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The Origin And Nature Of Our Institutional Models

From: Changing Patterns in Residential Services for the Mentally Retarded
Creator: Wolf Wolfensberger (author)
Date: January 10, 1969
Publisher: President's Committee on Mental Retardation, Washington, D.C.
Source: Available at selected libraries

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"Sterilization of the feeble-minded is logically the solution for the problem of prevention of propagation of the mentally unfit where feeble-mindedness is due to heredity. Practically, despite legislation, it has never worked because it is purely an intellectual remedy. It has never considered the prolonged period of preparation and education necessary to change deep-seated primitive attitudes. There may come a time when sterilization of the unfit will be worked into our program, but it will be only when the general level of enlightenment on social problems is materially raised by slow growth" (Taft, 1918, p. 545). "The sterilization of feeble-minded is now universally acknowledged to be impracticable, principally because the line of demarcation between feeble-mindedness and normality is not definite, because the hereditary influence in this field has not been quantitatively determined, because the operation is dangerous, the idea more or less revolting and, possibly, because it is not in consonance with the religious thought of a certain portion of the community. Sterilization, therefore, need not be further discussed at this time" (Cornell, 1915, p. 338).

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Failure of Preventive Segregation. Once mating laws, sterilization, and other measures had been recognized as ineffective or unacceptable in preventing the spread of the retardation menace, only segregation (Fernald 1915 called it "strict sexual quarantine") remained, and it was advanced with utmost vigor by the workers in the field. First, of course, it had to be rationalized to be, at least in part, for the welfare of the retardate. An editorial in the Journal of Psycho-Asthenics in 1899 asked: "Of what is a high-grade imbecile deprived on entering a well-conducted institution?", and concluded he would only be deprived of deprivation. Winspear (1895, p. 163) reasoned as follows: "A moment's thought, and the fact is plain that unprotected feeble-minded women of full physical development are in constant danger themselves, and are always a menace to society, -- a twofold reason why custodial care for this class should be the paramount idea in the State's provision for the feeble-minded. Thus their proper care and protection is a twice blessed charity, in that it blesses the recipient of the State's bounties and blesses society by the removing of a great evil therefrom."

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More direct arguments included the following: "Shall we turn these irresponsibles loose to undo the work of the past and redouble that of the future? Surely history would not write our names among the wise." (Barr, 1899, p. 211) "... I think we need to write it very large, in characters that he who runs may read, to convince the world that by permanent separation only is the imbecile to be safe-guarded from certain deterioration and society from depredation, contamination and increase of a pernicious element" (Barr, 1902, p. 6). "But all of them whether able of productive labor or wholly helpless, or of any grade between these extremes, ought to be permanent wards of the state so long as they shall live" (Johnson, 1901, p. 411).

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In 1905, retarded adult males were characterized in the Maine Senate as "town loafers and incapables," "petty thieves," "incendiaries," and "violators of women and little girls"; females were described as sources of "unspeakable debauchery" which "pollute the whole life of young boys" and who "have illegitimate children every one of whom is predestined to be defective mentally, criminal or an outcast of some sort." Such individuals were to be placed in an institution, and the institution, in turn, was to be placed in an isolated spot. These measures were to save the communities of the state of Maine from "terrible menace" and "economic burdens" of the feeble-minded whose "uncontrolled life and movements threatened great harm to society" (quoted by Levinson, 1960) .

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"The only just and humane and civilized way of stopping the transmission of defectiveness is by segregation" (Johnson, 1908, pp. 333-334). "Every effort must be made to get these defectives out of society ..." "... the degeneracy must cease here" (Johnstone, 1904, pp. 66, 65).

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Consistent with the proposal advanced earlier that retardation should be treated as a communicable disease Murdoch (1909) gave a paper entitled "Quarantine Mental Defectives." Johnstone (1904, p. 66) called for a "... quarantine of this social disease . . . ."

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"On the most important proposition of all -- who gets born -- last year Governor Foss vetoed an increased appropriation for our second school for the feeble-minded. This year, however, provision was made for two new cottages, which will hold two hundred inmates, and cutoff by, perhaps, half that number of source of supply of the unhappy and unfit among future generations. The righteous have sworn the segregation of all the feeble-minded for 1925" (Reports from States, 1912, p. 525).

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Not only were the retarded to be segregated from society, but even within institutions, men and women were strictly segregated, almost to a paranoid and bizarre degree: "The institution that places . . . boys and girls anywhere near each other ... will never do its part in the work of preventing feeble-mindedness in the community." "The institution superintendent who allows feeble-minded boys and feeble-minded girls to work together even in the garden, is running the risk of a second generation of illegitimate feeble-minded children" (Cornell, 1915. pp. 333-334).

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