MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND SOCIAL WELFARE. 757 



if relieved of the odium as well as the care of their helpless popula- 

 tion, will then be encouraged to arrange for this brighter class of 

 defectives industries which will provide not only for development and 

 happiness, but will largely aid in maintenance. The recognition of 



MlDDLE-GBADE IMBECILES. 



the necessity for this weeding out of the schools, having place first 

 on the Continent, next in England, and later in our own country, 

 marks an era in the national as well as in the special schools. Both 

 will be benefited largely, and formal expression of this, found in the 

 addition to our National Educational Association of a department 

 representing the training of all classes of defectives, is one of the most 

 encouraging signs of the times. 



The same experience which dictates the separation of the idiot 

 from the imbecile, the backward from the normal child, urges also 

 that a permanent sequestration would tend alike to the safety and 

 happiness of the normal and abnormal classes. The experiment made 

 of preparing and sending out into the world these irresponsibles has 

 proved, to say the least, not encouraging, and the advisability of their 

 permanent detention has become self-evident. 



The heads of training schools here are a unit in urging that pro- 

 vision be made for those who have reached the limit of school progress. 

 That experience has reached a similar conclusion in England is tes- 



