EUGENIC SURVEY OF NASSAU 
COUNTY, NEW YORK ; 
feller Foundation has made pos- 
sible the immediate beginning of 
a eugenic survey of Nassau 
County (Long Island), N. Y. It will 
particularly attempt to find the amount 
of mental deficiency existing. 
During recent years, the burden of 
caring for defectives has in many States 
become almost crushing. New York is 
now spending more for the insane alone 
than for any other purpose except educa- 
tion, the amount being about one-fifth 
of the State’s total revenue. Massa- 
chusetts is spending one-third of her 
entire income on the support of those 
who require state care. In many other 
States the problem is rapidly reaching 
similar proportions. 
The growing recognition that many— 
perhaps the greater part—of these de- 
fectives are the product of defective 
heredity, has brought a realization that 
the stream can, without much difficulty, 
be greatly diminished at its source. 
The first requisite is to know the 
facts in regard to the distribution of 
defect in an unselected population. 
Hitherto, studies have been made largely 
in institutions, and there has been no 
comprehensive study of an ordinary 
population. Nassau County, with a 
population of about 100,000 in a rather 
small area, divided between farms and 
towns, seems to offer a good opportunity 
for ascertaining the conditions in a com- 
munity that is probably fairly typical 
of a great many in America, and some 
of its residents have been public-spirited 
enough to undertake the work of making 
as accurate as possible an estimate of 
the number and kinds of mental de- 
fectives at large, in order that the State 
may better be in a position to consider 
what the situation demands. It is 
well known that the number of defec- 
tives now receiving State care is only 
a part of the number which ought to 
RB: A GIFT of $10,000, the Rocke- 
receive such care; but no one knows 
what proportion. The Nassau County 
survey will help to answer this question 
for the State of New York, and to,a 
less extent for other eastern States. 
MENTAL TESTS TO BE USED 
The first step will be to select for 
special examination all those children 
and adults who are known to the educa- 
tional, poor-law, police or health authori- 
ties as having failed to hold a normal 
place in the community either by reason 
of unteachableness, or moral deficiency, 
or imperfect social adaptation. This 
will mean the examination of backward, 
atypical or unruly children in schools, 
children and adults in almhouses and 
other institutions, inmates of prisons 
and others known to the police, children 
and adults in receipt of outdoor relief, 
persons known to the medical profession 
or others as being possibly defective. 
The examination of these people will 
consist of an inquiry into the family, 
social, and personal history, and a series 
of mental tests. 
But the collection of data regarding 
these abnormal persons would possess 
little value, unless at the same time data 
were secured about the normal indi- 
vidual living in the same environment. 
The survey will, therefore, undertake 
to secure information about every one 
in certain selected districts. The infor- 
mation about those who are apparently 
normal will not be so full as about those 
who are apparently defective; but there 
will be an endeavor to get a certain 
minimum amount of information about 
each one, which would establish his 
normal mentality and would make 
possible eventually the construction of 
normal statistical social standards for 
the county, pertaining to the facts of 
heredity, progress at school, and amount 
of education, occupations and earnings, 
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