactly what the colony affords. Here the boy or girl (now 
approaching adult life, or in adult life) although still under the 
supervision of the institutional authorities, and still a part of a group 
of others from the institution, is nevertheless set down in the midst 
of a normal community. The environment has the advantage of 
being a protected one like that of the institution, but one that affords 
at the same time opportunity for contact with the outside world. 
Thus the individual can begin once more to adjust himself to the 
stimuli of everyday life. These stimuli come principally through 194 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
contacts made with the normal people found at the place of em- 
ployment in the home, in the factory, or at the odd job. Again 
everything is done by the institutional authorities to see that these 
first influences from the environment of the outside world are 
favorable and of the sort calculated to elicit the desired response in 
behavior on the part of the colony member. To this end the kind 
and place of employment are selected, regulations are adopted rela- 
tive to deportment on the street, attendance at amusements outside 
the colony house, amount of spending money and the way in which 
it is spent, the establishment of savings accounts, etc. By this 
method the individual has developed in him, on the ground floor so 
to speak, the habits of living and modes of conduct which will 
most contribute to his success when he tries it “on his own.” The 
colony plan moreover has the advantage of continuing this close 
observation and supervision of the colony members until the indi- 
vidual gives evidence of having become sufficiently stabilized in 
social behavior to get along in the community. The colony is also a 
means of eliminating as eligible for parole and discharge those who 
do not seem to develop the requisite social qualities for successful 
community adaptation. What is the colony plan then but a scientific 
method worked out by careful experiment for continuing the social- 
ization of the feebleminded? 
Parole is simply the next step in the socializing process whereby 
the environment of the individual is still further enlarged to include 
a considerable degree of the freedom of the outside world. On 
parole, however, there are still certain limitations which aim at 
continuing the favorable aspect of the environment: that is, the in- 
dividuals are placed only in homes and situations which have been 
investigated and approved; the person in whose care they are paroled 
is made responsible for supervising their leisure time as well as their 
working hours; the paroles are visited from time to time by a social 
worker from the institution; and the institution retains the authority 
to return the boy or girl immediately to the institution in case of 
actual or threatened social failure. 
Finally, discharge with its return to the full and free environment 
of normal life is not intended to be granted until the socializing 
process has been effective to the point where the individual has 
become sufficiently stabilized in personality and behavior to get along 
without close, direct supervision. The statement is put thus because THE SOCIALIZING PROCESS 
195 
as a matter of fact, as has been shown by Dr. Fernald and others, 
many of the feebleminded even after discharge should have the 
benefit of a certain degree of supervision. The supervision desirable 
in such instances, is often only the close, friendly interest of 
some responsible and intelligent person in the community to whom 
the feebleminded boy or girl can look for example and counsel. 
One important reason for such continuing supervision is the fact 
that the boy or girl has usually come to the institution from a bad 
home environment, and that in giving him or her another chance it 
is necessary to place the boy or girl in an entirely new environment. 
Since they are thus without home or friends, the supervision is an 
important means of putting them in touch with the best influences 
of the community. 
In reviewing this process of socializing the feebleminded, one 
thing stands out: it resolves itself as does any process of assimila- 
tion or socialization into a matter of rapprochement between diverse 
social elements, in this case the better elements of the citizenry on 
the one hand, and the feebleminded in question on the other. It is 
a process in which all the approach is not on the side of the feeble- 
minded. We have seen how the training of the feebleminded is 
directed toward bringing their actions into conformity with social 
standards. Let us see in what ways society must adapt itself to the 
feebleminded. 
The feebleminded, especially until they reach manhood and 
womanhood, are notably impressionable and easily influenced. That 
is why they so characteristically fail in a poor environment and 
cause little or no trouble in a good environment. In short, the 
feebleminded quite truly reflect in their behavior the kind of en- 
vironment in which they find themselves. In that way they are 
an index of social conditions. If the community finds large numbers 
of delinquent, socially menacing feebleminded in its midst, let it 
look at itself and ask: “What kind of community have we here, 
what kinds of neighborhoods, of homes, of recreation, etc. ?” The 
trouble must be sought somewhere behind the feebleminded. The 
feebleminded may be perpetrators but rarely instigators. As indi- 
cated in Chapter VI and elsewhere, the feebleminded are frequently 
the dupes of more clever wrong-doers of higher mentality who can 
cover up their own actions and leave the feebleminded to be caught. 
How commonly has the attitude of the community toward the 196 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
feebleminded been one of social ostracism! Those who by reason 
of delinquency have come to public notice have been wont to be 
regarded as hopelessly bad characters. “Get rid of them; keep 
them out of our midst,” was the natural social reaction. The result 
of this tendency on the part of society to cast off the feebleminded 
was simply to foster in them those anti-social proclivities with which 
they have been charged. To know the feebleminded and their 
impressionistic nature, is to realize what the effect upon them of 
such a social attitude is. This policy of ostracism, far from solving 
the problem of mental deficiency, only tended to aggravate it. 
How can society best face this problem? By adapting itself to 
the feebleminded to the extent of giving them helpful and practical 
training and supervision, and by making the community so far as 
possible safe for those who are permitted to remain in its midst. 
Society owes it to the feebleminded to give them the opportunity 
to come under good influences. For the more difficult cases it 
should provide institutional care and training and the means whereby 
the more favorable institutional cases may be gradually restored to 
community life after their training is completed. For the remainder 
it should provide special classes in the public schools where they 
can receive the kind of instruction which they can best absorb and 
which will be useful to them socially and economically in later life. 
