Differential action upon the sexes of forces which tend to segregate the feebleminded.

OBSERVATIONS IT has often been stated that among individuals of the lowest two or three percentiles in the distribution of human intelligence there are more males than females.This statement has been based chiefly on the census of state training schools for mental defectives, and of special classes for subnormal children.Such enumerations practically always show a preponderance of males.Kuhlmann' gives figures, which may serve us as fair samples, collected by him in 1915, as the result of a questionnaire returned from seven states in this country.In the state schools for feebleminded were 4,046 males (53.5%), and 3,518 females (46.5%).The United States Report for 1910 showed in institutions for the feebleminded 11,015 males (53.8%), and 9,716 females (46.2%).Special classes for subnormal children in local school districts also show more boys than girls on the registers.The reports of the Inspector of Ungraded Classes, in New York City, show a ratio of more than two boys to one girl.Recent reports from England show three boys to two girls on the records of the special schools after-care committee of The City of Birmingham, 2 a ratio "which is frequently found in the various special schools for the mentally defective."From reports of which those cited are fair samples, inferences like the following are drawn."Idiocy is almost everywhere recognized as more common in males than in females." 3 "There is no doubt that there are more feebleminded boys than girls.There are more boys in the special classes in London, and in the Hilfschulen in Germany, and in the special classes so far found in the United States, and everything agrees with this."*In working among the children in the special classes for mental 1 Kuhlmann, F., The Part Played by the State Institutions in the Care of the Feebleminded.