TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 759 



Many persons who are, when left to their unassisted efforts, quite helpless can 

 earn a living, or partly earn a living, when under constant supervision. The 

 lacking will-power can be imposed from without. The late Sir Douglas Galton 

 said that the feeble-minded man could never be worth three-fourths of a man. 

 That three-fourths, at least, could generally be arrived at in proper conditions. 

 His weakness of will makes him obedient to any suggestion ; he can be trained to 

 make use of all the faculties he possesses, and those faculties, though they cannot 

 be made normal, can be greatly strengthened. Thus in good hands he may become 

 nearly self-supporting, while in bad hands he is self-destroying. 



However, the Commissioners in Lunacy have given us a good working 

 definition of the feeble-minded. They speak of ' persons who are known as the 

 feeble-minded. They are not the subjects of such a degree of mental unsoundness 

 as in the opinion of the medical officers renders them certificable in the eye of the 

 law, and they are, therefore, unable to be detained against their will, although 

 they are not sufficiently of sound mind to be able to take care of themselves.' 



Briefly what happens to a feeble-minded boy (and there are three boys of this 

 type to every two girls) is this : He leaves school quite unable to take care of 

 himself ; very often the one wholesome influence of his life ceases with his school- 

 days, his parents being very little stronger in mind than himself. Their one idea 

 is to make him earn money for them. He knows no skilled work and cannot keep 

 a situation if he gets one. He comes upon the streets, sells matches, shoe-laces, 

 papers, and generally ends by turning up in gaol. By this time he has become 

 used to a vagrant life, and as he can only move along the path of the least 

 resistance, and as it is made so much easier for him to go wrong than to go right, 

 he goes wrong persistently, and becomes a confirmed criminal. So he grows up 

 through a pitiful and degraded youth to a pitiful and degraded manhood and dies, 

 leaving behind him ofispriug to carry on the horrible tradition. With the girls 

 the evil, though not more real, is more obvious, and for this reason more attempts 

 have been made to help them than their brothers. Of course, in accidental cases, 

 where the parents are respectable, they do their best for their weakly children, 

 and try to keep them at home or with kindly employers. But if they are of the 

 ■wage-earning class they ultimately, in nearly every case — their natural protectors 

 dying — come upon the rates. The main cause of this terrible evil is, undoubtedly, 

 heredity. The child of a feeble-minded parent is likely to be one degree at least 

 worse than that parent. Dr, Caldicott, of Earlswood, says : ' In our statistics the 

 one cause which stands prominently forward is Heredity, and the more accurately 

 we are able to penetrate the family history of our cases the more we are forced 

 to the conclusion that a very definite " neurotic " taint is i'ound in the direct and 

 immediate progenitors. For my own part I believe this to be as high as 70 to 

 75 per cent.' Dr. Miiller, of Augsburg, also states that 70 per cent, of weak-minded 

 persons are accounted for by heredity. 



The English law has at length recognised the existence of these people as a 

 class, apart both from the sane and the certificated insane. 



It now permits educational authorities to make provision for them, but only 

 up to the age of sixteen. As if those who are mentally unsound at sixteen 

 would be mentally sound at seventeen ! 



In 1898 there were 100,322 children on the books of the public elementary 

 .schools of Manchester. Of these 44,46-3 were in the Board school. I now 

 proceeded to make an inspection of all these Board School children, and I saw at 

 their work, all who were in actual attendance, 39,600. When I saw a child who 

 seemed to me abnormal, I made a special examination of it, speaking also to 

 normal children so as to avoid singling out any one for remark. With the aid of 

 an attendance officer, I took down all particulars concerning the child. In this 

 way I made notes on 525 children. This report would, of course, not in itself 

 have been reliable evidence. But when it was complete we were so fortunate as 

 to secure the help of Dr. Ashby, our great children's doctor, the head physician of 

 our children's hospital, a man whose opinion is acknowledged to be the best 

 possible. He most kindly consented to see all my cases. He examined every 

 child carefully and gave a written opinion on each. He summarised the 



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