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No such colony exists in its full possible development but there are the beginnings of many such in our country. No state has yet avowedly adopted the policy of segregating all her degenerates. States do not adopt such policies, they slowly and gradually do more and more of what some of their leading citizens think ought to be done, until at last they are doing a great deal more than those who voted for the initial appropriations thought they were being committed to. Yet many states have agreed to care for all their insane, both the acute cases for whom recovery may be hoped and the chronic cases who need permanent care. Many states have got well on the way to care for the feebleminded, not only by establishing training schools where they may be developed as far as their condition admits, but also by maintaining custodial asylums for them, either in connection with the training schools or as separate institutions. A few states have provided similarly for epileptics and the colonies of Sonyea, N. Y., of Gallipolis, Ohio, and the state village for the epileptics of New Jersey, are the first of many to come.

Several states have recently devoted large bodies of land for custodial asylums for the feeble minded on the colony plan. Notable among these are Ohio, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. The colony farm for the adult feeble-minded of Massachusetts is one of the largest of its kind in the world, covering several square miles of land. It is admirably adapted for its purpose and is. being equipped and conducted with great economy. The colonists are housed in simple one-story buildings. They live a normal, homely, country life.

The principle of colonization in a simple way, on cheap land, has become a popular one in Massachusetts, where it is being adopted for the insane. A tract of 1,500 acres has been set aside for a farm colony for the chronic insane and each of the hospitals for insane is making provisions for certain classes of their patients on tracts varying in size from 500 acres down. Massachusetts is the only state, so far as we know, in which the example of the feeble-minded has been so quickly followed by the insane. But others will probably do likewise. We are not surprised to see those who have the care of the feeble-minded taking the lead in economic as well as educational reform.

Besides state institutions, where the care of the defective is usually humane and scientific, another public provision is made in almost every commonwealth for all classes of degenerates. In each of the county or town poor-houses may be found a doleful collection of the wrecks of human life. Here is the last refuge for the broken, hopeless, social failures. Here may be found victims of the sins of their parents, of their own vices, of unchecked vicious heredity. Here children are born to a life of pauperism. Here rest the chronic insane, the idiotic, the unfortunate, the unsuccessful; the criminal who is too old and feeble for crime, the worn out veteran of labor for whom the world's struggle has been too severe. Here is the "talus" of society.

In a few populous counties the poor house is a large building with some attempt at order and classification; these are the exceptions, in most the evils resulting upon the lack of classification are intense. Under conditions which you can imagine more easily than we can describe, the taxpayers support their feebler brethren and sisters, support them, but rarely control them, so that the denizens of these tax-supported institutions often become the parents of another generation like themselves.

Most statesmen are willing to admit that it would be desirable, were it possible, to segregate and therefore control all the degenerates. But the usual objection raised is that the expense of doing this by the state renders it impossible, that the taxpayers are already over burdened. To this two answers may be made: First, that no plan should be considered too costly if it promises results in future economy which would many times offset the immediate expenditures, and that may certainly be expected of any well considered scheme to arrest the propagation of the unfit. The second is that the question of the support of the degenerates is settled. Do your best to avoid them, they are already saddled upon the over-burdened taxpayer; at least the worst of them are so, those for whom this committee would advocate segregation at the state's expense. In some way, either in the state institutions, by public relief of the poor, in the poor house, in the jail or the prison, in the public hospital or by miscellaneous and sundry charity, the degenerates live a parasitic life. They are, and must be, supported by their abler brethren. What we would urge is not to support those who are now supporting themselves, but to do what we must do in the best possible way. 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?"