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The Segregation And Permanent Detention Of The Feeble-Minded

Creator: A. Johnson (author)
Date: March 1906
Publication: Journal of Psycho-Asthenics
Source: Available at selected libraries

1  

I SUPPOSE an apology is due on my part for trying to present a few thoughts on a subject that is so well known to every member of this association. I believe that every member will agree that the segregation and even permanent detention of at least the great majority, if not all of the feeble-minded, is the proper procedure. On the other hand, when you and I discuss this matter with parents or friends having children at an institution, or who are about to bring their loved ones, we find that we do not always display good judgment if we present this matter too forcibly.

2  

Imagine, if you please, a father bringing his boy at the age of eight or ten years to your institution. In the father's mind, he is a very dear little fellow and, aside from the fact that he was a little late in cutting his teeth, talking, and even walking, the father can see little that is wrong with the boy. He expects him to be educated and trained in a general way so that he will become not only self-supporting, but a useful member of society, marry, and perhaps have children of his own. It has been a great struggle on the part of both father and mother to decide to give up their child and place it in the hands of entire strangers. And, if the above referred to results could not be obtained or at least reasonably expected for their child, they would rather keep him at home.

3  

You look the boy over hurriedly as the father must have your opinion before he leaves the institution and, although the father thought his boy was nearly normal, you find that he is small for his age, that he has large, thick lips, with mouth open a great deal, thick tongue, abnormally large ears, and a head that is rather flat and narrow through the temples, but the forehead is very prominent; he talks quite a little when he feels like it, but is often stubborn and will not talk at all. You learn from the father that the boy did not begin to cut his teeth until he was about a year and a half old. He did not walk until he was three years old, and that he was very slow in talking. He has not been to school a day in his life, neither has he been to church or Sunday school. What are you going to tell the father you can do for his boy? It certainly would not be wise at this time to tell him that his boy would have to remain in your institution all his life, and yet, by the experience you have gained from so many similar cases, you know that, in all probability, the child will never develop so that it would be wise and to the best interest of the child, of the family or of so-ciety, ever to discharge him from your institution.

4  

While it may seem strange to some of you that a subject of this nature should be presented at this meeting, I am of the opinion that it can be discussed with profit by this association, for we must remember that many people do not believe as we do in regard to this question and it occurs to me that no one is better qualified from personal experience to present this matter to the people at large than we who are devoting our entire time to the care, training and developing of the feeble-minded.

5  

I suppose most of you have seen a reprint of the paper read by our worthy member, Prof. E. R. Johnstone, at the National Educational Association last year. If you haven't, you surely want to hear what he says on this subject. Prof. Johnstone says among other things: "The place of the school for feeble-minded has long been obscure; of the first one hundred people met upon one of the streets of any of our cities, probably ninety would not know there are such people as the feeble-minded and, possibly, only one of the remaining ten would really know anything of them, and yet, one in every five hundred of the population is feeble-minded, and there is hardly a line of thought into which the feeble-minded person does not enter, either as an object of love in its truest sense, a spur to greater endeavor, a subject of scientific research, a drag upon the progress of a community, or as a positive menace to society."

6  

If what I have just quoted from Prof. Johnstone's paper is true, and I believe every word of it, it is time the public were informed of the condition of affairs and I believe that this should be the mission of this association.

7  

Under this head I would like to include not only the feeble-minded in general but the epileptic as well, for I believe it is quite accurately estimated that of the total number of epileptics, sixty-eight to seventy per cent are either imbeciles or idiots. Only about two per cent are normal and the remaining difference is made up of insane and disagreeable persons in general. In fact, they are the people that should not only be segregated but permanently detained at an institution.

8  

The question of segregation of the mentally incompetent and epileptic has been in the minds of many people not only in our own country but abroad, for many years, and a great deal along this line has been accomplished since the days of Drs. Itard and Seguin in France, who, I believe, were the first to undertake the education of the idiot. In our own country, the principle is firmly rooted in the minds of many of our people that it is not only a privilege but a right that every child should be accorded means for the full development of all his faculties and that this principle applies not only to children born of strictly native parentage but to all feeble-minded alike.

9  

The work of segregation and state care for the feeble-minded has extended so that, if I am not misinformed, there are now twenty-six public institutions for the feeble-minded in twenty-one different states. I am very glad that so many of our western states have recognized the necessity of caring for their feeble-minded, when some of the eastern states that are much older as well as much wealthier, have seemingly neglected their duties in this respect.

10  

The rapid increase of this class, together with the knowledge that has been gained by the study of heredity and nervous diseases in general, have made it clear to those engaged in the work of caring for the mental defectives that it is necessary for the public safety to cut off the supply. This cannot be done by segregation alone; hence, permanent detention must be resorted to. We have learned by experience that the great aim of our work is not cure, for that is impossible. We cannot cure that which is a defect not a disease. The term cure as it is generally understood does not apply to the mental defectives.

11  

As far as I have been able to ascertain, practically all those engaged in the work of caring for, teaching and training this class, are of the opinion that none of those discharged are capable of self-support in all that the term implies. They never become fit for full citizenship although they may be capable of doing many things quite as well as a normal man or woman. The higher powers, intellect, reason and judgment always remain markedly and noticeably at fault, and without intelligent and kindly supervision they inevitably become dependents or worse.

12  

In a paper written by the late Dr. Powell on the care of the feeble-minded, he says: 'The specialist of today has virtually abandoned the belief that the school-training of the imbeciles can ever develop and restore them to safe citizenship. We do not now regard the school-training of the feeble-minded child as an ultimate aim and end, but as the education of the normal child is only preparatory to a participation in the activities of life in the great world, so we propose by similar means to prepare the mentally weak for the exercise of their limited activities in their circumscribed world -- in the institution life -- after the preparatory period is past during which each one is fitted to fill his niche according to the degree of his ability."

13  

Mr. Alexander Johnson in his report of the committee on Colonies for Segregation of Defectives, read at the conference of Charities and Corrections at Atlanta, Georgia, three years ago, said among other things: "It has long seemed to many people that the wisest course the state can take is to separate all true degenerates from society and keep them in carefully classified groups under circumstances that shall insure that they shall do as little harm to themselves and their fellows as possible, and that they shall not entail upon the next generation the burden which the present one has borne."

14  

A minority report was presented by Mary E. Perry and as I believe this report to be very important, I shall take the liberty of quoting it also: "While agreeing in the main with the report as presented by the chairman, I take issue with him in thinking the millenium must come before we are able to put a stop to the fast increasing population of the epileptic and feeble-minded. I believe the remedy is largely in the hands of this conference and instead of reporting annually the statistics and the facts about these people, it would now be well to prepare our several states to call to their assistance the surgeon's knife to prevent the entailing of this curse upon innocent numbers of yet unborn children. It is time we looked this question squarely in the face, and as it is humane, so it is righteous, if resorted to for the sake of the child."