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"But no steam power, nor human power can long keep a vicious principle from cropping out. It has done so in many European institutions of charity; it will do so in many of ours" (pp. 18-19).

"...Grave errors, were incorporated into the very organic principles of our institutions...which make them already too much like asylums; which threaten to cause real asylums to grow out of them, and to engender other evils. Let me set forth a little my idea of the general principles which should underlie all such establishments, and which have been too much neglected in the organization of many of our public institutions.

"All great establishments in the nature of boarding schools, where the sexes must be separated; where there must be boarding in common, and sleeping in congregate dormitories; where there must be routine, and formality, and restraint, and repression of individuality; where the charms and refining influences of the true family relation cannot be had, -- all such institutions are unnatural, undesirable, and very liable to abuse. We should have as few of them as is possible, and those few should be kept as small as possible.

"The human family is the unit of society. The family, as it was ordained by our Great Father, with its ties of kith and kin; with its tender associations of childhood and youth; with its ties of affection and of sympathy; with its fireside, its table, and its domestic altar, -- there is the place for the early education of the child. His instruction may be had in school; his heart and character should be developed and moulded at home.

"Artificial families have been tried and found wanting. Communities in imitation of the natural family, especially those confined to one sex, are fertile of evil. Witness the old nunneries and monasteries, darkened and saddened by lack of the sunlight of affection and love; embittered -sic- by petty passions and strife; soured by crushed hopes and yearnings; and defiled by unnatural vices. Witness soldiers in detached garrisons; sailors on long voyages; prisoners under long sentences. Wherever there must be separation of the sexes, isolation from society, absence of true family relation, and monotony of life, there must come evils of various kinds, which no watchfulness can prevent, and physician can cure.

"We should be cautious about establishing such artificial communities, or those approaching them in character, for any children and youth; but more especially should we avoid them for those who have natural infirmity; or any marked peculiarity of mental organization.

"Let me dwell upon this, for in my view, it is very important. Such persons spring up sporadically in the community, and they should be kept diffused among sound and normal persons. Separation, and not congregation, should be the law of their treatment; for out of their infirmity or abnormality there necessarily grow some abnormal and undesirable effects, and unless these be counteracted by education, they disturb the harmonious developments of character. These effects are best counteracted by bringing up the child among ordinary children, and subjecting him to ordinary social and family influences; but, on the contrary, they are intensified by constant and close association with children who are marked by the same infirmity of peculiarity.... Be should therefore keep this truth in mind; and give it due weight when forming plans for the treatment of any special class of persons.

"As much as may be, surround insane and excitable persons with sane people, and ordinary influences; vicious children with virtuous people and virtuous influences; blind children with those who see; mute children with those who speak; and the like.

"People run counter to this principle for the sake of economy, and of some other good end, which they suppose cannot be had in any other way; as when they congregate the insane in hospitals, vicious children in reformatories, criminals in prisons, paupers in almshouses, orphans in asylums, blind children and mute children in boarding schools. Hence I begin to consider such establishments as evils which must be borne with, for the time, in order to obviate greater evils. I would take heed, however, against multiplying them unnecessarily. I would keep them as small as I could. I would take the most stringent measurements for guarding against those undesirable effects which lessen their usefulness; and for finally dispensing with as many of them as may be possible.

"But, besides this general objection to such establishments, there is another and more practical objection to the method of congregating...any class of young persons marked by an infirmity like deafness or blindness. They depend more than ordinary persons do for their happiness and for their support upon the ties of kindred, of friendship, and of neighborhood. All these, therefore, ought to be nourished and strengthened during childhood and youth -- for it is then, and then only, that they take such deep root as to become strong, and life-lasting. -- The home of the blind and of the mute should be his native town or village; there, if possible, he should live during childhood and youth; there he should form his friendships; there, if becomes to need special aid it will be given most readily and fitly; and there his old age will be cherished . -- Beware how you needlessly sever any of those ties of family, of friendship, of neighborhood, during the period of their strongest growth, lest you make a homeless man, a wanderer and a stranger. Especially beware how you cause him to neglect forming early relations of affection with those whose sympathy and friendship will be most important to him during life, to wit, those who have all their senses; and how restrict him to such relations with persons subject to an infirmity like his own.