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Idiot Asylums
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51 | Sometimes a few of the pupils take to basket-making, but it does not generally prove a favourite trade. Tailoring, however, is readily adopted, and a lively board it is. Mr. Sidney gives a humorous description of their fitting Punch with a new suit preparatory to a grand performance of Punch and Judy; and gentlemen who go into the shop are eagerly asked if they have any loose buttons to sew on. One youth, he also tells us, who was deemed altogether impracticable, now makes good trousers and waistcoats, and is becoming a clever hand at coats. In this work, as well as in the shoe-making, a cutter-out is required; but the sewing is so good that at one time much journey-work was sent to the asylum at Colchester, and satisfaction was given. At Earlswood, now, every suit worn in the establishment is made in these shops, and gives full employment. | |
52 | Some reclaimed idiots make excellent carpenters, and several have quitted the asylum who are now earning good wages as Journey-men under due supervision, getting as much, near London, as from four to five shillings a day. What a change is this from being drivellers, moping in a lane or street, teased by idle boys, or slobbering in helpless degradation in a seat in some cottage, where the parent's eyes glistens with tears as it looks on such a revolting offspring! Doors, tables, desks, chests of drawers, and all sorts of carpenter and cabinet-work are readily made by the pupils, and they can be produced in sufficient quantity to supply all that is needed for furniture in a large asylum. At Earlswood there are about twenty such carpenters at this time, who show their work with an eagerness that is sometimes dangerous to the feet of those who examine it, lest the heavy articles they hold up should fall upon them, for now and then there are such accidents in the struggle for approbation. | |
53 | In the same way, all sorts of useful employments are devised for the females, and some of them become so good at household work that they make valuable servants, and diminish the number that it is needful to hire. A great many can be taught needlework so well that all required for a large asylum may be done by them with a certain amount of guidance and help, while a dozen or more may be constantly employed in repairing the clothing and linen. It has been before noticed that some of the fancy work is beautiful; but this is only an indulgence consequent on the previous work being useful, and so allowed as an encouragement, which is found to have a quickening influence. | |
54 | No idiot asylum should be without a farm and a garden, and if the number of pupils is large they should be of considerable extent. There are between twenty and thirty farmers and gardeners at Earlswood, while at Essex Hall the employment of pupils able to do the work assigned to them in the garden has long been found most attractive and beneficial. In the first-named place the garden consists of about eight acres, and is admirably kept by the young gardeners under superintendence. The vegetables required in the establishment are well and abundantly grown, and in the flower borders, which are in excellent taste, it is almost impossible to find a weed. There is a greenhouse, and also there are some frames for preserving the plants to be bedded out in the summer, and every part of them has been made in the place in a workmanlike manner. Now and then, at both the asylums thus named, prizes have been gained for cucumbers, celery, and other produce, at the neighboring horticultural shows, to the great joy and triumph of their growers. Such an occupation has a most happy influence on the imbeciles employed in it, while it secures abundance of excellent fresh vegetables and summer and winter fruits for their use, a part of their diet of great importance. | |
55 | To see the poor fellows watching their plants and trees, and in summer parading near the peas and currants, with their clackers to frighten the birds, is a most exhilarating spectacle when contrasted with the uselessness and wretchedness of their previous lives. The great object of ambition, however, is to be a farmer. "I am a farmer now," is the proudest boast of some poor fellow promoted to that post. The attention paid to the live animals of the farm is unfailing; whatever danger of neglect keepers of cows might fear from the boys who tend them, there is none from the idiots. The cows are the special object of their regard, and when a calf comes, or a litter of pigs, they are welcomed and cared for with enthusiasm, and they will run eagerly to the house to tell of the addition to the stock; only perhaps in mistaken terms, as one boy did out of breath -- "Sir, sir, the pig has calved." All the hay of a large acreage is easily made by the idiots, only they would fail without guidance in constructing the ricks. Idiot haymakers are a joyous company, and the hay-field is a source of pleasure to those too feeble to do any work in it. Nor is this labour without profit, for the farm produce has been sold at Earlswood for more than 1,000£ in one year. Some boys are trusted with milking, and nothing in the way of pleasure would keep them from this duty, to which they go just before the tea is ready. Somebody asked one of them who sat tugging at a cow's dug after all the milk seemed to have been exhausted, "How do you know when to leave off?" "Oh," said he, "when the tea-bell rings." It is a pleasant sight to see them come in from the farm to a meal; how carefully they wash their hands, and clean their shoes, and take off their working clothes to go into the common eating-room neat and with all propriety. It would have been considered as utterly impossible to have achieved such order and decorum with pupils whose previous habits tended to the reverse, but it may be witnessed daily. |