[This is an abstract of a paper published in “The Training School” for
June, 1911. Dr. Goddard is no theorist; his conclusions always deserve
very serious thought.]
It was with a good deal of interest that we accepted the offer of a
prominent probation officer to examine some fifty of her girls who had
been in the girls’ reformatory, but were now out on probation.
Some little experience with similar groups had led us to feel confident
that quite a percentage of these girls would be found to be distinctly
feeble-minded, but we were not prepared for the results that we did
find. In all, fifty-six girls were examined, ranging in age from
fourteen to twenty, the average probably being eighteen and a half. The
usual misgivings were had on the part of those who knew the girls, as
to the effect of asking them to do the test, but as experience always
shows, there was not the slightest difficulty. Indeed, the girls took
hold of the tests with great earnestness and enjoyment, and, after they
were through, were very proud of their achievements.
The results are summarized as follows: One of them tested eight
years, that is, shows the mentality of a normal girl of eight
years of age; twelve tested nine years; fourteen tested ten years;
fourteen, eleven years; eleven, twelve years, and four did the tests
for thirteen. As the tests for thirteen have been demonstrated to be
much more difficult than that age would indicate, _we may say that
four out of the fifty-six are not feeble-minded, as we usually define
feeble-mindedness. The rest are clearly mental defectives_, and could
be made, or could have been made, had they been taken early enough,
happy and useful in an institution for feeble-minded. As it is, they
must always be a trouble, must always be a disappointment, incapable of
bearing the responsibilities that have been put upon them, and, what
is worse, they will be, as many of them already are, mothers of more
feeble-minded and deficient persons.
To appreciate the full force of this, one should see these girls and
note their characteristics, their physical appearance, and those
qualities and characteristics that go to make up the type of young
woman--those things that make us instinctively feel that they are
responsible persons and make so many persons even now refuse to believe
that such can be feeble-minded, and yet here are the tests. And
more than that, here is the test of life--they are unable to adjust
themselves to their environment and will always be unable.
Perhaps the reader may be inclined to say, “But these tests show that
they are ignorant and that it is because they have not been to school,
or have not profited by their school experience.” But such is not
the case. These are not tests of school training; they are tests of
mental development. Any person who has lived in any sort of average
environment for the requisite number of years is able to do these
tests, even though he has never been to school, even for a day, and by
failing in these they manifest their mental defectiveness.
It begins to look as though we have been attempting to solve the
problem of the wayward girl by beginning at the wrong end. We have
assumed that she was competent and responsible--that she was able to
do differently, if she would, and we have tried by various forms of
punishment to reform her. Apparently we have been grossly in error,
and it is a fundamental mistake we have made. We should have begun by
finding out in early age whether this child had normal mental capacity
or not and, if not, we should have taken the case in hand and provided
for her such environment as would have fitted her mental condition. The
past is gone, the mistakes cannot be rectified; but, if we are wise,
from now on we will proceed in accordance with what we are finding out
about this class of persons. Instead of enlarging our reformatories we
will establish colonies and schools, where these girls can be taken,
as early as we can detect them, cared for and trained to do the things
they can be trained to do; where they will be made happy and allowed to
live a happy and measureably useful life under the care, guidance and
direction of intelligent and humane people, who will make their lives
happy and partially useful, but who will insist upon the one important
thing, and that is that this race should end with them; they shall
never become the mothers of children who are like themselves.