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Read at the Glenwood Meeting, 1884.

WHILST seeking a location for the practice of my profession in the spring of 1850, I providentially strayed to Barre, Mass., meeting there Dr. Hervey B. Wilbur, who gave me the cordial greeting so grateful to the young physician. Our acquaintance, thus begun, was cemented by mutual tastes and the close relations into which we afterwards entered, till from that day to this he has been to me as a brother, and with saddened heart I stand here to speak of him who has gone before. I need not repeat in detail the events of his earlier life, with which you all became familiar from reading the many newspaper accounts published at the time of his death, but I will quote a few paragraphs from the paper he read at the funeral of Dr. Seguin, which tells us how he came to choose his life-work : "In the year 1847 I saw in a number of 'Chambers's Journal' an account of a visit by one of its correspondents to a school for training idiots in Paris, in charge of Edouard Seguin. It attracted attention, because up to a very recent time the class in question had been regarded as beyond the reach of any efforts for their improvement. But here was one who had overleaped the barriers of this outcast class, who had not only opened a new field of educational effort, but had been working it for a decade with both brain and hand, and with such success as to obtain a wide public recognition of his labors. From the very start it was an experiment in psychology as well as philanthropy, and was marked by the enthusiasm and persistence that such a combination would naturally beget.

"Not long after, as I now remember, I met in one or more numbers of a British medical journal a very glowing account of a professional visit to the same class written by an appreciative hand. It was the work of Dr. Connolly, one of the princes of British philanthropy. These papers were my first inspiration in what has proved to be with me a life occupation."

At the time I first met Dr. Wilbur, the resultant of this inspiration was a little school, in his own house, of some dozen pupils, to which all visitors from abroad were invited, and no stranger left it unimpressed with wonder at what he had seen, or without catching some of the good doctor's enthusiasm for his undertaking. In this little school he gained the experience which enabled him a few years later to stand at the head of the first public institution for idiots established in this country at Syracuse, making that asylum a model for all kindred schools which have sprung up since, some of which are here represented. Seeking, patient and oft-repeated experimentation, to discover the pathway to the occluded intellect, he solved the problem how most wisely to draw out the mental powers of the normal child, exposing the scientific errors of Pestalozzi and other noted educators, just then coming into popularity in the State of New York. His able papers, entitled "Some Suggestions on the Principles and Methods of Elementary Instruction," and the "Object System of Instruction as Pursued in the Schools of Oswego N. Y.," read before the National Teachers' Convention at Ogdensburg, and the New York State Teachers' Association, were widely circulated and discussed in the State, influencing its whole educational system.

In 1871, at the meeting of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane, Dr. Wilbur read a paper entitled "Materialism in its Relations to the Causes, Conditions, and Treatment of Insanity," reviewing an article written by Dr. Gray which had been published in the Journal of Insanity. It advocated the theory that moral causes were often productive of insanity, and that moral treatment should be largely used for remedial purposes, as opposed to the theories and practice enjoined by materialists. The ultimate effect of this incisive article was the long controversy between its author and some members of that Association who differed radically from him upon points both scientific and practical.

When Dr. Wilbur made his second trip to Europe in the summer of 1875, to visit institutions for idiots and insane, he was invited by the Governor of New York and some members of the State Board of Charities to report his observations upon the latter class. This comprehensive summary, entitled "Report Relating to the Management of the Insane in Great Britain," expresses his strong convictions that the English methods were more advanced, and in many respects superior to the American.

Especially did he recommend the appointment in the different States of officials similar to the British Commissioners of Lunacy, who, giving more time to thorough acquaintance with all the insane hospitals within the borders of any one State, would be fitted to advise more broadly upon general matters of construction and care than local boards of trustees.

At the same time, by their higher official position, personally unbiased by local influences, they could inspire the public with more confidence in asylum management, often most injudiciously and untruthfully assailed.