Library Collections: Document: Full Text

A building that would accommodate about 100 pupils with the necessary teachers, servants, &c., would enable us to receive eight pupils from each judicial district, making 64, and leave room for 36 pay pupils, a number which would soon be filled.

There should be room for pay pupils, to afford an opportunity to those who are able and anxious to pay for that kind of training and instruction of their children, which can be obtained nowhere else in the State, and also materially aid the revenues of the institution.

Some enquiries have been made, and it is believed that sufficient land can be procured in an eligible situation, and a plain substantial building, with all necessary out-houses, can he erected, at an expense not exceeding twenty thousand dollars for the whole.

The State now supports one hundred and ninety-two pupils at the institution for the deaf and dumb in New-York, at an expense including the appropriation of $5,000, of about $155 for each. It also supports at the institution for the blind in New-York, ninety-six pupils, at an expense including the appropriation made in 1850, of $10,000, of about $200 for each pupil. Deducting the special appropriations, the ordinary expense of a pupil in each of these institutions is $130 annually.

The children received at the asylum for idiots, must, necessarily, from their tender age and physical disabilities, require more care, and a larger number of servants than either the deaf mutes or the blind, and the latter contribute something by their labor to their own support. Still, it is believed from past experience and careful calculations, that sixty-four pupils can be supported and instructed at an average expense to the State of $150 each. The deficiency, if any, would be supplied by the compensation received from 36 pay pupils, many of whose parents would be glad to pay large sums. In our judgment, an appropriation of $10,000 each year, will be adequate for the support of an institution for 100 pupils classed as before mentioned.

The very able and interesting report of the superintendent, Dr. Hervey B. Wilbur, which is herewith submitted, besides full information respecting the present condition of the asylum, contains some very valuable remarks and suggestions on the subject of an enlargement of the capacity of the institution.

We are convinced of the propriety of the suggestion made in the last report, in respect to the mode in which provisions should be made for all the indigent idiotic children in the State. From what has already been said, it is obvious that they could not all, nor could any considerable portion of them, be provided for properly at one school. Several schools should be established in convenient localities, where pupils may be sent from different surrounding districts. These schools would in time be furnished with practised teachers, trained and prepared at the central institution, by which uniformity and economy would be secured. It is obvious, therefore, that the sooner the central school is permanently founded, the sooner will this great object of educating this unhappy class be attained.

The trustees feel that they have now performed their duty in submitting all the facts within their knowledge, and all the considerations that careful enquiry and deliberate reflection enable them to present, respecting the continuance and extent of the asylum; and they leave the subject to the enlightened judgment and sympathy of the Legislature.

There is a provision in the act establishing the Lunatic asylum, authorizing the managers to take and hold in trust for the State, any grant or devise of land, or any donation or bequest of money or other personal property, to be applied to the maintenance of insane persons and the general use of the asylum. A similar authority to the trustees of the idiot asylum may induce benevolent persons to bestow their charity upon an institution that so strongly commends itself to the noblest sympathies of the heart.

This balance will enable the institution to support the present number of pupils until July 1, 1853, when the appropriation ceases.

This amount has been expended as follows:â