Biomed, 
 
 G 000 005 585 5 
 
 WM 
 300
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 EDUCATION OF IDIOTS. 
 
 AN APPEAL 
 
 THE CITIZENS OF PHILADELPHIA. 
 
 We plea/J for those who cannot plead for themselves. 
 
 P II I L A D E L P II I xV : 
 
 PRINTED BY H. EVANS, FOURTH ST. BELOW CHESTNUT. 
 
 1853.
 
 300 
 APPEAL. £^4- 
 
 n^i 
 
 By the last Census, it is ascertained, that in the State of 
 Pennsylvania, there are not less than fourteen hundred 
 and forty-eight Idiotic persons, of whom, thirteen hundred 
 and eighty-six are white, and sixty-two colored. Other 
 inquiries have been instituted, which prove, that the actual 
 number far exceeds that indicated by official returns, and 
 that, at this moment, the number in Pennsylvania, cannot 
 be much less than three thousand. Of these, more than 
 one-third are under twenty years of age, and if it be pos- 
 sible, by any species of training and cultivation, to raise 
 them out of their deplorable and apparently helj)less state, 
 the duty, is one which should no longer be neglected. It 
 is a duty to which w^e are urged by every consideration of 
 sympathy and Christian humanity — for no form of misery 
 is so revolting, no victims of hereditary disease, or parental 
 unfaithfulness, are so little cared for. Into every family, 
 with wdiicli they are connected, they carry abiding sorrow 
 and humiliation, and yet in few such families, is there any 
 judicious and well-directed effort for their improvement. 
 Their support forms a serious burden on the resources of 
 society, and yet society often turns them over to alms- 
 houses, where they are confirmed in their helplessness, and 
 left to grovel in the most abject filth and debasement. 
 The blind, the dumb, the insane, have long since enhsted 
 our sympathies. We ask now, for a hearing in behalf of 
 Idiots. 
 
 The charity which hopcth all things, and believeth all 
 things, has yet dreamed of no nobler achievement than 
 the redemption of this most hapless class. The conception 
 belongs to our own age ; and to this age it has been given 
 to witness the realization. It was perseveringly attempted 
 at Paris, so long ago as eighteen hundred, by Itard. But 
 the attempt was limited to a single subject, and was made 
 under the guidance of a philosophy essentially fiilse.* It 
 was revived under the auspices of a higher faith, and a 
 
 * That of Condillac.
 
 wiser philosophy, in the same city, about twenty-five years 
 since. Thanks to the skill and untiring patience of Voisin, 
 Seguin, and Yalle, in France ; of Guggenbiihl, in Switzerla.nd ; 
 of Sacgert, in Prussia ; of Drs. Howe and Wilbur, and Mr. 
 J. B. Richards in our own country ; the enterprise is now 
 crowned with success. Even Idiots can be raised, from a 
 condition lower than that of brutes, to the likeness of men. 
 Their malad}^, which it was thought " hopeless to combat," 
 and which earned for them extensively, the title of "human 
 brutes," has yielded to the hand of all-powerful skillful 
 love ; and they have been brought to self-consciousness, 
 invested with more or less of self-control, and animated 
 with sentiments of duty and affection. Whoever reads 
 the reports which have issued from Massachusetts on this 
 subject, or visits the school of Mr. J. B. Richards, in School 
 House Lane, near German town, will find himself convinced, 
 that even out of Idiots, we can rear up self-respecting, self- 
 supporting, God-fearing men and Avomen. 
 
