Pastoral Relationship with People with Intellectual ... - Theses

104disability as a menace to society. 275 In the 1913 Annual Report the followinginstitutional accommodation apologetic was articulated by the incumbentadministration:The Royal Commission on the care and control of the feebleminded,which recently sat in England for four years has alarmedthe nation by pointing out that the great number of feeble-mindedwho are at large are a menace to the future generation. It stronglyrecommends that legal power should be given to commit anddetain in institutions and farm colonies any who are not underproper supervision. Our Committee has felt obliged to largelyrestrict the admission to the younger and more improvable cases,but increased accommodation would permit of our takingcustodial cases, and safeguarding from bad companions and crimethe irresponsible imbecile who would be far happier in our Homethan amongst his present environments, and who under the closesupervision of trained industrial teachers, could be made to douseful work ... 276Accommodation facilities during the early decades of Minda’sdevelopment were largely dormitory style with males and females accommodatedin separate accommodation blocks. Strict boundaries concerning interactionbetween genders were observed. 277In the years following World War II, across Australia, there was littlesuitable institutional accommodation for those classified as mentally retarded.Various states, including South Australia, had no legislation in place to determinewhere various classifications of mentally retarded people should beaccommodated. For several years Minda Home had offered care to thoseclassified as ‘idiots’ and ‘imbeciles,’ according to their psychologicallydetermined intelligence quotient. However, by the 1950s Minda had chosen toonly admit those regarded as ‘educable defectives’ over the age of five. Thismarked the end of Minda’s intake of pre-school age children. Others with moresevere forms of mental retardation were accommodated in psychiatrichospitals. 278275 It cannot be proven conclusively that this expansionary program was specifically inresponse to the eugenics philosophy, even though Minda indicated support for thephilosophy.276 Minda. "The Fifteenth Annual Report." 1-42. (Adelaide: Minda Home, 1913), 12.277 Based on first-hand recollections made by present-day or recently deceased elderly Mindapeople with intellectual disabilities who were accommodated at Minda as children in the1930s and 1940s.278 Dickey, Rations, Residence, Resources, 150.