Library Collections: Document: Full Text


"The Burden Of Feeble-Mindedness"

Creator: W.E. Fernald (author)
Date: March 1913
Publication: Journal of Psycho-Asthenics
Source: Available at selected libraries

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 7:

49  

Now for the purpose of finding these borderline cases in the community, that is, these cases which ordinarily do not come under the action of the law, the present legislature in New York State has this year created a Bureau of Analysis and Investigation under the State Board of Charities. The first thing they will attempt to do is to correlate family names in the prisons, charities and insanity departments. Then they will send their agents out in the community to find the actual conditions, which action certainly looks very promising.

50  

Dr. Fernald refers to two other very important points, the matter of educating the public concerning the nature of feeble-mindedness and expert advice concerning the possibility of other children being defective, when one such has been born into any given family. The former is very important. In regard to the latter, I have been consulted in several cases and in this connection I would like to ask for information on one thing in animal breeding whether there is anything in the literature of human breeding confirming it. I refer to the notion prevalent among animal breeders that the first offspring will be defective.

51  

Mr. Van Wagenen: Professor Raymond Pearl has lately written a paper which I have on this subject, making some observations from his studies of animal breeding in regard to the question of sterilization. Looking at this matter simply from the scientific and eugenic point of view, any person who is defective, or in whose family, within two generations prior there is known to be one or more defective or insane, should not be permitted to procreate. Any person having one defective child, as soon as the fact becomes known, should not be permitted to procreate any further. He derives these conclusions from his experience in animal breeding.

52  

Dr. H. H. Goddard: Pearson says that the child labor laws in England which resulted in reduction of the size of the families, worked great injustice because the first and second children are inferior, and, exactly as you said, the third, fourth and fifth would have been brighter. Now that the size of the families has been reduced the value of the population has been reduced because the best children have been cut off.

53  

Dr. Bernstein: In three instances, based on my interpretation of the subject and based on my understanding of animal breeding, for I have known of a great many breeders of horses and cattle who didn't think of keeping the first offspring as a part of their fancy stock -- where I couldn't trace any bad heredity within a generation or two, I have advised them to take the chance of having a second child. In one instance it was normal, and in one instance they took no chance. They were particularly interested in having us know the facts and they wanted information on the subject. The mere fact that they had begotten one feeble-minded child at first and there was no marked heredity in the family, did not seem to me to warrant their being deprived of the privilege of having a family.

54  

Dr. Little: Mr. President, coming to the concrete question of placing out in homes, the defective delinquent and the high grade imbecile, the Doctor I know has been advocating that in New York State. As you know there has been a movement going over the state of New York this last year to spread the knowledge of feeblemindedness, but I think we are defeating our own purposes to some extent when some of us take the position that the feeble-minded and the defective delinquent and that higher group should be permanently placed in an institution, and some of us even think that they ought to be placed out in homes. I personally, without any experience in the matter, am opposed to the proposition of placing out in homes any one who has been adjudged a defective delinquent or feeble-minded. It is difficult enough to place in homes normal children, to find satisfactory places for them, and I haven't any faith that the defective delinquent or the feeble-minded will become a success to himself or herself or to the community and that there is no use of agitating a proposition that is bound to fail.

55  

Miss Grace Boehne: Mr. President, may I ask Dr. Bernstein if he looks into the previous record of the child, the record which has caused the commitment of this child to the institution? We have been taught to believe that the high grade morons are quite normal in a way and can do fairly good work if they are under proper supervision, and does not that in many cases bias you in your judgment of the defective child? Would it not be a very advisable thing to get from the person who has committed the child, the previous record of the child's conduct? I know in several of the cases I have been able to persuade children to go to the institutions, the parents were perfectly willing to have them go because they had been taken into court many, many times, and besides, the children had failed utterly in the schoolroom. In one case, not at Dr. Bernstein's institution, the child was left in an institution for a year, and the report came back to me that the child was normal and we were severely criticized for having sent the child to an institution. Now I know definitely that there are two other children in the same family who are defectives. We have had one other child in special classes that has been an entire failure during his entire school experience. This boy, Frank, was continually in trouble, but he was sent from the institution as a normal child and put to work. He made a failure on the farm to where he was sent and belongs to a special class at the present time, though he has had to leave school because of his bad physical condition. Furthermore, another feeble-minded child in the family will be placed in the special classes as soon as she enters the public schools. Now will it not be to our advantage to use the experience we had with the child in the institution in taking care of this one about to enter the schools, or to consider the experience of the workers with the child at large? Now with reference to placing these children on farms throughout the state. It has been my experience that there are many parents who are unwilling to have their children placed in an institution, yet we have got to place them where we can feel that they will be cared for properly. When a child can be committed to an institution and placed in custody and there is no doubt as to the defect, isn't it going to be a wise plan to continue that child's custody? It has been my experience, too, that unless we are very very careful to have a social worker follow-up these cases who are placed on the farms, the children are very much overworked. The farmer does not understand the condition many times, and I know of one instance where the child's health was seriously impaired. He had to be taken from the farm and sent to a sanitarium to recuperate his health.

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10    All Pages