Library Collections: Document: Full Text

OFFICERS.

SUPERINTENDENT:
HERVEY B. WILBUR, M. D.

MATRON:
Miss ALVIRA WOOD.

ASSISTANT MATRON:
MRS. IRA WHITE.

HOUSEKEEPER:
MRS. M. A. YOUNG.

TEACHERS:
MISS S. P. YOUNG,
MRS. OLIVE SAWTELLE,
MRS. LAURA EATON,
MISS M. F. COZZENS,
MRS. M.E. COOK,
MISS L. PETHERAM,
MISS IDA KIPP,
MISS LILY BUSH.

STEWARD:
BENJAMIN N. EASTMAN.

IN CHARGE OF NEWARK BRANCH ASYLUM:
MR. & MRS. C. C. WARNER.

TRUSTEES.
ALLEN MUNROE.
GEORGE F. COMSTOCK.
FREDERICK D. HUNTINGTON.
DANIEL PRATT.
NATHAN F. GRAVES.
E. W. LEAVENWORTH.
ALFRED WILKINSON.
FRANK HISCOCK.

STATE OFFICERS-EX-OFFICIO TRUSTEES:
A. B. CORNELL, Governor.
GEORGE G. HOSKINS, Lieutenant-Governor.
JOSEPH B. CARR, Secretary of State.
JAMES W. WADSWORTH, Comptroller.
NEIL GILMOUR, Superintendent of Public Instruction.

PERMANENT CHAIRMAN:
E. W. LEAVENWORTH.

SECRETARY AND TREASURER: ALLEN MUNROE.

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE:
A. WILKINSON.
NATHAN F. GRAVES.
E. W. LEAVENWORTH.

No. 26.

STATE OF NEW YORK.

IN ASSEMBLY,

JANUARY 15, 1880.

TWENTY-NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES OF THE NEW YORK ASYLUM FOR IDIOTS.

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

Agreeably to the provisions of the act establishing this institution, the undersigned Trustees respectfully submit this their Twenty-ninth Annual Report.

RESOURCES FOR THE YEAR.

The following schedule of expenditures differs a little, in form, from that given in the previous reports of the Board, because it is made to conform to the requirements of the Board of State Charities, as established during the past year.

Classified summary of expenditures on current expense account of the New York Asylum for Idiots, for year ending Sept. 30th,1879.

PROVISIONS

From an examination of the books of the Asylum we are able to report, that on the 1st of October, 1879, there were outstanding obligations and cash assets, in the following amounts:

The cash assets of the Asylum at same date were as follows:

It will be seen from this statement that the institution is practically out of debt.

A year ago we were compelled to report an indebtedness of some thirty-five hundred dollars. That debt has not only been extinguished, but there is now on hand and paid for a full year's supply of coal.

With this result, the Trustees feel authorized, for the coming year, to increase the number of State beneficiaries, with the customary annual appropriation of $45,000-which they would respectfully ask of the present Legislature.

A special grant of $12,000 was made by the last Legislature for the erection of a boiler-house, the purchase of three new boilers and the necessary adjustments of former steam apparatus, as a greater security from the risk of fire.

The work is nearly completed and without exceeding the appropriation. A report of the committee of the Board who had this matter in charge will be found in the Appendix.

Nor have the other buildings been neglected. Most of the inside work of the two oldest buildings and all the tin roofs have been repainted. Some twelve thousand feet of floors have been relaid. With the repairs contemplated for the coining year, all the buildings of the institution will, at the end of that period, be quite thoroughly renovated.

The affairs of the custodial branch of the Asylum, designed for adult female idiots, have been intrusted to a committee of the Board, whose report is annexed. It seems to be accomplishing the work for which it was intended, and at a cost within the estimates of the friends of the measure.

The Board, therefore, commend the report of their committee to the attention of the Legislature, with the hope that then suggestions as to the future of the new Asylum may be favorably regarded.

The various industrial operations of the Asylum have been carried on with a reasonable degree of success.

The farm and garden have in the main supplied the wants of the household not only in the way of summer vegetables but also for the winter use.

The shoe-shop and brush-shop, established for the purpose of occupying the larger boys during the winter months when farm and garden work is not available, have more than met their expenses.

The amount of house-work and sewing done by the girls is largely in excess of that done in former years. In fact, in the household department the capacity for such occupations developed among the girls has been a surprise to those in their immediate charge.

ALONZO B. CORNELL,
NEIL GILMOUR,
GEO. F. COMSTOCK,
N. F. GRAVES,
ALLEN MUNROE,
F. D. HUNTINGTON,
ALFRED WILKINSON.

SUPERINTENDENT'S REPORT.

