278 SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR 



citation here. The recent Commission has made it clear 

 that it is absolutely necessary for the State to interfere 

 and prevent this terrible increase of helpless imbeciles. 



There are eighty-four schools in London for the edu- 

 cation of children who are not included under the extreme 

 terms idiots or imbeciles, but are " feeble-minded and 

 defective." They are attended by 6000 children, of whom 

 about two-thirds learn some useful manual work, whilst 

 the rest are hopeless, and require permanent custodial 

 care which at present is not to be had by those whose 

 parents cannot pay for it but will, there is every reason 

 to hope, soon be provided for them by the State. In its 

 absence they constitute a real and ghastly danger to the 

 community, since some of them are certain to propagate 

 their kind, and not only will thus add to the existing large 

 body of imbeciles, but perpetuate the taint of feeble- 

 mindedness in the race. 



It is an interesting question as to whether there is a 

 definite gap a difference of kind between these poor, 

 defective children and the markedly stupid boys and girls 

 of some village schools. I am inclined to believe that 

 there is. The one group does not pass by a gradual series 

 into the other. It has been stated that in some remote 

 country districts of England only one-third of the school 

 children can be taught more than the merest elements of 

 writing, reading, and arithmetic; the majority are im- 

 movably dull, only the minority are as bright as ordinary 

 London children. But even the dull village children get 

 so far as to master the elements of learning, and probably 

 their brains are not structurally defective, but only inactive 

 for the time being. They may hereafter become village 

 Hampdens. It certainly does seem to be the fact that 

 the villages are continually deprived of the more intelligent 

 members of their population by the attractions of the big 

 towns, and that only the duller portion stay to breed in 



