212 THE FAMILY AND THE NATION 



Nevertheless, the reserve of health, strength, and 

 ability in the British people is very great. Could they 

 be awakened to their danger, there is yet room for 

 repentance, recovery, and perhaps for advance to levels 

 higher than any hitherto reached. 



Certain possibilities of action seem open to us when 

 we realize the importance of the issues at stake. By 

 legislative reform we may segregate the worst types of 

 the feeble-minded, the habitual criminal, and the hope- 

 less pauper, and thus weed out of our race the con- 

 taminating strains of worthless blood. Beyond that 

 point in this direction it would be unsafe to go, till 

 we understand much more fully the principles of the 

 science of inheritance. 



As far as legislation is concerned, two problems 

 are ready to be attacked : those of the feeble-minded 

 and of the "able-bodied" pauper. On these subjects 

 two independent Royal Commissions have reported, 

 and we are but waiting till political exigencies allow 

 the Government to propose legislation. Let us 

 hope that questions of such fundamental importance 

 may, by mutual consent, be treated as unfit ground for 

 party strife. 



The Commission on the Care and Control of the 

 Feeble- Minded recommend that the powers of the 

 present Lunacy Commission should be enlarged and 

 strengthened, so as to enable them to deal with all 

 types of mental defect. At present the control over 

 those unhappy children who are feeble-minded ceases 

 at sixteen years of age — exactly when it is beginning 

 most to be needed. If the recommendations of the 