To the Trustees of the New York Asylum for Idiots:

GENTLEMEN: -- I herewith submit a report of the Institution of which I have the immediate charge, for the year ending September 30, 1879.

The whole number of pupils connected with the Asylum during that period was 316.

Two hundred and fifteen of this number were inmates of the Asylum for the entire year; either because they had no homes to go to, or their homes were so remote and the family circumstances so limited, that their friends were not required to remove them during the annual vacation.

The average attendance for the school year was 274.

The total cost of maintenance and instruction, including all expenses except clothing, was $46,432.91.

The average annual per capita cost was, therefore, $169.47.

The sum named as the total cost of the year's maintenance does not correspond with the disbursements as stated in the treasurer's report, because that includes the payment of the debt existing October 1,1878, two years' supply of coal, and thirteen months' instead of a year's wages of attendants and servants.

A few of the older girls were dismissed during the year to enter the custodial branch at Newark.

Others were dismissed because their terms of residence had expired or they had proved unteachable.

New pupils have been admitted to take the places of those who have left, so that we start on a new year with 285 pupils. This number it is proposed to increase to 300.

The social condition of the pupils is not very different from what it was two years since, when a tabular statement was made with this result. About twelve per cent from families in good circumstances pecuniarily; thirty-five per cent from families in quite moderate circumstances; the remainder, or fifty-three per cent, either paupers or from families quite indigent.

This has a bearing upon the probable future of most of our pupils. It is safe to infer that a large proportion of them will be a public charge for the remainder of their lives. They, therefore, need such training as will make them less troublesome and less expensive to their care-takers; in other words, less burdensome to society. This for the lower and less teachable class of cases. For the majority, in whom appropriate training and instruction develops a capacity for some form of simple industrial occupation, their natural unproductiveness will be much diminished.

The practical aim of those strive to ameliorate the condition of the whole class of idiots is to so train them and to regulate their habits, that they may contribute, to a greater or lees degree, to their own support for the remainder of their lives. At all events, this has been the aim of the management of this institution for now nearly thirty years. And certainly their labors have met with tolerable success.

During the period referred to, the annual reports of the Asylum have iterated and reiterated, so many times, the results in general and in detail, that it is hardly necessary to cover the ground anew in the present report. It may he safely asserted that the present working condition of the institution compares favorably with that of former years.

One point may be noticed, viz., its sanitary condition.

At the date of this report there is not a single case of sickness in the house. This has been true for a greater portion of the year. A few eases of mild scarlatina, last spring, constituted most of the sickness of the year.

With over three hundred on our list of pupils, and with an average resident population of 274, there were but four deaths, and these, incident to a general weakness or defect of constitution, characteristic of the whole class of idiots.

Of these one died of epilepsy, a second from malignant sore throat, the case being complicated by paralysis of the vocal organs.

Two other from meningitis or inflammation of the membranes of the brain. In these last though the ultimate sickness was brief, post mortem examinations revealed the fact of the existence of prior brain disease in infancy, which had been the cause of the idiocy.

Nor has this been an exceptional year. The institution has now been in operation for twenty-eight years. It has had on its list of pupils about 950 different individuals. Their average period of residence has been between three and four years. The total number of deaths during the whole period has been seventy-four. The average annual death rate has, therefore, been less than two per cent.

The fact that the unsound minds, with which we have been dealing, have been usually dependent upon unsound bodily conditions, is seen in the causes of death revealed by our general death record:

The average age of these, at death, was 14 1/2. Many idiots, as might be anticipated, die at some of the critical periods of human life. The age of puberty is one, of these.

During the 28 years referred to, there has been one visitation of small-pox and varioloid, sixteen cases and no death. Scarlet fever has prevailed twice, as an epidemic; and on two or three other occasions, there have been single cases and with no fatal termination.

On three occasions measles have spread through the household. At one time there were some sixty cases, and in each and all of these no deaths among the number.

The management of the Asylum may well congratulate themselves upon two or three points manifested by this sanitary history. The location of the institution is plainly a very healthy one. The arrangements of the building in the way of heating, ventilation and drainage, if not perfect, are evidently not very inadequate for the several purposes for which they were designed. So, too, it may be assumed, that the diet and regimen of the pupils has neither been insufficient, unwholesome nor injudicious.

During the past year, as in previous years, very few changes have occurred in my corps of assistants. It is a fortunate circumstance for the success of an institution and for the comfort of the superintendent, when such is the case.

If any credit is awarded me for my management of the affairs of the Asylum during the past, or in preceding years, I justly and frankly turn over no small share of it to those assistants who have for years rendered most valuable and loyal service to the institution.

