THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1913 MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 3 December 1913, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 3, 1913 MENTAL DEFECTIVES.

For some years past there has been a movement in New Zealand, in common with other parts of the world, in the direotiori of segregating those who are physically and>mentally unfit, and thereby preventing the propagation of defectives. We have not yet arrived in this Dominion at that stage when we can insist upon every person who enters the matrimonial state being subjected to a searching medical examination. And, if we had. ft is doubtful whether the result would be to eliminate the mentally defective, for experience has shown that the majority of this class are the result of illegitimacy. Possibly the efforts in the direction of permanent segregation will have a more appreciable effect than' the application of rigid provisions in regard to matrimony: Dr Woods Hutchinson, in a recent lecture under the auspices: of the National Council of Public Morals, said it had been found that 2 to 3 per cent, of the community were congeriitally defective, and that from them sprang the enormous mass of the feeble-minded, the epileptics, a large share of the insane, the lion's

share of criminals, and the vast mass of the paupers and tramps. The most careful investigations had shown that a normal child had never boon born from feeble-minded parents. If the stream could be broken in some way or other, an immense number of the defectives and misfits of tho human species could be stopped. The method suggested for doing .tills was the simple one of extending the care of the schools, so that physicians, and born teachers should examine every child in the community, certainly as early as three years, and preferably ear her, and watch for the development of the little peculiarities showing these hereditary defects. When these little defects were discovered, the children, if incurable, sjiould be taken and placed in a special environment out in the country under the most favourable and happiest circumstances, and trained and developed to the highest possible pitch, but prevented by permanent segregation from' producing their kind. When this has once Been done \ it would only be a few decades before there would be an enormous falling off in crime, insanity, epilepsy, and feeblemindedness. The conclusion had been reached that we were not manufacturing defectives, but #ere simply reproducing them from some far period iu\ the history of the race. There wcro two great reservoirs of mental defect, one of them being, not tho city slum, but the poorer and remoter class of country districts. Such groups were protected from elimination by the low grade of their surroundings and the small amount of mental strain to which they were subjected. They lived like animals because they had an animal mentality, and could exist on a vegetable level. The other group was that of the privileged, whose eccentricities had been carefully preserved and protected. Turning to the question of alcohol and venoreal disease, he said that the .trend of investigation favoured the view that they were germ poisons, picking out the.yweak spots in the community, instead of actually causing them. The various types of mentally defective did not amount to more than 4 or 5 per cent, of the total community ') 95 per cent, were boi;n normal and sound, and the vast majority, ho matter to' what strains the? might' be 'subjected, would -remain sane~-not even cranky enough to be interesting.