by the state legislature, and
carried out by the University of Oregon, in collaboration with Dr. C.
L. Carlisle of the Public Health service, aided by a large number of
volunteers, shows that only a small percentage of mental defectives and
morons are in the care of institutions. The rest are widely scattered
and their condition unknown or neglected. They are docile and
submissive, they do not attract attention to themselves as do the
criminal delinquents and the insane. Nevertheless, it is estimated that
they number no less than 75,000 men, women, and children, out of a total
population of 783,000, or about ten per cent. Oregon, it is thought, is
no exception to other states. Yet under our present conditions, these
people are actually encouraged to increase and multiply and replenish
the earth.

Concerning the importance of the Oregon survey, we may quote Surgeon
General H. C. Cumming: "the prevention and correction of mental
defectives is one of the great public health problems of to-day. It
enters into many phases of our work and its influence continually crops
up unexpectedly. For instance, work of the Public Health Service in
connection with juvenile courts shows that a marked proportion of
juvenile delinquency is traceable to some degree of mental deficiency
in the offender. For years Public Health officials have concerned
themselves only with the disorders of physical health; but now they are
realizing the significance of mental health also. The work in Oregon
constitutes the first state-wide survey which even begins to disclose
the enormous drain on a state, caused by mental defects. One of the
objects of the work was to obtain for the people of Oregon an idea
of the problem that confronted them and the heavy annual loss, both
economic and industrial, that it entailed. Another was to enable the
legislators to devise a program that would stop much of the loss,
restore to health and bring to lives of industrial usefulness, many of
those now down and out, and above all, to save hundreds of children from
growing up to lives of misery."

It will be interesting to see how many of our State Legislatures have
the intelligence and the courage to follow in the footsteps of Oregon in
this respect. Nothing could more effectually stimulate discussion, and
awaken intelligence as to the extravagance and cost to the community of
our present codes of traditional morality. But we should make sure
in all such surveys, that menta