which was largely attended and productive of good results. What if the university on the hill were to establish a department of mental hygiene? What a rare opportunity to be given for developing the problem of Providence about this department of Brown University! Think of the high standard that would be established at the inception of the work, and realize how effectually our mental hygiene program might be rescued from political entanglements. We must see to it in this community, as I know each one of you wishes to do in your own community, that the mental hygiene movement as it is developed is developed on a truly constructive and honestly conceived plane, and that those watching over the destinies of the individuals in our community, both inside the institutions of the state and outside of them, shall be directed by individuals thoroughly trained, of broad vision, with a true concept of their duty toward humanity, and unembarrassed by any political affiliations. I want to express my own appreciation of the great good work presented in this section of the Conference, and to say that although far too few of our community leaders have attended these meetings much good is sure to result from the seeds that you have sown, and Providence owes you a very great debt of gratitude for the presence of such an earnest body of workers, for the words of wisdom that have been pronounced in this old church, and for the outline of a mental hygiene program which is safe, sane, and an imperative need—a program for which I think that we are all very much indebted to the wise leadership of your chairman, Mr. Hastings. THE COMMUNITY'S PART IN THE CARE OF DEFECTIVES It seems to me that the community's interest in the mental defectives is so interwoven with the institution interest that the two problems should be spoken of together. But before touching on the community's part in the care of the mental defectives, let us very briefly bring ourselves up to date by reviewing what has been the attitude in regard to this problem in the past. Without going into ancient history or alluding to the works of Etard and Seguin in France, I propose to cover only what has been done in this country. The first teacher of the feebleminded in this country of whom we have any record was Dr. Howe, of Massachusetts, and this work was carried on in connecti Massachusetts School for the Blind, starting in about 1848. It was his he hope of many others who followed him that by special training the feeblemi be cured and returned to society as useful members. Although he and oths. contemporaries were encouraged by the improvement manifested, still the cases not cured. From our latter-day knowledge of mental defect, I suspect that they working with a much lower grade than many who come From that little special class of Dr. Howe's in conne School for the Blind, institutions for the feebleminded we then in New York, and so on state by state until now nea: tions for this group, and some have several, New York havin tant than the development of the institution for the feeblemind of the special or ungraded class, which is intended to supply tl: our observation toda the Massachusett Massachusetts, *have institu re impor-mowth Starting in a very small where some states have home, the kind of education that will be most profitable to it. way and against great opposition, it has developed to the point compulsory laws compelling the formation of these classes. The state provides, free of expense, for the education of the normal child. The community should see to it that it provides education suited to its abnormal children. To accomplish this needs the earnest co operation of every intelligent citizen and especially of the teachers, the women's clubs, the medical societies, the clergy, and the lawyers. It is a problem perfectly capable of solution if attacked with intelligence and common sense. Seventy-five years ago the theory prevailed that the feebleminded could be cured with the proper methods of training, but not being able to accomplish this result the pendulum swung the other way until there came a period when it was looked upon as a hopeless proposition and more than that, when the feebleminded were all considered as potential criminals, and the only solution was thought to be to confine all of them in institutions during their active lives. Later, with more careful pyschiatric and psychological studies made by such bodies as the National Committee for the Mental Hygiene in their surveys and especially with the studies made in the army tests during the worldwar, it dawned upon us that feeblemindedness was much more common than we had ever supposed. It also dawned upon us as a result of a report made by Dr. Walter E. Fernald, superintendent of the Massachusetts School for Feebleminded and because of the studies made of a group of school children who had left the ungraded classes of New York City, made by Miss Farrell, principal of this group, that the feebleminded were not all potential criminals and that a great many of them were self-supporting, self respecting citizens. With the more complete examinations of school children, inmates of reformatories, jails, and prisons, we have come to recognize two distinct types of mental defectives among the higher grade, namely, the good feebleminded and the bad feebleminded. The first is a simple, likeable, honest, reasonably truthful, fairly industrious group, and the second, an incorrigible, lying, thieving, non-industrial group to whom no appeal can be made and who respond to nothing but main force. Having this knowledge of the differences in type, we have seen it necessary to return to the earlier ideal as to proper method of training the good feebleminded. We have also learned that many of the bad feebleminded should have permanent custodi al