afflicted lad smokes, chews, practises vile habits, is without shame, and will spoil his companions if not taken away. . . Another is affectionate and obedient unless he is excited. His chief deficiency consists in believing whatever any foolish or evil-minded person may choose to tell him, wasting his money, clothing, books, foolishly. He is all right with a master, but left to himself he seems utterly helpless and defenceless, wandering from place to place like a homeless dog seeking for a master. Many unprincipled people take advantage of his simplicity to impose upon him by hiring him for a pitiful sum and paying him in worthless objects. . . . A widow lady tries to earn a living by keeping boarders, and then explains her failure: "The boarders come to my place and they are here for a few days; they go again, on account of my daughter. They are afraid of her, for she makes such queer motions."

The symptoms described reveal at once the necessity of segregating such children from others, that they may not be exposed to the cruel taunts and sneers, the thoughtless ridicule, and the unscrupulous attacks of people in general society. The other members of the family also require protection.

6. Education. The entire social system of charity and correction is, essentially, part of the system of education by which society protects itself through the positive method of adapting the young and the abnormal to the conditions of life. The ethical principle at the basis of elementary education is the moral obligation of society to aid every human being to unfold all the powers of his personality. This principle applies with special force to the most helpless. Passing by the proposition to immure the idiot in total neglect, or to kill him outright, an enlightened view of social duty and interest requires the highest possible education of the defective. This is at best a slow, tedious, and difficult process.

The proof has already been presented in the nature and symptoms of the feeble-minded that the family is not a suitable organ for this elementary education. The presence of an idiot or of an imbecile depresses the mother and unfits her physically and spiritually for the functions of maternity and the care of her normal children. If the parents are themselves defective, there is all the more reason for taking away the offspring and of separating the parents from each other to prevent more mischief.

The method of instruction does not differ in essential principles from the best methods used with normal children. The process is more slow; the steps must be more carefully analyzed; more use must be made of tangible objects; there must be more repetition of exercises. But all the principles of the best teaching, especially in kindergarten and manual training schools, are essential in these schools. Indeed, a year or more spent in a school of defective children would be an excellent kind of preparation for teaching normal children.

7. Self support. It may be asked whether defective children can be made self supporting if they are thoroughly trained. From experiments recently made in this country it seems highly probable that a colony of feeble-minded persons, after the farm and buildings have been furnished, may, under skilful management, be trained to produce as much in value as they consume. Mr. A. Johnson makes a distinction, however, which should be noted. A boy cannot do a man's work; if he could he would be more than self-supporting, for a man must support several persons by his labor. "If a feeble-minded laborer does one-third of a full man's work, or just as much more as will make up for the extra supervision required because he is feeble-minded, then he earns his own living."

8. Public Opinion. It is of the first importance to create an intelligent public judgment, based on knowledge, in respect to the entire system of agencies necessary to diminish the evils of feeblemindedness. Facts must be more generally understood as a condition of improvement in the situation. Such enlightened judgment will slowly modify the customs and habits of family life. It will, in some slight measure, tend to prevent foolish marriages between persons physically unfit to become parents. It will tend to induce mothers to remove their feeble-minded children, even though it costs them many a pang, to institutions where they can enjoy suitable educational advantages and the society of those like them, without being exposed to the sufferings and humiliations incident to life with normal children and youth. It will tend to

diminish the pressure and nerve fatigue caused by the feverish haste to be rich, to shine in the wasteful ways of fashionable society, which result in imperfect births. It will tend to emphasize the social value of physical culture of boys and girls with reference to their future functions as parents.

An instructed public judgment will demand and provide for educational and custodial establishments for all the feeble-minded whose presence in families and communities is a perpetual source of danger and injury. The unfortunate and helpless persons of this character who are at present kept in jails, county poorhouses, or left to wander about as the butt of ridicule and thoughtless sport, or the victims of lust, will be provided with permanent homes in isolated agricultural colonies, held in gentle and safe custody, enabled to produce their own food, and so to live happy and contented lives, without becoming the irresponsible progenitors of a miserable posterity.