This social program should also include visiting teachers and social 
workers who can inquire into the home conditions of the subnormal 
children and make necessary adjustments, and who will also stand 
ready to give a helping hand when the feebleminded boy or girl 
leaves the special class or institution to make his way in the world. 
Finally, society’s duty toward the feebleminded is not completed 
unless it makes available for such as need it, kindly and understand- 
ing guidance throughout life. 
Will the feebleminded repay such efforts on the part of society? 
There is already sufficient evidence that they will, from the facts 
brought out in the foregoing pages. Among so many of the feeble- 
minded there is an almost pitiable craving for respectability, an 
ardent desire to conform, to be like other people, to live, and dress, 
and play like them, to associate with them, to have their esteem, to 
be “regular folks.” The feebleminded are to a certain extent de- 
fective in intellect. They are not necessarily defective in emotions 
or instincts. What is this craving but a very healthy reaction to the: socializing process 
197 
society’s former policy of ostracism? What is it but a natural ex- 
pression of the gregarious instinct? 
The problem of the feebleminded may be summed up in Professor 
Giddings’ terminology as one of social self-control, defining that 
phrase as he has done, as “those things which society does to or 
upon itself.” Those of an intelligence level which is below the 
standard that we now regard as normal represent no insignificant 
proportion of the social order. Of these there are many who, by 
reason of favorable environment or personality or both, will get 
along satisfactorily without special help. Others, because of un- 
favorable environmental conditions and lack of adaptive powers, 
will not be able to make their way independently in the world. The 
well-organized community as a matter of social expediency will put 
itself in a position to know about its weaker members at as early 
a period in their lives as possible. It will determine what measures 
of social self-control may be instrumental in enabling these individ- 
uals sooner or later to become satisfactorily functioning members 
of the group, as a preferable alternative to having them cause a 
serious amount of social damage or become dependents upon the 
group for the rest of their lives. In other words the far-seeing 
community will recognize the vast social and economic advantage 
of making such expenditures for the special education of the 
feebleminded as may be necessary in making social efficients of the 
largest possible number. It will make every endeavor to reclaim 
these border-line individuals by the process of assimilation or 
socialization and, if we may judge by the indications of the limited 
work already done, it will have a profitable measure of success. CHAPTER XII 
The Feebleminded in the Social Order 
In Chapter 1 it was indicated that as the term mental deficiency 
is now commonly defined, the number of mentally defective indi- 
viduals in the population is so large that institutional care for more 
than a fraction of them is practically out of the question. In the 
latter chapters of this volume certain facts have been set forth 
suggesting that it is neither necessary nor desirable to segregate all 
the feebleminded, although it has been repeatedly emphasized that 
the discussion of the social possibilities of the feebleminded did 
not relate to those with inherent or irremediable moral defects nor 
to the lower-grade types, for both of which classes of defectives in- 
definite institutional care or its equivalent is unquestionably needed. 
It therefore remains to consider the relation of the feebleminded, 
who continue as members of the community, to society as a whole. 
A new alarm concerning mental deficiency and its social implica- 
tions gained considerable currency following the publication of the 
official report on the distribution of the intelligence ratings among 
the men recruited into the United States Army during the World 
War.* That the publication of the findings of these psychological 
examinations should have caused many misgivings about the future 
of democracy and of the race is perhaps understandable, for to the 
unwary reader there was contained in the official report the sug- 
gestion (although unwarranted) that nearly half of the white draft, 
and thus by inference, of the white population of the country, must 
be classified as feebleminded. In that previous alarmist stage de- 
scribed in Chapter V, the public became concerned about the menace 
of the comparatively small number of feebleminded then known to 
exist, presumably not more than one per cent of the population at 
most and considerably less than this by the more conservative 
estimates. To have it suddenly appear that possibly half of us 
were feebleminded—that seemed, indeed, occasion for real alarm. 
Writing on the published findings of the tests under the caption 
of “American Misgivings,” Cornelia J. Cannon finds many serious 
1. Psychological Examining in the U. S. Army. Edited by R. M. Yerkes. Memoirs, 
National Academy of Sciences, 1921, Vol. XV, p. 785 and ff. THE FEEBLEMINDED IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 
considerations involved for the future of education, industry, de- 
mocracy, etc., and states: “It is clear that a very much larger 
proportion of low-grade intelligence must exist in our population 
than has been heretofore suspected.”1 Other writers who have been 
less careful in their interpretation of the army findings and not so 
cautious in their conclusions as Miss Cannon, succeeded in present- 
ing a pretty sorry picture of the intelligence of the American people 
and in creating many forebodings for their destiny. From among 
a large number of editorials, magazine articles, and statements con- 
cerning the “revealed stupidity” of our population, Dr. Yerkes 
selects for quotation the following which appeared in a popular 
magazine :* 
“The army mental tests have shown that there are, roughly, 
forty-five million people in this country who have no sense. Their 
mental powers will never be greater than those of twelve-year-old 
children. The vast majority of these will never attain even this 
meagre intelligence. Besides the forty-five millions who have no 
sense but a majority of votes, there are twenty-five millions who have 
a little sense. Their capacity for mental and spiritual growth is 
only that of thirteen- or fourteen-year-old children, and your edu- 
cation can add nothing to their intelligence. Next there are twenty- 
five millions with fair to middling sense. They haven’t much but 
what there is, is good. Then lastly there are a few over four mil- 
lions who have a great deal of sense. They have the thing we call 
‘brains’.” 
