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This law, assuredly not stringent, will have its place as a check upon the law abiding, and will call the attention of the public to further needs of protection against the lawless; for history shows that the attempt to legislate for conscience is a vain one.

In nations, as in communities, wherever stringent marriage yaws are enforced, the inevitable result has been free-love, concupiscence and prostitution. In dealing with the low and the bestial, with the ignorant and weak, the silly and the irresponsible, with utter incapacity to comprehend any law but that of self-will, there is nothing to convert or convince, for the moral sense is not there to appeal to.

To such a class asexualization would come as a double release, freeing them from the power of harming themselves and society, and granting in all else greater personal freedom to the individual, whether without or within institution walls. Once rendered harmless, he is free to gather all he can from life.

With imbecility and its many phases of sexual perversion, recognized as a disease -- a sure means of transmitting inherited taint -- it does seem absurd that while we wage war upon microbes and bacilli, we turn loose this worse than leprosy to poison the very springs of life in more ways than one, forgetting, "The evil which men do lives after them." Why do we not more closely follow Nature's law? All seeds, all buds, do but perpetuate their kind, and we but follow the lesson taught when we shake the bough from which falls defective fruit. We choose and set apart with care the animals best fitted for procreation, and by castration render more docile, because less passionate, the beasts of burden who are to mingle in the common herd. They rove at will free and unrestrained -- because harmless. I need not point the moral nor draw further analogy.

Separate the love of one's kind and the consequent desire to project one's individuality upon the onward current of humanity, and procreation has no element above the mere animal. We all know that with imbeciles the first is impossible. Then do we not best serve them when in loosing them from the thraldom of the second, we release them from restraints thenceforth needless, and therefore open to them greater happiness in individual and in community life?

Sir Thomas Moore says: "The world is undone by viewing things at a distance." Let not this mistake be ours.

Here even more than in previous questions it behooves us to prepare to speak authoritatively and to give when sought, as will surely be of us, an answer that cannot be misunderstood. I say will! The issue is even now upon us.

That which was spoken of with bated breath and behind closed doors already begins to be the subject of open discussion, and to appear in reputable journals. I quote from the July number of the Altruist: "Besides being prevented from propagating their kind, the feeble-minded need constant care and training in order that they may use their limited faculties to the best advantage and get some pleasure from their blighted lives. This means complete isolation and special training and supervision, the expense and trouble of which could be materially lessened by the asexualization of those who were decided, by a committee of medical men appointed for the purpose, to be fit subjects for the operation.

From this severe measure the mind instinctively shrinks, though it is now advocated by many of those best acquainted with the subject; and when calmly considered in the light of modern science, and as a choice of two evils, will probably be accepted as a necessary evil by all right-thinking persons. Further, increasing surveillance would be necessary unless asexualization were legalized. But, under any circumstances, isolated and cared for, they would be safe from themselves and society, in congenial company, under no danger of ridicule, using their limited powers for their own benefit, and, in some cases, for that of the community, and in no danger of transmitting their misfortune."

The courageous attitude of Dr. Pilcher, of Kansas, as pioneer, strong to face ignorance and prejudice, has already had its good effect.

The report of the Trustees thus sustains his action: "A great deal has been said in the political press and medical journals of our country about the unsexing of eleven boys by Supt. Pilcher, the political papers censuring and the medical journals sustaining him. As all forward steps have brought criticism to the person who had the courage to take them, so this humane act has brought criticism to Doctor Pilcher. All that would be necessary to convince those most horrified by this act, of the wisdom of it, would be to have known the boys before and after the operation. Those who are now criticising Doctor Pilcher will, in a few years, be talking of erecting a monument to his memory."

One of my own board, Dr. De Forest Willard, of Philadelphia. has already taken steps toward bringing this subject before the public in a circular letter, which, together with the replies received, he has kindly allowed me to use, and which I here present: