Eugenics Record Office. BULLETIN No. 10A - DNA Patent Database ...

THE SCOPE OF THE COMMITTEE’S WORK. 19
1. Idiocy (Low Grade Amentia). The idiot is defined as “a person so
deeply defective in mind from birth or from early age that he is unable to guard
himself against common physical dangers.”
2. Imbecility (Medium Grade Amentia). The imbecile is defined as “one
who, by reason of mental defect existing from birth, or from an early age, is
incapable of earning his own living, but is capable of guarding himself against
common physical dangers.”
3. Feeble-mindedness (High Grade Amentia). This is the mildest degree
of mental defect, and the feeble-minded person is “one who is capable of earning
a living under favorable circumstances, but is incapable, from mental defect
existing from birth, or from an early age, (a) of competing on equal terms with
his normal fellows; or (b) of managing himself and his affairs with ordinary
prudence.
Tredgold suggests that, in addition to this classification, it might
be well to define the moral imbecile as “a person who displays from
an early age, and in spite of careful upbringing, strong vicious or
criminal propensities, on which punishment has little or no deterrent
effect.” In its more restricted sense the term “degenerate” seems to
mean practically the same as the expression “moral imbecile.”
It is the moron or high-grade feeble-minded class of individuals
that constitute the greatest cacogenic menace, for these individuals,
with little or no protection by a kindly social order, are able to, and do,
reproduce their unworthy kind. The still lower grades possess such
inferior and ill co-ordinated natural qualities that they require great
bolstering up in order to reproduce at all. Under the selfishly severe
stress of a primitive order of social affairs, natural selection would
readily cut off these lowest classes.
In classifying individuals on the functional basis, the general or
average end result in their functioning must be considered, but there
is also a qualitative difference. Two individuals may grade, according
to Binet test, as mentally, say, five years of age. Whereas one may
possess a remarkable memory, but be totally unable to calculate or to
be educated in manual skill; the second may be manually skillful and
at the same time possess a very poor memory, and so forth throughout
all the possible combinations of normal traits and defects. This peculiar
combination of good and bad qualities is further exemplified in the
case of idiot savants. Tredgold describes the Genius of Earlswood
Asylum: “A patient whose skill in drawing, invention and mechanical
dexterity is certainly unequalled by any inmate in any similar institution
in existence.” In general this individual who, at the time of
Tredgold’s book ( 1908) was 73 years old, functioned as feeble-minded,
but, in certain lines of manual skill, he must be ranked as a genius.