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But, on the whole, I believe that the measures we are taking to treat the defective classes are really reducing their numbers. For one thing, we keep them shut up in institutions, where they are not allowed to propagate their kind or to teach their vices. A notable exception to this is the county jail system, where prisoners are herded together in idleness to constitute schools of crime and vice. Our methods do also cure many of the defectives. About one-fourth of the insane are permanently cured. From half to two-thirds of the criminals are never convicted a second time. Many paupers and tramps do finally drop back into society again. It is, of course, a struggle which may be made to appear to be tending one way or the other, according as we are optimistic or pessimistic in the bent of our own minds. But I take the side of the optimist and believe that we are gradually healing up these ulcers upon society.

The best sign of the future is that public sentiment and legislation are steadily tending in the direction of prevention as well as cure. Some measures of prevention, like the various phases of child-saving work, have been already fruitful of good results. In other cases it is still doubtful what is best to be done in the way of prevention. But I believe the time is coming when, by the combination of public and private effort, we shall greatly reduce, if we do not entirely eradicate, the defective classes.

In my dealings with them I am sometimes tempted to despair of humanity. But then I look at our churches and schools, our literature and our industries, and, best of all, our happy homes, the pledge of the future, and I take heart again. And I remember that after all the total number of prisoners, paupers, insane, and idiots in the United States is only one per cent. of the population, a less proportion than any other civilized country has.