Sterilization 103
of the public, and that whereas the problem of the defectives was previously solved by the law of survival of the fittest, the provisions now made for caring for them have resulted in the prolongation of their lives.
Dr. Goddard, whose treatise on the subject has been reprinted and issued by the Department of Child Hygiene of the Russell Sage Foundation, says that the investigation made in the public schools shows that two per cent. of the children are mentally defective and incapable of taking their places in society. On this ratio, he points out that the public schools of the City of New York would have 15,000 feeble-minded children.
Study of the case, the discussion continues, tends to prove that fully two-thirds of the feeble-minded children had feeble-minded parents or grand-parents, or both, and that an investigation made by the Royal Commission of England disclosed the fact that the feeble-minded were increasing at twice the rate of others.
In dealing with the feeble-minded children on the colonization or segregation plan, Dr. Goddard points out that it would require eight to thirty institutions to house such an army of feeble-minded as would be founding New York, on the basis of the two per cent. ratio, and it would be difficult to get them into the colonies, because in many instances it would be hard to convince parents that the children were defectives.
In the matter of sterilization Dr. Goddard says "it is easy to point to a feeble-minded man that lived six generations ago, who became the ancestor of 143 known defectives, and say, 'that would not have occurred if he had been sterilized.'" He points out that the application of the sterilization idea is fraught with difficulties, not the least of which is that is would involve the necessity of going into the home and declaring that such and such a child is liable to produce its kind.