manage to reestablish the debasing atmosphere to
which it has always been accustomed.[76] Those who see in improvement
of the environment the cure for all such plague spots as these tribes
inhabit, overlook the fact that man largely creates his own environment.
The story of the tenement-dwellers who were supplied with bath tubs but
refused to use them for any other purpose than to store coal,
exemplifies a wide range of facts.

[Illustration: FIG. 26.--To this shanty an elderly man of the
"Hickory" family, a great clan of defectives in rural Ohio, brought his
girl-bride, together with his two grown sons by a former marriage. The
shanty was conveniently located at a distance of 100 feet from the city
dump where the family, all of which is feeble-minded, secured its food.
Such a family is incapable of protecting either itself or its neighbors,
and should be cared for by the state. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions.]

[Illustration: A CHIEFTAIN OF THE HICKORY CLAN

FIG. 27.--This is "Young Hank," otherwise known as "Sore-Eyed
Hank." He is the eldest son and heir of that Hank Hickory who, with his
wife and seven children, applied for admission to their County Infirmary
when it was first opened. For generation after generation, his family
has been the chief patron of all the charities of its county. "Young
Hank" married his cousin and duplicated his father's record by begetting
seven children, three of whom (all feeble-minded) are now living. The
number of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren is increasing every
year, but the total can not be learned from him, for he is mentally
incapable of counting even the number of his own children. He is about
70 years of age, and has never done any work except to make baskets. He
has lived a wandering life, largely dependent on charity. For the last
25 years he has been partly blind, due to trachoma. He gets a blind
pension of $5 a month, which is adequate to keep him supplied with
chewing tobacco, his regular mastication being 10 cents a day. Such
specimens can be found in many rural communities; if they were
segregated in youth both they and the community would be much better
off. Photograph from Mina A. Sessions.]

Although conditions may be worst in the older and more densely populated
states, it is probable that there is no state in the union which has not
many families, or group of families, of this dependent type, which in
favorable cases may attract little notice, but t