feeble-minded and
the epileptic. A million and a half is spent for the up-keep of state
prisons, those homes of the "defective delinquent." Insanity, which, we
should remember, is to a great extent hereditary, annually drains from
the state treasury no less than $11,985,695.55, and from private sources
and endowments another twenty millions. When we learn further that the
total number of inmates in public and private institutions in the State
of New York--in alms-houses, reformatories, schools for the blind,
deaf and mute, in insane asylums, in homes for the feeble-minded and
epileptic--amounts practically to less than sixty-five thousand, an
insignificant number compared to the total population, our eyes should
be opened to the terrific cost to the community of this dead weight of
human waste.

The United States Public Health Survey of the State of Oregon, recently
published, shows that even a young community, rich in natural resources,
and unusually progressive in legislative measures, is no less subject to
this burden. Out of a total population of 783,000 it is estimated that
more than 75,000 men, women and children are dependents, feeble-minded,
or delinquents. Thus about 10 per cent. of the population is a constant
drain on the finances, health, and future of that community. These
figures represent a more definite and precise survey than the rough one
indicated by the statistics of charities and correction for the State
of New York. The figures yielded by this Oregon survey are also
considerably lower than the average shown by the draft examination, a
fact which indicates that they are not higher than might be obtained
from other States.

Organized charity is thus confronted with the problem of
feeble-mindedness and mental defect. But just as the State has so far
neglected the problem of mental defect until this takes the form
of criminal delinquency, so the tendency of our philanthropic and
charitable agencies has been to pay no attention to the problem until
it has expressed itself in terms of pauperism and delinquency. Such
"benevolence" is not merely ineffectual; it is positively injurious to
the community and the future of the race.

But there is a special type of philanthropy or benevolence, now widely
advertised and advocated, both as a federal program and as worthy of
private endowment, which strikes me as being more insidiously injurious
than any other. This concerns itself directly with the function o