sion is made for only four groups of mental functions. It is needless to insist that, as our methods of psychological examining improve, we shall tend to subdivide our groups of functions, thus increasing the complexity of the formula and correspondingly increasing its serviceableness for practical purposes. At the present moment, it is sufficiently obvious that the special portion of an examination for court cases should take adequate account of at least the following groups of functions or aspects of behavior. To the list, other and perhaps less important functions may be added, or reason may appear at any time for increasing the list by subdividing certain categories. This is almost certain to hold true of the memory processes, possibly also of reasoning and of affective characteristics. But however that may be, it would seem to be worth while to suggest the following categories: (1) motor ability, tested by means of definite measurements of degree of coördination, accuracy, speed, etc., of movement, in the case of each of a number of important forms of response; (2) sensory or receptive functions, degree or state of sensory development, defects and acuity in the more important sense modes; (3) perceptual characteristics, including speed, span, and accuracy, of various sorts of perceptual process; (4) attention, measured in several of its forms and aspects; (5) memory, again measured in several forms and with respect to several aspects; (6) imagination; (7) ideation, including determination of the number of ideas, their nature, and relations; (8) associative tendencies; (9) judgment; (10) reasoning; (11) volitional control and suggestibility; (12) instinctive tendencies, classified and dealt with separately according to the practical need; (13) affectivity, including simple feelings, emotions, sentiments, measured as to their time-relations and strength; (14) reliability, including so far as possible, measurements of moral judgments and honesty. Not until norms have been established for the various important mental functions can even the most experienced examiner work to good purpose. It is only fair, therefore, in the present status of mental measurement, that we should recognize the disadvantage of the examining psychologist and make reasonable allowance for the undue weight which he must give to his own experience and to more or less inadequate statistical materials. The situation seems in the main encouraging, for despite the unintelligent use of certain methods of mental measurement, despite, also, extravagant claims of practical serviceableness for psychology, it is plain that steady prog ress is being made toward better methods and more valuable results. Nowhere in the realm of practical psychological examining is there need for greater circumspectness and conservatism than in connection with our court and criminalistic cases. I firmly believe that psychology can serve our courts and penal institutions far beyond the limits of our present achievements. But if we are to progress safely in our study of asocial individuals, we must take into account the complexity of the human problem, the necessity for further work on methods of examining, and the training, mental capacity, and character of the examiner. In other words, we must act wisely and not overhastily, however great may seem the need and the prospect of useful information. STERILIZATION OF CRIMINALS. REPORT OF COMMITTEE "F" OF THE INSTITUTE. JOEL D. HUNTER, CHAIRMAN.1 The first report" of the Committee on the Sterilization of Criminals in 1914 contained a summary of the twelve laws then existing which provided for sterilization and also a consideration of the main issues involved. It was found that criminals were included in those subject to sterilization in all the states except Michigan. Indiana was the only state at that time in which criminals had been sterilized under the law. There were two cases in Washington which had been appealed to the Supreme Court of that state, and the Supreme Court had handed down an opinion upholding the decision of the lower courts which had ordered the performance of the operations. At the time the report was written the operations had not been performed. The main issues involved in the consideration of the laws authorizing and legalizing sterilization were stated as follows: (1) Are the characteristics included in the statutes accepted by authorities as heritable? (2) Of the possible surgical operations, is that one chosen which least endangers the life of the individual and involves the least detriment to functions other than procreation? (3) Is it a morally permissible act for the state to prevent individuals from producing their kind? (4) Is sterilization the most efficient method socially? (a) Does it accomplish its purpose without making the individual operated upon a greater social menace to the community? The full membership of the committee is as follows: Joel D. Hunter, Chairman, Juvenile Court, County Building, Chicago, Ill.; Edward J. Gavegan, Judge of Supreme Court, New York, N. Y.; Bleecker Van Wagenen, 443 Fourth avenue, New York City, N. Y.; William A. White, Government Hospital for Insane, Washington, D. C.; T. D. Crothers, Hospital