Such deductions as the foregoing from the results of the army 
tests have been well answered by Dr. Yerkes,3 Prof. Woodworth,* 
Prof. English,5 and others. It needs scarcely be said that those few 
sentences, which together with other portions of the official report, 
led to such dire conclusions concerning American intelligence, were 
not intended as a flat statement that half the country is probably 
feebleminded. There was an “if” inserted in the official report 
which has been too frequently overlooked. To quote: “A moron has 
been defined as anyone with a mental age from 7 to 12 years, if 
this definition is interpreted as meaning anyone with a mental age 
less than 13 years, as has recently been done, then almost half of 
1. Cannon, Cornelia J. Atlantic Monthly, Feb., 1922, p. 145. 
2. Yerkes, R. M. Testing the Human Mind. Atlantic Monthly, March, 1923, p. .358. 
S. Ibid., p. 358 and ff. 
k- Woodworth, R. S. Aristocracy and Democracy Seen Through Intelligence Tests. 
New York Times, Sunday, Jan. 28, 1923. 
5. English, H. B. Is America Feebleminded? The Survey, Oct. 15, 1922, p. 79. 200 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
the white draft (47.3 per cent) would have hern morons. Thus it 
appears that feeblemindedness, as at present defined, is of much 
greater frequency of occurrence than had been originally supposed. 
The italics are inserted. 
What is the meaning of this much misinterpreted statement of 
the official report? It must be understood, first of all, that feeble- 
mindedness (or mental deficiency) is a wholly relative and arbitrary 
term used to indicate that portion of the population who, because 
of possessing intelligence less in degree than that of other members 
of the population, are regarded as incapable of “competing on equal 
terms with their normal fellows or of managing themselves and their 
affairs with ordinary prudence.” If therefore, according to present 
fixed definitions of mental deficiency, nearly half of a large and 
supposedly representative group of men such as were gathered in 
the army during the recent war, would have to be classified as 
feebleminded, one of three things must have been true: either, (1) 
the group to which the tests were applied was not a truly repre- 
sentative group (the report points out that many men of high in- 
telligence who were selected as officers and for essential industries 
were not included in the examinations) ; or (2) the tests themselves 
in their application or interpretation were inaccurate; or (3) if 
neither of the above elements seriously affected the findings, then 
it is plain that we have arbitrarily set the upper limit of mental 
deficiency too high. In the official report the selective process noted 
is recognized but it is stated as the opinion of the examiners that 
this fact could not possibly have reduced the general intelligence 
level of the draft as much as three years, mental age. As to the 
second consideration, while realizing that the intelligence tests, and 
particularly the group tests are not infallible, there is no reason to 
believe that serious errors crept into the result. We must there- 
fore frankly face the fact that, even with the allowances for selection, 
the intelligence of the average man is less than perhaps we liked 
to think is was, always bearing in mind, however, the point that has 
been too frequently overlooked, that the general intelligence which 
the tests measure probably does not develop much in anyone be- 
yond sixteen years, and that therefore a mental age of thirteen, 
fourteen, or fifteen on a scale where the upper limit is sixteen is 
not a really great deficiency. 
1. Psychological Examining in the U. S. Army. p. 789. THE FEEBLEMINDED IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 
201 
Because the intelligence of the average man should now seem 
to fall fairly close to where we thought the upper limit of mental 
deficiency to be, is certainly no occasion for hasty alarm but rather 
an occasion for revising our conception as to what mental-age 
levels constitute mental deficiency. To continue to use a definition 
of mental deficiency which would include a half or even a fourth 
of the population is about as ridiculous as to frame a definition that 
would include all the population. There is contained here the 
suggestion that perhaps we have been too ready in the past to classify 
as mental defectives and commit to institutions, individuals of merely 
low average intelligence who happened to be brought to public at- 
tention through some minor form of delinquency. Greater progress 
will be made if such individuals are regarded as simply in need of 
treatment for conduct disorder or psychopathic personality. 
What the army tests and other psychological examinations of 
large groups of people in truth show, is that human intelligence like 
other natural and social phenomena is subject to gradation or dis- 
tribution, and that this distribution inclines to follow in general 
the lines of the normal frequency curve. In the measurement of 
the intelligence of 905 unselected school children, Terman found 
that the distribution of the intelligence quotients of the group fol- 
lowed closely the normal frequency distribution and was “remark- 
ably symmetrical.”* What Terman has to say about this distribu- 
tion is to the point: 
“Since the frequency of the various grades of intelligence de- 
creases gradually and at no point abruptly on each side of the 
median, it is evident that there is no definite dividing line between 
normality and feeblemindedness, or between normality and genius. 
Psychologically the mentally defective child does not belong to a 
distinct type, nor does the genius. There is no line of demarcation 
between either of these extremes and the so-called ‘normal’ child. 
