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Protecting the Nondeviant From the Deviant

Preceding and paralleling the education and pity periods, there had existed a current of negative attitudes toward the retarded. These attitudes, the three dangerous trends mentioned in the last section, and a new conceptualization of the retardate, combined to shape a new institutional model which is essentially the model embodied in most of our large, public institutions today.

The Early Indictment. The image of the retardate as a social menace grew in a subtle way. As early as the mid 1880's, the alarm was sounded: "But the State, adopting as its policy the protection in institutions of the defective classes, acquires a right of inquest into the causes generating this tremendous burden to the thrifty tax-payer, who must be protected from the rapacious social ills which deplete his own strength" (Kerlin, 1884, p. 262). An early president of the National Conference on Charities and Correction was later quoted by Wilmarth (1902, p. 160) as having said: '"My child, your life has been one succession of failures. You cannot feed and clothe yourself honestly: you cannot control your appetites and passions. Left to yourself, you are not only useless, but mischievous. Henceforth I shall care for you.'" "Is there anything more worthy the thoughtful attention of the statesmen of our land than to improve our methods of support of the weak ones so that we may add to it the needed element "control?" (Johnson, 1903, p. 252).

"... Can it be deemed wise, either for society or the defective himself, to turn him loose after some years of training to make his fight for existence on his own behalf?" "No amount of moral training during his school life can render him capable of judging points of morality for himself or make him proof against temptations to which his natural tendencies incline him to yield. The end will almost inevitably be that he will drift back into the care of the state, but through the gates of crime" (Dunphy, 1908, p. 331). "What in the beginning was a philanthropic purpose, pure and simple, having for its object the most needy, and therefore naturally directed toward paupers and idiots, now assumes the proportions of a socialistic reform as a matter of self-preservation, a necessity to preserve the nation from the encroachments of imbecility, of crime, and all the fateful consequences of a highly nervous age" (Barr, 1899, p. 208).

Fernald (1915, pp. 289-290) summarized the trend as follows: "During the last decade four factors have materially changed the professional and popular conception of the problem of the feeble-minded.

1. The widespread use of mental tests has greatly simplified the preliminary recognition of ordinary cases of mental defect and done much to popularize the knowledge of the extent and importance of feeble-mindedness.

2. The intensive studies of the family histories of large numbers of the feeble-minded by Goddard, Davenport, and Tredgold have demonstrated what had hitherto only been suspected, that the great majority of these persons are feeble-minded because they come from family stocks which transmit feeble-mindedness from generation to generation in accordance with the laws of heredity. Many of the members of these families are not defective, themselves, but these normal nembers of tainted families are liable to have a certain number of defectives among their own descendants. The number of persons who are feeble-minded as a result of injury, disease, or other environmental conditions without hereditary predisposition is much smaller than had been suspected, and these accidental cases do not transmit their defect to their progeny.

3. The cumulative evidence furnished by surveys, community studies, and intensive group inquiries have now definitely proved that feeble-mindedness is an important factor as a cause of juvenile vice and delinquency, adult crime, sex immorality, the spread of venereal disease, prostitution, illegitimacy, vagrancy, pauperism, and other forms of social evil and social disease.

4. Our estimates of the extent and the prevalence of feeblemindedness have been greatly increased by the application of mental tests, the public school classes for defectives, the interpretation of the above-mentioned antisocial expressions of feeble-mindedness, and the intensive community studies. Goddard believes that at least 2 per cent of school children in the first five grades are mentally defective. It is conservative to say that there are at least four feeble-minded persons to each thousand of the general population.

There are reasons for believing that feeble-mindedness is on the increase, that it has leaped its barriers, so to speak, as a result of changed conditions of civilization" (Fernald, 1915, pp. 289-290).

One might add here that a fifth point was the belief that the retarded were reproducing at a more prolific rate than the nonretarded, and might therefore "outbreed" the latter.

The Peak of the Indictment. As time passed, the social indictment of the retardate grew more direct, severe, and shrill. Barr said: "Of all dependent classes there are none that drain so entirely the social and financial life of the body politic as the imbecile, unless it be its close associate, the epileptic" (1902, p. 163). Butler (1907, p. 10) added: "While there are many anti-social forces, I believe none demands more earnest thought, more immediate action than this. Feeble-mindedness produces more pauperism, degeneracy and crime than any other one force. It touches every form of charitable activity. It is felt in every part of our land. It affects in some way all our people. Its cost is beyond our comprehension."