A general examination of all men to discover the defective and the
sub-normal, coupled with a demand that all such be sent to some place of
confinement, would meet with such a protest from all classes seriously
affected as to end not only the demand but the further agitation of the
subject. Any such law, if carried out, would not only seriously increase
the cost of all industry, but in many instances would make it impossible
to carry it on. It is hardly conceivable that above the idiot, society
shall make examinations and tests and confine or sterilize large classes
of people who have not yet developed anti-social tendencies, but who on
account of feeble intellects might sometime commit crime.
The world has ample data at hand to show more humane and at the same
time much cheaper ways, even methods that will yield a profit. These
ways have been abundantly illustrated by history and can be witnessed in
operation every day.
England was repeatedly conquered and settled by brigands and misfits.
When her people grew more homogeneous and orderly she sent her
anti-social to New Zealand and to Virginia. In New Zealand with its
opportunities these outcasts and their descendants prospered and were as
orderly and conventional as the English society that banished them for
England's good. The colonies in Virginia with access to land and a
chance to make homes for themselves established a social order and
formed communities more prosperous than the ones that sent them out.
Many of their descendants are now successful and important members of
every western state.
In fact, most of the European immigrants who have settled in the United
States were the poor and the outcast, the misfits of European countries.
With better opportunities and a chance to build up homes in a new land,
their descendants are at least the equals of those who stayed behind.
The growth and development of the United States westward from the
Atlantic seaboard has been effected by the poorer and less intelligent,
but often the more venturesome, who constantly turned West to get
cheaper land and a better chance. The residents of these western states
compare very favorably with those who still reside in the sections of
the country which these pioneers left behind. It cannot be shown that
the less intelligent have criminal natures. All that can be shown is
that they have a poorer equipment to meet the stress and strain of
life. To make most of this class safe, all that is needed is fairer
conditions and an easier environment. If society could only recover from
the obsession that what is necessary to regulate man is plenty of
prisons and harder punishments, it would be fairly easy and infinitely
cheaper to improve the environment from which crime springs than to
visit vengeance on the victim.
The effect of education is very great. Many a subnormal and backward
person has been educated so he could take a place in life that those
with a much greater natural ability could not fill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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