care in an institution constructed along reformatory and prison lines. Having briefly touched upon the history of mental defectives, let us now come to the subject of the paper, "The Community's Part in the Care of Defectives." First of all, we should have a permanent and continuing census of the feebleminded. This census can be best obtained by school clinics so organized that every suspected case of mental defect could be examined and referred to the special class for training or to the public institution depending on the character of the case and the home conditions of the parents. The only exception to this program would occur in partially settled rural districts, where it would be impractical to establish a special class for two or three children. These children from the rural districts would necessarily have to go to the state institution or go practically without special training. The only cases that should ever be sent to a state institution are those who are so antisocial that they cannot remain safely in a community and those whose home conditions are such that the public must care for them. Every other case of mental defect should go to the ungraded cl to the county or city institutions. To me it seems the height of absurdity to ch state institutions with that group of non-hereditary, idiotic cases. If they can' are of at home they should be placed in the city or county institution where ay be easily visited by their friends and relatives. >meone is sure to raise the question that our city and county institutions are not >ed to care for this helpless class and that these institutions are only intended to ›r the worthy poor. The answer is that the community should demand that their nstitution be equipped with a separate department to care for these helpless cases. en appears to us who are running state institutions that the only interest of the worker is to make as big a record as she can in her district by placing as many as possible in the state institution. Consequently, she goes over her ground with tooth rake and gets into her hopper the helpless idiot who should be taken care of ›me or in an institution near home, the simple, backward child who should go to >pecial class, the slightly subnormal child whose mildly antisocial tendencies make or her not up to her standard of propriety. The community should know what a tal defective is. They should know that it is not even in the higher grades all, by means, of a hereditary nature. They should know that a certain percentage of the gh work of the world is done by mental defectives. In order that the community may have some conception of what an institution uld be, I propose to give a brief description of one. First of all, it should be a home, en a school, then a laboratory. No building, in which fifty to one hundred children ep, can be an ideal home but with attractive buildings, provided with pictures, a aphophone, a piano, books and playthings, sofas, and easy chairs, it can be made melike. The group of buildings should be such that there is ample playground rectly in front of each cottage. Baseball, croquet, swimming, and picnics help to dd to the home ideal. The institution should be a real democracy where there are no ocial distinctions between the superintendent, the teacher, the matron, the attendant, he cook or the laundry woman. Every part of the institution should be looked upon s a school, and the training given by the farm-hand, the woman in the kitchen, and undry is fully as important as that given by the doctor or teacher. The institution should also be a school where none but the best teachers are mployed, where children receive grade work according to their mental age, where all eceive handwork, gymnastic work, and instruction in mass singing, the object of school eing along very practical lines and more important than anything that is accomplished s the atmosphere that radiates out from this school center in to the dark spots of the nstitution. I look upon the special class with highly specialized teachers as the reatest contribution that has been made so far to the solution of this problem. If, o this accomplishment, could be added a parole system so that every boy or girl could be provided with an occupation either at home or abroad after leaving school, the whole question would be well in hand and we should only have to provide institutions for a special group. The institution should be a laboratory with a psychiatrist, psychologist, and a social worker at the head of this department, with the medical staff, teachers, and matrons as co-workers. Without such studies as outlined, it is all guess work as to what the training should be while here. It is all guess work as to when a child should go out on parole or whether he should remain in an institution during his active life. Then there are many problems connected with mental defect such as the child's behavior, its glandular system, or whether it is in the hereditary or non-hereditary group, that need to be studied before we can advance much in our knowledge of what to do with those in the community. The question of parole is one that the community must take an active interest in before we are going to get very far. We believe that a considerable percentage of mental defect of the moron group, who have had from two to ten years of school training and who are not markedly antisocial and who have not personal traits that make it impossible to get on, on the outside, should be paroled. But to be successful, the community must do its part. These cases should go into homes where people understand they are dealing with children of weak minds and childish characteristics but with adult bodies. They need to be guarded from those who take advantage of their weakness. With the community realizing that they are children