In such a reckless and thoughtless differentiation between the “bad” and the “good” feeble-minded, we find new evidence of the conventional middle-class bias that also finds expression among some of the eugenists.  We do not object to feeble-mindedness simply because it leads to immorality and criminality; nor can we approve of it when it expresses itself in docility, submissiveness and obedience.  We object because both are burdens and dangers to the intelligence of the community.  As a matter of fact, there is sufficient evidence to lead us to believe that the so-called “borderline cases” are a greater menace than the out-and-out “defective delinquents” who can be supervised, controlled and prevented from procreating their kind.  The advent of the Binet-Simon and similar psychological tests indicates that the mental defective who is glib and plausible, bright looking and attractive, but with a mental vision of seven, eight or nine years, may not merely lower the whole level of intelligence in a school or in a society, but may be encouraged by church and state to increase and multiply until he dominates and gives the prevailing “color”—­culturally speaking—­to an entire community.

The presence in the public schools of the mentally defective children of men and women who should never have been parents is a problem that is becoming more and more difficult, and is one of the chief reasons for lower educational standards.  As one of the greatest living authorities on the subject, Dr. A. Tredgold, has pointed out,(4) this has created a destructive conflict of purpose.  “In the case of children with a low intellectual capacity, much of the education at present provided is for all practical purposes a complete waste of time, money and patience....  On the other hand, for children of high intellectual capacity, our present system does not go far enough.  I believe that much innate potentiality remains undeveloped, even amongst the working classes, owing to the absence of opportunity for higher education, to the disadvantage of the nation.  In consequence of these fundamental differences, the catchword `equality of opportunity’ is meaningless and mere claptrap in the absence of any equality to respond to such opportunity.  What is wanted is not equality of opportunity, but education adapted to individual potentiality; and if the time and money now spent in the fruitless attempt to make silk-purses out of sows’ ears, were devoted to the higher education of children of good natural capacity, it would contribute enormously to national efficiency.”

In a much more complex manner than has been recognized even by students of this problem, the destiny and the progress of civilization and of human expression has been hindered and held back by this burden of the imbecile and the moron.  While we may admire the patience and the deep human sympathy with which the great specialists in feeble-mindedness have expressed the hope of drying up the sources of this evil or of