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The types of delinquencies of boys of the feeble-minded class, then, 

 are many and depend upon the peculiar combinations of circumstances 

 which chance may throw about them in their environments. 



The feeble-minded boy is usually a member of a family of degenerate 

 type. This degeneracy may be due to feeble-mindednss itself, to intemper- 

 ance, or other causes may be to blame, but at least the family has fallen 

 into the lowest strata of society. What mental defect the boy may be 

 given is then of a lower instead of a higher order. The instruments 

 for the implanting of the higher ideas and ideals, the church and the 

 school, are either absent or ineffectual. If the family in its descent has 

 become criminal, the boy is trained in the criminal paths, into which he 

 falls quite readily. If not actually trained, he is encouraged by a family 

 attitude which countenances this sort of thing. 



Even though the family is not directly responsible, it has thrown him 

 among associates of the lowest kind and surrounded him by the at- 

 mosphere of the slums or. in the small town, of the saloon and the gang. 

 These people will train him, will assist him and will encourage him in 

 starting upon a career of antagonism to law and order. A high level of 

 intelligence is required to rise of itself above surroundings such as this, 

 but our feeble-minded boy stays where he is put. He makes an excellent 

 tool ; he does not reason, nor appreciate the full nature of his acts, but 

 he can be induced to perform quite difficult feats for those whose only 

 labor is his instruction and who receive the lion's share of the profits. 

 And, of course, having performed the act, he is the one who pays the 

 penalty if caught, while the real criminal remains hidden. 



The public schools, the churches and the charitable organizations have 

 long fought the various instruments of suggestion, the dime novel, the 

 yellow periodical, the moving picture film of similar nature, et cetera, most 

 potent factors in the production of juvenile delinquency ; but how much 

 more influence do these things have when the mentality is so low that the 

 counterbalancing elements are not present. When the environment is of 

 the slum type, how much additional material for suggestion is presented 

 that can not be controlled other than by the removal of the boy from these 

 surroundings. He does not possess the wider and deeper mental interests, 

 so seeks the activities, which even the feeble-minded demand, in some 

 lower form. 



Only recently have we recognized that weak-mindedness is present 

 in a great portion of those boys who fail to progress in school and soon 



