severer form. I do not believe there is an instance where the offspring of feeble-minded parents, or those unquestionably degenerate, has been normal; usually the result is still more markedly abnormal.

Some years ago I was asked to write a paper before a state medical meeting upon this particular subject. I then drew attention to the difficulty of distinguishing the most dangerous class, the moron, from the healthy, and, after I distinguished them, to the problem of what to do with them. I have found no solution; I never found any one who has.

Commandant Horton: I have been very much pleased with Dr. Lacey's paper. I do not intend to preach upon what should be done, but I merely wish to call attention to the condition of things during the time of the fifteenth general assembly. There was hardly a paper in the state of Iowa that spoke in commendation of the bill that was introduced in that general assembly. You would find such items as this: "Horton and Stone are trying to build a palace for fools, when our farmers are living in sod houses. Why don't you drown them, as if they were supernumerary pups?"

The general assembly itself pigeonholed the bill, and it was necessary for myself and Stone always to be on hand in or der to get it before the attention of the house.

By the way, at that time I received reports from all over the country and Europe, and I recall one instance where an inmate was characterized as an "animated lump of clay." In order to get his attention at all pistols were fired before him. Of course I had to prove what I said, and so I sent to the clerk's desk and had read affidavits I had procured. I refer to this matter in order to show you the difference between then and now.

Superintendent Sessions: I think what I have to say is not at all new to this body, but the facts have been very forcibly emphasized in a particular case with me recently. One of the most efficient women we have in reform work, in the work for the distressed and unfortunate in our state, came to me the other day and said that she had been appointed to give an address before the Civic League on the "Menace of the Feeble-minded." She said, "I don't know anything about it. Can you help me?" I said I did not know very much about the subject but had a

number of articles and had read papers along that line before the conference and if she would come over to the office I would see what I could do for her. This woman was a very intelligent woman, a graduate of Vassar, and able to handle almost any subject. She came to my office and I think she was there for three afternoons. She read all the papers published in the Bulletin, and finally said, "My, this is a bigger thing than I thought it was. I also found some recent extracts from the North American Review and from other sources and she read them. She said, "Mr. Sessions, if we could put these facts before the people and make them understand them their attitude towards the care of the feeble-minded would change; they really do not know. I considered that I was an intelligent woman, but you have placed before me a world of information which has extended my vision. away into the future in a way that makes this thing not only a menace but a most alarming menace. If I can only do one thing, awaken a few women to the fact that this is such a danger, possibly we can start something in our own community that will at least help in taking care of these people."

Superintendent Kuser: Although a very depressing subject, I think I never more enjoyed a paper read before this conference than the one read by Dr. Lacey. He covered the ground so thoroughly and in such an excellent manner that I am sure we all have been benefited by listening to it, and while I was sitting here I could not help thinking that fortunate, indeed, he is if he is not situated as some of us who write papers and read them and then have some one come around and say, "Your better half must have been pretty busy the last few days."

I think, when you consider the population of our industrial schools that the children can be divided to a degree of more or less accuracy into two classes: the child who is bright enough to get into trouble, and the child who is so dull that he cannot keep out of trouble. I think that there is more or less accuracy in these two classifications. We find the boy or girl who is bright, who is able to make his or her way in the world, and under proper conditions of training would be a success. On the other hand, we find the child who is below grade mentally, and no matter what may be done the deficiency can never be supplied; he will never be what he ought to be, because he lacks mental strength and stability.

I believe Mrs. Sickels will agree with me when I say that four-fifths, if not more, of our breaches of discipline, and the disciplinary measures brought into use in our industrial schools are caused by this class of subnormals. Remove that class and we would remove our trouble-makers,-not that they are always instigators of the trouble, but they are the victims of the brighter ones. They are used as catspaws by the brighter pupil, and when it comes to immoral conduct we all know their instincts are in that direction, and where they do not take the initiative some brighter child will impose upon them and bring pressure to bear and cause them to do things they would not do if they were stronger mentally.

Superintendent Rothert: There is not an opening of the School for the Deaf that we do not receive an application from mothers of feeble-minded children asking for their admission with us. Not at all times are these children deaf, but from the fact that they can make a noise the poor mother thinks that is the home for her beloved child.

