Biomed,
G 000 005 585 5
WM
300
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
EDUCATION OF IDIOTS.
AN APPEAL
THE CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA.
We plea/J for those who cannot plead for themselves.
P II I L A D E L P II I xV :
PRINTED BY H. EVANS, FOURTH ST. BELOW CHESTNUT.
1853.
300
APPEAL. £^4-
n^i
By the last Census, it is ascertained, that in the State of
Pennsylvania, there are not less than fourteen hundred
and forty-eight Idiotic persons, of whom, thirteen hundred
and eighty-six are white, and sixty-two colored. Other
inquiries have been instituted, which prove, that the actual
number far exceeds that indicated by official returns, and
that, at this moment, the number in Pennsylvania, cannot
be much less than three thousand. Of these, more than
one-third are under twenty years of age, and if it be pos-
sible, by any species of training and cultivation, to raise
them out of their deplorable and apparently helj)less state,
the duty, is one which should no longer be neglected. It
is a duty to which w^e are urged by every consideration of
sympathy and Christian humanity — for no form of misery
is so revolting, no victims of hereditary disease, or parental
unfaithfulness, are so little cared for. Into every family,
with wdiicli they are connected, they carry abiding sorrow
and humiliation, and yet in few such families, is there any
judicious and well-directed effort for their improvement.
Their support forms a serious burden on the resources of
society, and yet society often turns them over to alms-
houses, where they are confirmed in their helplessness, and
left to grovel in the most abject filth and debasement.
The blind, the dumb, the insane, have long since enhsted
our sympathies. We ask now, for a hearing in behalf of
Idiots.
The charity which hopcth all things, and believeth all
things, has yet dreamed of no nobler achievement than
the redemption of this most hapless class. The conception
belongs to our own age ; and to this age it has been given
to witness the realization. It was perseveringly attempted
at Paris, so long ago as eighteen hundred, by Itard. But
the attempt was limited to a single subject, and was made
under the guidance of a philosophy essentially fiilse.* It
was revived under the auspices of a higher faith, and a
* That of Condillac.
wiser philosophy, in the same city, about twenty-five years
since. Thanks to the skill and untiring patience of Voisin,
Seguin, and Yalle, in France ; of Guggenbiihl, in Switzerla.nd ;
of Sacgert, in Prussia ; of Drs. Howe and Wilbur, and Mr.
J. B. Richards in our own country ; the enterprise is now
crowned with success. Even Idiots can be raised, from a
condition lower than that of brutes, to the likeness of men.
Their malad}^, which it was thought " hopeless to combat,"
and which earned for them extensively, the title of "human
brutes," has yielded to the hand of all-powerful skillful
love ; and they have been brought to self-consciousness,
invested with more or less of self-control, and animated
with sentiments of duty and affection. Whoever reads
the reports which have issued from Massachusetts on this
subject, or visits the school of Mr. J. B. Richards, in School
House Lane, near German town, will find himself convinced,
that even out of Idiots, we can rear up self-respecting, self-
supporting, God-fearing men and Avomen.
To effect this marvellous result, however, it is necessary
that they should enjoy regular and proper training at an
early age. If neglected, feeble-minded children deteriorate
with fearful rapidity. At ten years they often exhibit less
capacity than at five, and by the time they reach twenty,
sink into all but hopeless imbecility. On the other hand,
were all such children subjected to patient and well-
directed nurture through their earlier years, a large pro-
portion of them would doubtless be saved from the abject
and disgusting condition, in which they are usually found.
Such nurture, however, is not to be expected, even in the
families of the wealthy. Rarely, now, have their inmates
the skill, the leisure, the patience, or the enlightened,
unfailing love, which the work demands. In the homes
of the poor, and of those in limited circumstances, private
training and instruction are at present hardly possible.
Only the coarsest animal wants are supplied. Every other
office of a parent is regarded as irrelevant and useless, and
too often, these wretched creatures are sent to an alms-
house, to be fed and housed, like cattle, and sometimes to
be cruelly abused. Out of twenty-eigbt idiotic pupils
received in the Experimental School, established near
Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, twenty-one could
not feed themselves, twenty-two could not dress them-
selves, several could not walk, and but one could use lan-
guage w^ell ; seventeen of them are described by Dr. Howe,
as dumb, either absolutely, or in effect. To such beings,
if they are left to themselves, increasing years can bring
only increasing alienation from all the rights, enjoyments,
and duties that pertain to our nature.
Hence the necessity of special schools, where the training
required by their peculiar and forlorn condition, can be
applied, regularly and systematically. The benefit of these
schools will not accrue to their own iumates alone. The
attention which they will be sure to command, the impres-
sion which w^ill be made, when they restore to the world —
as decent and respectable persons — pupils, whom they
received, as moping, muttering, grovelling idiots ; the in-
quiries which w^ill be instituted, respecting the causes of
Idiocy, its extent and proper treatment, all these will be
incidents to a well conducted school, and will be full
fraught with blessing, to multitudes who can never directly
share in its instructions and discipline. Two facts espe-
cially, wdll gain general publicity, and they are facts which
once knoAvn and universally respected, would terminate
much the largest part of the evils that flow from this
source. The first of these facts, already well-established,
but destined to receive new illustration from every effort
which is made in this behalf, is, that Idiocy is not an arbi-
trary visitation of Providence, but one of the ways in which
a righteous Law-giver avenges transgression. In too many
cases, it is a legacy bequeathed by ancestors to their
descendants, and can be traced directly back to their vices
or their recklessness. It thus charges every parent with
new responsibility, and indicates how fearful must be their
guilt, who can deliberately inflict on their innocent pos-
terity, so sore an evil.
