r, "to the third or fourth
generation," as the old Scripture said; and many a charming trait, for
which the immediate parents would like to take credit, is really a
gift from some great-grandparent.

This fact should make it easier for parents of defectives to bear the
burden and easier to make it seem less a shameful confession of
individual responsibility and more a sad confirmation of the fact that
we are all members one of another and no one lives to himself alone.

=Difficulties in Care of Morons.=--The case is clear as to treatment,
so all enlightened social workers and social students agree, in
respect to the obviously defective or insane. The difficulty is to
care protectively and yet justly for the higher-grade defective or
what is now called the "moron." Doubtless we should all see it best to
begin at the lower levels of defectiveness and abnormality for
pressure upon society to socially protect in segregated institutions
all the afflicted. The point at which compulsory methods should be
used might be placed at a widely differing level by many most
acquainted with the need for some form of social control of and for
this class. Parents in particular would resent any snap judgment and
should do so as to the mental condition of children not obviously
imbecile. It is certain that the high-grade moron makes much trouble
and gives social tragedies without number, but it is still more
certain that no social machinery has yet been devised ingenious enough
to really classify such persons and place them where they can do no
more harm. As Dr. Lightner Witmer well says in his warning against
careless diagnosis, "In training clinical examiners I advise them not
to diagnose a child as feeble-minded unless they feel sure they have
sufficient facts to convince a jury of twelve intelligent men that the
diagnosis of feeble-mindedness is the only logical conclusion to be
drawn from the facts." It is undoubtedly true that many high-grade
imbeciles or morons would be adjudged not feeble-minded by most
juries. It is also undoubtedly true that many youths who are
"peculiar" or "backward" or unusually susceptible to influence from
others or especially lacking in power of self-control are in social
danger and need some form of social protection more effectual than is
required in the case of the normal child and youth. Higher grades of
abnormality and those less understood must be approached, however,
both in matters of examination a