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This book, published in 1915, is one of those books stumbling toward a better world. The writer describes three murders committed by people we'd describe today as mentally handicapped, and advocates a more compassionate treatment of them despite the grisly nature of the crimes.
There's plenty of outdated language and pompous pronouncements that the state of science is all it should be (eg. "It is now known that at least 66 per cent of feeble-mindedness is hereditary" - so specific!), but there's a convincing case made under the circumstances the writer describes that the killers were not fully responsible for their actions.
Jean Gianini was a sixteen-year-old boy with about the intelligence of an eleven-year-old who murdered his teacher with a monkey wrench and then stabbed her about twenty-four times, and quickly confessed to the crime. Roland Pennington was a nineteen-year-old who reads as if he could've inspired Lennie in OF MICE AND MEN in the excerpts from his testimony: he was exploited by another man who had him help kill their employer because of the other man's jealousy for his wife. Fred Tronson murdered a woman because she didn't want to marry him and because he didn't want anyone else to "have her" - he also comes across as not in a right mind and basically regarded as such by the society around him. (But this line from Tronson is chilling: "I acted like a gentleman. I had given her one present already.") These are grisly true-crime cases.
Interesting reading from a time we've thankfully advanced from, at least in some respects. The author is also responsible for the Kallikak Family work, which he later admitted himself was deeply flawed. Given that Goddard was an eugenicist and an advocate of special education, there's been devasting and positive use made of some of his ideas.
There's plenty of outdated language and pompous pronouncements that the state of science is all it should be (eg. "It is now known that at least 66 per cent of feeble-mindedness is hereditary" - so specific!), but there's a convincing case made under the circumstances the writer describes that the killers were not fully responsible for their actions.
Jean Gianini was a sixteen-year-old boy with about the intelligence of an eleven-year-old who murdered his teacher with a monkey wrench and then stabbed her about twenty-four times, and quickly confessed to the crime. Roland Pennington was a nineteen-year-old who reads as if he could've inspired Lennie in OF MICE AND MEN in the excerpts from his testimony: he was exploited by another man who had him help kill their employer because of the other man's jealousy for his wife. Fred Tronson murdered a woman because she didn't want to marry him and because he didn't want anyone else to "have her" - he also comes across as not in a right mind and basically regarded as such by the society around him. (But this line from Tronson is chilling: "I acted like a gentleman. I had given her one present already.") These are grisly true-crime cases.
Interesting reading from a time we've thankfully advanced from, at least in some respects. The author is also responsible for the Kallikak Family work, which he later admitted himself was deeply flawed. Given that Goddard was an eugenicist and an advocate of special education, there's been devasting and positive use made of some of his ideas.
