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4. Many people, as evident in our textbooks, had misunderstood the objectives of the pioneers in expecting complete and rapid cures in large numbers, and interpreting any lesser accomplishment as tantamount to failure.

At any rate, with the perceived failure of the institution as a school, and the inability of many adult residents to adjust to the community, ideologies changed between about 1870 and 1880. Developmental attitudes degenerated into pity and charity, and as they did, the residential model changed from a developmental one to a pity model. The idea grew that retardates should be viewed as innocent victims of fate or parental sin, and that instead of schooling, loving care and protection should be bestowed upon them.

"In the race of life, where an individual who is backward or peculiar attempts to compete with those who are not, the disadvantages are so great that the graduate from the idiot asylum really has no chance to succeed. The capacity of the individual is not at fault; but the world is not full of philanthropic people who are willing to take the Individual from the asylum and surround him with the proper guardianship which his case demands" (C. T. Wilbur, 1888, p. 110).

The term "School" began to disappear from the names of institutions, being replaced by the term "asylum." For example, in 1893, the "Custodial Asylum for Unteachable Idiots" was founded at Rome, New York. "Give them an asylum, with good and kind treatment; but not a school." "A well-fed, well-cared for idiot, is a happy creature. An idiot awakened to his condition is a miserable one" (Governor Butler of Massachusetts, 1883, as quoted by Rogers, 1898, pp. 152-153). "It is earnestly urged that the best disposal to be made of this large class of the permanently disabled is to place it in custodial departments of institutions for the feeble-minded persons, in buildings judiciously remote from the educational and industrial departments, but under the same merciful system that inspires hope and help for the lowest of humanity, and under a broadly classified administration that will admit of the employment of the so-called moral idiot, thereby diminishing greatly the burden to the charitable and the taxpayer" (Kerlin, 1888, p. 100). "The question of unimprovability then being once established, the only practicable thing to do is to furnish a home where, amid cheerful surroundings, in accordance with the state of our Christian civilization, and in a manner consistent with an age of practical economy, the mediocre imbecile may lead a happy, harmless, and measurably useful life in assisting to care for his fellows" (Rogers, 1888, p. 103). "They must be kept quietly, safely, away from the world, living like the angels in heaven, neither marrying nor given in marriage" (Johnson, 1889, p. 319).

"Institutions have changed their character, largely to furnish a permanent residence with congenial surroundings for these unfortunates" (Wilmarth, 1902, p. 157). Illinois erected a "hospital building" for custodial purposes in 1885; a custodial department was installed in Iowa the same year; Connecticut made its first appropriation for such a building that year; and Pennsylvania built such a building in 1886 (Kerlin, 1886, pp. 289-294).

The Institution was no longer to be a school, but a shelter, an asylum of happiness, a garden of Eden for the innocent. What doubt there may have remained was largely dispelled by the close of the century: "Slowly but surely the conviction has become general, especially among the trustees and officers of institutions, that admission as a pupil of the training school should be but the first step to permanent care; that, with a few exceptions, so few that they may be disregarded in establishing a policy, all the pupils of the school, from the lowest to the highest grade, ought to be permanently retained in the safe, kindly, maternal care of the state. The above conviction is held by all who have expressed themselves publicly within the last few years in this country, excepting a few persons whose pecuniary interests seem in conflict with such a theory. It has been acted upon by the legislature of many states, whose laws have been changed by removing from the institution code the age limit of retention, and in some cases of acceptance." "A belief in the necessity of permanent care for all this defective class is professed by the superintendent of every state school for the feeble-minded in the United States today" (Johnson, 1898, p. 467).

The protective residential care model emphasized benevolent shelter, but it bore the seeds of three dangerous trends: (1) isolation, (2) enlargement, and (3) economization.

1. The retardate was to be moved out of society, in order to spare him the stresses he was believed incapable of bearing, and to provide him with protection from the persecution and ridicule of the nondeviant. The idea that the retardate must be protected from society, rather than vice versa, was well expressed by Kerlin (1884, p. 260): "The general grounds of the institution should be hedged or fenced to keep off improper instrusion, but be freely used by the inmates for walking exercise and work." H. B. Wilbur (1879, p. 96) recommended that institution grounds be fenced ". . . for the privacy of the inmates." Thus, institutions began to be removed from population centers and located in pastoral surroundings.