Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 91.djvu/543

 Popular Science Monthly

��is more, they follow the natural lines of least resistance. Unable to overcome tempta- tion, they readily go to any extremes which their narrow and stunted think- ing may dictate. The "high-graders" and "borderline cases" may deceive one — deceive so well that only the experi- enced, after repeated and varied testing and examination, can discover their de- fects. This "almost- normal" type, with his superficial rea- soning and cunning planfulness, consti- tutes the most dan- gerous class imagin- able. At his door can be laid some of the most hideous crimes ever perpe- trated.

Once feeble- minded, always feeble-minded. Edu- cation may improve, watchful care and studied training may render a defective social and law-abid-

���The Equilibrium Test To the trained observer much can be learned from noting a person's powers of equilibrium when in some such position as that here shown. Tremor of the hands, eyelids, face muscles — also marked swaying of the entire body — may suggest the presence of organic incipient or advanced stages

���Picture Puzzle Test This is a highly-colored picture mounted on a wooden frame out of which ten square spaces have been cut. The subject selects from among fifty small square designs those ten which would seem the most logical insertions to complete the picture. Here the subject is inserting a child's bonnet in its proper space

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��ing, but when once criminal tendencies make themselves manifest, segregation is the only course. We need more institu- tions where such un- fortunates can be cared for and pro- tected, developed mentally and manu- ally to whatever de- gree may be possible, and given employ- ment and a mode of living best suited to make them useful and happy.

The insane were once normal and are now mentally sick. This in itself means irresponsibility. The proper treatment here is even more obvious. What good is a prison sentence ? Surely it does not reform. We are be- ginning to see that the jail is no place for an irresponsible person. The padded cell is giving place to the hospital. But the change is all too slow. Only too often one suffering from paresis ("softening of the brain") is arrested, sentenced and jailed; the underlying cause of his misconduct is wholly undetected ; perhaps he is looked upon as a drunkard because of his strange antics. Yet paresis is an incurable mental disease that al- ways leads to dementia. So, many mild insanities pass through the courts unrecognized.

A Laboratory Where Criminals Are Studied

The work of the Psychopathic Laboratory proved a number of things. Of the cases chosen from the daily police "line-up," and the cases examined at the request of Police Lieutenants, Magistrates, judges of other courts, Department of Correction, and the Parole Com- mission, about 50 per cent of the first 450 prisoners studied were

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