FEEBLE-MINDEDNESS—THE PROBLEM—CONDITIONS IN 
INDIANA. 
EDNA R. JATHO, Philadelphia, Pa. 
Employed on Survey of Indiana under Indiana Committee on 
Mental Defectives. 
In the three-fold problem of Mental Defect we have Insanity, Epi- 
lepsy and Feeble-mindedness. Insanity and epilepsy, while not properly 
understood, are popularly recognized and are looked upon as explaining 
and excusing social irregularities and crime. But feeble-mindedness, 
which includes by far the largest proportion of mental defectives, is 
unrecognized, misunderstood and condemned. 
The feeble-minded are adult children; their struggle to lead adult 
lives in competition with their normal fellows is a pitiful succession of 
social and economic failures. For a few minutes I want to discuss the 
problem of feeble-mindedness from its psychological basis and then pro- 
ceed to the rehearsal of stories of real folks—stories that show how 
these adult children fall short in their effort to take a proper place in 
community life. 
Feeble-mindedness, or amentia, is an absence of the quality that 
makes for normality. It is the place at which mankind loses his high 
birthright of reasoning power, and becomes something less than the 
man who has developed, through his years of childish growth and the 
struggles of adolescence, that perfect mind that makes him the highest 
of all creatures, a reasoning being. Amentia is a unit character, and 
represents a level of mentality lower than normal in all its manifesta- 
tions.. It does away with the old “faculty” psychology. A feeble-minded 
person could not be an idiot in powers of attention and have a good 
memory; nor will he reason well and perhaps fail to have imagination; 
nor will he have strong volition and lack judgment. His mental pro- 
cesses will be, on the whole, those of a normal child of the age at which 
his (the feeble) mind reached its level. In so far as any normal child 
will vary in special mental aptitudes, just so far will a feeble-minded 
person vary in ability for specific kinds of mental activity. But he will 
in no point rise above his mental level—he will do no more in other 
lines than a normal child of the same mental age, gifted with a one- 
sided talent. For example, a man of thirty, having a mentality of eight 
years, may be a very good reader. He has a peculiar aptness for the 
recognition of symbols and for stringing them together; but he will 
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