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"Let us indulge in a brief retrospect of the moral progress which illustrates the annals of New York. We have created schools for the education of all our people, so that in the future no child of poverty or adversity will have cause to plead ignorance as a defence for vice or crime. Our system of popular instruction establishes the fabric of republican liberty on the sure basis of public virtue and intelligence. Not satisfied with the adoption of general systems, which provide for the intellectual needs of the mass of the community, the humane spirit of our legislation has sought out for relief those special classes of our fellow beings, whom unkind fortune, or the mysterious decrees of an all-wise Creator have separated, in some degree, from a participation in the common felicity. In every county a home has been provided for the destitute; in our cities asylums have been reared for the needy orphan; hospitals for the sick and infirm have been liberally endowed by the Legislature; houses of refuge have been established for the training and reformation of youthful offenders, by which hundreds have been rescued from the evil influences which surrounded their childhood; and even in the punishment of felons, we have strived to rouse them to a love of virtue, by the teachings of benevolence and religion. Our institutions for the insane, the blind, the deaf and dumb, stand conspicuous among the best achievements of civilization and humanity. A candid observation of the philanthropic agencies, introduced or patronized by the State, seemed to justify an impression, that little or nothing was wanting to complete our system of public charities. It was generally assumed, that no field for the exercise of practical benevolence remained wholly unoccupied. The Legislature had evinced an effective sympathy for every form of suffering humanity, which was believed to come within the scope of legislative action. Yet there remained a class of unfortunates, the most wretched and helpless of our fellow beings, for whose relief no effort has been made, because all effort was deemed impracticable and hopeless.

"The idiot naturally excites feelings of compassion, saddened by the painful reflection, that his forlorn condition admits of no essential improvement. Though created in the human form, he appears at first to be destitute of all the moral and intellectual attributes, which distinguish man from "the brute that perisheth;" and in most cases this degradation is aggravated by a degree of physical incapacity, which renders him more impotent, in respect to his wants, than the lower grades of animals. The divine gift of reason, with which our Heavenly Father endowed the race of immortals whom he created in his own image, was formerly believed to be absolutely withheld from the ordinary subject of idiocy. His life was perceived to be a burden to himself and to others. Alike insensible to kindness or reproof, maternal affection was lavished in vain upon the idiot child. As advancing years increase his stature and strength, he is often an object of dread or disgust, and his repulsive presence becomes a source of daily humiliation and unavailing tears. Sorrowing parents and kindred contemplate his misery with agonizing despair. Can we consider it strange then, that, until a recent period, the idiotic should have been treated as victims of an inexorable destiny, doomed to a state of debasement, too profound to admit of amelioration.

"How difficult was it for many of us to be persuaded that their condition was susceptible of moral or mental improvement! With what emotions of gratitude and admiration ought we to regard the generous benefactors, who have rescued this class of beings from their degradation, bringing them from darkness to light, and awakening into new existence, the living soul which seemed to be lost in interminable night.

"It was reserved for modern philanthropy to discover, that the idiot is not beyond the reach of benevolence, to demonstrate, by actual result, that he retains some latent germs of intellect, which may be developed by patient culture, and that a large portion of this class of sufferers may be subjected to healthful discipline, employed in useful labor and raised to a condition of comparative intelligence and comfort.

"Only a few years have elapsed since the first schools for the instruction and training of idiots were instituted in Europe. The success of the experiment in France soon induced other nations to follow their example. It has been truly said that to an eminent citizen of our own State belongs the high honor of being the first American legislator to advocate the claims of the idiot and initiate measures for his relief. Frederick F. Backus, then a member of the New-York Senate, was the first to bring forward a bill providing for the erection of a State asylum for that purpose.

"My own feelings, seconded by a sense of personal justice and a proper regard for the truth of history, prompt me to this public acknowledgment of his claims upon our gratitude and I can not permit the occasion to pass without congratulating him on the success which now regards his labors in this work of humanity. "Peace hath her victories" -- and according to my estimate of worldly renown, the triumph which crowns his philanthropic efforts is more truly glorious than the victories by which countries have been desolated, and the happiness of mankind sacrificed upon the altar of national pride or personal ambition.