Records 65 



Dr. M'Pherson goes on to explain how, in some way, these 

 three youths came into collision with Mr. Mudge during the 

 time he was resident in the island, and annoyed him in various 

 petty ways. " Moreover, during an altercation with the youths, 

 he told one of them that ' he had the face of a criminal, and 

 would come to a bad end.' As human nature is constituted," 

 says Dr. M'Pherson, " it does not require that a person should 

 be either inherently vicious or criminal to resent such language." 



The criticisms I wish to make with regard to Mr. Mudge's 

 statements are these : 



(1) That their author is a member of a society which prides 

 itself upon the thoroughly scientific nature of its investiga- 

 tions, and 



(2) That although he refers to the "few ostensible suc- 

 cesses " of this system, and lightly disposes of them as : 



(a) Having been kept for too short a period, and 



(b) As not showing a sufficiently bad ancestry, yet on the 

 other hand he does not himself bring forward any large number 

 of unsuccessful cases, observed for a sufficiently long period, 

 in order to substantiate the indictments which he has already 

 made. He contents himself with drawing his conclusions 

 from the few boarded-out youths still at work in the village, 

 after school age a number which Dr. M'Pherson has further 

 reduced to 3 (2 of whom, as has been stated, are mentally 

 deficient), 1 and then proceeds to generalise with regard to the 

 total number of children boarded-out in lona by the Glasgow 

 Parish Council after the manner already referred to. I do not 

 know what proportion of mentally-deficient children are actually 

 boarded-out by the Glasgow Parish Council in lona. In the 

 records sent to me there are of course none. 



I should imagine that the same rule would hold good here 

 as in the Industrial Schools and Emigration Homes in England. 

 The point which I have tried to maintain throughout this thesis 



1 In this connection Mr. Mudge does not even attempt to show what proportion 

 the " mentally deficient " bear to the rest of the Glasgow boarded-out children. 







