prisons, reformatories and asylums where they are now kept, and the
annual per capita cost of maintenance would be reduced from 20 to 50 per
cent., except in almshouses, where the cost would be increased about $1
per week, but the almshouse inmates compose only a small fraction of the
whole number.

"I desire to emphasize the fact that one-half of the feeble-minded of
this state are already under public care, but that two-thirds of them
are cared for in the wrong kind of institutions. This difficulty can be
remedied without increasing the public burden, in the manner already
suggested. That leaves 15,000 feeble-minded for whom no provision has
yet been made. It must be remembered that these 15,000 persons are being
cared for in some way. We do not allow them to starve to death, but they
are fed, clothed and housed, usually by the self-denying labor of their
relatives. Thousands of poor mothers are giving up their lives largely
to the care of a feeble-minded child, but these mothers are unable to so
protect them from becoming a menace to the community, and, in the long
run, it would be far more economical for the community to segregate them
in institutions than to allow them to remain in their homes, only to
become ultimately paupers, criminals, prostitutes or parents of children
like themselves."

Some sort of provision is now made for some of the feeble-minded in
every state excepting eleven, viz.: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia,
Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah and
West Virginia. Delaware sends a few cases to Pennsylvania institutions;
other states sometimes care for especially difficult cases in hospitals
for the insane. The District of Columbia should be added to the list, as
having no institution for the care of its 800 or more feeble-minded.
Alaska is likewise without such an institution.

Of the several hundred thousand feeble-minded persons in the United
States, probably not more than a tenth are getting the institutional
care which is needed in most cases for their own happiness, and in
nearly every case for the protection of society. It is evident that a
great deal of new machinery must be created, or old institutions
extended, to meet this pressing problem--[86] a problem to which,
fortunately, the public is showing signs of awakening. In our opinion,
the most promising attempt to solve the problem has been made by the
Training School of Vineland, New Jersey, through its