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Next, a nursery, where the younger or lower grades of pupils are trained to habits of cleanliness, decency, order and self-care.

Lastly, a school-room, with a complete scale of exercises, from those applicable to the first dawnings of sense-power and sense-perception up to the ordinary studies of an elementary school. The beginnings in the scheme of instruction are low down and of the simplest description, to meet the fact that in these pupils is wanting the activity of sense and the eager curiosity of normal childhood that to a certain extent educates itself. In other words, the little every-day knowledge unconsciously absorbed by the normal child must needs be with these a matter of positive instruction.

The same principles of education are employed as in any other system of instruction. The special adaptations of these principles to meet the peculiar traits of this class of pupils are quite varied. The will of the teacher may be needed at the outset to supply the absence of spontaneousness on the part of the pupil. The beginnings of instruction will be at such a point in the series of exercises as the exigencies of each case demand ; the progress, by such gradual steps as are within the compass of the pupils intelligence. The acquisitions of each day, in the way of greater nerve force, increased subordination and self-control and awakened intelligence are applied to the practical matters of every-day life, in the household or elsewhere. The success of the efforts of instruction will depend largely upon the observance of two rules. The first, that the lessons given bear some relation to the everyday life and observation of the pupils, so that perceptions and ideas, stimulated by the teacher in the school-room, may arise, and flow out spontaneously at the promptings of their surroundings when elsewhere. The second, that a proper and orderly succession of exercises is observed, and this order depending somewhat upon the individual peculiarities of the pupils.

The ultimate end of all these efforts is to establish good habits, to impart a capacity and a willingness for some form of useful occupation, to develop greater power of self-control and, if possible, to bring the pupil under the sway of moral obligation.

The experience of numerous institutions, now many years in operation, has established the fact that a large majority of idiots, of a school-attending age and condition, as it respects health, are susceptible of very great improvement and may attain the end proposed by their education in the manner and by the means thus briefly indicated. Ordinarily, the extent of teachableness in any case can be determined precisely only by experiment, as the actual physiological limitations of the mental growth can only thus be ascertained.

Of a certain class unimprovability may be predicted. For example, where the degeneracy is of a kind to be self-developing with the progress of age, and where the underlying pathological condition is one progressive in its nature. Again, where there is such a degree of deformity as to preclude the use of suitable means of training, etc. And finally, where there is an extreme nervous excitability, the natural termination of which is in some form of insanity.

It has already been mentioned that this incapacity for improvement in a certain class of idiocy was recognized by the founders of our asylum, and they took pains to guard against the admission of such pupils in their by-laws. But their prudence was seen in another matter. They were careful not to cherish themselves nor to encourage in others any high-wrought expectations of extravagant results from the undertaking. In the very first report of your board to the legislature it was distinctly said: "We do not propose to create or supply faculties absolutely wanting, nor to bring all grades of idiocy to the same standard of development or discipline, nor to make them all capable of sustaining creditably all the relations of a social and moral life, but rather to give to dormant faculties the greatest practicable development, and to apply those awakened faculties to some useful purpose under the control of an aroused and disciplined will".

And it will be observed that the phrase "greatest practicable development" was used as showing that it was not expected, in every case, nor probably in any case, that the possible or utmost limits of development would be reached, but such a point as might be attainable with a reasonable expenditure of the public money, and with a proper allowance for the shortcomings of those directly engaged in the work.

Nor can it be justly said that the pupils sent to this institution have been above the average, in point of intelligence, of the class from which they came.

Speech is regarded as one of the best tests of the degree of mental deficiency, by the most approved writers upon this subject. If by speech is meant the power of comprehending as well as using language, this opinion may be accepted.