86 PROCEEDINGS OF THE INDIANA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



Several institutions of higlier learning in our state, are maintaining courses 

 in orthogenif's, training men and women in the diagnosis and treatment of 

 backward and feel)le-minded ehildren. 



This sifting of the school population and the provision of special training 

 for abnormal ehildren, is made possible by the genius of Alfred Binet. The 

 Binet-Simon standard test for mental age, as revised by Goddard, Yerkes, 

 and now presented in its best form by a Hoosier, Dr. L. M. Terman of 

 Stanford University, supplies an efficient instrument for the detection of 

 mental defects. 



This makes possible a grading of school children by mental age rather 

 than by chronological. It enables employers also to sift the industrial popula- 

 tion and promises a new classification of vocations Avith reference to mental 

 level. The feeble-minded cannot advance beyond their level. They cannot 

 therefore win or retain promotion in tasks beyond their capacity. These 

 standard tests should tend to bring the right job to the right man, thus in- 

 creasing industrial efficiency, and replacing discontent and worry and other 

 depressing mental states, with confidence and happiness and good-will. 



8. Two years ago (Jovernor Ralston appointed a commission to study the 

 problem of the mentally defective and insane. The reiK)rt of that commission 

 reveals the existence of more than thirty thousand defective and insane per- 

 sons in Indiana. The number is increasing and the cost of proper care mounts 

 to millions. Out of the work of the commission, grew the Indiana Society 

 for Mental Hygiene, as a member of the American Society for Mental Hy- 

 giene. 



This society is to work for the conservation of mental health; for the pre- 

 vention of mental disease and mental deficiency; and for the improvement, 

 the care and treatment of those suffering from nervous or mental deficiency. 

 It seeks to survey conditions in Indiana, to make known the causes of in- 

 sanity, and to bring to the ])eople knowledge of the means of prevention. It 

 hopes, through public opinion and legal enactment to prevent in time the 

 reproduction of the unfit, and to encourage the adequate provision for earlj' 

 treatment of the mentally sick. When it is known that the chief causes of 

 insanity and feeble-mindedness are heredity, alcohol, syphilis, and head 

 injuries, it is plain that society can and must control these causes 

 through measures of prevention. For in the words of a recent writer, "at the 

 present rate, while we are doubling our population, we are quadrupling our 

 feelile-minded, and multiplying by three our insane. So that within three 

 hundred and fifty years, the crazy people will break out and put us in." To 

 meet these grave emergencies, the Governor's commission makes the following 

 recommendations, which have been adopted by the Indiana Society of Mental 

 Hygiene, as its program of immediate work. 



