MENTAL hygiene: RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT. 85 



The development of oeeupational activities, the provision of farm colonies, 

 and the education of children in adjustment to their proper mental level, 

 are some of the achievements of the State School at Fort Wayne. 



3. The recognition that epilepsy is hereditary led to the founding of the 

 epileptic village at Newcastle, where outdoor life and suitable occupation 

 is provided in the most approved way for those whom the state has decreed 

 shall not reproduce their kind. 



4. The public recognition of the need of reformatory treatment of crim- 

 inals, crystallized in 1897 into a provision for the transformation of the south- 

 ern prison into the Indiana Reformatory, carrying with it the indeterminate 

 sentence and parole, and later the suspended sentence, as well as a program 

 of mental examination and of right education. This is a brilliant chapter in 

 the history of our state. 



5. About 1905, sterilization to prevent hereditary criminality and feeble- 

 mindedness was practiced with the consent of the inmates. The law was to 

 apply to incui'able idiots and incorrigible criminals. In 1909 the practice was 

 discontinued on legal grounds, at the request of the Governor. But the law, 

 held by many to be one of the most beneficient, still exists on our statute 

 books. 



In many of these measures, Indiana has been in advance of most states 

 and has won deserved recognition. 



6. There is not time to recount the achievements for sound morality 

 and mentality, of the benign control of youth by the state through the estab- 

 lishment of a board of children's guardians, based on the rights of a child 

 to a decent life, defended even against an unworthy parent. In this class 

 falls also the provision for juvenile courts. These wise provisions are de- 

 signed to protect plastic childhood from adverse environments which render 

 impossible a normal mental and moral development. 



7. Not less important is the recognition of the claims of mental hygiene 

 by our educational institutions. The Indiana University School of Medicine 

 was one of the first in the west to provide extensive courses in mental path- 

 ology and psychiatry. It seeks to train physicians competent to deal with 

 the psychic factor in disease, to diagnose mental diseases as well as physical, 

 to provide prompt treatment for incipient and acute insanity, to give wise 

 counsel concerning heredity in relation to nervous and mental disorder and 

 to convert the public to the view that insanity is a disease, not a crime. 



The establishment by the University Medical School of a most efficient 

 department of social service has rendered aid in reducing for many patients 

 the stresses of adverse environment as well as providing for the re-education 

 of many victims of bad mental habits. 



For many years Indiana University has provided courses in mental 

 pathology and the principles of psychotherapy, designed to train laymen to 

 mastery of their own mental lives and to furnish leadership in the state-wide 

 campaign against mental disorder. 