A second fact which is destined to become more and more
6
widely known as schools for Idiots multiply, is — that they
are proper subjects for Education. Instead of being aban-
doned as hopeless, these schools will be an abiding and im-
j^ressive proof that these children will repay, and should
therefore receive peculiar attention. It is the torpor of
their mental powers that we have to contend with, not
absolute incapacity. In ever}' community, youth may be
found who were idiotic at birth, but who under proper care
and training have become cleanly in person, quiet in deport-
ment, industrious in habits, and vvdio would almost pass in
society as persons of common intelligence ; whereas, others
with equal natural capacity, because of the ignorance and
neglect of their parents have become filthy, gluttonous,
lazy, vicious, depraved, and are rapidly sinking into drivel-
ling Idiocy.* That Institution will be an immense bene-
factor to our people, which shall demonstrate that the
imbecile are proper subjects for training and instruction,
and at the same time indicate w^hat is the proper course of
training to be pursued. We may then hope that much of
this work of mercy will be carried on in private families.
Philadelphia, aided by the munificence of the State, has
erected noble monuments of her interest in the blind, the
dumb and the insane. But for a class still larger and more
deeply afilicted, she has as yet done nothing. Schools for
Idiots and those of feeble minds, have risen within a few
years on the Continent of Europe, in England and in the
States of Massachusetts and New York. In Pennsylvania,
nothing has as yet been done, except by the unaided exer-
tions of a single individual. Mr. J. B. Eichards, to whom
allusion has been made already, was placed in charge of
the first Classf of Idiots ever formed for training in this
country.
After visiting Europe to learn the best methods which
had then been devised, he devoted himself to the work with
singular zeal and success. At the close of three years,
spent in the experimental school established under the
auspices of the Legislature of Massachusetts, he removed
^ Dr. S. G. Howe.
■j- Dr. Wilbur, then of Massachusetts, now of New York, formed a private class
about the same time.
to this city, and here he has been in charge of a private
school for the past twelve months. Thus far he has re-
ceived no aid. In order to meet the expenses of his school
and family, he has been compelled to decline all except
pay pupils. Thus, they who most need his care, are pre-
cluded from it, and his generous desire to devote himself to
the service of the indigent has spent itself in fruitless aspi-
rations.
We trust that a brighter day is at hand, and in this hope
we appeal to the enlightened and philanthropic citizens of
Philadelphia. It is proposed to establish an Institution,
which shall be open to all classes, but in which special and
liberal provision shall be made for the children of the poor.
After enlisting the charities of Philadelphians, it is also
proposed to invoke those of the State, that by the combined
munificence of the Commonwealth and of individuals, a
beginning may be made, which shall be worthy of the
object and of those who sustain it.
We conclude, in the language (slightly altered) of an in-
telligent American,* who sometime since devoted much of
his attention to the education of Idiots, as conducted in
Paris. He thus states the result of his inquiries and obser-
vation. " Fortunately for the poor Idiots, the error of those
who denied them all intelligence, and who pronounced
them incurable has been proved, the interdict against them
revoked, and the fact triumphantly established, that how-
ever degraded their condition, however devoid of all human
faculties they may seem to be, they carry within them the
holy spark which intelligent sympathy may inflame.
During the past six months I have watched with eager
interest the progress which many young Idiots have made
in Paris under the direction of Mr. Seguin, and at Bicetre
under that of Messrs. Voisin and Yalle, and have seen,
with no less gratification than astonishment, nearly one
hundred fellow beings who but a short time since were
shut out from all communion with mankind— who were
objects of loathing and disgust, many of whom rejected
* Mr. George Sumner.
8
every article of clothing, others of whom unable to stand
erect, crouched themselves in corners, and gave signs of
life only by piteous howls, others in whom the faculty of
speech had never been developed, and many whose vora-
cious and indiscriminate gluttony satisfied itself with what-
ever they could lay hands upon— with the garbage thrown
to swine or with their own excrements ; these unfortunate
beings, the rejected of humanity, I have seen properly clad,
standing erect, walking, speaking, eating in an orderly
manner at a common table, working quietly as carpenters
and farmers, gaining by their own labor the means of exis-
tence, storing their awakened intelligence by reading one
to another, exercising towards their teachers and among
themselves the generous feelings of man's nature, and sing-
ing in unison songs of thanksgiving.
" It is a miracle, you will exclaim, and so indeed it is, —
a miracle of intelligence, of patience and of love. When I
expressed to the teacher of the school at Bicetre, M. Yalle,
my gratitude and my surprise at the result of his efforts,
his reply was as profound as it was beautiful and modest,
Ilnefaut, Monsieur^ que la imtience et le desir de hienfaire.
' Patience and the desire to do good are all that is neces-
sary.' More than this is necessary, and I felt bound to
complete his sentence by adding to it the noble motto which
Don Henry of Portugal engraved on his shield, and by his
conduct justified so well, Le talent de hienfaire. Patience and
the talent, as well as the desire to do good, are all required,
but these can all be found in the community where Laura
Bridgman has been taught, and the possibility of success
now fully established, it would be an insult to [Pennsylvania]
to suppose that she will not be among the first to make
those efforts for her Idiot population which many European
states are alread}'' commencing."
Alonzo Potter,
John K. Kane,
James Martin,
Geo. B. Wood,
Charles D. Cleaveland.
PhiladelpLia, Marcb, 1853.
UNI\TRSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY
Los Angeles
This book is DUE on the last date stamped below.
SEP 2 5 1968
OCT 2 4 1868
ic*24 Reei
MA
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o9
It MAga 1 196$
Form L9-52m-7,'61(01437b4)444
