Library Collections: Document: Full Text

A LITTLE more than twenty years ago, there was no educational establishment for idiots in the United States; now there are two in New York, two in Massachusetts, one in Connecticut (recently liberally endowed by the late Philip Maret), one in Pennsylvania, one in Ohio, one in Kentucky, one in Illinois -- at least nine in all, where above one thousand children are under instruction.

An idea of these institutions may be formed by visiting the NewYork State Asylum for Idiots, which is a public charity, and the School for Feeble-minded Children, at Barre, Mass., which is private and self-supporting. Both were created by the same man.

Twenty-one years ago, Dr. Hervey B. Wilbur, then a physician at Barre, Mass., undertook the novel and perilous enterprise of attaching his own fortunes and those of his young family to the task of educating idiot children. He had no predecessor in this undertaking in this country, and he was sustained in his good work, against the forebodings and ridicule of friends and neighbors, only by the bravery of his wife.

After a few years, during which the young couple gave uninterrupted attention to their pupils, even to the extent of keeping the most helpless in their own bedroom, Dr. Wilbur was called, first, to Albany, and subsequently (when the State Asylum was erected) to Syracuse, there to organize the State institution for this helpless class; and was succeeded at Barre by Dr. George Brown, under whose careful and able management that school has attained its present high standing.

These two establishments demand a separate notice, because they are in some respect types of two classes of institutions, of two systems of physiological training, and of two wants unequally satisfied in our present organization.

The New-York State Asylum for Idiots was founded by an act of the New-York Legislature, dated July 10, 1851; and, at every session since, that body has voted an appropriation in its behalf. It is situated on one of those alternately green and white knolls which form a natural amphitheatre, whence the eye looks down to the wonderful growth of the "city of salt," Syracuse, below. Among, the curling smoke of iron, glass, pottery, and other furnaces, above the sea of vats brimful of brine, stands the asylum-a tall and elegant building in the Italian style, surrounded by tasteful grounds, flanked by stables and farm-houses, extending its fields right and left, and its pleasant groves-summer resorts of the children-over a tract fifty acres in extent.

The main building is compact and well arranged, containing, as usual, the apartments of the officers, as well as the living and training accommodations for a hundred and fifty pupils, the usual number in attendance. It contains also, what can hardly be found elsewhere, a library of school-books and of works on metaphysics, psychology, physiology, and nervous pathology, expressly selected to aid in the elucidation of the problems which occur in the treatment of nervous anomalies, and in the education of a class of children who are certainly not susceptible of education by any other system than that of physiological training.

In planning this institution, Dr. Wilbur had no model for reference, nothing but books and theories. It was the first asylum ever expressly built for idiots. His practical knowledge of their wants during the previous two or three years, and his remarkable mechanical skill and peculiar sense of the fitness of things, enabled him to overcome in an extraordinary degree the architectural difficulties in the construction of such a building. Idiotic children require more room, more air, more light, snore warmth, than other children; all these, and especially the greater amount of room, which is indispensable in any attempt at improving these weak and sluggish natures, he provided for them. The pupils of the asylum are of both sexes, and in age range from seven years to twenty; they are chosen from a much larger number of applicants, in view of their possible improvement with the means there at command. Those who are absolutely helpless, either on account of restlessness, immobility, or accessory disease, must, of course, be rejected, since, if received, they would either be neglected, or each one would monopolize the entire time of an attendant, while the State appropriation will not permit more than one nurse or attendant to five or six children.

The pupils remain in the institution as long as there is visible improvement and progress; for, though nominally an asylum, it is really a training-school. (1) On admission, a description of the antecedents and existing condition of each pupil is entered on the records; and in every case sufficient freedom is allowed the child, to let him show his capacities, peculiarities, and tendencies. The study of these serves as a basis for his assignment to a particular group. This assignment of the child to his appropriate group or class is a step which requires remarkable discernment and thorough knowledge of the peculiarities of idiots; for the child may need to be with children of about the same development with himself, or with those who are further advanced, in order to stimulate his ambition; he may require to be with few or with many, with those who are too quiet, in order to calm down his excessive excitability; or with the restless ones, to rouse his more sluggish nature, etc., etc. He may also need to change from one group to another, either in consequence of his progress, or to subject him to a different mode of training.