Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/351

 CONCERNING A FORM OF DEGENERACY

333

Recent tabulations of pauper records show, what might have been expected a priori, that the relations between that form of dependence and mental defectiveness are very close.' The result of hundreds of experiments with children of paupers is conclusive that the alleged hereditariness of pauperism is rather the result of infantile environment than a true taint of blood. From which we may safely conclude that, in the relation between pauperism and feeble-mindedness, the latter is the cause of the former, rather than vice versa.

The feeble-minded and idiotic of the United States now number about one hundred thousand,' less than ten thousand of whom are under adequate care and guardianship, in the schools and asylums provided by the states, or in private institu- tions of the same kind. 3 Most of the other 90,000 are suffering various degrees of neglect. Some are in town or county poor- houses, or other unfit institutions, where a small per cent, are use- fully employed ; the others, at the best, are harmless ; most of them are mischievous. Some are in private homes, a burden almost heart-breaking where they are kindly cared for, suffering unspeakable cruelty and degradation where they are abused or neglected. Some are wandering about, debased and debasing. Few are in anything but unfit surroundings. Many are repro- ducing their kind, with little or no hindrance. Few poorhouses of the land are without one or more families of imbeciles among their inmates. Still more numerous are the cases of idiotic

■ See " Feeble-mindedness as an Inheritance," by E. BiCKNELL, quoted above. ' The following figures from the United States census may be useful for reference :

1850

i860

1870

1880

1890

Feeble-minded and idiotic

Insane

'5.787

'5, 610

9,803

9,794

'8.930 24.042 12,821 12,658

24,527 37,432 16,205 20,320

76,895 91,997 33.878 49.928

95.609

106,254

41,283

50,411

Deaf-mutes

Blind

3 There are about thirty-four such institutions now in this country, twenty-four supported by nineteen states, the remainder controlled by private enterprise and sup- ported by tuition payments. For recent statistics see "The Care of the Feeble- minded," by Dr. F. M. Powell, in Proceedings of the Twenty -fourth National Con- ference of Charities and Correction, Toronto, 1897.