ing and could not continue to carry the heavy burden without a break in health. But this family had never had "relief." The mother's fine spirit of independence revolted at the thought. With her helpful clues, the social worker located the man and his place of employment, nearly two thousand miles distant. She corresponded with the employer, who interviewed the deserter effectively. The first check for the payment of overdue alimony amounted to one hundred and twenty dollars. Second and third checks have followed, and the employer continues to exercise a wholesome effect on the delinquent father.

Another case from the same bulletin is as follows:

For the third time a husband deserted. He left a wife expecting confinement and three young children. The wife appealed for help and got it. The social worker also notified relatives in Nebraska about the family's predicament. The relatives volunteered to receive mother and children and care for them until after the birth of the baby. They appreciated being told of the situation. Before she secured transportation for the family, the social worker got from the mother all possible clues as to the deserter's whereabouts. She also kept in touch with the mother after the family left Iowa. She located the husband in Tennessee and reported to the sheriff. He went to Tennessee and brought the deserter back to Iowa. The judge who tried the case found the man guilty of wife and child abandonment, bound him over to the grand jury, and placed him on parole. He must report to the judge once a week. If he deserts while on parole and is located again, he can be sent to the penitentiary without further formality. This has been carefully explained to him. Meanwhile he is working. His wife and children have been brought back to Iowa and he is supporting them.

85. RAPID MULTIPLICATION OF THE DEGENERATE 1

Reiterated over and over again in the letters of correspondents of the Commission is the problem of the hopeless misery of children bred recklessly in degenerate families. Typically such families are

1 From the Report of the Iowa Child Welfare Commission, pages 43-47. State of Iowa; 1924.

carried over their straits by county relief, only to produce another baby and return for more help. Many of the worst cases are placed in state institutions, but instances have been reported of releases of feeble-minded girls in early womanhood, and of subsequent swift reproduction of their kind. The following cases are reported to the Commission:

A district judge reports two families which he has had in his court. One consisted of a husband and wife and seven children ranging in age from sixteen downward. The county superintendent had found this family in a one-room hovel, furnished with one bed and a pile of straw for sleeping accommodations. Neither of the parents had any idea of the ages of any of the children. Those of the family who had been in school had never been able to advance beyond the first grade. Both parents are hopelessly incompetent and should never, in the opinion of the judge, have been permitted to marry. The other case was a family of the same size, discovered last fall under practically the same circumstances, and cared for during the winter at the county home. The mother was apparently subnormal. The father, when asked by the county steward why he failed to send his children to school, replied that he could see no need for an education, since he had never had one and was getting on all right.

"The children of this first family in particular," says the judge, "will be public charges of the state as long as they live, and should they be at liberty at any time could under the laws of the state secure the right to bring another generation of like character into the world."

A striking instance, of which there is a very full record, of the way in which Iowa relief agencies have in fact, but unintentionally, promoted the birth of feeble-minded children is the story of a certain woman who was born in Iowa. She was placed by her mother, at the death of her father when she was five years old, on the county poor farm. It has been discovered that she never developed mentally beyond the maturity of a child six and a half years old. When she was thirteen years of age she was placed out to work, and told that she would have to do whatever she was ordered to do. To her

childish mind this included accepting sex attentions urged upon her by men and boys in the families where she worked. She promptly became pregnant and was returned to the poor farm for confinement. This episode was repeated in various forms eight times. In the midst of her career she married and had one legitimate child; the other eight were illegitimate. In 1919 this woman moved to Minnesota, came promptly to the attention of the Children's Bureau of that state, and for the first time was the object of an intelligent attempt to deal with her case.

It is a travesty on the Iowa situation that this child with a woman's body and a mother's responsibilities gave birth to eight illegitimate feeble-minded children without receiving any study by a worker trained in dealing with social or mental problems. It was necessary for her to go to another state and give birth to an eighth child illegitimately before the more adequate social provisions of that state took cognizance of her case. Iowa's need for a similar state children's bureau could hardly have stronger emphasis.

A statistical study made in a certain city in Iowa by the Iowa Child Welfare Research Station indicates that, in that city, families producing children of low mentality as shown by mental tests are multiplying much more rapidly than families producing children of greater intelligence and energy.

