The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 1 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better BabiesHague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Science
The Eugenic Marriage, Volume 1 (of 4): A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies
Hague, W. Grant (William Grant)
Eugenics; Hygiene; Marriage
The history of the average "gangster" shows a taint of alcoholism. This is
further aggravated by living under immoral surroundings, where petty crimes
like stealing and lying are considered "smart." This is the starting point
of the New York "gangster." He is handicapped, and under ancestral
disabilities and the disadvantages of environment that is pernicious, he
cannot get very far. A boy usually qualifies with a gang on his own [42]
personality and tastes. He will often wander from one gang to another until
he has found his particular atmosphere. The best will never find any one
gang congenial enough to hold him, and he finally emerges a decent citizen.
It is all a process of finding himself. The aim of the police should be to
discount as much as possible any swaggering and false hero worship.
The time has come when this great nation should take national cognizance of
this problem. There should be a national institution on some isolated
island. Civilization is coming to recognize such a necessity. With a close
eye on the tide of immigration and a careful segregation of these defective
types, we should soon rid ourselves of what is now growing to be a serious
menace to the home and the nation.
THE SEGREGATION AND TREATMENT OF THE FEEBLE-MINDED.--Dr. John Punton, of
Kansas City, Mo., in an able and exhaustive article on "The Segregation and
Treatment of the Feeble-Minded," writes as follows:
"Your attention is directed to a recent report issued by Wentworth E.
Griffin, Chief of Police of Kansas City, Mo., in which he claims that
recently within six months' time no less than 2,480 juveniles were arrested
charged with crimes ranging from vagrancy to murder and that the majority
of these boys and girls were not normal children, but degenerates who
required medical rather than penal treatment. 'Boys and girls,' says he,
'should not receive correction in the city jails, the work house or
reformatories. These should be the last resort. To correct a boy you must
have an idea of his mental processes. It is natural that the parents
understand something of the child and use that knowledge to make a good boy
out of him. Certainly it cannot be done in the reformatories, for although
the authorities there are competent, they are hardly medical psychologists.
In my opinion, if any progress is to be made it is the parent and the
doctor that must do the work, not the police and the courts.'
"That our Chief of Police deserves credit for not only publishing this
report, but also for the advanced position he takes in recognizing the
appropriate care and treatment of the juvenile offender, is certain, [43]
for he understands the fact that the parents are often the chief culprits
in the child's delinquency and that medical rather than penal treatment is
more often indicated than is at present allowed or practiced.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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