The Lancaster news. [volume] (Lancaster, S.C.) 1905-current, 1916-11-28
THE FEEBLE.MINDED HOME.

convention in Charleston last week
urged the establishment OF home
for the feeble-minded on number of
grounds:
| In the first place, feeble minded
! ness. so far as medical science now
knows. is absolutely incurable. In
this respect it differs from insanity
for good many cases of insanity
are durable. The insane person has
lost the mind that he once had: we
give him hospital treatment to re.
store his mental abilities. The fee
ble-mindcd person never had any
mind beyond a certain point: lie is
always a child mentally. though
physically he may grow to ripe old
age. What he needs is such care and
training as will make him happy and
content, able to work under super
least in a measure.
In the second place, a high per
centage of feeble-mindedness is ir
herited. That is to say, whatever
may be the other causes OF this sad
affliction, heredity plays the major
part. This fact clearly defines the
best point of attack. The feeble
minded must be kept from propagat-
| ing themselves, two methods of do
/ ing this have been most frequently
mentioned. namely sterilization ano
segregation. The former, though
legalized in several states. has no,
been welcomed by public opinion to
any very considerable extent.
Segregation. on the other hand. is
practical so far as it goes, though
no state has made this or any Other
kind of provision for all it's feeble
minded. South Carolina cannot eX-
pect, as least not in the immediate
future, to provide institutional care
least a beginning in institutional care
should be made in 1917, and, ulti-
mately, as many as can be should be
cared for in this way
In the third place. statistics show
that the feeble-minded propagate
faster than normals. in fact, prob
ably twice as fast. The feeble
minded woman who is poor is in a
very pitable condition. 1t matters
little whether she is married or not.
The State Board of Charities and
Corrections has found one woman
who. according to her own count, is
the mother of ten illegitimate chill
dren. We hope her statement is not
true, but even il half true the case is
serious enough. Another can stand
on her doQrsteps and point out the
homes of seven of her illegitimate
children. Still another has had six
children one of whom is an idiot. an
other a mulatto; and it seems proba-
bic that five of the six are illegitimate
The story of Jennie" indicates how
these conditions may arise without
any intention or appreciation of
moral wrong on the part of the poor
unfortunate girl-woman.
In the fourth place, the number of
feeble-mnded is really alarming.
Apparently, no one disputes the esti-
mate that three out of every one
thousand persons in the general pop
ulation are feeble minded.
AS result of intensive studies OF
thousands of cases, competent stu
dents estimate that twenty to twen.
ty-five per cent Of all criminals are
mentally defective. This percentage
runs much higher among recidivists
or repeaters, that is persons who are
constantly going through the crimin-
al courts. Statistics indicate that
fully forty per cent of the convictions
in the courts of this country each
year are of persons who have been
convicted before. Apparently, too,
this forty per cent of the total con.
victions come from about twenty t.
twenty-five per cent of the totai
number of persons convicted That
! is, about one-fourth of all the Grim
| inals convicted in our courts commit
more than forty per cent of the de-
tected and punished crime.
That this is a conservative esti-l
mate is indicated by the statement
that in Massachusetts in 1914. ac-
cording to official reports, there were
23,303 persons in the prisons of that
state under sentence for crime. OIL
these, 13, ,437. or SIS per cent were
recidivists. or repeaters. having an
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