e, the imbeciles and idiots, are cared for in state institutions.

One of the most serious menaces to the social health of the rural
community is from those mental defectives who are able to care for
themselves but who are mentally incapable of rearing a normal family and
of conforming to the customary standards of morality. These
"feeble-minded," are far too numerous in rural communities and their
proper care and education has been neglected because they have been
commonly regarded as merely "simple minded" or "foolish"; to be pitied,
and the subject of many a jest, but entirely harmless. A large number of
the feeble-minded are so nearly normal that they are considered merely
shiftless or stupid. Nearly every rural community has one or more
families, and not infrequently a small slum neighborhood, who are
ne'er-do-wells, more or less delinquent and frequently requiring aid
from the town. Thanks to modern psychology, we now know that many of
these adults have the intelligence of only a seven or nine-year-old
child and that they are incapable of further mental development.
Furthermore, carefully conducted studies in the heredity of these
families show that feeble-mindedness is congenital; that where both
parents are feeble-minded all the offspring will be so afflicted; and
that when one of the parents is sub-normal that some of the children
will be feeble-minded and that those who appear normal may transmit the
defect to their children. Psychological tests have now been developed so
that adults with a mentality of nine or ten years or less may be
definitely diagnosed as mentally deficient.

It must be obvious that an adult with fully developed sexual desires but
with the mind of a child is incapable of conforming his or her behavior
to the standards of society and will be incapable of giving proper
parental care to children. So a considerable percentage of our petty
criminals, vagrants, prostitutes, and dependent are found to be
feeble-minded. They are unstable, suggestible, easily victimized.

The farm and the village have a considerable amount of routine work
which can be done by these sub-normal people and they therefore have
opportunity to maintain themselves and to multiply to better advantage
than in the city where the competition of life is keener. Although they
are best off in a rural environment, when unrestricted and unsegregated
they are a constant menace to the community and often involve it in
considerable