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Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe
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| 404 | "No systematic efforts have yet been made in this country to teach a class of these sorely bereaved creatures, but individual efforts have not been wanting in Massachusetts. The success here obtained, for the first time, in the education of persons who by the English law are considered to be necessarily idiots, as 'wanting all those senses which furnish the human mind with ideas,' has encouraged attempts to educate idiots. (12) The results thus far are most satisfactory. In view of all these circumstances, therefore, we most earnestly recommend that measures be at once taken to rescue this most unfortunate class from the dreadful degradation in which they now grovel. . . . (12) My father here alludes to the case of Laura Bridgman. The passage from which he quotes is found in Broom & Hadley's Blackstone, Vol. 2, page 83. "A man is not an idiot if he has any glimmering of reason, so that he can tell his parents, his age, or the like common matters. But a man who is born deaf, dumb and blind, is looked upon by the law in the same state with an idiot; he being supposed incapable of any understanding, as wanting all those senses which furnish the human mind with ideas." The following passage is interesting in the same connection. "The presumption that a person deaf, dumb, and blind from his nativity is an idiot, is only a legal presumption, and is therefore open to be rebutted by evidence of capacity." Chitty's Medical Jurisprudence, Vol. I, pages 301, 345. | |
| 405 | "Massachusetts admits the right of all her citizens to a share in the blessings of education; she provides it liberally for all her more favoured children; if some be blind or deaf, she still continues to furnish them with special instruction at great cost; and will she longer neglect the poor idiots, -- the most wretched of all who are born to her, -- those who are usually abandoned by their fellows, -- who can never, of themselves, step upon the platform of humanity, -- will she leave them to their dreadful fate, to a life of brutishness, without an effort in their behalf? | |
| 406 | "It is true that the plea of ignorance can be made in excuse for the neglect and ill-treatment which they have hitherto received; but this plea can avail us no longer. Other countries have shown us that idiots may be trained to habits of industry, cleanliness, and self-respect; that the highest of them may be measurably restored to self-control, and that the very lowest of them may be raised up from the slough of animal pollution in which they wallow; and can the men of other countries do more than we? Shall we, who can transmute granite and ice into gold and silver, and think it pleasant work, -- shall we shrink from the higher task of transforming brutish men back into human shape? Other countries are beginning to rescue their idiots from further deterioration, and even to elevate them; and shall our Commonwealth continue to bury the humble talent of lowly children committed to her motherly care and let it rot in the earth, or shall she do all that can be done to render it back with usury to Him who lent it? There should be no doubt about the answer to these questions. The humanity and justice of the Legislature will prompt them to take immediate measures for the formation of a school or schools for the instruction and training of idiots. | |
| 407 | "The benefits to be derived from the establishment of a school for this class of persons, upon humane and scientific principles, would be very great. Not only would all the idiots who should be received into it be improved in their bodily and mental condition, but all the others in the State and the country would be indirectly benefited. The school, if conducted by persons of skill and ability, would be a model for others. Valuable information would be disseminated through the country; it would be demonstrated that no idiot need be confined or restrained by force; that the young can be trained to industry, order, and self-respect; that they can be redeemed from odious and filthy habits, and that there is not one of any age who may not be made more of a man and less of a brute by patience and kindness directed by energy and skill. ..." | |
| 408 | Not content with thus showing the necessity of immediate action in behalf of the idiots of the Commonwealth, my father added to the report a supplement, containing information which, he says, "may perhaps be useful for those who shall have the direction of that action; and likewise some facts and considerations the knowledge of which may tend to lessen the number of idiots in the next generation, and possibly to hasten the period at which this grievous calamity shall be removed." | |
| 409 | The following passage is from this supplement, | |
| 410 | "All those who have a living and abiding faith and trust in the goodness and wisdom of the Creator will readily believe that the terrible evils which now infest society are not necessarily perpetual; that they are not inherent in the very constitution of man, but are the chastisements sent by a loving Father to bring back his children to obedience to his beneficent laws. These laws have been as much shrouded in darkness, in times past, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt; and though they were written upon every man's body, no Champollion was found to decipher them. But a better day has dawned, and men are beginning to read the handwriting upon the wall, which tells them that every sin against a natural law must be atoned for by suffering here, as well as hereafter. | |
