464 READINGS IN EVOLUTION, GENETICS, AND EUGENICS 



Such cases as those cited are interesting from the standpoint of the 

 student of heredity. They are tremendously significant to the average 

 citizen because there is in the United States a very large feeble-minded 

 population, estimated at 200,000, nine-tenths of whom are at large, 

 free to reproduce their kind, and very prone to interbreed, because the 

 feeble-minded are seldom sought as legitimate mates by persons of 

 normal mentality. The number of feeble-minded is apparently 

 increasing much more rapidly than the general population. How 

 rapidly, it is impossible to determine, for we have no exact data on 

 the number of feeble-minded; we are not yet awake to the enormity 

 of the problem involved. From these feeble-minded come some 



FIG. 99. Family of Charlie M. (From Downing, after Goddard.} 



40 per cent of our prostitutes, a fourth of our criminals, and at least a 

 half of the inmates of our almshouses. 



A generation ago the valley of Aosta, in Northern Italy, was over- 

 run with feeble-minded and idiotic individuals of the type known as 

 cretins. It was estimated that fully 60 per cent of the population 

 were affected with this abnormality. A law was passed and enforced 

 segregating the really irresponsible cases and prohibiting the marriage 

 of cretin with cretin. Now the condition has almost disappeared, and 

 it is estimated that only a very small percentage of the population are 

 cretins, these nearly all old, so that this particular form of idiocy will 

 there very soon be a thing of the past. It seems only a rational proce- 

 dure to accomplish at least a segregation of feeble-minded in this 



