OF A CERTAIN PENNSYLVANIA FAMILY. 93 



She later married a son of her employers, and although externally her home 

 approaches the standards of her adopted people, she has by no means attained 

 their worth in the qualities of truthfulness and fidelity. 



Case 5 (V-2, Chart B). — The daughter of a feeble-minded, immoral woman 

 of Line F. Her father belonged to a family showing criminality and gross 

 sexual immorality, and he deserted her mother before V-2 was born. She 

 spent the first 9 years of her life at the county home, then was taken by a 

 family in good circumstances to a distant city, losing all connection with her 

 own relatives. Was kept in school until she was 16 and given training in 

 housekeeping; also had good church and social influences. Was always 

 incorrigible, incapable of habits of neatness and industry, and proficient in no 

 work she undertook. Is now a slattern, alternating between listlessness and 

 fits of temper, who allows her family of ten to grow up as they will. Nothing 

 worse could be imagined than the state of her home or the haphazard way in 

 which her family meet questions of food and clothing day by day. Her half- 

 sister, whom she has not known since they were in the county home and who 

 was brought up in far less favorable conditions, is very like her. 



Case 6 (IV-92, Chart B). — In contrast with the foregoing we may take the 

 son of the violent, sexually immoral III-43, who, however, had great vitahty 

 and fine physique. He has always been attributed to a man whose family 

 were intelligent, with good business sense. He roamed about with his mother 

 after her separation from her second husband, was half-starved and made 

 famihar with scenes of gross immorahty. Never went to school, so that at 11 

 he was not able to write his name. His appeal at this time to a family of con- 

 siderable means and intelHgence was met by an opportunity to work his own 

 way with them. Though very dull in figures, he managed to secure a high- 

 school education, and is now a trusted, efficient employee in the firm of his 

 foster-parents. Is a fine specimen of physical manhood, strictly moral, has 

 a taste for good reading, and maintains a home which shows many evidences 

 of refinement. Here it would seem as if the better tendencies of the father's 

 side had asserted themselves in the face of the most adverse environmental 

 conditions. 



It would therefore appear that the superior traits of the better 

 endowed individuals largely sought or made the wider opportunity, 

 while the inherent weaknesses of the inferior ones have not been over- 

 come by the advantages they may have had. 



In some cases it would even seem as if the greater the social and 

 economic opportunity, the greater the disposition to settle back and 

 let someone else assume the burden of their maintenance. The low 

 efi&ciency is primarily due not to lack of opportunity, but to a native 

 inability to react favorably to social and economic environments. 



