"A LAISSER FAIRE policy," writes one
investigator, "simply allows the social sore to spread. And a quasi
LAISSER FAIRE policy wherein we allow the defective to commit crime
and then interfere and imprison him, wherein we grant the defective the
personal liberty to do as he pleases, until he pleases to descend to a
plane of living below the animal level, and try to care for a few of his
descendants who are so helpless that they can no longer exercise that
personal liberty to do as they please,"--such a policy increases and
multiplies the dangers of the over-fertile feeble-minded.(5)
The Mental Survey of the State of Oregon recently published by the
United States Health Service, sets an excellent example and should be
followed by every state in the Union and every civilized country as
well. It is greatly to the credit of the Western State that it is one of
the first officially to recognize the primary importance of this problem
and to realize that facts, no matter how fatal to self-satisfaction,
must be faced. This survey, authorized 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.
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