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And finally, the public mind, wherever a knowledge of these institutions has extended, has become, to some extent, educated up to just conceptions of what their true office is, the good they are designed to do.

Some points may now be considered established. A large percentage of the number of idiots in any state can be rendered capable of some degree of useful occupation, thus compensating in whole or in part for the cost of their maintenance, if trained and instructed at a proper age. Almost all, after excluding the quite deformed and diseased (hospital cases), can be made decent in their habits, easily managed and able to assist in ministering to their own personal wants.

Even the cases excluded under the last head are made by proper attention to their wants, and by bringing them under the sway of regular habits of living and acting, more comfortable to themselves and far less troublesome to others.

This last fact is true, not only of those admitted at a proper age to educational institutions, but has a practical application to all receptacles in city or country where these unfortunates are brought together. It has a similar application to those cared for in families at home. It may be added that one of the indirect influences emanating already from these establishments has been to ameliorate the condition of the great mass of idiots wherever found.

All these, it must be conceded, are very desirable results, if they have been or can be accomplished without a disproportionate expenditure of time and money. And as this is often a controlling influence, and very properly so, in the decision of the question as to the expediency of appropriating the public money to kindred purposes, two or three remarks may be made upon this point.

First. The buildings necessary for the proper management, care and teaching of idiots can be constructed at a relatively moderate cost. The construction accounts of such institutions, wherever located or built, abundantly confirm this assertion.

The elegant establishment at Earlswood, in England, to which allusion has been made, cost but $500 per patient or inmate, when reduced to our present currency.

The last building erected for this special purpose is the Royal Albert Asylum for Idiots, just completed at Lancaster, England. Built in the most substantial manner, with some concessions in the way of adornment to its royal and noble patrons, expressly designed for a class of cases above the grade of pauperism; commodious and in all respects convenient, with every appliance and equipment for the care of its inmates, and fully and thoroughly furnished; its total cost is about $240,000. It will accommodate 500 pupils. Reducing this amount to our present currency, and dividing by the number of inmates, the cost per pupil will not exceed $600.

Our own establishment, erected without any experience to guide, cost, relatively, about the same.

It is not necessary to compare this with the cost of buildings lately erected, and now being built in this or other States, for similar purposes. The facts are well known to the public.

In like manner the cost of support of such asylums has been relatively small. The New York State institution may be taken as an illustration of this point. For the five years preceding the war, the average annual per capita cost of the board, management and instruction of the pupils was less than one hundred and sixty dollars ($160). During the period of the greatest depreciation of the currency, it reached one year $230. Since then it has been gradually diminishing, till it is now about $200. Had the capacity of the asylum been equal to the reception of a hundred more pupils the expense would have been still more moderate, for obvious reasons.

Finally, it is now very obvious, as has been already mentioned, that the present provision to meet the various necessities of the idiots of the State is very inadequate. It should be borne in mind that further provision to meet their needs is in many instances only changing the mode of meeting such needs. Very many of their number, in county poor-houses or lunatic asylums, are now a public charge. It is often no fault of their care-takers under such circumstances that they are neglected and miserable. There is a want of knowledge of what should be done to relieve them. The proper means and appliances are not supplied, and the absence of such means makes the charge burdensome and expensive. Very many of the idiot or imbecile children now in indigent families will ultimately have to be thus supported at public expense. Besides, instances are not unknown in the State where a whole family have become paupers on account of having one or more members feeble-minded or idiotic. The extra care and attention these demanded so fettered the industry of the other members as to turn the scale and land the whole family in the poor-house.

The public provision for idiots is inadequate, because, to-day, not one-half of their number of a proper age and of unquestionable aptitude for instruction can be accommodated in the State institution designed for them. It is inadequate, because large numbers of idiots are miserably cared for in the families of the indigent, and, at the same time, paralyzing the industry of such families. And some in families of ample pecuniary means are scarcely less objects of pity, on account of the difficulty of ministering to their peculiar wants without the requisite experience.