Although every kind of cripple is offered an opportunity to work and every effort is made to suit that task to each one of them, we must not forget that the survival of the fittest is not based on compassion and charitable attitudes but rather a struggle in which the stronger and more competent must and will be victorious, if only for the benefit of sustaining the species … We must be prepared to grasp that, as a consequence of the war, many of the incompetent, or, in other words, ‘negative variants’, are likely to reproduce and so heighten the risk that the proliferation of such negative variants will, to an extent greater than at present, generate a need for support and hence a burden for the next generation. Thus, while it may sound cruel, it must be stated that the continuously increasing demands for support for such negative variants is ill-advised in terms of management of human assets, as well as wrong in terms of racial hygiene … Improvements in quality must begin with the child. If it is the case that we are unable to manage reproduction according to qualitative goals, then we should at least make every effort to promote high-quality breeding practices. Childcare provision, regulated in accordance with biological and social principles, is part of this.

Julius Tandler: Krieg und Bevölkerung

(War and Population, 1916)

The care institution ‘Am Spiegelgrund’ is charged with the duty of subjecting all mentally deviant children and young people, from infanthood until they come of age, to the most precise and attentive examination leading to a full assessment of their mental and physical skills and abilities, before directing them to the appropriate care home or institution. In addition, these experiences will be collected with a view to later scientific study.

Currently, we manage 15 groups of boarders consisting of 30 children per group and two double groups – that is, each with 60 boarders. We maintain our own unit for infants and young children with an average bed occupancy of 50, and also units for two groups, each containing 30 school pupils with psychopathological conditions. […]

We require, already at the time of admission […] that the referring authority, whether it is – as has so far been the case – a young people’s social service or a healthcare department, should provide us with a complete report of the grounds for the transfer of the child and a thorough family history, in which information concerning all heritable handicaps and environmental factors with damaging effects is especially valuable. Furthermore, a careful account of school performance is also required to allow assessment of any matters of concern raised by deficiencies in the upbringing of the child or other noteworthy defects. […]

At the time of admission, it is the immediate duty of the institution’s medical officer to establish the child’s status somaticus and to suggest appropriate treatment to mitigate any physical health deficits; should a condition already be under treatment, a complete medical history is required. The examination will take cognisance especially of internal medical and neurological issues. […] Also, the institution’s medical officer will obtain, during visits by the child’s parents or close relatives, or after summoning such persons, a detailed case history with regard to hereditary biology as well as to psychiatric and somatic conditions. All boarders will immediately have their height and weight measured and photographs taken for anthropological purposes after a brief evaluation of anthropological status. Until such time as we have in place the necessary equipment and the required scientifically trained support staff, the child’s status will be brought up to date through exact anthropological and phrenological measurements and completed by dactyloscopic records of skin patterns on hands and feet.

Once settled into our institution, the boarder will undergo a psychological assessment that in part also serves as an intelligence test as per currently accepted methodology, but which is somewhat expanded and readjusted to aim not so much at establishing an intelligence quotient (although for practical reasons we will still keep this aspect) as to enable us to arrive at an overview of the child’s personality and to assess that he or she has the mental and physical abilities critical for upbringing and training. In the context of the written appraisals of meticulously selected themes which in particular ways are suited to offer insight into the inner mental processes of the child or young person, and also not infrequently provide important data on the development of his or her character, we will furthermore acquire quite spontaneously written text samples that very often complete our insight into the boarder’s character in the most remarkable manner. These psychological tests will be administered by trained and experienced psychologists who have been specially selected for this task and are under the supervision of academic psychologists with pedagogic experience. In joint meetings and through constant scrutiny of our results, we will attempt to arrive at a methodology appropriate for our particular purpose.

Hans Krenek: Beitrag zur Methode der Erfassung von psychisch auffäligen Kindern und Jugendlichen (A contribution to methods for assessment of children and young people with psychological abnormalities, 1942), Archiv für Kinderheilkunde (Archive of Child Medicine)

It is certainly legitimate to write a history of punishment against the background of moral ideas or legal structures. But can one write such a history against the background of a history of bodies, when such systems of punishment claim to have only the secret souls of criminals as their objective?

Michel Foucault: Surveiller et punir (Discipline and Punish, 1975)