ildhood and
from youth to physical maturity and even on to old age, yet never
become responsible adults--these are the children we must consider.

The demand of the eugenists that such, if obviously defective, should
be prevented from bringing forth after their kind is clearly the only
social wisdom. The statistics of social pathology all point to mental
defectiveness as the prolific cause of crime, immorality, vocational
incompetency, illegitimacy, family failure, and marital tragedy. In a
recent study of one hundred families in which feeble-mindedness was
obvious, a study carried on by the Massachusetts Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children, immorality was found in 58 per
cent. of them; extreme filth and bad home conditions were found in 30
per cent.; and in 47 per cent. one or more members of these families
were public charges. Where the mother is subnormal there is almost
certain to be a line of feeble-minded progeny, and in this study,
while there were only 7 per cent. of the fathers hopelessly deficient,
in 25 per cent. the mothers were notably defective in mind.
Thirty-seven of these families showed illegitimate children--a far
larger number than the average of normal population. Physical
deficiencies also figured largely in these family records.

This particular study takes us into the region where Doctor Fernald,
Doctor Goddard and many others have prepared material for convincing
the public mind that no one thing so increases social degeneracy and
so adds to the sum of human misery as the unprotected freedom of
defectives to procreate and pollute the family currents.[14] This is
not a treatise on social pathology and elsewhere must be found the
details of investigation and information that justify this statement.
What is here attempted is only a study of what should be the attitude
of fathers and mothers toward feeble-minded children if such should be
their tragic problem.

=Custodial Care of the Defective.=--In the first place, the attitude
of mind of the parents, if they are themselves normal, is to be
considered. What gives us feeble-minded children from feeble-minded
parents is clear. The social prevention for carrying on known
degeneracy cannot be too strongly stressed, and hence the first duty
of normal parents is to consider the social danger of leaving a
feeble-minded child, especially a feeble-minded girl, to any chance of
parenthood. This leads to the question of removal from home of