92 THE TREND OF THE RACE 



no means convinced from the evidence presented that the delin- 

 quents are as nearly normal in their mental development as the 

 author contends. I fail to find in his volume any record of the 

 appHcation of mental tests, and in fact there is very httle discus- 

 sion of the role of mental retardation in juvenile crime. This 

 omission is probably due to the fact that the application of mental 

 tests has been carried on for only a few years. Under the circum- 

 stances, and in view of the contrary findings of other investi- 

 gators, little reliance can be placed on the estimate just cited. 



The number of boys and girls who get into trouble through bad 

 home conditions, evil associates, loss of one or both parents, 

 and various other unfavorable influences is doubtless large, as 

 most students of the subject have shown. While many a boy or 

 girl of good natural mental or moral qualities has been led into 

 criminal ways, nevertheless a considerable proportion of the 

 conditions which predispose children to delinquency are indirectly 

 the result of bad heredity. Intemperance, vice, pauperism, 

 separation of parents, lack of parental control, ignorance, and 

 many other factors to which juvenile delinquency is so often 

 attributed, are very frequently the result of inherent incapacity or 

 defect. Environment, as in so many other cases, gets the credit 

 for what in the long run should be laid to the door of heredity. 



It is probable that an investigation of the men who constitute 

 our tramps and vagrants would demonstrate a degree of mentality 

 much like that in the inmates of prisons. According to Dr. C. H. 

 Parker, "the Department of Education of Stanford University 

 tested two hundred unemployed of the migratory labor class, and 

 almost an even 25 per cent were found to be feeble-minded. 

 Binet tests made in 1913 by the Economic Department of Reed 

 College, Portland, covering 107 cases taken from the unemployed 

 army showed the percentage of feeble-mindedness to be 26." 



Bonhoeffer has made a study of 404 individuals as they were 

 committed to the central prison of Breslau, Germany, for begging 

 or vagrancy. The investigation was confined to individuals who 

 had served repeated sentences before their prison confinement, 

 the number varying from 6 to over 60. These social parasites and 