with grown up bodies, and properly protecting them, there is no reason why the well-trained feebleminded should not be an asset to a community rather than a burden. For the past few years, we have heard a great deal about colonies as a proper place for mental defectives and as a result a great deal of loose talk and hazy ideas has arisen. A great many people have the idea that all that was necessary to solve this problem was to buy some cheap land back in the woods, erect cheap buildings on it and send the mental defectives there directly from their homes and let them lead the simple, happy life, clearing the land and raising crops. It is all wrong. Colonies are only suitable for those who have been trained in the special class or at the state institution. The moron boy from the great cities does not take kindly to the simple life in the country and the manual labor. The idiotic boy needs the care of an infirmary. Consequently, the only boy who is suited to the colony life is the good-natured, quiet imbecile, who has had previous training. At the present time, experiments are being made to establish colonies for girls, in the center of towns, where they either go out by the day to work in families or in factories. I, personally, am opposed to this form of a colony for girls for two reasons. First, in these days when there is a great shortage of labor for domestic purposes, it is possible to parole every girl, who has been well-trained, to a good home, where the girl is one of the family and has her own individuality. So it is not necessary to put her into a colony in order to keep her out of an institution. The second, and the more important reason, is that I believe we are practically exploiting the feebleminded girl when we do this, instead of guarding her and protecting her as we should. In closing I cannot do better than to quote from one of the numerous papers of Dr. Walter E. Fernald. There is no panacea for feeblemindedness. There will always be mentally defective persons in the population of every state and country. All of our experience in dealing with the feebleminded indicates that if we are adequately to manage the individual defective, we must recognize his condition while he is a child, protect him from evil influences, train and educate him according to his capacity, make him industrially efficient, teach him to acquire correct habits of living, and, when he has reached adult life, continue to give him the friendly help and guidance he needs. These advantages should be accessible to every feebleminded person in the state. Most important of all, so far as possible, the hereditary cl tives must not be allowed to perpetuate their decadent stock. The program for meeting the highly varied and heterogeneous groups must be as flexible and complex as the problem itmodified and developed as our knowledge and experience increase. fec SION VIII-ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL FORCES EXISTING SOCIAL FORCES OF A COMMUNITY !ammond Parker, General Secretary, National Conference of Social Work, Cincinnati ne of the significant phenomena which are manifesting themselves at the present s the increasing tendency upon the part of men and women who are thinking in of community resources to include in such resources certain things which we used as intangibles and which were relegated, in any scale of comparative evaluations, ery minor and subsidiary position. This tendency has manifested itself coincidently with a corresponding change in mphasis placed upon non-material things in evaluating economic resources. In eld of productive activity this increasing apperception of the value of intangibles ome normally as a resultant of a growing consciousness of the fact that intangibles xceedingly prone to transmute themselves into tangibles; that the essence of comty-value lies always in the service rendered by the commodity to the consumer; service plays a tremendously important part in both the fabrication and marketf any commodity; and that it therefore must of necessity be listed as a primary rce. The next step in our thinking was toward an analysis of this intangible which poss within itself such strange powers of transmutation. We began this analysis by ecting the idea of service to a more analytical scrutiny than we had ever before >wed upon it. We asked upon what it was founded and the answer revealed the that it was based upon character, personality, and intelligence and at once we tened to a new conception of the value of human, as contrasted to material, irces. Another discovery which we made was that these hitherto undervalued resources partially organized in certain forms of human association which were directing co-ordinated forces toward the accomplishment of selected ends which were of ter or less social value. This discovery opened our eyes to the existence of a serious sion upon our part—we had failed to exercise the directive influence which we might ! brought to bear upon these organized forces so that the community might reap greatest social values from their socially purposive activities. Our knowledge of omission was both a necessary prerequisite to its correction and an incentive toward ligent action in this direction. An enumeration of the existing organized social forces of a community reveals the that there are a few outstanding ones in practically every American community h has cast aside its swaddling clothes and graduated into the class, the members hich proudly refer to themselves as municipalities. This list includes chambers of nerce, miscellaneous civic organizations, public agencies, and religious groups. In order to prevent the possibility of even a suggestion of any invidious distinctions gards comparative values we will list these forces, for the purpose of our considerain alphabetical sequence. |