Welsh Journals

WALES AND THE PROBLEM OF MENTAL DEFICIENCY by D. Hughes Parry IN former ages and civilisations national progress was judged chiefly from a quantita- tive point of view a rapidly increasing popu- lation was regarded as the hall-mark of national virility, and a decreasing population as a sign of national decadence. During the last century leaders of thought have been emphasising the more qualitative criterion; and the science of eugenics is doing much to focuss our mind upon this criterion. In the competitive race of nations, the quality of the human material is likely to be a more decisive factor than mere numbers. His- tory shows that this has been the case to some extent even in the past; but in the future, when, doubtless, national superiority will depend less upon the force of armaments, the cultural level of a nation will prove the factor of the greatest potency. Culture, obviously, is a matter of men- tal quality and not of mere numbers. National efficiency is conditioned by a nation's assets and liabilities. The assets in human material are the men and women who are en- dowed with normal or supernormal mental capa- cities the liabilities are the unfortunate people born with inferior mental endowments. The posi- tive aspect of national progress involves the full development of the nation's human assets. The negative aspect includes the limitation of its liabilities, as far as this is possible, while proper care is taken of these inefficient members of the community. Nations have awakened, one after another, to the importance of the positive aspect of progress. The great educational movement of the last century was but one of many expressions of this awakening the nations of Europe realised the necessity of affording opportunities for the development of the native capacities of all citizens without distinction of class or rank. The recog- nition of the negative aspect, on the other hand, can scarcely be said to have yet dawned upon Western civilisation. A runner who is the fittest physically, may lose the race if he is handicapped by having to carry a heavier burden than his competitors. Similarly, a nation that neglects to keep its burden of human inefficients at its lowest will be greatly handicapped in international com- petition, notwithstanding that in many respects its culture may be at a higher level than that of other nations. Wales, like all nations, has its human assets and its human liabilities. In some ways it can be claimed for Wales that it has developed its assets as few nations can claim to have done. The history of Welsh education, as briefly out- lined, for example, in the Report of the Depart- mental Committee on the Welsh Language, affords much evidence that our nation has been in the vanguard of the movement towards an edu- cated democracy. Long before the days of com- pulsory elementary education, Wales had practic- ally ceased to be an illiterate nation. This fact is to be attributed to the great work of the Sun- day Schools. Moreover, in the struggles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tor political rights-and most of these struggles are merely the demand for fuller opportunities to develop the mental endowments ot the ordinary citizen- Wales has uniformly been on the side of progress. The intensive cultivation of the nation's assets has undoubtedly produced a peasant culture of which Welsh men and women may well be proud. On the other hand, what has been the attitude of Wales towards its human liabilities ? Stud- ents of social problems now recognise that the conditions associated with that section of the community endowed with low mental capacities are chronic pauperism, persistent slumdom, recidivism (or habitual crime), high infantile mortality, illegitimacy, unemployment, mental deficiency and lunacy. This sub-normal section of the community can very properly be called the social problem group-a group that constitutes a problem because its members are too poorly en- dowed mentally to compete successfully with their fellow citizens. Although Wales has many jour- nals and papers which devote a good deal of space to discussions of its national problems, comparatively little attention, has so far been given to any of these fundamental problems of our society. All nations, like individuals, have their blind spots and this seems to be a blind spot in the Welsh national field of vision. It may be contended that these are not problems with which we as a nation are afflicted, at any rate not to the same degree as the large towns and industrial centres of England and America. A report* recently published enables us to test the validity of this contention in respect of one of these problems, namely, mental deficiency. The report is that of an investigation carried out by a distinguished compatriot of ours, Dr. E. O. Lewis, on behalf of the Mental Deficiency Com- mittee-a Joint Committee of the Board of Edu- cation and the Board of Control, which included the foremost experts on the subject in this country. Six areas in England and Wales were investigated in order to determine the incidence of mental deficiency. Although only one of these The Report of the Mental Deficiency Committee, Part IV. Published by H.M. Stationery Office. Price 3/