Committee on Immigration and Naturalization
House of Representatives
Sixty-Seventh Congress
Albert Johnson, Washington, Chairman
Isaac Siegel, New York
J. Will Taylor, Tennessee
John C. Kleszka, Wisconsin
William N. Vaile, Colorado
Hays D. White, Kansas
Guy L. Shaw, Illinois
Robert S. Maloney, Massachusetts
Arthur M. Free, California
John L. Cable, Ohio
Adolph J. Sabath, Illinois
John E. Raker, California
[K]iley J. Wilson, Louisiana
John C. Box, Texas
L. [B]. Rainey, Alabama
Harry H. Laughlin, Expert Eugenics Agent
[P]. F. Snyder, Clerk.
2
Practical Classification Standards for the Socially Inadequate to be followed in Preparing Data for the Schedule "Racial and Diagnostic Records of Inmates of State Institutions."
[score]
1. Purpose:
This pamphlet is prepared in order to aid the officers of institutions in compiling, in a uniform manner, the necessary statistics for filling out the above-named schedule, which the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization has sent to all State and Federal custodial and residential institutions for the socially inadequate in the United States and outlying Territories.
The racial and diagnostic classifications given in this pamphlet are designed primarily for practical use in securing uniformity in filling out the institutional schedule. These classifications do not pretend to be exhaustive or complete from a technical point of view.
2. Examples of use:
The criminalistic - On pages 3 and 6 of the schedule above referred to, the columns marked "Diagnosis and social type" are meant to be filled with the classification of the criminalistic indiciduals given under "III. The criminalistic," on page 6 of this pamphlet.
The feeble-minded - If the institution be one for the feeble-minded, then, in filling out the schedule, the clinical types named under the heading, "I. The feeble-minded," page 5 of this pamphlet, should be listed under the column headed, "Diagnosis and social type."
3. Development of standards.
Institutional authorities and other persons concerned with the scientific classification of one or more groups of the socially inadequate are invited to submit their outlines of their particular systems to Harry H. Laughlin, Expert Eugenics Agent, Committee on Immigration and Naturalization, House of Representatives, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y. All data thus submitted will be carefully considered in the future development of the accompanying set of standards, in the effort to find a common basis for the practical and scientific classification of the several types of the socially inadequate.
4. To the superintendents and the trustees of State custodial and residential institutions:
The executive officers of institutions who have not yet had the opportunity of properly filling out the schedule "Racial and Diagnostic Records" are respectfully requested to make a special effort to supply the desired data at as early a date as may be convenient.
Up to the present time (December, 1921) 370 of the total 671 institutions to which the schedule was sent have responded in a very satisfactory manner.