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The point to be remembered by all interested in this institution, whether those engaged in the work itself, the friends of the pupils, or the public at large, is that the education afforded and the results of training are always relative to the condition of the pupils when admitted. The word condition here is meant to cover all the state of body and mind, all the features and habits that distinguish any pupil so admitted from an average child of the same age, and from others who bear a general and class resemblance to it. The term cured, therefore, will not apply to any who are dismissed from the asylum.

In former reports it has been shown that the range of mental condition of pupils in an asylum like ours is a very wide one. The underlying physical defect or infirmity is deep-seated, organic and permanent. There is lesion of nervous centers, thickening of membranes, effusions, or other deposits, beyond the reach of remedy. On the other hand there may be only perverted function, defective innervation, or a disordered condition of general bodily functions reacting unfavorably upon the brain or seat of mental action. In other words, physical states that can be modified or removed by appropriate means, direct or indirect.

So, too, the mental phenomena are equally diverse. At one extreme, a certain number that possess only in a very slight degree the ordinary traits and characteristics of childhood. There is no observation, no curiosity, no comprehension or use of language, and no disposition or power to think or will or act, except as subject or motive is thrust in upon them from without. At the other extreme, another class who differ so slightly from ordinary children of the same age -- and yet differ -- that the nature and form of that difference it is not easy to define or describe. They were backward in the first manifestations of mental life, in infancy. They were slow in learning to walk. Their control of the muscular system was acquired by slow degrees. Their tactile sensibility was blunted. They were deficient in the practical, every-day knowledge of childhood. They were more dependent than others upon parents and care-takers. Speech came by slow steps, and interruptedly. There was a want of the power of attention. They were remarkably yielding in disposition, or the reverse. When at last recourse is had to this or similar institutions, because the child cannot be educated elsewhere, it is almost always with the protest, on the part of the parent, that this one is not mentally deficient. Some kind of a cloud is over its faculties. His memory is very good, or some one of the other faculties is notably active.

Between these two extremes will be found every grade and shade of intermediate mental weakness or incapacity. So true is this, that, after more than twenty years' experience at the head of an institution designed for their relief, -- an experience that has included a daily observation during that period of more than six hundred different pupils and an incidental notice of many others, -- and looking, as my occupation calls me to do, upon these mainly as subjects of training and instruction, I am now at loss to offer any classification, worthy of the name, or that would actually represent the facts of the case.

Now, associate with the peculiar conditions and states, physical and mental, that have been roughly portrayed, numerous forms of impaired vitality and positive chronic disease, and you then have the problem as it presents itself to those who would ameliorate the condition of idiocy.

One step towards the solution of this problem, in the judgment of the Legislature of New York some twenty years ago, was to found an institution that should be both a sanitarium and a school; for, in the case of many pupils, as a preliminary, a degree of physical health and vigor was first to be established, and in others to be confirmed, by an appropriate regimen and the use of suitable medicines. The means and appliances were meant to be as numerous and varied as the educational necessities of the pupils. A definite system and series of exercises was provided, designed to reach down to the lowest cases, and terminating, in the opposite direction, only with the customary elementary studies of childhood.

If these have been well devised and are properly progressive, it will be seen that a pupil might enter at the lowest point, pass through without any serious obstacle, and graduate at the upper end of the course. In fact, on the mind of the casual visitor to the institution, the impression is often made that this is the ordinary course of the pupils.

But such is not the fact, generally. More commonly a new pupil finds his appropriate place, depending upon his mental condition, at some point higher or lower in the scale of exercises. From this he progresses or is led along as far as is practicable in the term of years allowed for his instruction. The same limitations hold here as in any other system of education. These depend upon the individual capacities of the pupil. Now and then one of the pupils absolutely passes from the condition of idiocy and leaves the institution entirely capable of caring for himself thereafter. These are the exceptions; the rule is otherwise. Ordinarily, the highest aim of the training is to send out the subject of it, at the end of the course, so improved as to be capable of some useful occupation, under intelligent direction.