Seventeen and five-tenths per cent of the male inmates of the State-Prison Farm were feebleminded. The striking fact at this institution was not so much the presence of feebleminded, but the great number of other forms of mental abnormality, mental disease and deterioration, epilepsy, and the like. Sixty-five per cent. of the inmates of this institution are classifiable in terms of deviation from normal mental health.
Of 100 cases of juvenile delinquents studied in the juvenile court, 17 per cent were found feebleminded. Fifteen per cent of the Fulton County Reformatory for Boys were feebleminded, 24 per cent of the inmates of the State Reformatory for Boys, and 27 per cent of the inmates of the Georgia Training School for Girls. It is these feebleminded delinquent children that later on become the chronic recidivists, who are seen in our jails, adult criminal courts, and state prisons.
Finally, 3.5 per cent of the children examined in the public schools were found to be feebleminded. These are the children who are to become the "grist" of our future courts, jails, reformatories, and state prisons, and to form the very backbone of the vast and grim procession of paupers, criminals, and prostitutes of tomorrow.
The report recommended a Training School and Farm Colony for Feebleminded Persons in which there would be: a custodial department for the low grade of idiots and epileptics; a training school where manual training and other methods adapted to the training of feebleminded children are in effect; and a Farm Colony for such as have received all possible training. The report also recommends special classes in the public schools; state supervision of the feebleminded after leaving school; the creation of mental clinics throughout the state.
The Georgia legislature of 1919 authorized the establishment of a state school for mental defectives for which there was appropriated $100,000.00.
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The regular annual meeting of the Indiana Society for Mental Hygiene will be held in December.
Each member of the Indiana Society for Mental Hygiene is requested to interest himself in securing additional members.
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Officers of the Society for Mental Hygiene
Wm. Lowe Bryan, Bloomington. . .President.
T. F. Fitzgibbon, Muncie . . .Vice-President.
Evans Wollen, Indianapolis . . .Treasurer.
Paul L. Kirby, Indianapolis . . .Secretary.
Amos W. Butler, Indianapolis . . . Chairman Executive Committee.
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