"Perhaps they haven't," Dr. Stetson conceded, "but that doesn't alter the fact that, socially, they are not fit to function as directors. They are mentally below par," he repeated in clean, crisp finality. "They are to be classed roughly, to the layman, in the same general division as idiots."
"Idiots!" Hilda murmured with a shiver.
"Nonsense, mamma." Belle's hand pushed away Hilda's excited, intruding interest. "They're not idiots. That's just the point. Idiots, real ones that everybody recognizes, get locked up. These people—why you meet them every day. You wouldn't know them, very likely. You——"
"Why, Belle! I certainly would know an idiot when I see one."
"They're not idiots, not driveling idiots, Mrs. Mitchell," the doctor hastened to her aid; "they are—well, just the average unskilled worker, the laborer, the migratory worker, the seasonal worker. Many stevedores and longshoremen, fruit pickers, the simplest work in machine shops—an appalling percentage of these men aren't over ten or twelve years of age really. From these sub-normals or variants, come the criminals. Criminology is only just beginning to associate itself with psychology, but I could tell you some apparent miracles worked in prisons by small, minor operations. Which proves," he turned now, including Roger, "that it is not a question of opportunity or will—Nature isn't romantic or emotional—it's a scientific question. Deficiencies, variations, do exist. Perhaps, in time, all this may be correctable, but only by scientific methods—not by talk." He allowed himself the last thrust, covering it by a genial smile. "A clinic is enough to make one doubt the right of the democratic principle."
"Not unless you refuse to look below the surface. Nature may be scientific, but she's not insane. She doesn't turn out millions upon millions of human beings that a few may scramble to themselves all the beauty of the universe. I grant you all the mentally inefficient you claim, but, what started it, what caused it? Why?"
"A thousand things, many too intricate, too subtle to explain. And remember we know very little about it. The field is new. There are a thousand threads tangled in the problem, pre-natal influences, going back for generations, malnutrition of mothers, early environment of the baby, nervous stimuli—dozens of influences. A psychopathic clinic in any of the big, free institutions, a ward in a baby hospital, a maternity ward—it's enough to make one doubt the right of the democratic principle," he repeated as if he found the phrase so exact he needed no other.
Roger looked at him. "It would be very hopeless, if it were true: I mean if nothing preventive could be done." Hilda moved uneasily and James Mitchell cleared his throat. Anne's flaming face was still lowered. "But since, according to science, malnutrition, pre-natal conditions, unhealthy nerve conditions, do play a part, it seems to me there is a chance. As you say, the children of the rich, under the best physical and educational conditions, do average higher; if these conditions, or even approximately these, were extended, it ought to help some, don't you think?"
Dr. Stetson saw where Roger was leading and looked at him coldly. "Really, Mr. Barton, it's such an intricate subject, and, on the whole, so impossible to discuss with a layman, that"—he beamed round, his charming smile of culture and advantage—"I think we'd have to give more time to it, and more seriousness, than I, at least, am able to give under these conditions." A gracious gesture laid the responsibility for this upon the well-cooked turkey.
Hilda got up to remove the dishes and Anne rose quickly to help. Out in the kitchen, Hilda closed the door and whispered: