Feeblemindedness in Delaware 



47 



mental defectives were found in an en- 

 \dronment making normal standards of 

 living impossible. 



"Eighty-three, or 39% of the total 

 number, were living under adverse 

 home conditions — extreme poverty, al- 

 coholism, immorality, or entire lack of 

 home protection. An additional 68, or 

 32%, were in institutions not adapted 

 to their needs, making a total of 71% 

 living under conditions where adequate 

 care and protection were impossible 

 or provided for only temporarily in 

 institutions designed to care for other 

 classes. 



"That society must provide special 

 protection for mental defectives is 

 strongly indicated by the fact that 98 

 of the total number studied had delin- 

 quency records or were immoral or diffi- 

 cult to control. Seventy-nine of these 

 were living under adverse conditions or 

 in institutions not adapted to their 

 needs, while seven were in an institution 

 for the feeble-minded, and twelve were 

 living in good homes. 



"The problem of those requiring 

 special care and training because of 

 subnormal mentality is not limited to 

 the 212 positive cases of mental defect 

 included in this stud3^ The 361 indi- 

 viduals classified as of questionable men- 

 tality undoubtedly included a number 

 who were actually mentally defective. 

 All of them presented problems of 

 retardation or abnormality. More than 

 one-third of the questionable cases, for 

 whom infonnation as to individual 

 characteristics was secured, were known 

 to be delinquent or uncontrollable. A 

 total of two-thirds of those for whom 

 detailed data were obtained were in 

 homes where proper care and safeguard- 

 ing were impossible, or had already 

 developed antisocial tendencies." 

 "born criminals" 



That these feebleminded persons are 

 frequently delinquent or anti-social is 

 inevitable, and has little to do with 

 their evil surroundings, except in so far 

 as these make temptation more fre- 

 quent. There may not be such a thing 

 as a "born criminal " but the person who 

 is born feebleminded or with a germinal 



lack of emotional control is so near to a 

 "born criminal" that for practical pur- 

 poses there is no difference. 



Why do the feebleminded tend so 

 strongly to become delinquent? "The 

 answer," Professor Terman says,* "may 

 be stated in simple terms. Morality de- 

 pends upon two things : (a) the ability 

 to foresee and to weigh the possible 

 consequences for self and others of dif- 

 ferent kinds of beha\aor; and (b) upon 

 the willingness and capacity to exercise 

 self-restraint. That there are many 

 intelligent criminals is due to the fact 

 that (a) may exist without (6) . On the 

 other hand, (b) presupposes (a). In 

 other words, not all criminals are feeble- 

 minded, but . all feebleminded are at 

 least potential criminals. That every 

 feebleminded woman is ' a potential 

 prostitute would hardly be disputed by 

 any one. Moral judgment, like busi- 

 ness judgment, social judgment, or any 

 other kind of higher thought process, is a 

 function of intelligence. Morality can- 

 not flower and fruit if intelligence re- 

 mains infantile. 



"All of us in early childhood lacked 

 moral responsibility. We were as rank 

 egoists as any criminal. Respect for 

 the feelings, the property rights, or any 

 other kind of rights, of others had to be 

 laboriously acquired under the whip of 

 discipline. But by degrees we learned 

 that only when instincts are curbed, and 

 conduct is made to conform to princi- 

 ples established formally or accepted 

 tacitly by our neighbors, does this 

 become a livable world for any of us. 

 Without the intelligence to generalize 

 the particular, to foresee distant conse- 

 quences of present acts, to weigh these 

 foreseen consequences in the nice bal- 

 ance of imagination, mortality cannot 

 be learned. When the adult body, with 

 its adult instincts, is coupled with the 

 undeveloped intelligence and weak in- 

 hibitory powers of a ten-year-old child, 

 the only possible outcome, except in 

 those cases where constant guardian- 

 ship is exercised by relatives and friends, 

 is some form of delinquency." 



The need of adequate provision for 

 these defectives is discussed at some 



*0p. cit., p. 11. 



