Excerpt from The Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. 25: A Quarterly International Records of Educational Literature Institutions and Progress

Feeble-mindedness may be defined as a phenomenon of imperfect and arrested mental development. When we say a person is feeble-minded, we mean that his mental power has failed to reach its normal development, he lacks something in his mental make-up, and he can not learn even though he is placed in a very favorable environment. He may not have any physical stigmata of degeneration. Indeed, his body may be just as strong and healthy as any normal person, but his mind is essentially that of a child. Common school has no place for him, because he can not profit by its instruction. He may be made to earn his own living by manual labor under very favorable circumstances, but he can not be made to compete with the normal individuals on equal terms, or to manage himself or his own affairs with ordinary prudence. He lacks the power of self-control and the intuitive sense of morality. He is not immoral but non-moral. His animal instinct can always have a free play whenever there is a chance. He can not distinguish between what is right and wrong and is incapable of weighing the consequences of his action. In other words, his mental power stops at a given stage of its development and no educational agencies can help him to develop it any further. Physically he is a man, but mentally he is a child.

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