The number of mentally defective individuals in a population will 
depend upon the standard arbitrarily set up as to what constitutes 
mental deficiency.”^ 
Dr. Teta S. Hollingworth confirms this opinion and states that 
in psychological research generally, if a large number of individuals 
selected at random are measured in any given mental trait, the dis- 
tribution follows that of the normal frequency curve.2 The histo- 
1. Terman, L,. M. The Measurement of Intelligence. 1916. p. 67. 
2. Hollingworth, L,. S. The Psychology of Subnormal Children. 1920. p. 2. 202 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
gram showing the per cent distributions of the mental ages of the 
white draft in the army, although somewhat irregular, is not greatly 
at variance with the normal frequency curve.7 
There would seem to be nothing, therefore, at which to take alarm 
in the knowledge we have thus far gained concerning the distribu- 
tion of human intelligence. It is about as we should have expected 
from our knowledge of the distribution of other natural phenomena. 
In fact the occasion for serious alarm would arise if we found the 
distribution of intelligence to be otherwise. It is these very differ- 
ences in human beings, symmetrically distributed as they are, which 
are basic to social organization and make possible a harmonious 
social order. It would be a very poor sort of society in a function- 
ing sense which was made up of persons entirely similar in intelli- 
gence, in ability, in aptitude. There would be little to make such 
a society cohere, for the individuals in it would not be mutually inter- 
dependent. Co-operation through division of labor is one of the 
first things essential to the establishment of any stabilized social 
order. Co-operation inheres in the differences which exist among 
individuals. Were all men created with the intelligence and aptitude 
of leaders and with the will to lead, the result would not be social 
organization but social disruption. As Prof. Cooley states: 
“The unity of the social mind consists not in agreement but in 
organization, in the fact of reciprocal influence or causation among 
its parts, by virtue of which everything that takes place in it is 
connected with everything else, and so is an outcome of the whole. 
Whether like the orchestra it gives forth harmony may be a matter 
of dispute, but that its sound, pleasing or otherwise, is the expression 
of a vital co-operation, cannot well be denied. * * * * This differ- 
entiated unity of mental or social life, present in the simplest inter- 
course but capable of infinite growth and adaptation is what I mean 
in this work by social organization.”2 
Instead of deploring the fact that a representative portion of the 
human race is distributed among the lower intelligence levels, it 
should be recognized that those of lesser intelligence are essential 
to the social order. In fact, if we accept the present definitions of 
feeblemindedness, it may be said in all truth that very many of the 
so-called feebleminded have a definite, even important, place in 
society. There are many tasks in the world of the dull, monotonous 
1. Psychological Examining in the U. S. Army. Fig. 51, p. 787. 
2. Cooley, C. H. Social Organisation. 1915. p. 4. T11E FEEBLEMINDED in the social order 
203 
and routine type that can be vastly better performed as a day-in 
and day-out proposition by the so-called subnormal, than by persons 
of so-called normal or superior intelligence. Psychological exam- 
inations of factory employees have shown, to the employer’s surprise, 
that some of the best operatives register as feebleminded. They are 
the steady, plodding, faithful workers who can best stand the hum- 
drum toil of machine work. A large firm in New York City, after 
experimenting with its messenger service, came to the conclusion 
that the feebleminded youth made the most satisfactory messenger 
because he was likely to be the most faithful in his attendance to 
his duties and was contented to hold his position longer than the 
normal boy. In the consideration of the occupations held by former 
inmates of the Waverley and Rome institutions, and by former 
students of the public school special classes, the same facts have 
been brought out. In other words, many of the feebleminded when 
properly trained and supervised, have proved their economic and 
social usefulness. 
In the daily papers of recent date, there appeared almost simul- 
taneously two news items each of which was featured as of major 
importance. The first of these under the heading, “Prosperity 
Shown in Labor Shortage,” quotes an official review of the United 
States Employment Service of the Department of Labor to the 
effect: “A growing labor shortage continues to be an obstacle to 
capacity operations in the iron and steel industry, foundries, metal 
and machine plants, most especially in the northwestern districts. A 
common labor shortage obtains in almost all districts.” The other 
news item under the heading, “Ask Modification of Immigration 
Law,” refers to a statement of the National Association of Manu- 
facturers in which it is declared that “the prosperity of the nation 
is menaced by the present emergency of depleted labor caused by 
the restrictions of the Three Per Cent Immigration Law.” 
Why should we permit the lack of labor to be “an obstacle to 
capacity operations” and turn our eyes toward Europe to supply 
this labor demand until at least every effort has been made to utilize 
the latent capacity of the thousands of feebleminded in this country 
of whom, until lately, we would perforce have made dependents, 
if indeed our policy of neglect and social ostracism of this class 
had not forced them into crime and delinquency? The immediate 
problem of supplying the labor demands of industry would seem to 204 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
be that of salvaging the human materials already at hand and, until 
recently, languishing on the scrap heap. 
Arthur Pound in his book, “The Iron Man in Industry,” by which 
he means the automatic machine, bears testimony to the peculiar 
fitness of the so-called feebleminded to adapt themselves to modern 
industry: “Neither does the Iron Man get on the nerves of those 
below the average mentality. He is a consistent friend of the de- 
fective. Just as deafness is an advantage in certain industrial occu- 
pations,—our shops employ many mutes with satisfaction both ways, 
—so mental lacks may become assets for certain industrial purposes. 
