The first class demanding attention is that of those feeble-minded whose
condition is due to heredity. There is reason to believe that at least
two-thirds of the feeble-minded in the United States owe their condition
directly to heredity,[80] and will transmit it to a large per cent of
their descendants, if they have any. Feeble-minded persons from sound
stock, whose arrested development is due to scarlet fever or some
similar disease of childhood, or to accident, are of course not of
direct concern to eugenists.
The number of patent feeble-minded in the United States is probably not
less than 300,000, while the number of latent individuals--those
carrying the taint in their germ-plasm and capable of transmitting it to
their descendants, although the individuals themselves may show good
mental development--is necessarily much greater. The defect is highly
hereditary in nature: when two innately feeble-minded persons marry,
all their offspring, almost without exception, are feeble-minded. The
feeble-minded are never of much value to society--they never present
such instances as are found among the insane, of persons with some
mental lack of balance, who are yet geniuses. If restrictive eugenics
dealt with no other class than the hereditarily feeble-minded, and dealt
with that class effectively, it would richly justify its existence.
Pages:
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298