85 

 Where the Feeble-Minded Are Self-Supporting. 



Hazel Hansford, Indiana University. 



It has long been recognized that many of the feeble-minded can be 

 made self-supporting in a relatively simple environment if properly 

 trained for the things which they can best do. This is being done for a 

 small number of these unfortunates in some of our institutions. The 

 boys are being taught wood work, farming under supei"vision, while the 

 girls learn to cook, sweep, and to do many other simple household tasks. 

 In this way they earn their keep, whereas if turned loose in the world, 

 most likely they would become dependents. 



Very little is being done in the way of educating our mental defec- 

 tive to earn his own living. Our state law compels him to attend the 

 public schools until he is sixteen, where he studies the same things as 

 the normal children. He remains in each grade for two or three semes- 

 ters, or until the teacher is tired and is ready to push him onto the next 

 instructor. As a result he ends up in the fourth or fifth grade with 

 nothing in his head to show for his long years of wasted time, the 

 wasted time of the teacher, and the other iDupils. He knows no arith- 

 metic, grammar, or history. All has gone into one ear and out of the 

 other. He is turned loose with no training. He and his brothers and 

 sisters go into unskilled labor, maybe. Sometimes their life-long profes- 

 sion of idleness begins immediately. If they are lucky enough to reside 

 some distance from town, they will probably get by as farm tenants — the 

 kind that moves to a new place every year. 



For some time the writer has been making a study of a family of 

 mental defectives and it has been interesting to note the kind of occupa- 

 tions common to the different groups within the larger group. To give 

 some idea of two of these groups and their characteristic employments, 

 some facts concerning the family will be given very briefly. 



About 1798 there came from Virginia to Kentucky a man whom we 

 will call John Jones. We know little about him except that he hunted 

 most of the time. His family raised corn, part of which was made into 

 cornmeal, and part into that beverage for which the Kentucky mountains 