Given enough sense to master simple routine occupations, and 
enough appreciation of duty, or fear of relatives, to come to the 
shop regularly, the below-average person can soon be adjusted in- 
dustrially. And, when adjusted, the moron will be found immune 
to many of the pricks which irritate the normal man into seeing 
red, less fretted by monotony, less worn by rhythmic clatter. There 
is less in his soul striving to release itself; he has brought into the 
shop comparatively little that the shop cannot use; and so he accepts 
dumbly his appointed place in the scheme of things industrial, re- 
mains unbitten by ambition, and reacts not at all against sub- 
ordination. The less mind one has, the less it resents that invasion 
of personality which is inseparable from large-scale and mechanized 
enterprises. I have heard industrial engineers and welfare workers 
say that industrial efficiency, as working out in our day, puts a 
premium on mental deficiency.”^ 
The feebleminded, who have come to public attention and have 
actually been known and classified as such, doubtless constitute but a 
small fraction of the large number of persons with equally low intelli- 
gence who perform their tasks steadily day in and day out, lead un- 
eventful lives, and live decently and happily in their own limited ways. 
All of which raises a question as to whether we should apply the 
term feebleminded to this army of wage-earners just because their 
intelligence level happens to fall in the present classification of 
moron. While it is a mere matter of terminology, those who con- 
tribute in such large measure to the essential work of the world 
as does this group should have nothing suggesting a stigma attached 
to them. 
As has previously been indicated, the solution of the “problem of 
1. Pound, Arthur. The Iron Man In Industry. 1922. p. 53. THE FEEBLEMINDED IN THE SOCIAL ORDER 
205 
feeblemindedness” depends upon the degree and kind of social con- 
trol, or to be more exact, of social self-control, which is exercised. 
As we have seen, the very nature of the distribution of human in- 
telligence means that inevitably there will always be, as there always 
have been, leaders and followers in the social procession. In other 
words, because some men react to the situation about them more 
quickly, more completely, and more effectively than others, they 
become leaders and those who react more slowly naturally become 
followers. The kind of leadership conducive to social progress is 
the leadership of such a protocracy, to use Professor Giddings’ ex- 
pression, of those who, combining the best intellectual endowment 
with the broad-visioned type of social personality, react in the most 
socially effective ways. 
The feebleminded, or those of the lower grades of intelligence 
with whom we have been dealing, will reflect more closely than any 
other elements of the population the kind of social leadership which 
directs them. They are almost entirely dependent upon leadership 
and some kind of leadership they will find. Many will doubtless 
find the wrong kind and become a social and political detriment, 
unless they are afforded a strong leadership of the right kind. On 
the other hand, the feebleminded may be expected to be among the 
most faithful followers of a protocracy if the protocracy sufficiently 
recognizes their special need for social guidance. 
The reason for all that has been written here is, that the large 
group of persons whom we choose to call feebleminded will prob- 
ably always constitute no small part of the social order. It does 
not aid in the solution of the problems connected with their presence 
in society merely to call attention to the menace they present, to say 
that democracy is a “delusion” because all persons do not have the 
mental capacity to get through college or the grades. Progress will 
be made only by facing the facts and coming to know and under- 
stand the feebleminded in such a way as to make them, to the 
largest degree possible, social assets instead of social liabilities. 
Some pages back we spoke of differences among individuals in 
such matters as intelligence as being basic to social organization. 
Along with these necessary differentiations, however, there must also 
be a fundamental basis of unity, a large degree of likemindedness 
if a real society is to exist. Where will such a unity, where will 
a basis for likemindedness be found among individuals of such 206 
SOCIAL CONTROL OF THE FEEBLEMINDED 
widely diverging degrees of intelligence as we have seen to exist 
in our American population ? That fundamental basis of likeminded- 
ness can be found apparently only in an element or elements which 
may be possessed in more or less equal measure by all regardless of 
intelligence rating. That common bond of unity is undoubtedly to 
be found in the realm of ideals, for the moving power of ideals is 
connected not so much with intelligence as with the instinctive and 
emotional make-up of the whole personality. The majority of the 
feebleminded, as has been shown, are distinctly capable of absorb- 
ing ideals and, with a reasonable degree of guidance and encourage- 
ment, of living up to them. Those who are concerned about social 
progress will take special thought for the feebleminded and in ad- 
dition to affording them training which will make them useful 
workers, will see to it that they also come to hold as a very part of 
their nature those social ideals which are the means of binding 
people together in a common society. 
The indications of the foregoing pages are that the majority 
of the feebleminded may be safely and profitably retained as 
functioning members of society, both from an economic and a social 
standpoint, provided the group exercises over them a sufficient degree 
of social self-control to give them, until they approach adult life, 
the training suited to their capacities, and continues to furnish 
throughout their lives the sort of leadership which will foster in 
them the highest social ideals. 
In “Little Dorrit” Dickens gives a description of a mental defective 
which, though written 65 years ago, is in striking accord with the 
modern understanding of such persons. Dickens’ description of 
Maggy not only contains very distinctly the idea of mental age, 
but also makes clear the ability of the mental defective with proper 
training and supervision to be a self-supporting, respected member 
of the community. Maggy’s guardian, Little Dorrit, to whom Maggy 
“is very much attached” and whom she calls her “little mother” ex- 
plains, when Arthur Clennam asks for Maggy’s history, that “When 
Maggy was ten years old she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never 
grown any older ever since.” Little Dorrit makes clear that Maggy 
“was never to be more than ten years old, however long she lived.” 
