Mr. Ransom lived here one summer two years ago, when he was a student at the University of Chicago, and we liked him very much. He afterwards engaged with the J. P. A. as a regular officer, but is most valuable in doing special work. He had good courses in Psychology at the University of Chicago, and Mead, Angell, et al, speak very well of him. He and Miss Chapin, who was Dr. Healy's assistant, are trying to find out just how many feeble minded children there are in Chicago. They have followed up all the children from the ungraded rooms in three public schools, and have come across a good deal of interesting information in regard to the feeble-minded. They have collected the names of two thousand families in which there are feeble-minded children, and they are going to get one thousand more families. At present they have some students, graduates from the School of Civics and Philanthropy, who are going to study these three thousand cases. The card which the J. P. A. has gotten up has been most carefully examined and passed upon in criticisms by the experts from most of the feeble-minded institutions. I am enclosing you one of the cards which will be used in the study of these three thousand cases. The subject has recently become uppermost in the public mind in Chicago, because in the new Boys' Court in twenty days seventy-five feeble-minded boys, between the ages of seventeen and twenty-one, were brought into that court. [page 2]
Chicago does seem ready to [move] rather definitely on the subject of feeble-minded children. Miss Sears, who is as you know, the Head of the new Public Welfare Bureau of Cook County, called together a very remarkable meeting at Mr. McCormick's office the other day. Perhaps we can have another similar one when you are here for the Biennial. At any rate, that would be a good time for you to see Mr. Ransom and size him up, so to speak.
Always devotedly yours,
Jane Addams [signed]
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