Volume 5

Popular science / edited by Arthur Mee.

Date:
1912-1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Popular science / edited by Arthur Mee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    their consequences—for the description of which, despite the cheap and common gibe, the language of no temperance reformer can very well be intemperate. “ (2) They contribute largely to the ille gitimate birth-rate ; that is to say, to the production of children for whose nurture, quite apart from the question of their natural defect, no adequate and satisfactory provision is or indeed can be made. (3) They contribute largely to the ranks of prostitution. (4) They thus contribute largely to the propagation of the venereal diseases, with all their consequences to the present and the future. (5) They are responsible for much crime, major and minor, both mala in se and mala prohibita —things wrong in them selves and things forbidden. (6) Both directly, as economically in efficient, and indirectly, in the ways here cited, they contribute to the number of the destitute, constituting the majority of the naturally, as distinguished from the nurtur- ally, unemployable. “ (7) They contribute largely, as parents, married or unmarried, to parental neglect and cruelty to children, which is probably more injurious to the life of the next genera tion than most or any of us realises. (8) They contribute largely to the ranks of the wastrel and the hooligan. A Humane Segregation the Alternative Policy to the Continuance of These Evils “In such ways and to such a degree these persons injure the community. But it has particularly to be noted that therein the community also injures them. The fact is obvious to all of us here ; but it is by no means obvious to our vocal and voluble critics outside, who fancy that we are pre paring harsh measures, in the interests of the many, against the unfortunate few who cannot help themselves. The injury wrought by the present relations between the com munity and these unfortunate persons is mutual—they injure it and it injures them. But not until we recall the words of Burke, in the light of modern genetics, shall we realise the full measure of this injury ; for, as that great thinker said, a community is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, and those who are dead and those who are to be born. “ To the foregoing indictment of the present state of things, and remembering that whatever is inherent is transmissible, we therefore add that— 3656 (9) In becoming parents, the feeble minded contribute incalculably to the maintenance of these evils—after we are dead, but not after we are responsible.” These are the evils for which the policy of segregation is the alternative—segrega tion of the victims of such mental defect and disease as is known to persist and be trans missible. We definitely put the interest of the individual patients first ; and we demand proper care for the feeble-minded woman of sixty as well as for the girl of sixteen. True, what we ask is not only the discharge of a humane and imperative duty to the individual, but also involves, in the latter case, the protection of the future, only we must be very careful to put these two objects in their proper order. The Need for the Phrase “ Permanent Care ” Because of the Odium Cast on “ Segregation ” But, unfortunately, many persons are now advocating the “ segregation of the feeble minded ” in a fashion which leads the kind- hearted, and the champions of what they understand by liberty, to suppose that we wish to run these unfortunate people into prison-cells and leave them there. Hence, after many years of reiteration with voice and pen, of the demand for segregation, the present writer now pleads only for “ per manent care.” They are the same thing, but public opinion, which will never grant the one, will readily grant the other. The augument against segregation that it would be expensive is beneath our con tempt here, and would be so even if the neglect of the feeble-minded were not so very much more expensive. In this pecu liar science we assume that gold is for life and not life for gold. Of real importance is the argument that we cannot always identify those who should be segregated. But, where we are doubtful, we must hold our hand. Our business is to teach that segregation is not harsh, hasty, and irrevo cable, but humane, deliberate, and flexible. Education of the Public the Only Hope of Humane Reform We have utterly failed if we have not per suaded the reader that our present neglect of the feeble-minded, when they can do most harm to themselves and others and the race neglect following immediately upon our admirable care of them before puberty is an intolerable crime, and that there must be substituted for it, without delay, some such humane and intelligent policy of permanent care as shall relieve the miseries and evils of the present, and largely prevent their recurrence in the future.