Nor can I fail, in closing this my twenty-ninth annual report to the Board, to acknowledge, publicly, the kindness and confidence-far beyond my merits-that I have uniformly received at the hands of its members during a long service.

Respectfully Submitted,
H. B. WILBUR,
Superintendent, etc.
Syracuse, October, 1879.

REPORT OF SPECIAL COMMITTEE.

The committee of the Board of Trustees of the New York Asylum for Idiots, to whom was intrusted the management of the "Custodial asylum for adult idiotic and feeble-minded females," herewith present their report of its affairs.

The initial steps in carrying out the intention of the Legislature of 1878, in providing for such an institution, will be found related in the last annual report of your Board to the Legislature; and also in a report made to the State Board of Charities, which is incorporated in the last annual report of that Board

These steps may be briefly recapitulated here:

A building that would accommodate one hundred inmates was found and leased, at Newark, in Wayne county.

Mr. C. C. Warner was appointed superintendent. He was selected because of his successful experience as superintendent of the Onondaga county poor-house, as also as superintendent of the poor for same county.

Circulars stating the objects of the Asylum and soliciting applications for admission were sent to all the county superintendents of the poor throughout the State.

The Asylum was fitted up, furnished and made ready for occupation before the 1st of August, 1878.

Since then ninety cases have been admitted, of whom one has died and one removed because quite insane.

The funds of the Asylum have been kept entirely separate and in the hands of the treasurer appointed by the committee.

The original appropriation, $18,000, was designed to cover the rent of the building, its fitting up, the necessary furniture and means of support of the Asylum for the first year.

A second appropriation of $15,000 was made by the Legislature of 1879, for the continuance of the support of the inmates for the year ending September 30, 1880.

For the expenditures of the first year vouchers have been rendered to the State comptroller to the amount of $18,299.80.

A general analysis of these expenditures give the following result:--

The institution has now been in operation some sixteen months.

It has 88 inmates and several others are now expected whose applications for admission have been acted upon favorably.

They are all so simple-minded as to be liable to be led astray, if left unprotected in families or in the county poor houses. In fact quite a number of them had already been mothers of illegitimate children and their offspring are now increasing the number of paupers in the State.

They may he divided into two classes. The first, such as are so deficient in intelligence and helpless as to require a care even of their personal wants. These are not only unable to contribute to their own support but need, and will always need, a good deal of care at the hands of their guardians.

The other class are such as have a latent capacity for simple industrial occupations. With patient training, they can learn a variety of household occupations and become habituated to regular and efficient service. They can be taught to make themselves useful in the daily care of their more helpless companions, and in which they often take great pleasure.

As might have been expected, in view of the surroundings from which they came and the lives of idleness and neglect which they had previously led, they were not a hopeful-looking set, either in appearance or conduct. The most marked feature of the class was incapacity; a born sluggishness that had been allowed to settle into a state of complete and habitual unproductiveness.

The organization of the working force of the new establishment was planned to meet these conditions. There is first a nursery department for the more helpless ones.

Then each department of household occupation is a training- school for the cases, who are allotted to each as assistants in the necessary work of the institution. From time to time changes are made so that the more capable ones have an opportunity of learning a variety of occupation.

In addition, there is a school for developing the perceptive faculties and that degree of intelligence essential even for customary household duties. The pupils are not only taught some of the elementary exercises of an ordinary school-room, but instruction is given in the details of some of the more common forms of household work. They learn to sew and knit and to use a sewing-machine.

Under this general system, already so much capacity has been brought out, in the inmate, that one may see that the number of cases might be gradually increased to two or three times the present number without much increase in the paid working force of the establishment.

There has also been a marked improvement in the appearance of the inmates-in their habits and conduct. They are more orderly and quiet besides being more intelligent.

Stupid and undisciplined as they were on admission, their immediate guardians already see good cause for faith in the ultimate objects of the institution. In fact there is a growing interest, on the part of the employees of the establishment, in the work in which they are engaged.

From the outset there has been but one death among the inmates, and that in the case of a very feeble girl.

The site is evidently heathly -sic- and the general management by the superintendent, in the matters of diet and regimen, judicious, as is seen not only in the generally healthful look of the inmates, but in the fact that the services of a physician have been required but in three cases, with a total of five medical visits, for more than a year.

The supply of water has been inadequate; in part owing to the prevailing drought of the past summer. But a new cistern of large size has lately been constructed. Doubtless another spring it will be advisable to make, at least, temporary provision for a better water supply.

When the building was originally hired, the terms were that your committee should have a two years' occupancy, in consideration of the money expended in fitting it up for the special purpose, and the outlay for the new laundry and fences.

There was also added the privilege of purchase, at the end of two year, at a stated price.

