The Children that Never Grow Up : Part 1

The Family and it's Members
by Anna Garlin Spencer

(Page 11 of 20)

"It was perhaps an idle thought
But I imagined that if day by day
I watched him and seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart
With zeal (as men study some stubborn art
For their own good) and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind -
I might reclaim him from his dark estate."

-Shelley

"One man, at least, I know,
Who might wear the crest of Bayard
Or Sidney's plume of snow.
Behold him,
The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lips language,
The idiot clay a mind.
Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,
Wherever groans a slave, -
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
Knight of a better era,
Without reproach or fear!
Said I not well that Bayards
And Sidneys still are here?"

- Whittier's, tribute to Dr. Howe.

The Defective Children. - Not those who die young, full of promise, to leave a memory of exquisite budding loveliness cut short by untimely frosts, but those who live on from infancy to childhood and from youth to physical maturity and even on to old age, yet never become responsible adults - these are the children we must consider.

The demand of the eugenists that such, if obviously defective, should be prevented from bringing forth after their kind is clearly the only social wisdom. The statistics of social pathology all point to mental defectiveness as the prolific cause of crime, immorality, vocational incompetency, illegitimacy, family failure, and marital tragedy. In a recent study of one hundred families in which feeble-mindedness was obvious, a study carried on by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, immorality was found in 58 per cent. of them; extreme filth and bad home conditions were found in 30 per cent.; and in 47 per cent. one or more members of these families were public charges. Where the mother is subnormal there is almost certain to be a line of feeble-minded progeny, and in this study, while there were only 7 per cent. of the fathers hopelessly deficient, in 25 per cent. the mothers were notably defective in mind. Thirty-seven of these families showed illegitimate children - a far larger number than the average of normal population. Physical deficiencies also figured largely in these family records.

This particular study takes us into the region where Doctor Fernald, Doctor Goddard and many others have prepared material for convincing the public mind that no one thing so increases social degeneracy and so adds to the sum of human misery as the unprotected freedom of defectives to procreate and pollute the family currents. This is not a treatise on social pathology and elsewhere must be found the details of investigation and information that justify this statement. What is here attempted is only a study of what should be the attitude of fathers and mothers toward feeble-minded children if such should be their tragic problem.

Custodial Care of the Defective. - In the first place, the attitude of mind of the parents, if they are themselves normal, is to be considered. What gives us feeble-minded children from feeble-minded parents is clear. The social prevention for carrying on known degeneracy cannot be too strongly stressed, and hence the first duty of normal parents is to consider the social danger of leaving a feeble-minded child, especially a feeble-minded girl, to any chance of parenthood. This leads to the question of removal from home of feeble-minded children to permanent custodial care in institutions provided especially for their segregation, possible teaching and thrifty use of small work-power. Alexander Johnson, who has done so much in the United States to make all philanthropy wise and effective and particularly has helped to form public opinion concerning right methods of care and training of the feeble-minded, tells us that "one-half of the mentally defective can become one-third of a normal person," can be made happy and useful to the extent of considerable aid toward self-support if under constant supervision and given the trained care of special teachers.

There are few private homes in which any feeble-minded boy or girl can attain such a condition. The children who are "different," if having the sole devotion of father and mother, may be protected and made happy in the measure of their power for happiness. But if there are other children in the family neither they nor the afflicted one are comfortable. The measure of feeble-mindedness is usually the measure of unhappiness when the normal and abnormal are in close companionship. In most families it is not possible for either or both parents to give entire time, strength and devotion to one subnormal child. Where it is, there is no security that death will not prevent the permanency of that devoted care. Hence, it is generally safer and better for all concerned to place the feeble-minded in collective homes where their own kind are cared for exclusively and where segregated control can be complete and permanent through life. There is no horror of such places for those who have seen what flowers of happiness and what miracles of devotion may be found in "Training Schools for the Feeble-minded."

The affectional side of the nature of a mental defective may be of unusual strength and may find special objects of love among those still more handicapped than itself. Those visiting intimately in such School-homes may see a higher-grade imbecile caring for a lower-grade with patience and devotion; they may see the competitive element in training, reduced in levels for the accommodation of the slender stock of mentality, producing on that lower level the same good results that normal children gain from trying to imitate and to excel. Small attainments are sources of pride in a class of defectives which if exhibited among the normal would give bitter experience of contrast. By making the standard of behavior and of attainment suited to their little power, the delight of conquest over difficulties need not be denied to the feeble-minded.

Copyright, 1923 by J.B. Lippincott Company

About the Author

Anna Garlin Spencer (1851-1931) was an American educator, feminist, and Unitarian minister. Born in Attleboro, MA, she married the Rev. William H. Spencer in 1878. She was a leader in the women's suffrage and peace movements. In 1891 she became the first woman ordained as a minister in the state of Rhode Island.