may exist an abnormal condition of organic functions. Instinct is as efficient a teacher in the human species as in any other species. For the well-being of society and of the race it is thought best that this instinct be regulated, so as to keep its manifestations within well-defined bounds. Legislation seeks to define those bounds for the protection of the individual and the harmonious working of community life. The home unit is considered the wisest and safest means with which to maintain this harmonious working. However, after all that the state can do, the parent must still be held responsible for the imparting of those counsels and of that vital knowledge so necessary for the protection of the child. Those counsels and that knowledge none can impart more interestedly and more unselfishly than the parent. Yet those to whom it is frequently left are the interestedly selfish. It is the irony of experience.

The downfall of many a girl may be traced to an inordinate desire for frivolity and pleasure and love of dress. This desire may not lead some to actual transgression but it certainly leads to the edge of the precipice. The department stores of Chicago, which a few years ago ordered their clerks to dress within the limit of their salaries, prescribing the use of the black skirt and the black or white waist, and placing under ban the use of "puffs, face-powders, paints, jewelry and fancy clothes,' are to be commended for their attempt to save the innocent girl.

I am disposed to believe that the majority of girls want to do rightI would rather be moral and virtuous than immoral and wanton. There must be some reason why girls and women are drawn into the whirlpool of vice. I would suggest:

1. Lack of proper parental care and oversight in childhood. There is a prohibition against "going up town" and the associating with certain named companions. Not the prohibition but the manner of conveying it starts rebellion. There comes the question, "Why may not I do asdoes? Her parents don't mind." The prohibition is defied. The girl runs the streets. No correction follows and the girl becomes incorrigible and is being educated for crime.

2. The hard worked mother suffers nervous breakdown, becomes fretful and impatient. The girl chafes under the conditions and forsakes home to search for what she conceives to be conditions more conducive to her peace and happiness.

3. Parents quarrel, separate or are divorced. The mother's influence and restraint are minimized, if not entirely removed. The girl follows her youthful inclination for company and a "good time." Something happens, and, without intention on her part, the girl has fallen to the street.

4. Men and boys. Not always young, adolescent, unmarried men, but men with wives and daughters are the plotters against and seducers of the innocent. Men in general hold womanhood in high esteem. They respect and honor and are ready to protect her. An assault on a girl or woman fires the man and he rushes to resent the insult offered to womanhood.

But there is a class of men who hold woman of little value, except as

she may contribute to the gratification of his desires, and he then looks upon her as his legitimate prey. Why is it dangerous for a woman to take her place in life as a breadwinner? Where is the menace? In the untethered male animal. So long as fallen men exist we shall have fallen

women.

Many a girl has left the industrial school and many a woman the state's prison resolved to do right. Why has she failed? Probably because some male brute has found out her past, has reasoned that because she has once fallen a prey to man's passion the same could occur again. He makes it his business to see that it does occur.

What chance has the bird when the hunter takes close and experienced aim? The more beautiful the bird to the eye the more determined he is to destroy. Under such circumstances is it not surprising, and does it not speak well for the women, that only fourteen women in fifteen years have been sent to Anamosa for a second term and none for a third term?

The wives of incarcerated men are sometimes assailed by the class of men referred to. For this reason it is dangerous to all concerned for the wife or sister or daughter of a prisoner to settle in a "prison town." The men reason that the husband being in prison the wife too must be bad, or may be bought for a price. We have even found such men on the guard force, and summary dismissal has followed.

We know but little of the sufferings and temptations of these women of the wash tub, the sacrifice they make to keep the home together and to keep the children fed and clothed. In such extremity as I have known it is no wonder so many of these women are sorely tempted to prostitute themselves for bread. In the case of some of the married men convicted of a crime it would be wise, a humane act, and an asset to the state, to parole from the court or to grant an early parole from prison. The strenuous insistence for the pound of flesh" has decided many a man to retaliate. I am convinced that the policy of leniency would lessen the number of the divorces obtained from convicted men.

One of the lowest types of degeneracy is seen in the man who forces his young wife to the street for his personal gain. A number of women sent to Anamosa have given this as the primary cause of their entrance upon an immoral life, not desire on their part, but fear of and the brutal domination by the husbands. It is surprising to find so many men in prison who hold the wife to be a chattel of the husband and who are earnest advocates of the "double standard" of morality.

What shall be done with the delinquent girl and woman after she has concluded her stay in state's prison? Many fear to receive them into their homes, they hesitate to permit them any contact with children. What are these women to do? The state must aid in finding employment for them and in protecting them, if they are not to be overdiscouraged and driven back to haunts of shame. Meanwhile the state is seeking to correct the acquired habits and delinquent tendency in these women, and is seeking to train and prepare them for the new life and certain struggle they will be called upon to make.

It may not be amiss to consider some facts concerning the women for whom the state has to care. We may next consider what is being done for them and then offer suggestions for further assisting them to become useful members of society.

I have covered a period of fifteen years-July 1, 1899, to June 30, 1914-in gathering the statistics presented. There were 197 women received, of whom 151 were white and 46 colored. The highest number incarcerated at one time was 42, the lowest 16, the average being 37. Those able to read and write number 164, unable to do so 33. Only 28 left home before they were fifteen years of age. At the time of commitment onefifth were unmarried, almost one-half were between the ages of twenty and thirty, nearly one-third had sentences ranging from five to ten years and one-eighth for over ten years, and over two-thirds were employed in housework of various kinds.