In the judgement of your committee it will not be advisable to purchase this or any other property, or to make any permanent provision in the way of buildings till more time has been taken to test the question, as to the need or value of such custodial Asylum for idiotic adult females.

From their observation thus far it seems to have been quite successful, in doing its peculiar work. Of the need of some such Asylum they feel assured, from their knowledge of the prior history of some of the inmates. There is no doubt that in many of the county poorhouses of the State a rigid separation of the sexes is not maintained. That, not infrequently, the pauper population of the State in increased by the offspring of idiot females.

Not questioning then the need or value of the new Asylum, they are of opinion that another year in its experimental stage will work no harm. The public appreciation of the need of such an institution will be more distinctly felt. The mode of meeting the evil it was designed to meet, in the best and most economical manner, will be more clearly defined. The limitations as to the admission of cases will be better understood. The form of buildings, the kind of appliances and the mode of organization to meet the needs of the class can be more wisely determined. And finally, the probable cost of maintenance of its inmates can he better estimated.

In view of these considerations your committee have obtained the privilege of another year's occupancy of the present buildings, at a moderate rental. This privilege is also with this condition, that any needed alterations or repairs to the building shall be allowed to apply on such price of rent.

Your committee would, therefore, recommend to the Board to ask the Legislature of the present year to appropriate the sum of $15,000 for the maintenance and clothing of the inmates of the Newark establishment, for the year ending September 30, 1881. This is based upon the expectation that the number of inmates will exceed one hundred and ten.

It would be unjust in closing not to bear testimony to the excellent management of Mr. and Mrs. Warner, who have had charge of the Newark branch from the outset. The main work of organization has been theirs, and all the details of management have been carried out under their constant and careful supervision.

The building and grounds are in good condition. Every part of the interior is scrupulously clean. The dietary is ample and varied. The inmates are neat in person, happy in appearance and growing orderly in deportment. And the general discipline of the house-hold is praiseworthy.

ALFRED WILKINSON,
N. F. GRAVES,
H. B. WILBUR,
Special Committee.

REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.

Report of a committee of the Board, to whom was intrusted the expenditure of the special appropriation, for the erection of a boiler house, the purchase of three new boilers for the same, and such alterations of the steam heating apparatus, as were made necessary by the new plan of heating the buildings of the asylum.

At the June meeting of the board, plans were submitted by the superintendent, and discussed, for carrying out the intent of the special legislation. In accordance with your instructions the work was divided. Separate proposals were invited for the construction of the building; the required boilers (three in number), and the necessary steam-fitting. Bids were received from various parties for each division of the work, and the lowest bids in every case were accepted. All the proposals are properly filed in the office of the Asylum.

The parties to whom the several contracts were awarded were as follows:

Mason work in building and setting boilers, Moore & Carr; carpenter work, Charles Doll; boilers, Porter Manufacturing Co.; steam-fitting, W. H. Warner; steam pump, I. I. Brewster.

The work is now completed, except some little adjustments of the steam-heating apparatus. No difficulty is experienced in forcing the steam to the buildings most remote from the boiler-house. Two boilers will suffice to do the work, except in the coldest weather, when it may be economy to run three. The pressure of steam at the farthest building has been only 1.11 pounds less than at the boiler-house.

The bills have all been paid except a small sum withheld on account of the steam-fitting contract. There are remaining sufficient funds of the special appropriation of $12,000, to meet all that the contractor still claims.

A schedule is added of the several amounts of expenditure.

With a little farther opportunity for testing the completeness of the steam apparatus, the only bill not fully cancelled can be paid and then the vouchers can be sent to the State Comptroller and your committee make a final report.

N. F. GRAVES,
ALFRED WILKINSON,
Executive Committee.

H. B. WILBUR,
Superintendent.

THIRD NATIONAL BANK,
SYRACUSE, N. Y., Jan. 12, 1880.

To whom it may concern:

This is to certify that there is to the credit of H. B. Wilbur, superintendent "special construction account," this day a balance of $715.63.

G. S. LEONARD, Cashier.

TREASURER'S REPORT.

Allen Munroe, Treasurer of the New York Asylum for Idiots, in account current with the State of New York, for cash received and expended for the general supplies, and the salaries and wages of officers, teachers, attendants and servants of said asylum, during the year ending September 30, 1879.

RESOURCES FOR THE YEAR.

DISBURSEMENTS.

NEW YORK ASYLUM FOR IDIOTS,
SYRACUSE, October 22, 1879.

We certify that we have examined the treasurer's report for the year ending September 30, 1870; have compared all receipts with the sources of revenue, all expenditures with the vouchers, and with the treasurer's bank account, and find this report to be correct.

ALFRED WILKINSON,
NATHAN F. GRAVES,
Executive Committee.