Library Collections: Document: Full Text

"12 to 12 1/2. Gymnastics.

"12 1/2 to 1. Music.

"1 to 4 3/4. Manual labor. In this all take part; some as shoe-makers, some as carpenters, or rather cabinet-makers, and some as tillers of the ground. One of the best exercises for the body, inasmuch as it compels the idiot to walk and balance himself unaided, is that of wheeling a barrow, charged with a weight proportionate to his strength. The most stupid may be soon taught this. Others, more intelligent, wield spade and pickaxe most energetically and profitably; but nowhere does their awakened intelligence appear more satisfactory than in the workshop of a cabinet maker. When one of them has sawed through a plank, or nailed together two pieces of wood, or made a box, his smile of satisfaction, -- the consequence of something attempted, something done, -- the real result of which he can estimate, -- is beautiful to see. Nor is their work, by any means, to be despised. With one cabinet-maker as teacher and monitor, they performed, last year, all the work necessary for their school-room and dormitories, as well as for a good part of the great establishment of Bicetre. At shoe-making they show intelligence; but this is too sedentary an occupation for them. Some, however, who have quitted the school, work at it; but the greater number of them become farmers and gardeners.

"After this manual labor they dine, and after dinner play till 6 1/4 P. M.

" From 6 1/4 to 7. Grammar class; the lowest group is taught to articulate syllables, -- the highest, as much as in any grammar school.

"From 7 to 8 1/4 is passed in reading to one another, or in conversations and explanations with the teacher, upon things which may excite the reflective power; two evenings in the week this hour is devoted to a concert and a dance.

"After this comes the evening prayer, sung by all; and then, fatigued, but happy, they retire to rest.

"Such is a day at the school of Bicetre. Every Thursday morning the teacher takes them out to walk in the country, and then inculcates elementary notions of botany, designating by their names, and impressing by smell, taste and sight, the qualities of different flowers and useful vegetables which they see. At the same time he explains, by locality, the first elements of geography. On Saturday evening there is a distribution of tickets of good conduct, three of which pay the rent of a garden, and one of which may buy off, for another, with the consent of the teacher, the punishment adjudged for certain slight acts of negligence. You will see at once the effect which this must have upon the generous sentiments of the pupils. The sentiment of possession is developed -- the rights of property taught; but its duties and its pleasures are, at the same time, impressed.

"These tickets of good conduct are given also to those who are designated, by the pupils themselves, as having done some kind and generous action, -- as having been seen to run to the aid of one who had stumbled at play, -- who had divided among his companions the bon-bons he may have received from a visitor, or who had helped, in any way, one weaker than himself. Thus they are constantly on the look-out for good actions in one another; but they are most positively forbidden to repeat the negligences or unkind conduct which they may observe. The surveillance of the monitors is sufficient to detect these; and even were it not, M. Vallee prefers that they should go unpunished, rather than that they should serve to cherish the grovelling sentiments of envy and malice which lurk in the breast of the informer and the scandal-monger." -- Letter, p. 11.

The testimonies of other English travellers in France are given; but we have room only for one more short extract from Mr. Sumner, which speaks for itself: "The fact, I have said, is now clearly established, that idiots may be educated; that the reflective power exists within them, and may be awakened by a proper system of instruction; that they may be raised from the filth in which they grovel to the attitude of men; that they may be taught different arts which will enable them to gain an honest livelihood; and that, although their intelligence may never, perhaps, be developed to such a point as to render them the authors of those generous ideas and great deeds which leave a stamp upon an age, yet, still, they may attain a respectable mediocrity, and surpass, in mental power, the common peasant of many European states."

The Reviewer adds a sensible admonition to those who are establishing similar schools, or hospitals, in England, not to place them in, or adjoining lunatic asylums or other retreats for the insane; because of the hurtful influence exerted by the sights and sounds of such asylums upon the nascent and tender minds of the idiot pupils.

And now, will Virginia do her duty towards the hundreds of her own sons and daughters who are in the helpless and distressing condition of idiocy? We do not know, but we will lay any wager --even "our dukedom to a beggarly denier" -- that Massachusetts has done something decided, something generous, on this subject, before now.