Feeble-minded

Feeble-minded was a term used from the late 19th centurythrough the early 20th centuryto loosely describe a variety of mental deficiencies, including what would now be considered mental retardationin its various types and grades, and learning disabilitiessuch as dyslexia.

Originally it was not used as a particularly pejorativeterm and was, along with "idiot" and "moron," considered to be a relatively precise psychiatric label in its day.

The Americanpsychologist Henry H. Goddard—who created the term "moron"—who was director of the Training School for Backward and Feeble-minded Children at Vineland, New Jersey, was known for postulating most effectively that "feeble-mindedness" was a hereditary trait, most likely caused by a single recessive gene. This led Goddard to ring eugenicalarm bells in his 1912work, 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 normalcy.

In the first half of the 20th century, "feeble-mindedness, in any of its grades" was a common criteria for compulsory sterilizationin many U.S. states.

Jack London's 1914story, Told in the Drooling Ward, describes inmates at a California institution for the "feeble-minded". Such an institution existed (the California Home for the Care and Training of Feeble-minded Children, now the Sonoma Developmental Center) close to the Jack London Ranch in Glen Ellen, California. The story is a narrative told from the point of view of a self-styled "high-grade feeb".

See also

• Mental retardation
• Stupidity

External link

• Told In the Drooling WardText of the Jack London story.

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It uses material from the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeble-minded Wikipedia article Feeble-minded.