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During the school year, to which this report pertains, that is, from September 1st, 1869, to September 1st, 1870, the number of deaths among the pupils was only two. Both of these were cases of pulmonary consumption that was hereditary. In one of these the special exciting cause of the disease was pneumonia; in the other hooping-cough.

Quite a fraction of the number of pupils sent to the asylum are in feeble health, and quite disposed to chronic disease. Still there has been, during the whole period since it was founded, a great exemption from sickness, and a very moderate degree of mortality.

The present number of pupils connected with the institution is 147. Several pupils accepted have not yet come, so that the number the present year will be larger than ever before.

Each year a certain number of pupils, whose term of instruction has expired, return to their friends. Each year a few who prove unteachable, or who are sick, leave to make room for new pupils. But the number of applications for admission is an increasing one.

Each year a larger number are refused admission for the want of room. The question, therefore, is forced upon the attention of those most familiar with the subject, what further provision is necessary for the class in question?

I propose to make a few suggestions upon this topic, prompted by experience and observation. It is not necessary at this time to attempt any very accurate computation of the number of idiots and feeble-minded persons in the State, of a proper school-attending age, and who are not physically disqualified from receiving instruction, if instruction were afforded them. This has been referred to in several of the previous reports of the asylum. The number of applications for admission from portions of the State most convenient to the institution, and where it is best known, show conclusively that if its capacity were doubled, it could be filled within a very short period. This is all it is necessary to know, for my present purpose, as to the demand for the privileges it affords.

The history of legislation in this State, in analogous cases, may be referred to. In the case of the two other State educational institutions of a special character, namely, those for the instruction of deaf-mutes and blind persons, this has been true. The provision, at first, for a limited number from each judicial district, was afterward gradually made to keep pace with the wants of the respective classes, till now the instruction of every such case is provided by law and at the public expense. It is natural, then, for those who are interested in the education of idiots, and have a real faith in its necessity and practicability, to look forward to the time when legislation for this end shall be equally comprehensive. As the matter might be put, if the institution is a public need at all; if the results obtained, in the various forms of amelioration or development are, in a measure, commensurate with the cost of its maintenance, it would seem to be only necessary to show the inadequacy of present means to secure their increase and extension.

To many, even now, the facts relating to the subject are but little known. It will be well briefly to review them here.

It is now a little less than twenty-five years since public institutions for the training and instruction of idiots were established in this country.

It was the recognition of a felt want of the community. It was based upon the supposed success of similar institutions on the continent of Europe, preceding these by a few years.

Seven experimental schools, started under State patronage, have resulted in the establishment of as many public institutions, built and supported by these several States. In nearly every instance, these experimental schools have been located at the State capitals, where their modes of operation, and their results, could be conveniently scrutinized by the members of the legislative bodies upon whose favor they were dependent. They are, therefore, now the exponents of the intelligent convictions of the respective Legislatures that founded them. This was eminently true in the history of our own State Asylum for Idiots.

The experimental school which preceded it was located at Albany. Its first board of trustees were men eminent in the State and nation. Owing to the fact that the enterprise was quite new in this country, it was visited very generally by the members of both Houses of the Legislature for several years. And it is proper to mention here, that the successive acts of legislation which changed its character to that of a permanent State institution, were passed without a dissenting vote.

The growth of like institutions in other States has been a similar experience, and similarly healthy.

It seems to me that this uniformity of result has arisen from the fact, that the results obtained in the experimental stage exceeded the prudent anticipations and cautious expressions of those most interested in the management of the incipient institution.