business, in politics, in religious organizations, in educational work, the surer it will be that "all is grist that comes to his mill" and there can be no study that is at all worthy that fails to enrich his mind. Hence, the new tendency to examination for the sake of finding out the specially gifted children and giving them the special opportunity in education which they need and will profit by, must be one guided toward details of differing gifts as well as toward quantitative power.

Genius Universal in Nature.-If any family has in it a real genius, that family shines forever in the reflected light of its choicest treasure. Yet a genius belongs to no family, even to no country. Such belong to the world. Mary, we are told, "pondered the things in her heart" which marked the boy Jesus out from all the other lads who played about the carpenter shop of Joseph. And it is not alone poetic imagination that shows her as troubled as well as humbly proud at the testimonies of His coming greatness. Many other mothers of those destined to high achievement have had misgivings as the shadow as truly as the sunlight of that greatness passed across their vision. For true greatness is solitary and often dedicated to tragedies of experience. The family life may be the only refuge from a misunderstanding world while the hero lives and only after death may the high quality of his service be known to all.

Genius Its Own School-master.-The most comforting thought to parents who have children "different" and perhaps different in ways not yet appreciated by the world around them, is this nature, which takes care that we shall not have too many geniuses and doubtless will still take such care when we grow wise enough to give all the children a chance to prove whether or not they are geniuses-nature sees to it that the most gifted among the children of men carry within themselves their own school-master. If the regular lines of education do not suit their needs they promptly emancipate themselves from the useless pedagogy, and going after what they personally demand for inner nourishment, get it at all hazards. Sometimes, not infrequently, all the gifted child needs is a library and a chance to be free, or a studio and the companionship of an artist and just his own sort of training, at the time he can best appropriate it.

Varieties of the Gifted.-Happily all the flowers of the family are not geniuses or specially talented. Some are just beautiful to look at and yet unspoiled by flattery. It is a great gift of nature to be able to give happiness just by allowing people to look at one! The contour of the face, the turn of the head, the light in the eye, the freshness of the complexion, the grace of the movement, and the sweetness of the voice all go together, if the manner and the feeling only match the coloring and the form, to make it well worth while just to be alive.

And some flowers of the family are not beautiful but charming, those of tact and graciousness and understanding of others and consideration and unselfish behavior. These are they of whom one has said, "The charm of her presence was felt when she went, and men at her side grew nobler, girls purer, as all through the town the children were gladder who pulled at her gown."

Some flowers of the family bloom late and come to their beauty only when some disaster threatens destruction of the home or some sorrow wrecks its happiness. Simple, plain, unassuming, neither very wise nor very strong in other matters, they have a heart that can love with such intensity that it warms the coldest spot and is the refuge most sought when misfortune appears.

And sometimes the flower of the family is but a memory of one who early passes on. Emerson sang in his beautiful "Threnody": "The gracious boy, who did adorn The world whereinto he was born, And by his countenance repay The favor of the loving Day,Has disappeared from the Day's eye; Far and wide she cannot find him; My hopes pursue, they cannot bind him.

And garden,—they were bound and still."

It is of such that affection speaks most tenderly.

QUESTIONS ON THE FLOWER OF THE FAMILY

1. How far should the general family life be burdened for special development of the genius, the near-genius, and the specially talented member? 2. What added social provisions should we seek to secure to aid in the self-training of the specially gifted?

3. What type of education may lead more surely to the discovery of talent and special faculty in the mass of children?

4. Should the chief aim be to bring the subnormal or backward up to grade or to give a free and helpful range of opportunity to natural qualities of leadership? If both should be aimed at equally, how can the public school aid in the double task?

5. A suggestive list of Books for Parents, issued by the Federation for Child Study, headquarters at 2 West Sixty-fourth Street, New York City, includes several of special value in determining the mental powers and special requirements of children diverging from the average quality and capacity. Read at least one of the books indicated and compare local provisions for examination of children with those advocated as desirable.

CHAPTER X

THE CHILDREN THAT NEVER GROW UP

"IT WAS perhaps an idle thought

But I imagined that if day by day
I watched him and seldom went away,
And studied all the beatings of his heart
With zeal (as men study some stubborn art
For their own good) and could by patience find
An entrance to the caverns of his mind-
I might reclaim him from his dark estate."

-SHELLEY.

"One man, at least, I know,

Who might wear the crest of Bayard

Or Sidney's plume of snow.

Behold him,

The Cadmus of the blind,
Giving the dumb lips language,

The idiot clay a mind.
Wherever outraged Nature
Asks word or action brave,
Wherever struggles labor,

Wherever groans a slave,-
Wherever rise the peoples,
Wherever sinks a throne,
The throbbing heart of Freedom finds
An answer in his own.
Knight of a better era,

Without reproach or fear!

Said I not well that Bayards

And Sidneys still are here?"

-WHITTIER's tribute to Dr. Howe.

The Defective Children.-Not those who die young, full of promise, to leave a memory of exquisite budding loveliness cut short by untimely frosts, but those who live on from infancy to

childhood and from youth to physical maturity and even on to old age, yet never become responsible adults-these are the children we must consider.

The demand of the eugenists that such, if obviously defective, should be prevented from bringing forth after their kind is clearly the only social wisdom. The statistics of social pathology all point to mental defectiveness as the prolific cause of crime, immorality, --vocational incompetency, illegitimacy, family failure, and marital tragedy. In a recent study of one hundred families in which feeble-mindedness was obvious, a study carried on by the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, immorality was found in 58 per cent. of them; extreme filth and bad home conditions were found in 30 per cent.; and in 47 per cent. one or more members of these families were public charges. Where the mother is subnormal there is almost certain to be a line of feeble-minded progeny, and in this study, while there were only 7 per cent. of the fathers hopelessly deficient, in 25 per cent. the mothers were notably defective in mind. Thirty-seven of these families showed illegitimate children-a far larger number than the average of normal population. Physical deficiencies also figured largely in these family records.

This particular study takes us into the region where Doctor Fernald, Doctor Goddard and many others have prepared material for convincing the public mind that no one thing so increases social degeneracy and so adds to the sum of human misery as the unprotected freedom of defectives to procreate and pollute the family currents.* This is not a treatise on social pathology and elsewhere must be found the details of investigation and information that justify this statement. What is here attempted is only a study of what should be the attitude of fathers and mothers toward feeble-minded children if such should be their tragic problem.

Custodial Care of the Defective.-In the first place, the attitude of mind of the parents, if they are themselves normal, is to be considered. What gives us feeble-minded children from feeble-minded parents is clear. The social prevention for carrying

See "Mental Diseases in Twelve States," as reported in 1919 by Horatio M. Pollock, Ph.D., Statistician New York State Hospital Commission, and Edith M. Forbush, Statistician of National Committee for Mental Hygiene, published in Mental Hygiene of April, 1921.