Although Maggy’s mental age was thus fixed at quite a low level 
for life, she continued to develop in other ways under Little Dorrit’s 
sympathetic guidance, to such an extent that she came to fill a useful 207 
the feebleminded in the social order 
and acceptable place in the social order. To continue Little Dorrit’s 
history of her: “At length, in course of time, Maggy began to take 
pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very in- 
dustrious ; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often 
as she liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does sup- 
port herself.” And as to Maggy now, “You can’t think how good 
she is, sir,” said Dorrit with infinite tenderness. “Or how clever,” 
said Dorrit. “She goes on errands as well as any one. And is as 
trustworthy as the Bank of England. She earns her own living 
entirely. Entirely, sir!” said Dorrit in a lower and triumphant tone. 
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v. 131, p. 358-70. INDEX INDEX 
After care, 88-107, 178-85 
Ages, mental, of mental defectives, 
101, 102, 103, 120, 131, 142-43, 
156-57. See also Mental defect, 
grades of 
American breeders association, Eu- 
genics section, Research com- 
mittee, members of, 59 
purpose of, 59 
American Indian, attitude of, toward 
mental defectives, 26 
Amusements, 106, 121 
Anderson, Meta L., 175 
Anderson, Victor V., 53, 54, 83, 181 
Aristotle, 17 
Army mental tests, 199, 201. See also 
Drafted men, mental defect in; 
Intelligence tests in the World 
war 
Asylum for deaf mutes, Berlin, 33 
Baby welfare association of Boston, 
173 
Backus, F. P., 33 
Bailey, Pearce, 44, 45, 80, 85, 86 
Barr, Martin W., 26 
Bennington, Helen, 49 
Bernstein, Charles, 87, 108, 111, 115, 
124, 128, 137, 138, 142, 149, 150 
Bicetre, 27, 29 
Binet, Alfred, 42 
Binet-Simon test. See Intelligence 
tests 
Bishop of Myra, 26 
Bonaterre, 27 
Borderline cases, 56, 87 
Boys’ industrial school, Ohio, 55 
Brahe, Tycho, 26 
Branthwaite, Robert W., 48 
Brazil, attitude of people in, toward 
mental defectives, 26 
Brentry reformatory, 48 
Bronner, Augusta F., 81, 82 
Bureau of juvenile research, Ohio, 
55 
Calvin, attitude of, toward mental 
defectives, 26 
Cannon, Cornelia J., 199 
Case studies, 38, 51, 78-79, 104, 106, 
127-29, 143-45, 153-55, 179-80. See 
also “The Hill folk”; “The 
Jukes”; “The Kallikak family” 
Characteristics of mental defectives, 
72, 80, 96, 105, 189-90, 196. See 
also Case studies; Personality of 
mental defectives 
Children born to mental defectives 
discharged from institutions, sta- 
tistics of, 89, 92, 168 
Christian, Thomas B., 53 
Church penitentiary association, 49 
Cincinnati, mental hygiene survey of, 
181 
Cincinnati General hospital, 54 
Clark, L. Pierce, 75, 84 
Clinics, out-patient, for mental de- 
fectives, 77, 80. See also Habit 
clinics; Psycho-educational clinic 
Clouston, Thomas S., 49 
Colony care, 108-70, 193-94 
cost of, 112, 114, 115, 130, 131, 140, 
141, 146 
development of, 108-13 
purpose of, 115 
Colony, definition of, 109 
Committee on provision for the 
feebleminded, State charities aid 
association. See New York State 
charities aid association, Com- 
mittee on provision for the 
feebleminded 
Committee to study and to report on 
the best practical means of cut- 
ting off the defective germ-plasm, 
2d report, 63-64 
Cooley, Edwin J., 202 
Craig colony, Sonyea, N. Y., 109 
Danielson, Florence H., 42, 71, 73, 75 
Davenport, Charles B., 40, 42, 67, 71, 
73, 75, 76, 169 
De Condillac, 30 
Delinquents. See Sterilization of de- 
linquents 
defective, 46, 47, 48, 81-82 
care of, 118-19, 153-55 
segregation of, by sex, 68, 118 
statistics of, 47, 51, 52, 53, 82, 
83, 94 
surveys of, 53, 82-83 
Dickens, Charles, 206 
Discharge of mental defectives from 
institutions, 88, 89, 92-94, 97, 124, 
159, 160, 164, 167, 168, 194-95 220 
INDEX 
Drafted men, mental defect in, 22-23, 
44-45. See also Army mental 
tests; Intelligence tests in the 
World war 
Dugdale, Robert L., 38, 46, 76 
Earnings of mental defectives, 93, 98, 
99, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106, 125, 
131, 137, 140, 141, 143, 146, 153, 
154, 155, 156-57, 183. See also 
Mental defectives in industry 
East Aurora, N. Y., attitude of people 
in, toward colony for mental de- 
fectives, 146-4'( 
Education of mental defectives, 29, 
