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Idiocy: And Its Treatment By The Physiological Method

Creator: Edward Seguin (author)
Date: 1907
Publisher: Teachers' College, Columbia University
Source: Available at selected libraries

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572  

It is thus apparent that great responsibilities rest upon the Superintendents and upon the trustees who employ them, in carrying out the immediate and remote objects of the foundation of schools for idiots. Narrow eagerness in the pursuit of some points in the practice; remissness in analytical inquiry; neglect of the synthetical problem of physiology; dropping of the scientific and social corollaries already issuing from the doctrine of physiological treatment and education; such are some of the evils which may bring down a school for idiots to the level of a richly endowed poor-house.

573  

Happily these warnings are founded more upon that difficulty, inherent to human nature, by which we are incapacitated for fully carrying theory into practice, than upon any positive symptoms of decay in the young institution. It looks healthy and vigorous; it spreads far in lands where freedom is cherished, and deep in the hearts of those who first acknowledged their bonds of brotherhood with the suffering many; it rises in solid reality among the monuments of learning and benevolence; it arose as one of the mature realizations of the gospel on earth, that nothing can destroy; it wanted only a better exponent of its principles; this insufficiency we have kept in mind, though it is mitigated by the consciousness of having once more accomplished our duty towards our Master, our pupils, and a holy idea.

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