al correction or punishment. It
is conservatively estimated that there are five million feeble-minded
people in the United States to-day and not one-eighth of them are receiving
adequate treatment or education. Recent statistics, from various countries,
show that the percentage of deficient or feeble-minded children is
decidedly on the increase. According to a bulletin issued by the United
States Bureau of Education (August, 1912) there are 15,000,000 school
children suffering from physical defects which need immediate attention and
which are prejudicial to health. It would seem as though the time had
passed for anything other than radical measures in the interest of the
race.

Apart from the eugenic fact that these feeble-minded children are not fit
subjects for parenthood, they are a constantly contaminating influence on
society morally, and are a detriment and a hindrance to social and economic
advancement. One illustration of this contaminating process, which is of
serious eugenic import, is the presence of these deficient children in our
public schools. By reason of their lack of attention and concentration,
their mental or psychic insufficiency, their moral delinquency, and
uncontrollable instincts and impulses, they are a menace to the well-being
and to the progress of the normal or fit pupils; they retard and undermine
the discipline of the schoolroom, and they affect the efficiency of the
teachers. They are allowed to stay in school because of the indifference of
the authorities, or because of the influence and social standing, or
political "pull" of the parents, despite the recognition of the injustice
done. Many of the parents of these children seek medical advice but,
because of absurdly inadequate civic or state provision for such cases, the
physician is practically helpless. Most of these irresponsible children are
allowed to wander through the years unrestrained and unprotected. They
easily become the victims of vice and crime, and eventually they become
degenerates and end their lives in insane institutions. Because of the
stigma of degeneration these feeble-minded individuals fall into the [39]
hands of the law and are thereby robbed of the medical assistance which
society should afford them in the early years when improvement is yet
possible.

The following report which recently appeared in one of the daily papers is
interesting and suggestive in this connection. One of the New York City
Magistrates