31-35, 87, 172-73, 174-76. See 
also Education, physiological; 
Ttard’s wild boy; Massachusetts 
School for the feebleminded: 
Rome State school for the feeble- 
minded 
Education, physiological, 30, 31 
Elmira reformatory, 53 
English, Horace B., 20, 199 
Esquirol, 29 
Estabrook, Arthur H., 38, 42, 46 
Eugenics movement, 37 
Euthanasia, 59 
Extra-institutional care of mental de- 
fectives. See Colony care; 
Mental defectives in the com- 
munity ; Parole of mental defec- 
tives 
Families, mental defect in, 38, 40, 41 
Farm colonies. See Colony care 
Farrell, Elizabeth E., 171, 172, 176 
Feeblemindedness. See Mental defect 
Fernald, Walter E., 55-56, 67, 77, 78, 
87, 88, 90, 91, 92, 94, 95, 96, 100, 
110, 169, 172, 186 
Folks, Homer, 67, 85 
Galton, Sir Francis, 37 
Gesell, Arnold L., 173 
Giddings, Franklin H., 38, 197, 205 
Girls’ industrial home, Ohio, 55 
Glueck, Bernard, 51, 52 
Goddard, Henry LI., 21, 40, 41, t2, 43, 
75, 76, 175 
Guggenbuhl, J., 33 
Habit clinics, 173. See also Pre- 
school age 
Halloway prison, statistics of inmates 
of, 47 
Hart, Hornell, 181 
Healy, William, 81 
Hebberd, Robert W., 68 
“The Hill folk,” 42, 71, 72, 76 
Hollingworth, Leta S-, 21, 23, 201 
Holmes, Samuel J., 71, 73 
Howe, Samuel G., 33, 34, 87 
Hudson Training school, 153, 154 
Idiot. See Mental defect, grades of 
derivation of, 25 
Illegitimacy, mental defect as a factor 
in, 49, 54-55, 56 
Imbecile. See Mental defect, grades 
of 
Immorality in mental defectives, 48 
49, 52, 53, 54, 73, 83, 89, 90, 91, 
160, 163, 182 
Indiana School for feebleminded 
youth, 110 
Inebriety in mental defectives, 48, r'0 
Insanity, 73 
Institutional care of mental de- 
fectives, 58, 64-65, 67, 69, 85, 118- 
19, 192-93 
Intelligence tests, 20, 21, 22, 23, 42-45, 
82 
at Vineland, 43 
in the World war, 44-45. Sec also 
Army mental tests; Drafted men, 
mental defect in 
Ishmael, tribe of, 39 
Itard’s wild boy, 27, 28 
Judge Baker foundation, 81 
“The Jukes,” 38-39, 42, 46, 75, 76, 79 
Juvenile court of Chicago, Psycho 
pathic institute, 81 
“The Kallikak familv,” 40, 41, 42, 73, 
76 
Kite, Elizabeth H., 42 
Kossuth colony, 130-32 
Kostir, Mary S., 42 
Laughlin, Harry H., 63 
Letchworth village, Thiells, N. Y., 65, 
69, 75, 78, 79, 159 
“Little Dorrit,” 206, 207 
Locke, John, 30 
Lockwood law, 171 
Lombroso, Cesare, 81 
London County council, 47 
Luther, attitude of, toward mental 
defectives, 26 
Lycurgus, laws of, 25 
McCullough, O. C., 39 
Maryland Industrial school for girls, 
Baltimore, 53 
Massachusetts Industrial school for 
girls, Lancaster, 53 
Massachusetts School for the feeble- 
minded, Waverley, 32, 77, 78, 85 
Massachusetts Vice commission, Re- 
port, 52 
Matthews, Mabel A., 101, 104 
Mendelian law, 37, 40, 42 INDEX 
221 
Mental defect, causes of, 37-42, 68, 
71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 79, 80 
definitions of, 19, 21, 29, 46, 199. 
See also Mental defect, grades 
of 
grades of, 43, 72, 79, 87, 118. See 
also Ages, mental, of mental de- 
fectives ; Mental defect, defini- 
tions of 
literature on, 29 
Mental defective, benign type of, 84 
Mental defectives in industry, 90, 98, 
101, 103, 104, 178, 203-04. See 
also Earnings of mental defec- 
tives ; Reforestation colonies 
in the community, 65, 74, 77, 80, 
88, 89, 102, 159, 164, 176-83, 185. 
See also After care; Colony care; 
Parole of mental defectives 
Mental defectives. See also Specific 
subj ects 
Mental disease and delinquency, sta- 
tistics of, 51, 52 
Mentality, laws of inheritance of, 40 
Middle ages, fate of mental defec- 
tives in the, 26 
Monson State hospital, Palmer, Mass , 
76 
Moore, Anne, 50, 51, 65 
Moron, 87, 99. See also Mental de- 
fect, grades of 
Myerson, Abraham, 72, 73 
“The Nam family,” 42 
Napanoch, N. Y., Institution for de- 
fective delinquents at, 118 
National association of manufactur- 
ers, 203 
National committee for mental hy- 
giene, 181 
Division on prevention of delin- 
quency, 83 
Neo-Malthusianism, 60, 61 
New Jersey reformatory, Rahway, 53 
New York City Children’s court, 81 
New York Committee on feeble- 
mindedness, 66 
New York Magdalene home, 83 
New York Reformatory for women, 
Bedford Plills, 53 
New York Rescue home, 48 
New York State Board of charities, 
68 
New York State Charities aid associ- 
ation, 50. See also S. C. A. A. 