for Inebriates, Hartford, Conn.; H. H. Laughlin, Eugenics Record Office, Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, N. Y.; Hastings H. Hart, Sage Foundation, 130 East Twenty-second street, New York City, N. Y.; John Webster Melody, Catholic University, Washington, D. C.; William T. Belfield, Chicago Medical Society, 32 North State street, Chicago, Ill.; Peter J. O'Callaghan, Paulist Mission, Washington, D. C. "Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, September, 1914 Indiana, Washington, California, Connecticut, Nevada, Iowa, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Michigan, Kansas and Wisconsin. (b) Is sterilization more efficient in removing people with defective germ plasm than segregation or any other method? (5) Are state officials as a whole worthy of being entrusted with such powers as must be given under a sterilization law? (6) Is the constitutional guarantee of the individual infringed upon? In the consideration of these issues the committee sought to state some of the opinions that had been publicly expressed and to set forth the things which should be proven before sterilization of criminals should be advocated. The second report contained a summary of the six bills" authorizing sterilization which were introduced after August, 1914. None of these bills became laws. In that report the committee asked for an appropriation in order that a study might be made, in the states in which the sterilization laws had been enforced, of the eugenic and therapeutic values of the sterilization of criminals. One of the concluding paragraphs reads as follows: "In last year's report the committee considered the sterilization both of criminals and of the various types of mental defectives as they were classified in the sterilization laws. So far as the sterilization of criminals was concerned, the committee found that there was no agreement among the authorities it consulted that criminality was inherited, but that a majority of them felt that criminality per se was not heritable. Whichever opinion is held it must be recognized that a difference of opinion does exist. There is so much difference of opinion among authorities concerning the inheritance of criminality that it seems hardly wise for states to pass laws authorizing the sterilization of criminals for eugenic reasons." From this Dr. William T. Belfield dissented. A paragraph from his minority report reads: "The second proposition of the report alleges that the dominant opinion among students of heredity is skepticism as to the transmission to offspring of those mental traits manifest in habitual criminals. As this is a statement of opinion only, the undersigned records his dissenting opinion to the effect that the notoriously extensive coincidence of habitual criminality with feeble-mindedness, its frequent association with atypical physical features-both of which are admittedly transmissible-and the manifold records of criminal heredity, are The American Bar Association Journal, Vol. II, No. 1, Jan., 1916. some of the familiar facts which have created, among students of heredity, a dominant sentiment at variance with that predicated in the report." In this year's report the committee proposes (1) to give a summary of sterilization laws which have been passed since the last report was written; (2) to state what has been done to put the laws into operation. (1) Summary of the Sterilization Laws passed in 1915: There were two sterilization laws enacted in 1915. These were in Nebraska and in Iowa. There never had been such a law in Nebraska, and the one passed is of a limited scope. The one passed in Iowa was in place of the Act declared void in Davis vs. Berry. In summarizing these two laws the material will be arranged as follows: (a) Persons subject to sterilization. (b) Method of selecting persons to be operated upon and mode of procedure. (c) Types of operation authorized. (a) Persons subject to sterilization: The Iowa statute includes only the inmates of the state hospitals for the insane. That of Nebraska is not so limited, as all feebleminded or insane inmates of all the state institutions come under the provisions of the Act. (b) Method of selecting persons to be operated and mode of procedure: In Iowa the superintendent of any state hospital for the insane and a majority of the medical staff must agree after investigation and examination that the operation would be for the best interests of the patient and society before they can authorize its performance on a patient, and then they cannot without the written consent of the husband or the wife, if the patient is married, or if unmarried, of the parent, guardian or next of kin, and they also must have the approval of a majority of the members of the state board of control. In Nebraska the board of commissioners of state institutions is required to appoint a board of examiners of five physicians from the medical staffs of the institutions under their control. The statute states that this board of examiners shall examine into the innate traits, "The mental and physical conditions, the personal records and the family traits and histories of all inmates who may be subject to 6216. Fed. 413. |