628 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION L. 



(iii) Eugenics and Education : The Problem of the Feeble-minded Child. 

 By C. W. Saleeby, M.D., F.R.S.E. 



Eugenics or good-breeding was the term applied by Galton, nearly thirty 

 years ago, to his project of increasing the birth-rate amongst superior stocks. 

 In recent years the, idea has been widened, and we now speak of positive eugenics, 

 the encouragement of parenthood on the part of the worthy, and negative 

 eugenics, the discouragement of parenthood on the part of the unworthy, these 

 terms having been introduced by myself some half-dozen years ago with Sir 

 Francis' approval. 



The primary contention of those whom I call Eugenists is abundantly sup- 

 ported by the feeble-minded child. The eugenist declares that education can 

 educate only what heredity gives, that the feeble-minded child is strictly non- 

 educable, and that the remedy proposed by negative eugenics alone meets the 

 case. Lately the advocates of eugenics have been joined by recruits who employ 

 eugenics as the latest catch-word against ' socialism,' and range themselves as 

 anti-educationists, on the ground that genius and talent will always out, that 

 education really effects nothing, 'nurture' being negligible compared with 

 ' nature,' and that these efforts to save the ' unfit ' disastrously handicap the ' fit.' 



The object of this paper is to protest that grave disservice is done to 

 eugenics by such partisans, and to repudiate them in toto so far as my eugenic 

 demands are concerned. To this end I wish to show that the educator is indis- 

 pensable in the eugenic interest, not least in the case of the feeble-minded child. 

 We do our best for this child until the age of puberty, and then, when our 

 care should be redoubled, the law deprives us of it. The law's delay in this 

 matter is an outrage upon science and humanity. But when it is changed, 

 what are we to do ? The inexpert eugenist demands universal segregation. I 

 suggest that the possible courses are various, that we must make the pro- 

 foundest discrimination possible between one child and another, and that only 

 the educator — with one psychological, and one medical eye — can perform this 

 task. 



The three possible courses are (1) the discharge of the child to become a 

 member of the community and a possible parent; (2) the discharge of the child, 

 after the performance of sterilisation, to become a member of the community, 

 but not a possible parent ; (3) the permanent care of the child : a decision always 

 open, of course, to revision, as in the case of the insane. To adopt the third 

 course in the case of children who are only backward or slow would be out- 

 rageous, as is the adoption of the first in the case of the typical feeble-minded 

 child. The second possibility I merely note here for completeness' sake, and 

 for consideration. 



Now it is the educator alone, and he only through thorough and prolonged 

 observation, who can distinguish between the various types of child. Deaf 

 children, for instance, must be scrupulously classified, and here the work of 

 Kerr Love and Macleod Yearsley must be remembered. The fundamental 

 distinction between acquired and 'congenital' deafness must be made, for the 

 former does not concern the eugenist at all, whilst the latter does. The public 

 must be taught that the deaf child is not necessarily feeble-minded, any more 

 than the deaf Beethoven was. 



Again, it is constantly argued that the eugenist wants to lock up for 

 life a dull or backward child who may merely be suffering from lack of sleep 

 or suitable nutriment. But 'I, for one, wish nothing of the sort. I say to the 

 educator : Yours must be the verdict. Daily for months or years the educator 

 will observe such children, and treat them, until, at adolescence, their real 

 nature will be known, and we can act accordingly. 



I therefore ask educators to pursue their studies by the methods of Binet and 

 the rest, so that, at the critical age of puberty, they may be able to advise 

 society as to the course it must pursue with each child, having regard both to 

 the present and to future generations. 



