Library Collections: Document: Full Text

1. North America
2. South America
3. British (with European liaison)
4. European
5. Near East
6. Asiatic
7. Anzac

We have seen in our own association that regional meetings can be, and are, not only successful but highly desirable. So might also world regional meetings be successful with definite scheduled plans for an international congress each decade. These are not ideas of grandeur but rather plans to meet the practical needs of the world's forgotten folks, the mental defectives.

We are the one national and international organization of individuals interested in the various fields of service for the subnormal child. As an organization we should be a potential force in shaping a policy best suited for the ultimate good of retarded children. At the present time we actually have comparatively little influence in political subdivisions because our membership is relatively small and our basic policies are perhaps not clearly crystallized even in the minds of the membership.

What then does the future have to offer in membership? In this field we have but scratched the surface. This association should have at least 5,000 members. In the seeable future this probably will be realized. At present not every institution for the subnormal is even represented in our membership roll. I doubt if all the eligible members of the staff of any one institution are enrolled. What school will be the first to proudly boast of 100 per cent membership of its staff?

We have an increasingly large number of special class personnel in our enrollment but there are many school systems with good special class directors and teachers who are not even aware of this association.

State and City Departments of Welfare are represented in our membership but such representation is relatively small. School physicians, school psychologists and school counselors are all potential material.

The objectives of the Association are published repeatedly but they are rather long and some are becoming obsolete. We need to do a bit of streamlining. They might be condensed and briefly stated something like this: The purpose of The American Association on Mental Deficiency is to study and investigate all phases of the complex problems of mental retardation. Some of the objectives are:

1. Thorough research into the causes.
2. Thorough research into the care and training required.
3. Thorough research into the prevention.
4. Complete examination of all retarded children.
5. Complete registration and census of all retarded children.
6. Complete community programs of care and education.
7. Adequate institutional facilities.
8. Selective sterilization of hereditary types.
9. Parole for suitable cases after adequate training.
10. Adoption of simple but uniform statistical tables for use in, schools and institutions.

Here again I would like to suggest that during 1945-46 the Committee on Standards and Policies undertake two different tasks. One, the streamlining of our objectives and, two, the possibility of revision and simplification of the statistical tables with a view towards making them usable both in institutions and public schools.

Suppose the future does bring us the minimum of 5,000 members. Then the first logical step would be to acquire an executive secretary and publicity director. The potentialities for the good of the field are almost limitless. Next our journal, which thanks to Dr. Humphreys, is attracting wider and wider attention, should become a monthly journal. As such it could wield an ever increasing influence on public thought and thereby yield effective results.

Dr. Humphreys, in his memorandum referred to above, goes a step further. He visualized an international Journal of Mental Deficiency as a result of extension and further differentiation of our journal. Such an extension might well become the logical result of the First International Congress on Mental Deficiency.

There are many ways in which a large and influential American Association on Mental Deficiency could help the retarded individual as well as the nation as a whole. For example, thanks to the cooperation of the United States Bureau of Census, the directors of several state departments, as well as the superintendents of a number of institutions, certain data have been made available to me in order to conduct a partial statistical study of the trends in the institutional population with regard to racial background. This study is incomplete and many of the statistics are not entirely reliable. Nevertheless, certain factors seem to be indicative of positive trends.

First, the rate per 100,000 population in institutions in 1923 was 46.7. This figure has increased to 77.9 in 1941. This is 40 per cent increase during a time when the actual increase in our national population was but 20 per cent. This naturally raises the question: "Where are they coming from?" There are several answers to this question. First it will be said that this was a period when several institutions were built, hence, the increase in numbers. This is true but these new institutions were only a partial answer to the public demand for more facilities. There were long waiting lists in 1923 and there are longer waiting lists in 1945 when the average intelligence level of institutional admissions is on the decline. This then is not the answer.