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termine what society considers to be the correct attitude, deliquencies will 

 quite likely result. These are the ones who commit the acts of violence, 

 malicious destruction, assault, rape, sodomy, and other sexual abnormalities 

 and perversions. No hope can be held out in these cases. 



Many there are, even of feeble-minded families, who living in the less 

 exacting environment of the thinly populated districts, exist unaided by 

 tilling their small plot or by performance of the tasks of drudgery and 

 attract not even the notice of the communities in which they live. But 

 when the unusual occurs, hardships or difficulties arise, they lack the 

 judgment and foresight necessary to carry them through. Then the easiest 

 way out is the only way, and they come into conflict with the law. 

 This is not the class of the delinquent boy, but is the class into which 

 the delinquent boy often later falls, and this element of his future must be 

 considered in handling his case. This is the class found in large num- 

 bers in our reformatories and prisons. 



A few cases from our own laboratory will serve to make concrete some 

 of these types: 



A colored fellow of very low mentality is serving a sentence for petit 

 larceny. He had once been Committed to an Illinois prison for cutting a 

 white foreman who had attempted to take advantage of him by withholding 

 a portion of his pay. While traveling to a point in Indiana at which he 

 expected to find work, he fell in with a white man who took some rail- 

 road brass and told this fellow to carry it into the next town where they 

 would sell it and divide the money. Not appreciating the nature of his 

 act, he walked into town with the brass under his arm and when arrested, 

 his director, who had followed at a distance, disappeared. Under a con- 

 trolled environment and cared for, this subject is a very hard worker at 

 the menial tasks and says that the only mar to perfect happiness is that 

 he can not have tobacco. 



One boy of sixteen years is but eight years of age mentally and comes 

 from a feeble-minded family and a vicious environment. His brother has 

 been in our institution and other relations have been incarcerated. When 

 he was eight years old, his mother refused longer to own him and at that 

 age he was thrown upon his own resources. But he soon provided for his 

 future care by performing certain acts which obtained admission for him 

 into the reform school, and he has been a ward of the State almost con- 

 tinually since that time. Besides his mental incapacity, he is physically 

 subnormal and distinctly unstable. He is also a pervert and is a contain- 



