"SOCIAL DEFECTIVES."

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 273, 18 November 1927, Page 14

"SOCIAL DEFECTIVES."

UNIFICATION OF CONTROL.

EUGENICS BOARD PROPOSED. DR. GRAY S FIRST REPORT. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, Thursday. "There is 110 cure for mental deficiency in the individual and no panacea will remove it from the country, but 1 believe that we can gradually assume control of its incidence and diminish the economic burden it imposes on the community, provided we take certain measures, to be detailed hereafter."

This remark is made by Dr. Theodore G. Gray, Inspector-General of Mental Hospitals* in the first part of his report on the tour of investigation which he recently made in the United States.. Canada, Great Britain and the Continent. The two main fields of inquiry were the problems of mental deficiency and modern methods in the care and treatment of the insane. The first part of the Report deals mainly with ■ the problcflfos of mental deficiency. Persons "Socially Inadequate."

Dr. Gray says that while there is little difficulty in recognising the more gross type of mental deficiency, such as the imbecile and idiot, there is a very large class, the members of which are socially inadequate, but who do not come within the definitions embodied in the present Mental Defectives Act. The latter class is dealt with in England under the designation of "moral imbecile." There are many objections to this designation, for which Dr. Gray proposes to substitute the name, "social defective," with the following definition: "Persons in whose case there exists mental deficiency associated with or manifested by antisocial conduct and who require State supervision and control for their own protection er for the protection of others."

No Universal "Best System." "There is no universal 'best system' in this or the allied problem of dealing' with the insane," says Dr. Gray. "Each \ country must evolve its own method, guided and restricted by its own peculiar racial, geographic and economic situations. We have much knowledge, but we. have more theory. Let us in the meantime be content to build on a sure, safe and broad foundation of proved essential facts."

Dr. Gray emphasises the necessity for a thorough psychiatric examination of each feeble-minded person. He strongly deprecates the growing tendency to depend upon so-called "intelligence tests," which he regards rather as a test of the opportunities which the child has had of acquiring knowledge rather than as a test of innate intelligence. "The most , important preliminary necessity in any scheme for the cure of feeble-minded persons is the taking of a census and the compiling of a register," states Dr. Gray. "I am of opinion that this, duty should be carried out by a central co-ordinating and registering authority, a eugenics board.

Dutivs or zugenics Board. "1 am satisfied that unification of con-! trol is of paramount importance and that this could best be attained by the creation of a board-, a eugenics board, whose function could be broadly defined as being the social control of the feebleminded. This control would involve the administration of all special schools, day and residential, but the special classes attached to day schools should be strictly reserved for genuine retardates as determined by the officers of the eugenics board, and should be conductcd as theretofore by- the education department.

"There is a large class of higher grade defectives of the so-called moral imbecile type, whose departure from the normal is manifested on the moral and emotional planes rather than in an obyious defect of intelligence. These people, along with many who may be considered more or less as border-line cases, are to be found in institutions for young folk of delinquent and anti-social tendencies, and it is desirable on all ground that the care 4 of these classes should be included in 'the duties of the eugenics board.