Some sort of provision is now made for some of the feeble-minded in every state excepting eleven, viz.: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah and West Virginia. Delaware sends a few cases to Pennsylvania institutions; other states sometimes care for especially difficult cases in hospitals for the insane. The District of Columbia should be added to the list, as having no institution for the care of its 800 or more feeble-minded. Alaska is likewise without such an institution.
Of the several hundred thousand feeble-minded persons in the United States, probably not more than a tenth are getting the institutional care which is needed in most cases for their own happiness, and in nearly every case for the protection of society. It is evident that a great deal of new machinery must be created, or old institutions extended, to meet this pressing problem—1 a problem to which, fortunately, the public is showing signs of awakening. In our opinion, the most promising attempt to solve the problem has been made by the Training School of Vineland, New Jersey, through its "Colony Plan." Superintendent E. R. Johnstone of the Training School describes the possibilities of action along this line, as follows:2
There are idiots, imbeciles, morons and backward children. The morons and the backward children are found in the public schools in large numbers. Goddard's studies showed twelve per cent. of an entire school district below the high school to be two or three years behind their grades, and three per cent. four or more years behind.
It is difficult for the expert to draw the line between these two classes, and parents and teachers are loth to admit that the morons are defective. This problem can best be solved by the establishment of special classes in