Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Beginning with a small school, founded by a few benevolent ladies in Bath, but a little more than 25 years ago, there are now eight establishments, public and private, in England; three in Scotland and one in Ireland.

More than a thousand idiots and imbeciles are now gathered in institutions designed for their management and instruction, supported either by their friends or by the liberality of wealthy and benevolent individuals. Royalty has lent its name in their behalf, both in England and in Holland.

Besides these establishments referred to, several large custodial institutions have grown up, where indigent and pauper cases of idiocy are properly cared for at the public expense. In Great Britain, therefore, the cause of the amelioration of the condition of idiots may be regarded as having been fairly adopted, both as a charity and a measure of public policy.

The experience of what is sometimes called the mother country may safely be studied, in this, as in some other matters, if not followed in all respects.

In making a distinction between what I have called a charity and a policy, I have had in mind the two classes of institutions for idiots existing there. The reason for the distinction is this: the governmental policy in relation to what are generally classed as charitable institutions is quite different in the two nations, that are now the subject of comparison. While in this country educational measures for the indigent and dependent classes are recognized as a political duty, there such are left to the care of the wealthy and benevolent members of society. And so it happens, that in that country have grown up several large establishments for the education of idiots, supported exclusively by the annual contributions of noble and wealthy persons. As has been already stated, the growth of these institutions and their continued popularity has been almost unparalleled in the history of British benevolence. This has been going on for some 25 years or more.

Within the last few years a second class of institutions for idiots, in the main of a custodial character, have been opened. These are supported by the counties or municipalities as a measure of public policy. The influences that have led to this last step are two-fold.

In the first place, the experience of their educational establishments had shown that the state of idiocy, in many cases, was an improvable one, even when not of a nature to encourage very positive or continued educational means. To get them into the sunshine of a friendly spirit of care-taking stimulated some growth in the right direction. To keep them warm, to feed them well and clothe them decently inspired them with some disposition to help themselves as well as to do for others.

But a deeper reason has operated. In the care and treatment of the dependent classes, one of the principles, developed by modern social science, is that a proper classification is the first step. For by means of such classification the special needs of any particular class are thus rendered more obvious and more easily and economically met. Aggregated with the insane or with common paupers, or scattered in the homes of the indigent, the idiots of England were none the less burdensome to society than gathered (as is now going on) in special asylums for their care. In the one case, they lived expensively at the public charge. In the other, they were diminishing the productive industry of their caretakers, in a measure that told seriously upon the general productiveness of the nation.

In the United States, efforts at instruction in individual cases of idiocy or imbecility were undertaken as early as 1818. The first public efforts in their behalf were undertaken in our own legislature. In the winter of 1846, the late Dr. Fred'k Backus, of Rochester, introduced a bill in the senate for the establishment of an asylum for idiots. As chairman of the committee of medical societies he had previously made an elaborate report, showing the probable number of idiots in the state, giving an account of the recently established schools in Europe and fortifying his own views by the opinions of well known superintendents of insane asylums, that asylums for idiots were a want of the age. He pursued his labor during two sessions, each year the bill passing the senate to be defeated in the assembly, not on its merits but through the concurrence of untoward circumstances. During the three following years the matter slumbered in the legislature, as there were no members who felt a special interest in it. In 1851 the subject was re-opened; an exhibition of pupils of the Massachusetts school for idiots was given by Dr. S. G. Howe, of Boston, who, seeing a recommendation in the annual message of Gov. Hunt, to that end, kindly volunteered his services in the matter. This resulted in the establishment of the New York Asylum for Idiots.

The first school, however, actually opened was at Barre, Mass., in 1848. Only a few months later, an experimental school, under the patronage of the state of Massachusetts, was begun at Boston.