532 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



frequently developing an aptitude for music, drawing, and tlie vari- 

 ous industries. Tliese are the backward children that the schools 

 complain of — the " feebly-gifted " ones of England, the " tardivi " 

 of Italy, " les en f ants arrieres " of France. 



These are they so often not recognized in seminary or college 

 life until under excessive pressure or the excitement of competition 

 comes complete breakdown — idiocy, insanity, or early death. 



So nearly normal are many of these that their defect would per- 

 haps be noticed only by the initiated, and the question is often 

 asked, "Why are these who do so well accounted feeble-minded?" 

 the public little knowing that the time and labor have been double 

 those expended for like results with a normal child. 



The moral imbecile, generally of high or middle grade, quick 

 of apprehension, crafty, and cunning; or, if of low grade, sullen and 

 cruel often to brutishness, absolutely destitute of the moral sense — 

 what might be termed ammoral or unmoral — is too dangerous an 

 element to be permitted in the schools. This, the saddest victim 

 of a fatal inheritance, is he who claims most at the hands of society 

 and who gets least, because, precocious and often abnormally bright, 

 he is, as a certain jurist once delighted in saying, " the kind we 

 hang." As intellectual training does but add to his armament of 

 ill, for him should be provided, within strongly guarded asylum 

 walls, all the benefits of a manual training school and its outcome 

 in the various trades, which shall at once give vent for his super- 

 flous energy and render him self-supporting; but this should be 

 coupled with all the ameliorations of cheerful living that humani- 

 tarianism owes to this scapegoat for the sins of others. 



Hard labor and lifelong sequestration are the only medicine for 

 his ill — a disease too often due to the sins of a normal ancestry. 



The idio-imbecile, who, as the name implies, partakes of the 

 nature of both the idiot and the imbecile, is generally undersized, 

 with very defective speech, and a limited vocabulary confined to a 

 few scattered words, never a full sentence. His improvement is but 

 limited. The most we can hope to do is to keep his nervous, restless 

 fingers employed. He can sometimes learn to knit, to weave mats, 

 or do simple housework, but never to read or write. For him, as 

 for the idiot, but little can be done beyond giving the custodial care 

 best adapted to his peculiar needs, the genuine benefit being found 

 in the family relieved of such a burden, as it has been computed that 

 for every case sequestrated, two if not four normal persons are re- 

 leased to society. 



The idiot is usually but poorly developed, in most cases unable 

 to stand or even to sit alone. Hardly conscious of his physical needs, 

 he has no language but a cry, He rarely learns to talk; indeed, in 



