Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/486

 466 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

The early institutions began in a small and tentative way, and with much public criticism and suspicion. Their promoters hoped to win favor by success, which should be demonstrated by graduating their pupils fit for the activities and responsibilities of citizenship. For many years it was not assumed that, in any cases, the institution care should be permanent. Inmates were not (and still in most states are not) committed to the institution, but were admitted under certain rules as to age, residence, etc., much as they are to the common schools. It was long the belief of the managers (as it is today contended by the proprietors of some small private institutions) that, to achieve good results, the number in any one school should be very small. An inevi- table and striking result of this theory was a ratio of cost so high that only remarkable results in the improvement of the pupils could justify its being defrayed from public funds.'

As the years went by, pupils, admitted as children, reached the age limit of the institutions, and were discharged from their watchful and kindly care. Among these, instances became known of imbeciles who, having been under training for years and having greatly improved, were returned to their old wretched surroundings, where they speedily lapsed to their former degraded condition, made all the worse for them by the contrast with their cleanly and orderly life in the institution. Others of a higher grade, discharged as capable of self-support, missing the gentle but firm control to which they had been accustomed, showed traits of character that had seemed eradicated, wandered off and became criminals, tramps, or drunkards. Others settled down to ordinary life, but seized the first opportunity to marry. Some of these became paupers, their children inheriting their defective traits. In every institution there began to be an accumulation of inmates at or past the legal age limit, who yet were so manifestly unfit for self-control that the managers felt it a wrong both to them and to the community to dismiss them.

■ The ratio of expense is still excessive in many institutions. This fact, next to public ignorance and indifference, is the greatest obstacle in the way of that complete provision by the state for all the feeble-minded which is the necessary first step toward diminishing their number.