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New York State Asylum For Idiots, Second Annual Report Of The Trustees

Creator: n/a
Date: February 10, 1853
Source: Steve Taylor Collection

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These expenditures are examined and certified by the executive committee of the trustees, and on being presented to the comptroller, are paid by his warrant on the treasurer, pursuant to the request of the committee. The accounts are then audited and passed at once by the proper officers of the State, so that the trustees keep none.

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There have been during the past year sixteen pay pupils in the asylum, of whom two have been removed on account of sickness, one has died of an old disease, and one removed to make room for a state pupil. There are now twelve of that description of pupils.

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The full number of State pupils, authorized by law, are in the institution, viz, thirty. Of them, there are four from each of the first, second, third, fifth, seventh and eighth judicial districts, and three from each of the fourth and sixth districts.

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From a regard to the feelings of their parents, and the future interests of the pupils, their names are not reported; but a full list of them will he exhibited to any member of the Legislature, on application to either of the trustees, or to the superintendent.

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The teachers and instructors in the asylum, consist of

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HERVEY B. WILBUR, M. D., Superintendent.
Miss ADELINE E. COLEY, Assistant teacher.
Miss FRANCES H. CLARK, do
Miss ELIZA LORING, do

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Miss Mary Brown has the superintendence of the children out of school hours; one of the female servants assists, also, in exercising the younger pupils.

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The applicants for admission, that have been refused for want of room, have been equal to the whole number received; all of them, it is believed, were proper cases to be selected.

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The trustees cannot close this report, without expressing their highest and unqualified approbation of the fidelity, assiduity and devotion of all the officers and teachers of the asylum, to their painful duties. We again congratulate the State on the good fortune of having secured, as superintendent, a gentleman so eminently and so peculiarly adapted to that place as Dr. Wilbur. The success of the institution is owing to his unremitted services. The other teachers have caught his spirit, and a better corps could not be selected. To their united and constant attention to the bodily health, as well as the mental discipline of the pupils, are they indebted, under Providence, for a remarkable and almost total exemption from disease. Never have we seen so many children of their age collected in a school, and boarding together, so hearty and healthy; and when we recollect their natural physical debility, and their incapacity to take that care of themselves which is expected from ordinary children, our surprise is equalled only by our admiration of the system adopted, and the fidelity with which it is pursued.

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The trustees desire it to be understood, that the asylum is, at all reasonable hours, open to the inspection and examination of our citizens, but especially of the members of the Legislature and they earnestly invite the members to avail themselves of the opportunities to visit it, afforded by public carriages running every half hour from the city to Troy, passing the asylum. While their hearts will melt at the sight of mental deficiency, so hapless and miserable, a feeling of joy and hope will soon come over them, on beholding the successful application of those means of alleviating and removing the calamity which ere devised by science and faith, and put in operation by time honored representatives and rulers of a people ready, always hitherto ready, to share their abundance with the children of misfortune.

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JOHN C. SPENCER,
W.L. MARCY,
JAMES H. TITUS,
FRANKLIN TOWNSEND,
WILLIAM I. KIP,
WASHINGTON HUNT,
SANFORD E. CHURCH,
HENRY S. RANDALL,
J.C. WRIGHT.
Albany, December 29, 1852.

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REPORT OF THE SUPERINTENDENT.
NEW-YORK IDIOT ASYLUM,
Dec. 29, 1852.

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To the Trustees of the New-York Asylum for Idiots:

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Gentlemen -- It is now a year since I was called upon to make a report to your board; but six months had then elapsed since the establishment of our asylum, by an act of the Legislature, and a less period since its opening for the reception of pupils. I could only, then, remark upon the favorable circumstances which had attended us at the very threshold of our labors; report the number and general condition of the pupils that had been received up to that time; notice the leading features of idiocy as illustrated by our pupils; describe the general means adapted to their improvement, and finally mention what we anticipated as the result of our system of education in such cases.

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We were then in a somewhat peculiar situation; with one or two exceptions, those engaged in the management and in instruction of the pupils, were entirely inexperienced in the peculiar cares and duties of their positions. Excepting two or three, the pupils had never been subjected, either to discipline or instruction they were very different in their habits, their characters and their age. The two or three, who had received any previous training, were not enough in number to form a proper nucleus about which the other and discordant elements would arrange themselves.

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