news 
Committee on mental hygiene, 44, 
66 
Committee on provision for the 
feebleminded, 66 
New York State Commission for 
mental defectives, 70, 80, 85, 178, 
179, 181 
New York State Commission to in- 
vestigate provision for the men- 
tally deficient, Report, 68 
New York State Conference of 
charities and correction, 68 
New York State Conservation com- 
mission, 130 
New York State institutions for 
mental defectives, capacity of, 70 
New York State, institutions for 
mental defectives in, commitment 
to, 21 
Occupations of mental defectives, 93, 
98, 101, 103, 104, 111, 113, 120, 
130, 137-38, 143-45, 157, 176, 177- 
78, 183, 203. See also Case 
studies; Earnings of mental de- 
fectives 
Paddon, Mary E., 83 
Parole of mental defectives, 92, 97, 98, 
99, 100, 123-24, 149, 150, 159, 160, 
164, 165, 166-67, 194 
to farmers, 124-27 
Pennsylvania School for idiotic and 
feebleminded children, 34 
Pentonville prison, 47 
Pereire, Jacob R., 30 
Personality of mental defectives, 187, 
188, 189-91. See also Character- 
istics of mental defectives 
Pinel, Philippe, 27 
“The Pineys,” 42 
Porteus, S. D., 20, 187, 188 
Potter, Howard W., 78, 79, 188, 189 
Pound, Arthur, 204 
Pre-school age, 173, 190 
Prevalence of mental defect in U. S., 
45 
Prevention of mental defect, 50, 60, 
61. See also Segregation of 
mental defectives; Sterilization 
of mental defectives 
Prison association of New York, 53 
Prostitution, 73. See also Immoral- 
ity in mental defectives 
Psycho-educational clinic, 82. Sec 
also Clinics, out-patient, for 
mental defectives 
Public education association of New 
York, 65 
Public schools, mental defectives in, 
77. See also Special classes in 
public schools 222 
INDEX 
Recidivism, 52, 54, 83 
Reforestation colonies, 130 
Reformatory for women, South 
Framingham, Mass., 53, 54 
Return of mental defectives to insti- 
tutions from colonies, 136, 138-39, 
151, 159, 160, 161-63, 164, 165, 
166 
from community, 90, 94, 106, 167-68 
Rome, N. Y., State custodial asylum, 
36 
Rome, N. Y., State school for mental 
defectives, 85, 87, 111 
colonies for boys, 109-33 
list of, 114 
colonies for girls, 134-70 
list of, 140 
colony for girls, announcement of 
first, 134-35 
Rosanoff, Aaron J., 172 
Royal college of physicians of Lon- 
don, 19 
Royal commission on the care and 
control of the feebleminded, Re- 
port, 39, 46, 50 
Royal Edinburgh asylum, 49 
Roycroft plant, 147 
Runaways, 88, 95, 122, 155, 163 
Ruspini, Mrs., 49 
S. C. A. A. news, 66 
Saegert, M., 33 
Saint Nicholas. See Bishop of Myra 
Sam Sixty, the family of, 42 
Schlapp, Max G., 53 
School for deaf mutes in Paris, 27 
Segregation of mental defectives, 23- 
24, 49-50, 54, 59, 60, 61, 63, 64, 
66, 95, 96, 108. See also Delin- 
quents, defective, segregation of, 
by sex; Institutional care of 
mental defectives; State provision 
for mental defectives, program of 
in Arkansas, 55 
Seguin, Edouard, 29, 30, 31, 32, 34, 
36, 37, 38, 87,110 
Simon, Thomas, 42 
Sing Sing prison, Psychiatric clinic, 
51 
Social ratings of mental defectives, 
187-88 
Spartans. See Treatment of mental 
defectives, history of 
Spaulding, Edith R., 53 
Special classes, establishing of first, 
171 
in public schools, 58, 171, 185 
number of children enrolled in, 172 
selection for, 22 
Speticer, Herbert, 58 
State provision for mental defectives, 
33-86, 67. See also Institutional 
care of mental defectives 
program of, 65-66, 86 
State provision for mentally diseased, 
67 
Statistics of mental defectives, 22, 23, 
38, 41, 42, 44-45, 47, 58, 64, 65, 
66, 67, 68, 80, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 
94-95, 99, 101, 102, 103, 138, 139, 
143, 158-68, 172, 177, 181, 182-84. 
See also Immorality in mental de- 
fectives; Venereal diseases in 
mental defectives 
Stebbins, Inez F., 151 
Sterilization of delinquents, 63 
of mental defectives, 59, 60, 61, 63 
legislation for, 61-64 
of mentally diseased, 63 
Stockard, Charles R., 76 
Supervision of mental defectives in 
the community. See After care; 
Colony care; Parole of mental 
defectives 
Surveys of mental defect, 39, 50, 51, 
58, 88, 176-78, 181-85. See also 
Case studies; Delinquents, de- 
fective, surveys of 
Syracuse State school for mental de- 
fectives, 33, 109 
Templeton farm colony, 111 
Terman, Lewis M., 21, 172, 201 
Thom, Douglas A., 173 
Three per cent immigration law, 203 
Training of mental defectives, 98, 99, 
100, 101, 105, 106, 107, 110. See 
also Education of mental defec- 
tives 
Treatment of mental defectives, his- 
tory of, 25-36 
in U. S., 32-36 
Tredgold, A. F., 39 
U. S. Department of labor, Employ- 
ment service, 203 
Utica Knitting mills, 138 
Venereal diseases in mental defec- 
tives, 54, 90, 154 
Wallace, George, 96 
Wallin, J. E. W., 82 
Weygandt, Wilhelm, 76 
Wilbur, Harvey B., 33, 34, 87 
Woodworth, Robert S., 199 
Woolley, Helen T., 181 
Wrentham State school for the 
feebleminded, 96 
Yerkes, Robert M,, 199 
York Rescue home, 48