A movement has begun to enact laws prohibiting the marriage of defectives. This may help to educate public opinion, limit the number of mock and immoral marriages, and compel the formation of permanent asylum colonies. But the prohibition of legal marriage and the penalizing of illicit intercourse are not adequate remedies, because many of this class do not understand morality, law, or penalty any more than animals. Custodial institutions will still be necessary to prevent the propagation of degenerates.

The earlier efforts to provide for the feeble-minded aimed chiefly at education and training for independent life. The institutions were simply temporary schools for preparing children to return to free life in the world of competition. But now all competent authorities agree that the former hopes of education for normal life were far too optimistic. Very few can be developed to the point where they can elbow their way in competition with vigorous, strong, and capable persons and protect themselves from harm and deep degradation. This expert judgment lays a moral obligation on legislatures to make permanent provision for most of the seriously defective in custodial institutions. A few common

wealths have already adopted this principle, and with the others it is simply a question of time and earnest effort when they will do their duty.

A few private schools have been erected for the care of unfortunate children of wealthy parents, and the demand for them seems to be growing; but voluntary enterprise is a mere incident, and no power short of the state government can supply the need and protect the community. Whether relatives who have means should be required to pay in state institutions is a question which will receive different answers according to the customs of the state. It would seem that the same principles which govern the asylums for the insane are valid here; and that the state should care for all gratuitously without class distinctions of any kind.

9. Is it Best to provide for Epileptics together with the FeebleMinded? - Authorities differ in judgment on this point. Precedents exist for both methods. Where the public has as yet been unable to discriminate between these two radically different kinds of defect, and has not yet been educated to make full provision for separate care, it is sometimes possible to secure legislative appropriations for one institution, while an attempt to found two schools would almost certainly fail and postpone the entire enterprise. Medical, educational, and custodial requirements seem to compel at least separation in the same colony, even if under the same management. In the process of specialization it is probable that the separation will occur when the numbers of each class become too great for a single management.

10. Slow Children. - Children who are simply slow to understand and backward in learning, but sound in brain, should not be classed with dependents, although they require special methods of teaching in public schools and separate instruction. Many can be taught to work, through sloyd and manual training methods, who profit little by learning to read and write, and who even forget the arts of reading and writing. Rural life is far more favorable for them than rapid, exciting, and stimulating city life; and parents are wise who train such children, as early as possible, for horticultural or agricultural pursuits.

CHAPTER III.

SOCIAL TREATMENT OF THE INSANE.

1. Nature of the Defect. —Insanity is a very vague term and is not capable of exact definition. In popular thought and speech there is great confusion. The word connotes a serious disease of the nervous system, especially of the brain, which is manifested by abnormal expressions of the intellect, emotions, and will. The term "insanity" is not with accuracy applied to those temporary mental disturbances which accompany intoxication or fever, trance, ecstasy, or catalepsy; nor to the effects of arrested development seen in the feeble-minded.

2. Forms. In the census of 1890 the forms are distinguished as acute mania, dementia, epilepsy, chronic mania, paresis, monomania, and melancholia. The kinds of mental disturbances vary at different times and stages even with the same patient, and one form passes into another and comes back again. There is no absolute line of distinction at certain points. Dr. Hammond, following Esquirol, found the following definitions useful for provisional statement. Melancholia is marked by perversion of the understanding in regard to one object or a limited number of objects, with predominance of sadness or depression of mind. Monomania is perversion of understanding, limited to a single object or small number of objects, with predominance of mental excitement. Mania is a perversion embracing all kinds of objects, and is accompanied with mental excitement. Dementia is incapacity for reasoning, from the fact that the organs of thought have lost their energy and the force necessary for performing their functions. Imbecility or idiocy implies such an imperfect development of the organs that the persons afflicted cannot reason