75 



very well what is read ; she simply pronounces the words and they are 

 for her the names of peculiar visual stimuli closely akin to the names of 

 persons whom she knows ; but these words as groups of words have really 

 no meaning for her. 



It frequently happens in feeble-minded girls that there is some special 

 line of action or work in which they can excel ; this frequently offers 

 possibilities for education which may be fruitful. These possibilities are 

 easily discovered by the psycho-clinicist who may have the girl under ob- 

 servation for a considerable length of time. Frequently feeble-minded girls 

 can do simple sewing, cooking, cleaning, occasionally manifest talent in 

 art or industrial work to a certain extent. Feeble-minded girls are 

 usually strongly sexed. For this reason they are easily brought under the 

 influence of lewd men and are led into immorality. It should be said, how- 

 ever, that in the cases of this kind that have come under my own observa- 

 tion the girl has not comprehended at all the nature of her crime. For 

 her the immorality has been a mere species of play, and she is not at 

 all responsible for her act. Juvenile courts, however, rarely take this into 

 consideration in disposing of the feeble-minded girl. Such girls are usually 

 spoken of in the juvenile courts as sexual perverts. This characteriza- 

 tion, however, is a sample of the looseness with which many courts 

 exhibit scientific kuowledge in their ministration of justice. It is my 

 belief that many of the girls of this character who are sent to corrective 

 institutions as sexual criminals possess only the normal sex development 

 of the race, and are in no sense abnormal. They have been led into 

 their immorality by men of low character who are ever ready to take 

 advantage of mental weakness, and such girls are so constituted that 

 they cannot possibly comprehend the ulterior results of the sexual act. 

 It is considered no more seriously by them than the gratification of any 

 other sensual pleasure. It must be borne in mind, too, that mere response 

 to sense stimuli is one of the predominant characteristics of the feeble- 

 minded girl, which fact places her far down in the scale of human in- 

 telligence, more nearly in the category of tbe lower animals than that 

 of human beings, who respond to complex situations with judgment 

 and high discriminative powers. The latter she cannot do. because she 

 has not the cerebral connections for such reactions. 



My third question is: "What shall we do with her?'' This can be 

 answered only in the light of her diagnosis. We must know her mental 