 To effect this marvellous result, however, it is necessary 
 that they should enjoy regular and proper training at an 
 early age. If neglected, feeble-minded children deteriorate 
 with fearful rapidity. At ten years they often exhibit less 
 capacity than at five, and by the time they reach twenty, 
 sink into all but hopeless imbecility. On the other hand, 
 were all such children subjected to patient and well- 
 directed nurture through their earlier years, a large pro- 
 portion of them would doubtless be saved from the abject 
 and disgusting condition, in which they are usually found. 
 Such nurture, however, is not to be expected, even in the 
 families of the wealthy. Rarely, now, have their inmates 
 the skill, the leisure, the patience, or the enlightened, 
 unfailing love, which the work demands. In the homes 
 of the poor, and of those in limited circumstances, private 
 training and instruction are at present hardly possible. 
 Only the coarsest animal wants are supplied. Every other 
 office of a parent is regarded as irrelevant and useless, and 
 too often, these wretched creatures are sent to an alms- 
 house, to be fed and housed, like cattle, and sometimes to
 
 be cruelly abused. Out of twenty-eigbt idiotic pupils 
 received in the Experimental School, established near 
 Boston, in the State of Massachusetts, twenty-one could 
 not feed themselves, twenty-two could not dress them- 
 selves, several could not walk, and but one could use lan- 
 guage w^ell ; seventeen of them are described by Dr. Howe, 
 as dumb, either absolutely, or in effect. To such beings, 
 if they are left to themselves, increasing years can bring 
 only increasing alienation from all the rights, enjoyments, 
 and duties that pertain to our nature. 
 
 Hence the necessity of special schools, where the training 
 required by their peculiar and forlorn condition, can be 
 applied, regularly and systematically. The benefit of these 
 schools will not accrue to their own iumates alone. The 
 attention which they will be sure to command, the impres- 
 sion which w^ill be made, when they restore to the world — 
 as decent and respectable persons — pupils, whom they 
 received, as moping, muttering, grovelling idiots ; the in- 
 quiries which w^ill be instituted, respecting the causes of 
 Idiocy, its extent and proper treatment, all these will be 
 incidents to a well conducted school, and will be full 
 fraught with blessing, to multitudes who can never directly 
 share in its instructions and discipline. Two facts espe- 
 cially, wdll gain general publicity, and they are facts which 
 once knoAvn and universally respected, would terminate 
 much the largest part of the evils that flow from this 
 source. The first of these facts, already well-established, 
 but destined to receive new illustration from every effort 
 which is made in this behalf, is, that Idiocy is not an arbi- 
 trary visitation of Providence, but one of the ways in which 
 a righteous Law-giver avenges transgression. In too many 
 cases, it is a legacy bequeathed by ancestors to their 
 descendants, and can be traced directly back to their vices 
 or their recklessness. It thus charges every parent with 
 new responsibility, and indicates how fearful must be their 
 guilt, who can deliberately inflict on their innocent pos- 
 terity, so sore an evil. 
 
 A second fact which is destined to become more and more
 
 6 
 
 widely known as schools for Idiots multiply, is — that they 
 are proper subjects for Education. Instead of being aban- 
 doned as hopeless, these schools will be an abiding and im- 
 j^ressive proof that these children will repay, and should 
 therefore receive peculiar attention. It is the torpor of 
 their mental powers that we have to contend with, not 
 absolute incapacity. In ever}' community, youth may be 
 found who were idiotic at birth, but who under proper care 
 and training have become cleanly in person, quiet in deport- 
 ment, industrious in habits, and vvdio would almost pass in 
 society as persons of common intelligence ; whereas, others 
 with equal natural capacity, because of the ignorance and 
 neglect of their parents have become filthy, gluttonous, 
 lazy, vicious, depraved, and are rapidly sinking into drivel- 
 ling Idiocy.* That Institution will be an immense bene- 
 factor to our people, which shall demonstrate that the 
 imbecile are proper subjects for training and instruction, 
 and at the same time indicate w^hat is the proper course of 
 training to be pursued. We may then hope that much of 
 this work of mercy will be carried on in private families. 
 
