176 
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters . 
THE DEFECTIVE CLASSES. 
By A. O. WRIGHT, 
Secretary of the State Board of Charities and Reform. 
The defective classes form a series of small but very troublesome tumors 
upon the body politic. For various reasons, ranging all the way from the 
imperative need of protection to society up to those humane influences for 
which our century is distinguished, these classes have fallen under the 
more or less effective guardianship of government in all civilized coun¬ 
tries. Private effort is also doing much to palliate or to prevent the evils 
which the defective classes bring on themselves and upon society at large. 
And still there is everywhere an apparent, if not a real increase in the 
number of these classes and in their ratio to the total population. It is 
claimed that this increase is in many cases caused by the very efforts 
which are made to care for them, and it is at least certain that these ef¬ 
forts bring to light many cases of evil which would have been hidden, and 
preserve many miserable lives which would have been allowed to perish in 
former days. In other cases it is claimed that the complex conditions of 
modern society favor the increase of these classes. At any rate the subject 
deserves attention and study by the philanthrophist as well as by the 
statesman, by the student as well as by the man of affairs. 
It seems to me that the following classification of the defective classes, 
which is original w T ith me, is more philosophical than any other I have 
seen and also as good for practical purposes as any other. This classification 
depends upon the three divisions of the mental faculties which are gener¬ 
ally accepted by psychologists. Insanity and idiocy are different forms of 
defective intellect. Crime and vice are caused by defect of the emotions 
or passions. And pauperism is caused by defect of the will. Blindness 
and deafmutism are defects of the senses requiring special forms of edu¬ 
cation, but are not defects of the mind any more than the loss of an arm 
or a leg. Blind or deaf and dumb people properly educated are not a bur¬ 
den or a danger to society as are criminals, insane persons or paupers. 
Their defects are physical not mental, and they should not be classed with 
persons who have these mental defects. 
The above^classification has the advantage of starting from the center 
instead of from the circumference. “The mind is the measure of the 
man” andjt is the abnormal and defective mind which produces the mis¬ 
chief rather than the physical disability or the social conditions. Doubt- 
