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Finally, it may be mentioned that a premature classification of the skull may prevent mental development, by checking or stopping cerebral growth. In many cases, however, the search for causation, with our present knowledge, is a blind one.

Idiocy has existed in all ages and in every known country. The relative number in any community will depend upon the physical and social influences that lead toward or promote nerve-degeneracy.

The ratio to the general population seems to be an increasing one. In the so-called civilized communities it is safe to estimate the number as at least one to every thousand in the population. General statistics would support this estimate, after excluding all cases of dementia in insane asylums, and not including many cases un-recognized as idiots on account of infancy. Special investigation pursued in this state, supplementary to the results obtained in taking the census, both by the state and United States authorities, would warrant the belief that this estimate is somewhat below the actual number.

Their status as subjects of law and objects of pity and charity had been recognized from time immemorial. The jurisprudence of all nations has been constrained to acknowledge their existence, for deficient as well as perverted mental and moral powers have constituted the point at issue in many questions in courts of justice in all times. The competency of principal or witness is to be settled on the one hand. On the other, the responsibility of alleged criminal acts is to be decided. And no small amount of crime is annually perpetrated by those whose measure of responsibility is a very limited one and who would have known better if they had but had a proper training. And many idiots, really the most susceptible of education of all their class, if left to grow up without proper instruction, or if aggregated with the vagrant classes, learn at least to be mischievous if not ready for the commission of petty crimes.

So too, the idiot under the most favorable circumstances of family and social relation has ever been an object of commiseration. Denied the privilege and joys of his fellows, in age and social condition, but worse than all, doomed to a life of inactivity of body and mind, the idiot, whatever the degree of the infirmity, naturally lapses into habits and modes of life disagreeable or disgusting that in time diminish that sympathy and affection that is needed to make life endurable, or sinks into a condition but little above the animal, without the compensating pleasure of a mere animal life.

But in any community like that of our own commonwealth, the great mass of families being in moderate circumstances and many of them in indigence the case is even worse. From such families all cases of idiocy gravitate toward the county poor-house. Some, from very necessity, find their way there during the parents' life-time. But more later on, for in the comparative weakness of the family tie, in this country, when the heads of the family die, the dependent members are often left to shift for themselves or to be cared for by the public provision for the helpless and incapable. If there are more than one such in a family, or if the case is one of extreme helplessness and trouble, in a relatively poor family, this feet may carry their kinsfolk into pauperism. Such has been their condition for centuries. Any known attempt to ameliorate their condition was reserved for quite recent times. In fact, systematic efforts for their improvement date back only some forty years. There was a prior period of incubation, in which circumstances combined to direct attention to this class, to their peculiarities and their needs. Efforts to improve the condition of the insane, to educate deaf-mutes and the blind had been attended with great success.

In individual instances, where idiocy had been studied and some degree of improvement had been made, the facts had found their way to the public ear. Scientific curiosity had been awakened as to the nature of idiocy and the extent to which remedial means might be rationally applied. Civilized communities were thus made ripe for an extension of experimental measures of relief to the class of idiots.

By general consent, the name of Dr. Edward Seguin, of Paris, stands at the head of European specialists in the management and training of idiots. He organized a school for the purpose, in 1838. His intelligence, skill and zeal, together with a happy faculty of presenting his principles and methods of instruction and their results, attracted public attention. The public authorities of France and scientific bodies acknowledged the merits of his system. Visitors from many nations went to see the wonderful results. Thus were sown the seeds that have ripened into extended labors in the same direction in many lands.

Institutions have been established in many of the continental states of Europe. In Great Britain the growth and spread of institutions for idiots has been almost unexampled in the history of their benevolent institutions.