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The necessity of such an institution will not be questioned by this board. Our own establishment, now more than 20 years in operation, was designed exclusively for the purpose of educating idiots. It was based upon the idea that a portion of the idiots of the state were capable of being taught under a judicious system of training and instruction. The instruction given, in accordance with the declared intentions of the original board at the organization of the asylum, has been of the most practical kind. It has sought to make the pupils capable of some form of useful occupation, as well as to diminish their characteristic helplessness. To this end it was necessary that the pupils should be of a proper school-attending age ; that they should be of such a condition of bodily health and such a degree of intelligence as to make this practicable. All the while, however, the effort has been embarrassed by the admission of pupils not coming within the scope of such precautions. To be sure, the by-laws of the asylum provided for the prompt dismissal of persons found on trial not to be improvable, but experience has shown that this was not always easy of accomplishment. The cases found to be unteachable were, as a rule, among the most helpless, troublesome or mischievous of their kind. They came from homes or public institutions of different kinds; sent because of the relief afforded by such transfer to the asylum, as well as from the expectation or hope that they might be radically improved by the means afforded here. This relief, often, from a very serious burden and care, after it was once felt and appreciated. would naturally make a reluctance to taking it up again, by the return of their helpless and troublesome wards. Then, again, in almost every case some improvement was made, though falling short of that which was the real aim in the creation of the asylum. Furthermore, in some instances homes were broken up by the death of parents, or circumstances of widowhood and indigence combined made it seem almost an act of cruelty to add to such existing burdens the weightier one of the care and support of a child painfully dependent. Then it must be confessed that there are county institutions in this state where to remand a helpless child requires some courage on the part of the official whose duty it becomes.

For these reasons the number of custodial cases, or those not strictly capable of education, has become an accumulating one. It is not necessary to specify the modes in which this accumulation acts as an embarrassment.

As my report as superintendent is made a part of your annual report to the legislature, it may be well briefly to review the reasons that led to the establishment of this institution and its continued support; reasons that are still operative, though not necessarily within the observation of individual members of any legislative body.

As a preliminary, it may be well to define the prime characteristics of the condition known as idiocy, in its generic sense. Idiocy, then, is the want of a natural and harmonious development of the mental, active and moral powers and faculties of a human being, dependent upon some defect or infirmity of the nervous organization. It varies in degree, contingent upon the extent of nervous degeneracy, from a slight impairment of the mental faculties, imbecility, by insensible gradations and shades down to what is spoken of as complete idiocy. This maximum of imperfection and incapacity stops short only at a condition of nerve-degeneracy, inconsistent with the continuance of human life. Idiocy may exist with an apparent condition of bodily health, but is more commonly associated with obviously diseased physical states or some impairment of general physiological functions. There is a notable form of idiocy, described in works upon the subject, called cretinism. This is a low form of idiocy associated with extreme scrofulous degeneracy and great bodily deformity. It is most prevalent in the mountainous districts of Europe, and rarely seen in the United States. Idiocy is sometimes confounded with dementia. In fact, in our census table, demented persons are very commonly classed with idiots. Dementia, however, is, strictly speaking, a loss of mental powers and faculties once possessed, and occurs at a period of life later than childhood.

Various methods of classification in the case of idiots have been suggested, but these are either arbitrary or based upon pathological distinctions that are valueless for any practical purposes of classification. Of the first class, those based upon difference in mental capacity, it may be said, that they may have a special use or convenience in a certain class of writings upon the subject, if it is fully understood that they are entirely arbitrary and proposed and used only to mark general degrees of mental deficiency, that nevertheless run into each other by insensible gradations. Even the common distinction of imbecility and idiocy is indicating slight or profound impairment of the mental faculties is liable to misconstruction in quarters. For the French works upon the subject, and even some English writers apply the term imbecility without reference to degree, to a class of cases where the idiocy comes on about the age of puberty.