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Then we have recourse to what may be more strictly regarded as educational means. (1) These means, compared with the exercises in the ordinary educational systems, are as much more varied and comprehensive as the peculiarities and obstacles in the way of instruction, are greater in the one case than the other. In the case of ordinary children, all the natural channels of communication between the mind and the external world are open. In addition, the mind sits alive and awake to receive and appropriate to itself the facts and phenomena communicated through those senses. Sensation is a law of their being; perception is the next natural step from sensation; and memory, comparison and judgment as naturally follow. Educated by these simple intellectual operations, their minds turn inwardly, and with the exercise of consciousness, become capable of comprehending the laws of mind. Their wills undergo a simultaneous development, through the reciprocating influences of intelligence and will. In the case of our pupils, as we have seen, these natural avenues between the mind and the world of relation are more or less obstructed: and not only so, but the mind itself, inert and feeble, sleeps while the dull sensations are calling faintly for entrance. Their sensations are imperfect; they awaken no perceptions, or if any, but indistinct and limited, and consequently faint and feeble will be, if any, the mental operations that follow. To obviate these conditions, we educate the senses till they perform their office with correctness, precision and celerity; we increase the faculty of imitation; we awaken the perceptions, seeking correct notions of surrounding and familiar objects; we excite a healthy curiosity; we cultivate the memory and comparison; we arouse the will by appropriate stimuli, producing activity, spontaneousness and self-reliance; we nourish the feeble flame of emotions, desires, affections, and a proper sense of right. During all this course, our ceaseless effort will be to reform improper habits and teach the proprieties of life.

Now it must be obvious to you, gentlemen, that many of the principles adopted in any judicious course of instruction for ordinary children will be equally applicable to our pupils.

I will not occupy any space in enumerating the details of modes and appliances adopted at our asylum. You have witnessed some of them in your periodical visits to the asylum, and the institution is opened by your regulations at stated periods for the inspection of all interested; nor shall I object to any still more general visiting compatible with the interests of the pupils.

Having thus described the immediate objects of our special system of education, I am led to the question, which is the practical one, in any wise and thoughtful consideration of the subject: What is the ultimate object and end of the education of idiots? What is to be the effect of this education upon their future life, both with respect to themselves and to society? I answer them in general terms. Education is a means, not an end. That it is a well established principle, that a proper education gives increased capacity for usefulness; increased understanding of and subserviency to social and moral obligations, and increased capacity for happiness.

But great as are the benefits of education in ordinary cases, its achievements are still greater when, instead of increasing the capacities of the pupils, it substitutes capacities for incapacities; when it restores a class of human beings, now a burden to community, destitute of intelligence, degraded and miserable, to their friends and to society, more capable of development, under the ordinary circumstances of human development; nearer the common standard of humanity, in all respects; more capable of understanding, and obeying human laws; of perceiving and yielding to moral obligations; more capable of self-assistance, of self-support, of self-respect, and of obtaining the greatest degree of comfort and happiness with their small means. And will not this be the effect of the system of management and education for idiots, which I have imperfectly described. Which confirms their health; which educates their various muscles till they are possessed of dexterity; which teaches them to observe of themselves, the objects, facts, and phenomena by which they are surrounded; which teaches them to compare these phenomena one with another, and to reason upon these observations and comparisons; no matter how simple, at the outset, are these exercises of observation, of comparison, and of judgement, if they are only spontaneous, if they are only accomplished by the pupils them-selves, they will necessarily be the stepping stones to higher mental operations of the same character. Will not this be the effect of a system of instruction, which stimulates the curiosity of the pupil; which cultivates and disciplines his will, by the natural processes by which the will is developed and strengthened, through the instinct of self-preservation, through the desire of gratification of the appetites, the senses and an awakened curiosity, through motives of an intellectual character, and finally through the influence of moral considerations.