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6 J. Am. Inst. Crim. L. & Criminology 190 (May 1915 to March 1916)
Eugenics and Feeblemindedness

handle is hein.journals/jclc6 and id is 202 raw text is: EUGENICS AND FEEBLEMINDEDNESS., H. C. STEVENS.2 The study of the problem of feeblemindedness, as prosecuted up to the present time, has developed two fairly distinct phases. The first phase began in the first half of the 19th century with the demonstration by Seguin and others, that feebleminded children could be materially improved by hygienic and special educative treatment. Custodial care in the large state institutions is the practical out- come, and the physical expression, of the efforts for betterment in this direction. On the physical side, this movement had for its object the care and improvement of the health of the mentally defect- ive children. Obviously, where mental deficiency and economic de- pendence are so frequently conjoined, the bodily health of these unfortunates can be better controlled in custodial institutions under the supervision of the state government. No one who is acquainted with the work of the better class of state schools will doubt that a long step forward was taken by the development of these institutions. On the mental side, the program of Seguin and his pupils crystalized in the physiological method of instruction which has becbme the foun- dation of all subsequent systems of training of mental defectives. Two permanent contributions of great value were thus the outcome of the earlier work. With the development of experimental psychology, a new node of attack upon the problem of feeblemindedness was origi- nated. The credit for first perceiving the connection between the chronscope of the psychologist and the cranium of the idiot belongs to Witmer of Philadelphia who began active work in this field in 1896. The publication of the Psychological Clinic in addition to several volumes by Witmer and his pupils has been the incentive to the inauguration of similar lines of study in may places in this country. The value of this study has been in the recognition of the impor- tance of the purely mental factors in, mental deficiency and abnormal behavior of all sorts. The goal of the endeavors of workers in this field has been the development of tests for the analysis of the funda- ' Goddard, H. H., Feeblemindedness: Its Causes and Consequences. The Macmillan Company, 1914, pp. xii. 599. aDirector of the Psychopathic Laboratory Univeristy of Chicago.

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