The methods of the collection of such data vary in different countries so that the results are not comparable. In a single country there is less, though still some, lack of uniformity, so that the exact rate of increase in the ratio of the insane is still somewhat doubtful. Moreover, it is doubtless true that some of this apparent increase results from improved methods in the collection of data, and from more complete registration of these defectives. But suppose we disregard entirely the idea of an increase in the ratio of these defectives, the bare fact of the existence of nearly 200,000 insane in this country is sufficiently alarming; and it is disgraceful to any nation, because it is unnecessary. The Superintendent of the Ohio Institution for the Feeble Minded wrote in 1902: "Unless preventive measures against the progressive increase of the defective classes are adopted, such a calamity as the gradual eclipse, slow decay and final disintegration of our present form of society and government is not only possible, but probable." The latest census reports for the United States give data relative to the dependents and defectives in institutions. The numbers not in institutions can only be guessed at. But from the available sources we can gain an approximate conception of the numbers in our country to-day as follows:--insane and feeble minded, at least 200,000; blind, 100,000; deaf, and deaf and dumb, 100,000; paupers in institutions, 80,000, two thirds of whom have children, and are also physically or mentally deficient, and to say that one half of the whole number of paupers are in institutions is to give a ridiculously low estimate; prisoners, 100,000, and several hundred thousand more that should be prisoners; juvenile delinquents, 23,000 in institutions; the number cared for by hospitals, dispensaries, "homes" of various kinds, in the year 1904 was in excess of 2,000,000. From these figures we get a rough total of nearly 3,000,000. Must we define a civilized and enlightened nation as one in which only one person in every thirty can be classed as defective or dependent? It is needless to continue descriptions of this kind. The foregoing are representative data; they are published by the volume. It is always the same story--rapid increase of the unfit, defective, insane, criminal; slow increase, even decrease of the fit, normal, or gifted stocks. It is with such conditions in mind that Whetham writes: "Although this suppression of the best blood of the country is a new disease in modern Europe, it is an old story in the history of nations and has been the prelude to the ruin of states and the decline and fall of empires."