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any trade can only be a matter of learning a certain number of move- 

 ments, yet this may be sufficient to enable them to earn a living on the 

 outside when we are forced to release them. Agricultural pursuits are 

 especially advantageous, as here the demands of the ((immunity are not so 

 complex. At such a time as we release them, it is our duty to see that 

 they are placed in environments to which they are best adapted and where 

 the effects of our care and guidance may be such as to insure for then 

 peaceful lives which for society is the greatest protection. 



The investigation of delinquents is now being carried on through 

 departments of research in a number of penal institutions throughout the 

 country. In the Indiana Reformatory we are gathering much valuable 

 material of all phases of this subject, but there is one thing which inter- 

 feres with our efficiency. Every psychologist and psychiatrist recognizes 

 that feeble-mindedness. as well as insanity, is evidenced in other ways 

 than by intelligence alone, and while a psychological analysis will bring 

 forth the defect in the majority of cases, there are a great many of the 

 borderline type that can be rightly understood only by careful investiga- 

 tion of the heredity, family history, developmental history and environ- 

 mental conditions of the subject. This work presupposes trained field 

 agents upon whom a great amount of work would necessarily fall. In 

 most cases our laboratory now has no information as to those particulars 

 other than that which we have been able to obtain from the inmate, and 

 this is unreliable often because of false representation, but more often 

 from a lack of knowledge of the things desired. Our men know pitifully 

 little about themselves or their families, especially in those cases in 

 which we are the most anxious to obtain, accurate information. Many a 

 man has considered it strange that we should expect him to know the year 

 of his mothers death, the number of years he spent in school, the num- 

 ber of tim.es he failed there or whether he was six or twelve at the time 

 of an illness. This developmental period, which is very important to us. 

 exists for him only as a hazy portion of his existence. It is only as 

 legislatures will provide for such needs of our state clinical laboratories 

 that we will be able to contribute to the fullest extent to the thorough 

 understanding of the relation of feeble-inindedness to delinquency. 



