each should have its own trustees, devoted to its individual welfare, who believe it to be the most important and meritorious enterprise fostered by the state, and who will plan and fight for it with that dominating conviction and impulse.

(6) That generally, if not universally, the establishment of a central board of control cannot be effected without the abolition of the central supervisory board, as well as of the local boards of trust; and the injury thus done to the system as a whole is greater than any advantage which might accrue to the state in some other direction.

The proposal to establish a central board of control usually originates, I think, in the brain of some scheming politician, who wishes to strengthen a political machine by the addition to it of the state. charitable institutions, which can be effectively used by an adroit and unscrupulous political manager as an aid to the control of caucuses, primaries, and conventions, and in the carrying of elections. They can of course be far more effectively used for this purpose if they have a single head, himself a member of the machine and in sympathy with its general aims. The motive which prompts the suggestion is concealed, and the ostensible motive put forth is the intention to secure better business organization, improved business methods, which appeals to business men not politicians, and who claim still less to be experts in benevolent work. Into the hands of these schemers those reformers play, who are impatient because reforms grow slowly, with the gradual education of public opinion, upon which they at last depend for moral support, and who imagine that they can be effected by the concentration of authority in a board which can issue and enforce the necessary orders. But does not this authority, this power, already exist? Why is it not used? Why suppose that one set of men will accomplish what several sets of men working in harmony cannot accomplish?

A central supervisory board is apt to be far more active and efficient than a board of control in the matter of arousing public interest in the benevolent work, both of the state and of private individuals or associations, and of educating public opinion on social questions as related to public and private charity. It is natural, is it not, that an executive board which believes itself to be doing all that can or ought to be done, with the means and facilities at its disposal, should be indifferent to public opinion or sensitive to criticism of its methods by the community? But a supervisory board, whose function

is criticism, welcomes and stimulates the closest inspection of public and private charities by the public at large, feeling that in such inspection it receives moral support of inestimable value to the state.

Personally, I dread the creation of centralized boards of control. They are less objectionable if they have charge only of single groups of institutions, as, for instance, all the hospitals and asylums for the insane or all the prisons. They are also less objectionable in small states than in the larger ones. They would be very much less objectionable if they did not mean the abolition of the supervisory boards but two central boards cannot ordinarily be maintained in If they could, there would almost inevitably exist rivalry one state. and conflict between them.

V.

The Feeble-minded and Epileptic.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON FEEBLE-MINDED
AND EPILEPTIC.

BY DR. A. W. WILMARTH,

SUPERINTENDENT WISCONSIN HOME FOR THE FEEBLE-MINDED.

In choosing the subject for this report, we find it especially difficult to bring up matter which may be new to this Conference; for the history of the work has been fully and ably described in past sessions. While steady progress has been made during the past year, nothing especially new, to my knowledge, has been developed. On consulting the other members of the committee, however, I find that there is one subject which is quite generally felt to be of extreme importance; and, although this has been brought before the Conference more than once, very little has been done to rectify the evil. This subject is the adoption of more radical measures for the prevention of the increase in the number of defectives. This increase appears to more than keep pace with the provision which the public is able and willing to make for their care. I have therefore ventured to bring this subject again to your hearing, asking your counsel as to the best method to pursue to obtain the curtailment of the evil, and your aid in enlightening the public in regard to the necessity of such a course.

The public, while liberal in all its charities, demands that the funds so appropriated should be wisely and economically expended, and that the cost should be kept as low as possible, consistent with the best methods of carrying on the work. Out of the many millions of dollars which are contributed and expended for the care of the defective classes, no inconsiderable proportion is expended for

the care of those suffering from some defect in the nervous system. This class includes both the epileptic and imbecile, for they are almost inseparably connected. Considerably over one-half of the feeble-minded have, at some time of their life, suffered from convulsive disorders as a complication of their condition; while, on the other hand, only a small percentage of confirmed epileptics escape. without mental deterioration. So closely related are the various centres of the brain, both in function and structure, that injury to the intellectual centres is extremely liable to implicate the motor centres and vice versa.

It is doubtful if much adverse criticism can be justly bestowed on the expenditure of funds in conducting modern institutions. Many years of experience have taught us economy of administration; and, while the efficiency of service is constantly increased, the cost of maintenance is gradually diminished. It will be found, after making due allowance for the number cared for and the difference in cost of supplies at various points, that the average per capita cost is remarkably uniform. There is, however, a process of waste so farreaching and so enormous in its aggregate that it seriously demands correction. This lies in the increase in the number of defectives by birth, an increase which grows in geometric ratio. With few excep-. tions, we may say that all writers who have studied the subject closely believe that parental characteristics as surely tend to descend to offspring in the human race as they do in every other living organized being. We are entailed with certain mental characteristics, as we are with certain physical features, which, however we may modify, we can never entirely eradicate. This tendency to transmission of physical and mental characteristics, which may or may not be modified, or apparently overcome by alliance with stronger organisms, constitutes what we term heredity; and we frequently see where this may be apparently corrected in one generation, only to be revived with intensified vigor in the succeeding one. Assuming this for granted, is it not evident that, while we are giving the care to our unfortunate charges which is only their just due, the burden of their support is liable to be an ever-increasing one, unless their generation ends with themselves?

Is it the tendency in degenerate families to rear a larger number of children than those of average intelligence? It would appear to While nature tends to cease increase in cases where infir

be so.

mity is marked, this is by no means true where only the higher faculties are affected. Large families are found among all grades of society; but investigation seems to indicate that, the higher the mental training of the parents, the less numerous the family, as a rule. Dr. Kiernan, who has made a considerable study of this matter, quotes Valenta, who had under observation two epileptics, mother and daughter. The mother had thirty-eight children: the daughter at forty years of age had been mother of thirty-two. These, of course, are isolated instances. Kiernan states that the average number of children in ninety degenerate families, which he had observed, was eleven; while multiple births occurred more than ten times as frequently as in the population taken as a whole. I need not quote again the enormous increase in a few family lines, which have been described before this Conference in the past. The largest family coming to my own personal knowledge was eighteen. I asked the sheriff, who had brought one of the children to my care, how many of the family were feeble-minded. He said he did not know, but they were all "queer." Some of them were in the Industrial School, being incorrigible; and they all seemed selfish, and had very little interest in one another. A second family of sixteen children has nearly the same history; while in a third family, where there were fourteen children, not more than four were in any way bright.

Coming from the ports of Europe, among the thrifty and hardy emigrants who blent their lives with the resident population and did so much toward the rapid development of our country, were found so many individuals who proved after their landing a social burden that at last public attention was strongly drawn to this subject. John W. Keller, Commissioner of Charities of New York City, states, in an official report, that, out of 2,936 inmates of the almshouse on Blackwell's Island, only 564 were born in this country. Stringent laws have been framed to prevent this imported addition to the public expense, and injury to public morals. Some of these people may have been sent here by intent to avoid the cost and trouble of their support. Many, no doubt, were brought here by relatives, who cling more closely to their afflicted ones on account of their very weakness. Still more were probably influenced by the spirit of unrest which generally accompanies non-success; and they changed location, as the slightly mentally incompetent do in this country, moving from place to place, living as best they can, and mov