There are but four or five women now at Anamosa incapacitated for work by reason of age or physical disability. The others are employed either in the kitchen or in the industrial department and at school. In the industrial department the women learn to make and repair garments and are taught basketry and fancy needlework. In the latter the women get very interested and some become quite proficient. Provision is made for recreation and exercise so far as our limited space permits. A daily religious song service is held by the matron and on Sunday the chaplain conducts divine worship and preaches, and a Sunday School is maintained with the help of devoted church ladies of the city. The women show appreciation of the efforts to lessen the hardships of their incarceration. Much more could be done for their betterment if our facilities were multiplied and extended. It is pleasing to learn that the board of control contemplate an early establishment of a separate reformatory for women. We certainly need more extensive grounds and more suitable buildings than those now being used. While the present quarters are vastly superior to those of a dozen years ago they are not such as they should be. Iowa in this matter is far behind what is being done by other states. It is well to provide industrial employment and training; it is not less necessary to make provision for physical health and mental expansion. Exercise by means of outdoor labor and recreation is of incalculable value in building up the depleted moral sense, even as it contributes to the development of the physical.

A miniature farm might be established offering work to the ablebodied; the dairy business and poultry raising and the bee industry would furnish useful and profitable employment; the raising of fruits and vegetables and the cultivation of plants and flowers would open avenues which would not fail to interest and would reveal the relation of the garden to domestic science studies and suggest innumerable ways for beautifying, and thus making more attractive, the home.

Forty to sixty acres of land could well be devoted to the cause of rehabilitating our delinquent women. Such land, or so much as would be necessary, should be enclosed by a park wall of sufficient stability to prevent intrusion. Within these walls could be laid out fields and garden and

campus.

Administration offices, workrooms, schoolroom, and amusement hall should be provided. A small cell block would be needed for the detention of the more hardened, but the cottage system should form the basis for prompting reformation and encouraging good behavior. The classification of the women is very desirable. A separate building should be erected as a chapel, as this tends to impress the dignity and value of religious worship and teaches reverence for sacred things.

The expense connected with the new institution would be materially lessened were the institution built near, or within easy reach of, the present reformatory. Stone and workmen are at hand. The power system at present used could be improved and extended to the new institution. The executive, the physician, the chaplain, the chief clerk, the storekeeper and one or two foremen would have their duties extended to the new institution. No male guards need be employed within the walls but a lodgekeeper and a watchman outside would be necessary. All supplies could be furnished through the main offices. The direct personal oversight of the women would still remain with the matron and her assistants, with the warden as chief executive.

Of late this matter has been much discussed by the leading citizens of Anamosa, and I understand an effort is being made by them to secure the retention of the women's reformatory near the city. Two excellent sites have been suggested, both of which are reached by the Northwestern Railway spur which runs to the state quarry. One is on the east side of the Buffalo, opposite the quarry, the other about one-half way to the quarry and possessing a dam which furnishes about 75 H.P., formerly used to supply power for a mill. Both sites are located on an eminence overlooking the valley of the Buffalo and either would be an ideal location.

Whatever decision may be reached regarding a location we know that the highest interests of the women will be given primary attention. It is certain many of the indignities under which women delinquents have long suffered are being removed and the state of Iowa will rise to her duty with a broad and humane outlook and with a generous hand.

THE MENTALLY ATYPICAL CHILD.

By Prof. R. H. Sylvester, State University, Iowa City, Iowa.

It is not worth while, for our purpose, to attempt to define the terms "typical child" and "atypical child." We might make a list of criteria, and consider in detail the numerous features and qualities which, if found in a child, are reasons for labeling him atypical, but it would probably result only in a tangle of theoretical considerations. I prefer to turn directly to that group of children whose defects and peculiarities are so prominent that no one can object to calling them atypical. Until we know more about these urgent cases, there is little time for theoretical discussions as to where to draw the line between the typical and atypical.

As a psychologist, my interest is of course limited to the mentally atypical child, and my ideas come largely from what I have observed in some five hundred children whom in the last fifteen months I have examined because of their real or alleged mental peculiarities. Some of these were given thorough examinations in our laboratory at the State University (a few were studied and treated there for some weeks), but the larger number were given only rather brief examinations at public school buildings.

To still further define my point of view, a word as to my procedure in studying a child is in place. I use several testing devices, usually beginning with the form board test because it serves both to put the child into a desirable attitude and to give the examiner a rough estimate of his place in the mental scale. After the examination is under way and the child's cooperation has been secured, the choice of tests, devices and lines of investigation depends upon the type of case and upon the phases of intelligence that seem to call for investigation. In nearly every case the Binet-Simon tests are applied. They are more helpful than any other one device, but they certainly do not provide a complete examination. They can in nearly every case be relied upon to reveal extreme conditions of mental deficiency, and they are serviceable in some phases of mental analysis, but like our other tests they are only devices and can by no means take the place of the examiner's general observational study of the child. Dr. Healy's tests and other special ones are often helpful; kindergarten, primary, and Montessori devices are sometimes called into service; and for ferreting out special features in a mental analysis, some of the stock tests of the general psychological laboratory are essential. Examinatios made in schools out over the state are not so satisfactory as those made at the psychological laboratory because