The Feeble-Minded. For many years past the Charity Organization Society has been endeavouring to impress upon the public mind the fact that we cannot cure social evils by treating symptoms, and upon the public conscience that it is our bounden duty not to rest content until we have traced these symptoms to their cause and done our utmost to remove that cause when found. Slowly, very slowly, we are learning to connect cause and effect; to see that a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, that there is truth in the old proverb, "Like father, like son," and that if we would see future generations sound in mind and body, we must look to the mental and physical health of the children of to-day. We are learning even more: we are beginning to see that it is imperatively necessary, not only that the great mass of our population shall be so bred and taught that they may become healthy and moral parents, but also that those who, by reason of physical or mental defect, can never become normally healthy in body or mind, should be prevented from taking their share in the production of the race. I believe it is because of this lesson, which we are so painfully and unwillingly studying, that so much attention has of late years been directed to our most miserable fellow creatures, the mentally unfit. I know that, in my own case, when, after years of work amongst the poor, I rather suddenly realized that nearly 2 per cent. of our elementary school children would never be fit to undertake the direction of their own lives, I also realized that three-fourths of our charitable work must absolutely wasted if we could not, by some means, take possession of those feeble lives, and make certain that they should not have the opportunity to reproduce themselves. [end]