Care and training of the feeble-minded : being a report of the eighth section of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by George H. Knight.

  • International Congress of Charities Correction and Philanthropy (1893 : Chicago Ill.)
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Care and training of the feeble-minded : being a report of the eighth section of the International Congress of Charities, Correction and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 / edited by George H. Knight. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Most important of all, the outcome of the colony plan is the fact that when we have found a method which shall care for the custodial case, whom no one wants, and the epileptic, who becomes a custo- dial by degrees unless his disease is arrested, and the bright imbecile who can be taught to help his weaker brother, and the moral imbe- cile who can have the outlet of occupation and the safeguard of restraint and constant oversight, and most necessary of all, and most difficult to procure for him and his depraved tendencies, that charity which sufFereth long and is kind—when we have brought this about we shall have made the tremendous gain of preventing among imbe- ciles that disgrace to our civilization, the reproduction of their own kind. The colony plan is not a vision, but a well-defined working plan, proving itself by actual experience every day. In its successful out- come lies our hope of progress in the future of this work, which, so far as our end of the Problem of Charity is concerned, must of necessity be, not the survival of the fit, but always the revival of the unfit. Dr. A. C. Rogers, superintendent, State School for Feeble- minded, Faribault, Minnesota, read the following paper: STATE CARE OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED. A. C. ROGERS, M. D. These figures upon the cardboard* are our excuse for calling you together to-night, to consider with us the best means of dealing with the feeble-minded. Those of us engaged in their care and training are always at a disadvantage in presenting their claims, because we are their paid retainers. Their misfortune happens to be our means of sustenance. We are conscious that a calm judgment must elimi- nate from our testimony all personal interest. With this understand- ing, let us state the facts as we understand them, holding ourselves open to conviction, if better methods than ours can be suggested. Speaking for the United States, and using the figures for 1890, the facts are these: First.—We have approximately 95,000 feeble-minded persons among our 63,000,000 people, or one to every 660 of the general population. * See page 13.