I have often thought that the name of the institution at Glenwood ought to be changed. The term "feeble-minded child" strikes the mother very forcibly. Private institutions of this character do not use the word "feeble-minded." They use "Institution for Backward Children," or "Institution for Subnormal Children," and if the institution at Glenwood had one of those titles by law it would be a help to the poor unfortunate mother, who, in the neighborhood in which she lives, must bear the stigma that her child is in an institution for feeble-minded children, when the condition of that boy or girl of hers is that of a "backward" boy or girl. I think that thought is worthy of consideration. The time that my good friend, Col. Horton, refers to was in the old capitol building, where an effort was made to defeat the bill, and it was defeated and came up for reconsideration. I simply want to testify to his remarks and his anxiety at that time, and his effort to cause the bill in the interest of the feeble-minded at Glenwood to survive.

I am somewhat proud of Dr. Lacey. I have known him since he was a boy-have been intimate with the family for thirty-five years. I knew his father, who was a most successful physician and surgeon in western Iowa, very intimately and I

am glad to know that Dr. Lacey's paper has been so approvingly received.

Warden Sanders: When we took a camp of prisoners out to Glenwood this summer to do some work, they had not been there very long until I made a second visit, and to my surprise the doctors and officers of that institution had declared three or four of my men feeble-minded. I had made a special effort to select my better class of morons,-I don't know what that word means, but it is used a great deal and I want to get into the band wagon.

We certainly have at least twenty-five per cent who belong to that type. What to do with them is a problem at our institution. We are not physically equipped to handle men of that class, and as a result they sometimes handle us. I have been inclined a great many times to recommend the establishment of another institution for Iowa, but every other superintendent has one to recommend, so I have kept in the background. We have a number of parents at our institution with children at Glenwood, Mitchellville, Eldora, etc. "A wise old owl sat in an oak; the more he heard, the less he spoke; the less he spoke the more he heard;" the warden wants to be like that bird.

The Chairman: I have been wondering whether there are any morons at Dr. Donohoe's school.

Superintendent Donohoe: We all know that every institution in the state has defectives, and a great many morons. It is safe to say that seventy-five per cent are not normal. Those who are periodical drunkards are perhaps epileptics, the periodical debauch taking the place of the manifestations. The man who starts out at sixteen, seventeen or eighteen years of age and spends his time in houses of prostitution and pool halls, and with criminals, to my mind must be defective, and as he gets into the habit of using cocaine, morphine, heroin and other drugs, his mentality, if he has any, is soon destroyed. I think perhaps no writer I have read after has placed the percentage as high as seventy-five, however I think I would say seventy-five.

The Chairman: I should like to ask Dr. Lacey a question. You speak of the boy in the school who is on the border-line as taking the impressions which affect his life from the bad associations and bad things he hears. Now, is there any possibility of

that class of defectives, by receiving nothing but good things, getting across the line far beyond the border-line, or at least some perceptible distance from it, so that they will not in after years be classed as border-line morons?

Dr. Lacey: Answering that question, to begin with, he probably does not come of good stock, and the surroundings in his own home have not been what they should be. I can recall a great many instances of going instances of going into homes of people whom I now class or recognize as feeble-minded, and the training of their children was started under very poor circumstances. There was the ever-present can of beer and the child was allowed to smoke; there was not a good selection of language used in the family; the child was encouraged at an early age to follow down the railroad track and pick up coal, and it was soon thought that anything else he might lay his hands on and could get away with was his. If we could take that child and remove it from every possible source of evil influence, we might be able to gain something; but he has a predilection for evil, and he is an excellent backslider.

The Chairman: Is that inherent?

Dr. Lacey: It is evidently born with him. You can see a great many instances of that in a great many different ways. I recall working among the poor in Council Bluffs, where I was county physician, and I saw that feature stand out in seventyfive per cent of the poor I had charge of. There is one good thing, and that is that we are improving without the aid of psychological workers, in that our judges now are able to diagnose a case of feeble-mindedness in some of the high-grade morons and are sending us a number of these cases. Since the first of the year there have been 167 children admitted to the institution. Of these 167, 26 are court commitments. It is a pleasure to see that the judges are doing this and thus removing from circulation a class such as we have spoken of. We feel quite pleased that they are able to recognize them, but regret, on account of our crowded condition, that they are sent to us, and if we are to handle this class of individuals we should have more room so as to keep them away from our impressionable class. When an individual is admitted to the institution that individual does not lose his individuality; if he is a trouble-brewer he is going to