86. THE TARES BID FAIR TO CHOKE THE WHEAT1

In a rural part of Pennsylvania lives the L. family. Three generations studied "all show the same drifting, irresponsible tendency. No one can say they are positively bad or serious disturbers of the communities where they may have a temporary home. Certain members are epileptic and defective to the point of imbecility. The father of this family drank and provided little for their support. The mother, though hard working, was never able to care for them properly. So they and their twelve children were frequent recipients of public relief, a habit which they have consistently kept up.

1 From Popenoe and Johnson, Applied Eugenics, pages 167-168. The Macmillan Company, New York; 1918. Reprinted by special arrangement with the publishers.

Ten of the children grew to maturity, and all but one married and had in their turn large families. With two exceptions these have lived in the territory studied. Nobody knows how they have subsisted, even with the generous help they have received. They drift in and out of the various settlements, taking care to keep their residence in the county which has provided most liberally for their support. In some villages it is said that they have been in and out half a dozen times in the last few years. First one family comes slipping back, then one by one the others trail in as long as there are cheap shelters to be had. Then rents fall due, neighbors become suspicious of invaded henroosts and potato patches, and one after another the families take their departure, only to reappear after a year or two.

"The seven children of the eldest son were scattered years ago through the death of their father. They were taken by strangers, and though kept in school, none of them proved capable of advancement. Three at least could not learn to read or handle the smallest quantities. The rest do this with difficulty. All but two are now married and founding the fourth generation of this line. The family of the fourth son are now county charges. Of the fourteen children of school age in this and the remaining families, all are greatly retarded.

"There is nothing striking in the annals of this family. It comes as near the lowest margin of human existence as possible and illustrates how marked defect may sometimes exist without serious results in the infringement of law and custom. Its serious menace, however, lies in the certain marriage into stocks which are no better, and the production of large families which continue to exist on the same level of semi-dependency. In place of the two dependents of a generation ago we now find in the third generation 32 descendants who bid fair to continue their existence on the same plane certainly an enormous multiplication of the initial burden of expense."

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1

1 Dr. W. E. Key, Feeble-minded Citizens in Pennsylvania, pages 11, 12. Public Charities Association, Philadelphia; 1915.

87. THE PROBLEM OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED 1

The term "feeble-minded" is used today as a generic term to include all the varieties of mental defect. In general three grades of feeble-mindedness are now recognized. The first or lowest grade is the "idiot," ranging in intelligence from nothing up to the intelligence of a two-year-old child. The second grade are “imbeciles," who range in mental age from 3 years to 7. The third or highest grade, the "morons," have intelligence ranging from that of a child of 8 to that of a child of 12 or 14 years.

The idiots do not have sufficient mentality to enable them to properly care for their own physical wants. The imbeciles, while able to attend to their own wants, to care for their person and dress to some extent, and to comprehend fairly well what is said to them, show by the most elementary intelligence and social tests a subnormal mentality. The morons include high-grade defectives who, but for careful tests, would not be rated as feeble-minded. In each of these classes there are subclassifications, determined by not only the degree of intelligence but by social tests of conduct. Those of the third class are usually capable of some education, since they possess a degree of mentality only slightly lower than that of an adolescent child; yet they are not able to progress beyond that point mentally. Their chief difficulty seems to be in the lack of that coördination of mental faculties which makes the normal individual amenable to the ordinary social restraints. They do not possess a proper discrimination in the quality of actions.

Feeble-mindedness is due either to inherited mental defect or to arrest of the normal development of the brain. The latter may be due to pre-natal causes, to accidents at birth, or to subsequent accidents or diseases. It is estimated that two thirds of the cases of feeble-mindedness are the result of defective heredity. We may define feeble-mindedness, therefore, as mental defect inherited, or produced by conditions preceding, at, or soon after birth which prevent the normal development of the mind, with the result that the person is not able to manage his personal and business affairs

1 From John L. Gillin, Poverty and Dependency, pages 317-329. The Century Company, New York; 1921. Reprinted by special permission of the publishers.