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Feeble-minded

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Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Eugenics in America The term feeble-minded was used from the late 19th century in Europe, the United States, and Australasia for disorders later referred to as illnesses, deficiencies of the mind, and disabilities.

At the time, mental deficiency encompassed all degrees of educational and social deficiency. Within the concept of mental deficiency, researchers established a hierarchy, ranging from idiocy, at the most severe end of the scale; to imbecility, at the median point; and to feeble-mindedness at the highest end of functioning. The last was conceived of as a form of high-grade mental deficiency.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The development of the ranking system of mental deficiency has been attributed to Sir Charles Trevelyan in 1876, and was associated with the rise of eugenics.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> The term and hierarchy had been used in that sense at least 10 years previously.<ref name=PBartley121>Template:Cite book</ref>

During this time, institutions for individuals labeled as feeble-minded grew due to rising social concern and changes in education.<ref name=":0" />

HistoryEdit

The earliest recorded use of the term in the English language dates from 1534, when it appears in one of the first English translations of the New Testament, the Tyndale Bible. A biblical commandment to "Comforte the feble mynded" is included in 1 Thessalonians.<ref>Bible (1534). William Tyndale (trans.); George Joye (revised). Thessalonians. Quoted in: "feeble, adj. and n.". OED Online. November 2010. Oxford University Press. 16 March 2011 <http://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/68950>.</ref>

A London Times editorial of November 1834 describes the long-serving former Prime Minister Lord Liverpool as a "feeble-minded pedant of office".<ref>The Times, 8 November 1834; "A precious exposure of the dignity and integrity of Statesmen is about to be made this day by Mr. EVANS"</ref>

In the United States, The Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons (AMO) was established in 1876 as a professional organization for institution superintendents.<ref name=":0" /> Over time, it broadened its membership to include various professionals interested in the welfare of individuals with intellectual disabilities, marking a significant step toward fostering support for this community.<ref name=":0" />

Schools of feeble-minded in the United StatesEdit

From 1876 to 1916, facilities for individuals with intellectual disabilities became a recognized aspect of American society, showcasing significant changes in education, social dynamics, healthcare, and scientific shifts during that period.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref> The rise in schools for students with intellectual disabilities since the 1900s reflects the growing commitment from cities, states, and private organizations to support these children, rather than an increase in the occurrence of mental disabilities.<ref>Bonner, H. 1920. SCHOOLS and CLASSES for FEEBLE-- MINDED and SUBNORMAL CHILDREN 1918. Department of the Interior. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED541371.pdf</ref>

For "feebleminded" children, which broadly connoted mental deficiency of various forms, special day-schools were established in the 1900s to promote efficient schooling. These schools focused on "educable" learning-disabled children, which classified children on two axes: a child's abnormality (need for special education) and a child's ineducability.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> For most families, institutions were places of last, not first, resort.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Some small, private establishments opened during the late 1800s, and early 1900s, such as the Pennsylvania Training School for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Children, generally known as "Elwyn."<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Elwyn Institution provided a mix of short-term education and long-term care to residents with diversely ranging mental and physical disabilities.<ref name=":1">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Children in these institutions expanded their vocabulary, and learned their letters and numbers. If they were capable, they later progressed to study basic reading and writing skills.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Institutional daily lifeEdit

At institutions, there were a variety of engaging activities to energize and stimulate the mind while diverting the "melancholic.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> For example, the Private Institution for the Education of Feeble-Minded youth in Barre, Massachusetts built cottages for each of the children's needs. These cottages were similar to spaces in other institutions, with large sitting and living rooms, "modern conveniences" (sanitation), a shop room with tool benches, recreation classes, and indoor games.<ref name=":5">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> When they were not learning basic reading and writing, it was common for residents to participate in unpaid domestic labor.<ref name=":1" />

Sterilization and eugenics in school settingsEdit

Sterilizations for those characterized as feeble-minded was legal and common during 1927 to 1945.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite journal</ref> At the Minnesota School for the Feeble Minded in Faribault, 18-year old Edna Collins became the ninety-eighth person legally sterilized in 1927.<ref name=":2" /> The sterilizations for the fertile feebleminded were driven by fear of these individuals' impact on the economy and social order.<ref>Pickens, Donald K. “The Sterilization Movement: The Search for Purity in Mind and State.” Phylon (1960-), vol. 28, no. 1, 1967, pp. 78–94. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/274128. Accessed 31 Mar. 2025.</ref> However, sterilizations were not a safe and effective substitute for permanent segregation and control.<ref>Fernald, W. (2016, October). Massachusetts Medical Society: The Burden of Feeble-Mindedness. Www.massmed.org. https://www.massmed.org/About/MMS-Leadership/History/The-Burden-of-Feeble-Mindedness/</ref>

Partial list of US institutions in the late 19th and early 20th centuriesEdit

DefinitionEdit

The British government's Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-Minded (1904–1908), in its Report in 1908 defined the feeble-minded as:

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Despite being pejorative, in its day the term was considered, along with idiot, imbecile, and moron, to be a relatively precise psychiatric classification.

The American psychologist Henry H. Goddard, who coined the term moron, and translated the Stanford-Binet intelligence test into English,<ref name=":3">Template:Cite journal</ref> was the director of the Vineland Training School (originally the Vineland Training School for Backward and Feeble-minded Children) at Vineland, New Jersey. Goddard was known for strongly postulating that "feeble-mindedness" was a hereditary trait, most likely caused by a single recessive gene. Goddard rang the eugenic "alarm bells" in his 1912 work, The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness, about those in the population who carried the recessive trait despite outward appearances of normality.<ref name=":3" />

In the first half of the 20th century, a diagnosis of "feeble-mindedness, in any of its grades" was a common criterion for many states in the United States, which embraced eugenics as a progressive measure, to mandate the compulsory sterilization of such patients. In the 1927 US Supreme Court case Buck v. Bell, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes closed the 8–1 majority opinion upholding the sterilization of Carrie Buck, with the phrase, "Three generations of imbeciles are enough."<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Buck, her mother and daughter were all classified as feeble-minded. Between 1927 and 1945, up to 2,204 individual's (77 percent of whom were women) underwent sterilization due to the states eugenic law, which remained in effect for another 30 years.<ref name=":2" />

Representation in other mediaEdit

Jack London published a short story, "Told in the Drooling Ward" (1914), which describes inmates at a California institution for the "feeble-minded". He narrates the story from the point of view of a self-styled "high-grade feeb". The California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children, later the Sonoma Developmental Center, was located near the Jack London Ranch in Glen Ellen, California.

See alsoEdit

ReferencesEdit

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External linksEdit

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