November 2, 1926.

Dr. Horace G. Ripley, Brattleboro Retreat, Brattleboro, Vt.

My dear Dr. Ripley:

You will want to know what was done at our Advisory Committee meeting which we were sorry that you found it impossible to attend. You will also be glad to know the outcome of the meeting that was pending when I last wrote you.

The Executive Committee for Mental Hygiene voted last Thursday to approve the plan of cooperation with the Vermont Survey. They propose to send four people to us as soon as they can be secured, and have them put in three months.

At our meeting we talked over the results of the past year's Survey which the members feel has been decidedly profitable. We think that we have a very excellent showing of information in regard to a large number of important families (important because so many of them are deficient and costly to the state), and so much material that will be of great value to various state bureaus, charitable organizations, courts, and to the study that we are proposed to undertake.

It was decided at our meeting to carry on the plan of a study of present facilities, plans for development in the near future of new facilities, for the skilled training of subnormal children. Some of the outstanding features of the meeting were as follows:

1. Legislation.

It was voted to begin at once a campaign for a bill on sterilization. It was the judgment of the members present that an enabling act had better be our limit for the present. A study of similar laws in other states and a distribution to the coming members of the Legislature of the Eugenics Catechism and possibly other material.

2. The discussion of the best places for the coming study of school children. No decision was reached but some of the places recommended as falling into right groups were as follows:

Cosmopolitan city‐‐ Burlington.

Larger village or small city‐‐ ;Morrisville, Springfield, Vergennes.

Smaller village‐‐ Hyde Park, Rochester, Waitsfield, Lunenburg.

A sparsely settled rural district rather isolated‐‐ Goshen, Essex County, Grand Isle County.

The National Committee suggestion of an industrial center did not meet with the approval of our group. Your cooperation in the selection of the best places, both geographically and socially will help a great deal. May we hear from you on this point?

3. The present aim of the study. Dr. Allen pointed out the desirability of keeping clearly in view the fact that the institution should be the pivot of all social progress in the state. It was also urged that the establishment of a permanent and continuing census or registration of subnormal children would be a reasonable expectation from our study and a most desirable one.

The original objects as mentioned in a previous letter still hold good.

The getting back of the School for the Feebleminded at Brandon. Working for special classes for subnormal children in as many places as possible and as soon as possible.

Mr. Dyer, the new Commissioner of Public Welfare, has been added to our Committee and he was present at our meeting. He reported that the Governor's message was likely an urgent recommendation for the enlargement of the plant at Brandon by a seventy‐five bed dormitory for girls. This ought to relieve the more immediate congestion at both Vergennes and Waterbury, removing from those two institutions most of the cases that ought to be at Brandon.

It would be a great satisfaction to hear from you after you have had a chance to look over this very roughly drawn report of our meeting. I appreciate very much your kindness in writing as full as you did and we were all sorry that it was necessary for you to be absent.

Very sincerely yours,

[H. F. Perkins]

HFP:ARR DIRECTOR OF THE EUGENICS SURVEY