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Pennsylvania followed this example by founding a kindred institution, which comprised at once a hospital for the unhealthy, a gymnasium for physical culture, a school for such as could be led on to learn, and provision of workshops and land for the exercise of mechanical, horticultural, and agricultural industry, with a view to the self-support of the inmates. At the request of the managers of this asylum, the legislature of New Jersey granted an appropriation for the maintenance, within its walls, of fifteen feeble-minded children. The building was most carefully constructed, and placed on an eligible site, with an unfailing supply of the best spring water, and sheltered from the cold winds by a grove of ten acres, the shade of which was regarded as a great boon in summer. The promoters of this asylum state their conviction that it is necessary for the advantage of the young imbeciles in their training, that they should be collected together in numbers.

"Childhood," they assert, "in all conditions needs society; and those who are of natural mental powers cannot adapt themselves to those of feeble mind. Under the most favorable circumstances, an imbecile child at home has a tendency to solitude or exclusiveness; it cannot play with other children, and they cannot join in its amusements. It is a lonely being. However loving and tender its associations may be, it lacks suitable companionship. It needs to be with those who are like itself. Its instincts lead it to fellowship with its own grade and stamp of mind, and this association produces friction, and friction produces growth. There is an unconscious self-culture resulting from the mere force of association. In this lies one secret of success in institutions for the feeble-minded."

New York was not behind in like projects for the Idiot. The first step was taken by the Hon. Frederick Backus, a member of the Senate, in the winter of 1845 and 1846. He introduced a bill for the establishment of an asylum for idiots, which passed the Senate by a vote of eleven to ten. Though at first agreed to by the Assembly, it was ultimately rejected by a vote of fifty-eight to forty-seven. Dr. Backus, however, was not daunted by this defeat, but labored with the greatest zeal, communicated with M. Sargent, of Berlin, and embodied translations of his reports in the document he again presented to the legislature, and at length effected his object by the aid of the governor, but not without another previous defeat. When agreed upon, the nature of the institution was accurately defined, especially that it was not to be merely custodial, but "an establishment for the management and education of young idiots; an extension of the blessings of education of an appropriate character, to a class of persons of a teachable age -- not deaf mutes or blind -- whose faculties are not susceptible of development under the customary conditions and facilities of a common education."

While these institutions were being established on the continent of Europe and in America, this country also, whose benevolence knows no limits but the boundaries of human want, became alive to the necessity of special provision for the idiot. The first practical endeavour for this object was that made by Miss White, at Bath, in 1846, when four pupils were placed under the care of a matron, and with such success that the institution has been removed to an airy, elevated situation, and contains about two dozen pupils, the number of which it is still desired to augment. In January, 1847, there appeared in "Chambers' Edinburgh Journal" a paper giving an account of the education of idiots by M. Séguin at Bicetre, to which previous reference has been made. In the following month it was succeeded by another, and both are due to the pen of Mr. Gaskell, Medical Superintendent of the Lancashire Lunatic Asylum, and now a Commissioner of Lunacy. A lady residing in London, of the name of Plumbe, had her interest greatly excited by reading these articles, and she called on Dr. Andrew Reed, the philanthropic founder of so many great charities, to represent her views. The idea had, however, been before in his mind; so he simply told his kind-hearted visitor to go out some morning and see how many destitute idiots she could find in the neighborhood, and she came to him again with a list of twenty-eight: but before he began to develop his plans, he determined to visit the receptacles for the imbecile on the Continent. On his return he secured the invaluable assistance of Dr. Conolly and others, which resulted in a meeting to institute an asylum, over which Sir George Carroll, then Lord Mayor, presided, the result of which was the hire of Park House, Highgate, with several acres of land surrounding it. Here in six months the change was so great that Dr. Conolly declared he could scarcely believe the pupils to be the same who had been originally received, and whose first gathering together was so shocking a scene that it begat in some present disgust, and in others despair. We extract the following account of it, taken from the Report of 1850 --