=The burden of the feeble-minded.=--The history of Emma W., at one time an inmate of Letchworth Village, a New York institution for the feeble-minded, should be convincing that it is bad policy to let the feeble-minded drift in and out of the almshouse; that it is but humanity and economy to segregate them, and to strike at the causes of mental defect. Emma W. came to life in an almshouse, stamped with illegitimacy and feeble-mindedness. Her family’s record reads: mother, two brothers, and a sister feeble-minded; mother’s father feeble-minded and mother’s mother tuberculous. When a second child was expected the mother was induced by well-meaning people to marry the father, who was a drunken epileptic. Two children were born. Still later the same well-meaning people aided her to get a divorce in order to marry the father of another child about to be born. Since then four more have been born. All of these children are feeble-minded. Entire family, with exception of the oldest child, is at large. The accompanying chart, taken from _The Survey_, March 2, 1912, shows graphically her heredity. Our studies at Vineland have shown that 65 per cent. of feeble-minded people are the children of feeble-minded people; in other words, that the condition is strongly hereditary. Therefore, if these people are allowed to become parents, they will bring into the world another group of people like themselves who will thus perpetuate the social waste. The following charts show the heredity of two families. We have two hundred like these--65 per cent. of all our inmates show such history. The symbols used in the charts are the following: Square indicates male. Circle indicates female. A capital letter indicates disease, habit, or condition, as follows: A, alcoholic (habitual drunkard); B, blind; C, criminal; D, deaf; E, epileptic; F, feeble-minded, either black letter, or white letter on black ground (the former when sex is unknown); I, insane; N, normal; Sx, grave sexual offender; Sy, syphilitic; T, tuberculosis. Any of these letters may be used with no square or circle when sex is unknown. When even the letter is omitted the vertical line points to the fact that there was an individual of whom nothing is known. Small black circle indicates miscarriage--time is given (in months) when known, also cause; stillbirth is shown as a miscarriage at nine months; b = born; d = died; m = married; inf = infancy; hand shows which child is in the institution for feeble-minded; illeg = illegitimate; heavy line under any symbol indicates that the person is in some institution at the expense of society. [Illustration: Chart I.]