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IT is now some more than thirty years since, in this place, I began my work in behalf of idiots. That I started with some erroneous ideas of the nature of idiocy, and of the means to be taken to ameliorate the condition of idiots, will not seem strange to those who now listen to me.

At that time the popular notions relating to the class were very crude, and, as a rule, based upon observations of the more peculiar members of the class. This observation took cognizance not only of the more marked features of the class, but not infrequently of the mere habits that were the result of their neglected condition rather than intrinsic characteristics.

The literature of the subject was very scanty, and to a certain extent misleading. The writers not only mistook effects for prime conditions, but did not always recognize the distinction between idiocy and dementia, or an impairment or loss of the mental faculties from insanity or otherwise.

The first cases submitted to my care were rather typical cases, covering a wide range of abnormal manifestation. In physical condition, in mental endowment, and in the character of their habits they widely differed, and yet all had some common characteristics that brought them to my guardianship.

As far as I was concerned the problem of their training and development was to be worked out, in the main, by what I could learn of their infirmity by my daily life in the midst of them, and by continuous efforts, judicious or mistaken, to remedy their defects. Under the circumstances it is not amiss to say that for a time my education progressed more rapidly than that of my pupils.

That my prior ideas upon the subject had not been peculiar to myself I conclude from the class of questions constantly asked me both by visitors and correspondents. That I have been led to revise or abandon some of these opinions, as I have said before, will not seem surprising.

In regard to some of these, thus modified, I had proposed on this occasion to submit them to your associated judgment. In other words, I had a desire to learn whether in the matters referred to your observation had corresponded with my own.

On reflection I decided to take a single theory or opinion, a part of my mental outfit at that time, derived from competent authority as I then supposed, but which I have been led to abandon, and now bring to the test of your united experience. I was led to thus limit myself, because the subject is worthy of a somewhat extended discussion from its intrinsic interest, the reappearance of the dogma in recent works of a scientific character, and especially because of its varied correlations.

This opinion, as I recall it, had its first definite statement in Carpenter's Physiology many years ago, in the following paragraph:

"Those unfortunate beings (idiots), in whom the cerebrum is but little developed, are guided almost solely by their instinctive tendencies, which frequently manifest themselves with a degree of strength that would not have been supposed to exist, and occasionally new instincts present themselves of which the human being is ordinarily regarded as destitute."

In a note Dr. Carpenter gives what he calls a remarkable instance of this manifested instinct, the foundation upon which his theory is erected:

"A perfectly idiotic girl, in Paris, having been seduced by some miscreant, was delivered of a child without assistance; and it was found that she had gnawed the umbilical cord in two in the same manner as is practised by the lower animals. It is scarcely to be supposed that she had any idea of the object of the separation."

That I do not misrepresent this author is seen by the fact that in the index of his work this paragraph is referred to under the heading, "Predominance of Instinct in Idiots."

Within a recent period Dr. Maudsley cites this same case in connection with what he calls "a curious and interesting fact, which has by no means yet received that consideration which it deserves, -- that with the appearance of this animal type of brain in idiocy there do sometimes appear or reappear remarkable animal traits and instincts."

He also mentions a somewhat similar case, reported by Dr. Crichton Browne, of the West Riding Asylum, namely, that of a young woman, not an idiot, but who had gone completely demented after insanity. This woman was delivered of a pair of twins, and as the story goes, on this occasion, "reverting to a primitive instinct, gnawed through the umbilical cord. The twins were alive when found two days after birth, but the mother was in a very exhausted state, having had no food or covering since delivery."

Esquirol was confessedly one of the most acute observers of the features of insanity and mental unsoundness. He related an incident, which is also quoted by Dr. Maudsley as confirming the theory in question. It is that of an imbecile woman in whom the sexual instinct was strong, but who ceased to manifest it when once conception had taken place. The woman, however, was not an idiot of low grade. She worked for her living and had some idea of the value of money. Any manifestation of instinct, therefore, to supplement a want of intelligence, is not needed to explain the supposed fact. But the real failure in the illustration, to prove the point for which it is adduced, lies in the fact that it is not proven that the same is not true of some females who are not imbecile.