26 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



sanity, to counteract tbe subtle forms of organic disease, and to 

 educate the feeble-minded and still allow these pre-natal and con- 

 stitutional disorders to flow on through countless generations of 

 the unborn. Of course we assume in our argument, that it is the 

 province of the state, acting from considerations of the highest 

 political economy, to care by systematized and organized effort, for 

 such of the unfortunate as cannot care for themselves, or whose 

 wants friends cannot suj)ply. The insane can, not unfrequently 

 be rendered happy and useful, but even sane. The idiotic can, by 

 skillful treatment of the educator be developed into the self-re- 

 liant, self-sustaining intelligent being. The orthopedic surgeon can 

 bring beauty out of deformity, and can so change those flexures 

 that deform and weaken the physical anatomy, as to bring nature 

 to her true and original lines, and impart a new strength and vi- 

 tality. 



But the prosecution of all these lines of experiment and modes 

 of rendering the combined skill of the civilized world available, 

 require large outlays of time and money. And is it not vastly 

 better that the state, acting in her organic capacity as the agent of 

 human society, should encourage and aid by her own means, the 

 foundation of institutions for such purposes, rather than to leave 

 the large numbers of these unfortunate people to the ill-directed 

 and uncertain efforts of poor, and often unintelligent families, to 

 get along with their herculean difficulties as best they may ? Is 

 it not better, therefore, that the state should tax herself a little to 

 help the blind to become an intelligent, self-sustaining member 

 of society, or to cure a child of some dwarfing deformity or some 

 smiting paralytic stroke, rather than tax herself much by and by 

 in maintaining these victims of relentless misfortune in poor- 

 houses in the long years of their future? Such a question can, I 

 apprehend, have but one answer. 



But above and beyond all this, the state has another and more 

 important duty to perform, to society, than that of merely taking 

 care of such as have come into the world under the blight of some 

 terrible misfortune. This other and higher duty is so to modify 

 its legislation as to prevent the propagation of congenital idiocy, 

 deforming insanity and organic disease. I know that in venturing 



