The heart of the mother is in her child; she glories in its progress, and she refuses to see its defects until they glare too brightly to be overlooked. Then she has a heartbreak all the more bitter for her maternal love. It is the incorrigibly bad child and the mentally deficient child who evoke the severest, most neurasthenic reaction on the part of the housewife. Not only is pride hurt, not only is the expanded self-love injured, but such children are a physical care and burden of such a nature as to outbalance that of three or four normal children. The bad child, egoistic, undisciplinable, destructive, and quarrelsome, or the child who cannot be taught honesty, or the one who continually runs away, is an unending source of "nervousness" to his mother. As time goes on and the difficulty is seen to be fundamental, a battle between hostility and love springs up in the mother's breast that plays havoc with her strength and character. The very worst cases of housewife neurosis are seen in such mothers; the most profound interference with mood, emotion, purpose, and energy results. Similarly, with the mother of the feeble-minded child. At first the child is viewed as a bit slow in walking, talking, in keeping clean, and the mother explains it all away on this ground or that. A previous illness, a fall in which the head was hurt, difficulty with the teething, diet, etc., all receive the blame. Alas! In the course of time the child goes to kindergarten and the terrible report comes back that "the child cannot learn, is clumsy, etc.", and the teacher thinks he should be examined. Then either through the examination or through the pressure of repeated observations mother love yields to the truth and feeble-mindedness is recognized. There are plenty of women who, with this fact established, adjust themselves, make up their minds to it. But others find that it takes all the pleasure out of their lives, become morbid, and do not enjoy their normal children. For with all due respect to eugenics and statistics I am convinced that the most of feeble-mindedness is accidental or incidental, and not a matter of heredity. Once a mother gets imbued with the notion that the condition is hereditary, she falls into agonies of fear for her other children. In my mind there is a thoroughly reprehensible publicity given to half-baked work in heredity, mental hygiene, and the like that does far more harm than good and interferes with the legitimate work.