Library Collections: Document: Full Text

I have in mind one case where the child of a rich and wise man showed such signs of idiocy as would, if he had -been- the son of poor and ignorant parents, have certainly condemned him to the almshouse, to neglect, to idleness, and probably to dumbness, -for he could hardly speak;- but by a resolute and judicious course of instruction he has been taught to read, has been improved in speech, and will, I doubt not, become a rational man, and be able to take care of himself.

Now may it not be that there are scores and hundreds of such cases among the poor and friendless? And is it not an awful thought that our wealthy community is yearly losing human souls that are entrusted to its care, whom the mere overflowing of our garners might have gathered into the bosom of society? Will not God in his righteous judgments demand them at our hands?

But even if we descend to lower considerations and regard the economy of the thing, we shall find that worldly wisdom would teach us to train our idiots to habits of industry. Of the many who are now supported at the public charge only a few do any work, and that is of the most unprofitable kind; to say nothing of the destructive tendencies of some who are left unemployed. Now it is certain that the great majority of them might be taught to do some simple handicraft work; that they might be trained to love labour, and thus support themselves in whole or in part.

It appears that the considerations of duty, humanity, and economy all demand that the condition of the idiot at public charge should be inquired into, with a view to its speedy improvement.

With great respect I am, Dear Sir, Very respectfully yours, S. G. HOWE.

On April 11th, 1846, the three commissioners were appointed, my father, Horatio Byington and Gilman Kimball. For nearly two years they laboured in this cause, first by means of circular letters to town clerks and other responsible persons in every town of the Commonwealth, and secondly by personal observation and inquiries. They visited sixty-three towns and personally examined the condition of "five hundred and seventy-four human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbours, and left to their own brutishness."

On February 26th, 1848, the commissioners presented their first Report, written and signed by my father as chairman.

A few extracts will give its character.

"When we accepted the task assigned to us, it was not without a sense of its importance. We did not look upon idiocy as a thing which concerned only the hundred or thousand unfortunate creatures in this generation who are stunted or blighted by it; for even if means could be found of raising all the idiots now within our borders from their brutishness, and alleviating their suffering, the work would have to be done over again, because the next generation would be burdened with an equal number of them. Such means would only cut off the outward cancer, and leave the vicious sources of it in the system. We regarded idiocy as a disease of society; as an outward sign of an inward malady. . . . We resolved, therefore, to seek for the sources of the evil, as well as to gauge the depth and extent of the misery. It was to be expected that the search would oblige us to witness painful scenes, not only of misfortune and suffering, but of deformity and infirmity, the consequences of ignorance, vice, and depravity. The subjects of them, however, were brethren of the human family; the end proposed was not only to relieve their sufferings and improve their condition, but if possible to lessen such evils in coming generations; the task, therefore, was not to be shrunk from, however repulsive and painful was its contemplation.

"It is to be confessed, however, that we have been painfully disappointed by the sad reality, for the numbers of beings originally made in God's image, but now sunk in utter brutishness, is fearfully great, even beyond anything that had been anticipated.

"The examination of their physical condition forces one into scenes from the contemplation of which the mind and the senses instinctively revolt.

"In searching for the causes of this wretchedness in the condition and habits of the progenitors of the sufferers, there is found a degree of physical deterioration, and of mental and moral darkness, which will hardly be credited.

"We would fain be spared any relation of what has been witnessed as well for our own sake as for the tastes and feelings of others, which must be shocked by the recital of it. It would be pleasanter simply to recommend such measures as would tend to remove the present evils and prevent their recurrence. But this may not be. Evils cannot be grappled with and overcome unless their nature and extent are fully known. Besides, our duty was not only to examine into, but to report upon the condition of the idiots in our Commonwealth; and that duty must be done."

The story that follows is a terrible one, and may not be repeated here. At the close of the Report, my father says: