The history of the movement to prevent the marriage of mental defectives is more or less familiar to all. The sentiment of the community is apparently not such at this time as to encourage the regulation of the marriage of the mentally or physically unfit by legislative restrictions. Attempts to do so have been almost a flat failure. Various states have passed laws providing for the sterilization of defective delinquents. These laws, generally speaking, have accomplished nothing because public sentiment was not behind them. All of these matters have been brought to the attention of the public by prominent speakers on numerous occasions. Frequent articles have been printed in medical journals, well-known periodicals, and even in the daily papers. Attention has been called to the mental clinics established here and there and repeated reference has been made to the fact that physicians at our state hospitals may be consulted at any time on questions pertaining to mental diseases or mental defects. Something has been accomplished along these lines. It is unfortunate that, as a rule, people look with more or less suspicion upon institutions which are even now generally referred to as asylums. There are many who still believe that every hospital for mental diseases has its padded cells and underground dungeons. There is a rather widespread idea that the most common causes of insanity are cigarette smoking, religion and self abuse. Even in our most progressive communities it has been difficult, if not impossible, to entirely prevent the temporary detention, at least, of mental cases in jails and police stations. Very few general hospitals have psychopathic wards or any realization as to the necessity of establishing them. It is not to be denied that in many states the care of the mentally ill in our public institutions is far from being what it should be in this enlightened day. These are conditions that cannot be remedied by the medical profession without the active assistance of leaders of public sentiment. The fact that the importance of these questions is recognized by prominent educators, business men, lawyers, and other persons active in the affairs of the community, and well known to the public, will accomplish more than articles in the medical journals by physicians. This constitutes the great field of the mental hygiene organizations. They will mould public sentiment as nothing else ever has, in matters which relate to the mental health of the country. They will influence legislation where it is needed in a way that no medical society can hope to do. Above all, they can in time bring the public face to face with the fact that mental diseases should be discussed, generally understood and prevented, instead of being merely concealed and misrepresented. Possibly it would not be looking too far into the future to express the hope that an organization composed largely of laymen may be able eventually to accomplish something that the medical