 Philadelphia, aided by the munificence of the State, has 
 erected noble monuments of her interest in the blind, the 
 dumb and the insane. But for a class still larger and more 
 deeply afilicted, she has as yet done nothing. Schools for 
 Idiots and those of feeble minds, have risen within a few 
 years on the Continent of Europe, in England and in the 
 States of Massachusetts and New York. In Pennsylvania, 
 nothing has as yet been done, except by the unaided exer- 
 tions of a single individual. Mr. J. B. Eichards, to whom 
 allusion has been made already, was placed in charge of 
 the first Classf of Idiots ever formed for training in this 
 country. 
 
 After visiting Europe to learn the best methods which 
 had then been devised, he devoted himself to the work with 
 singular zeal and success. At the close of three years, 
 spent in the experimental school established under the 
 auspices of the Legislature of Massachusetts, he removed 
 
 ^ Dr. S. G. Howe. 
 
 ■j- Dr. Wilbur, then of Massachusetts, now of New York, formed a private class 
 about the same time.
 
 to this city, and here he has been in charge of a private 
 school for the past twelve months. Thus far he has re- 
 ceived no aid. In order to meet the expenses of his school 
 and family, he has been compelled to decline all except 
 pay pupils. Thus, they who most need his care, are pre- 
 cluded from it, and his generous desire to devote himself to 
 the service of the indigent has spent itself in fruitless aspi- 
 rations. 
 
 We trust that a brighter day is at hand, and in this hope 
 we appeal to the enlightened and philanthropic citizens of 
 Philadelphia. It is proposed to establish an Institution, 
 which shall be open to all classes, but in which special and 
 liberal provision shall be made for the children of the poor. 
 After enlisting the charities of Philadelphians, it is also 
 proposed to invoke those of the State, that by the combined 
 munificence of the Commonwealth and of individuals, a 
 beginning may be made, which shall be worthy of the 
 object and of those who sustain it. 
 
 We conclude, in the language (slightly altered) of an in- 
 telligent American,* who sometime since devoted much of 
 his attention to the education of Idiots, as conducted in 
 Paris. He thus states the result of his inquiries and obser- 
 vation. " Fortunately for the poor Idiots, the error of those 
 who denied them all intelligence, and who pronounced 
 them incurable has been proved, the interdict against them 
 revoked, and the fact triumphantly established, that how- 
 ever degraded their condition, however devoid of all human 
 faculties they may seem to be, they carry within them the 
 holy spark which intelligent sympathy may inflame. 
 During the past six months I have watched with eager 
 interest the progress which many young Idiots have made 
 in Paris under the direction of Mr. Seguin, and at Bicetre 
 under that of Messrs. Voisin and Yalle, and have seen, 
 with no less gratification than astonishment, nearly one 
 hundred fellow beings who but a short time since were 
 shut out from all communion with mankind— who were 
 objects of loathing and disgust, many of whom rejected 
 
 * Mr. George Sumner.
 
 8 
 
 every article of clothing, others of whom unable to stand 
 erect, crouched themselves in corners, and gave signs of 
 life only by piteous howls, others in whom the faculty of 
 speech had never been developed, and many whose vora- 
 cious and indiscriminate gluttony satisfied itself with what- 
 ever they could lay hands upon— with the garbage thrown 
 to swine or with their own excrements ; these unfortunate 
 beings, the rejected of humanity, I have seen properly clad, 
 standing erect, walking, speaking, eating in an orderly 
 manner at a common table, working quietly as carpenters 
 and farmers, gaining by their own labor the means of exis- 
 tence, storing their awakened intelligence by reading one 
 to another, exercising towards their teachers and among 
 themselves the generous feelings of man's nature, and sing- 
 ing in unison songs of thanksgiving. 
 
 " It is a miracle, you will exclaim, and so indeed it is, — 
 a miracle of intelligence, of patience and of love. When I 
 expressed to the teacher of the school at Bicetre, M. Yalle, 
 my gratitude and my surprise at the result of his efforts, 
 his reply was as profound as it was beautiful and modest, 
 Ilnefaut, Monsieur^ que la imtience et le desir de hienfaire. 
 ' Patience and the desire to do good are all that is neces- 
 sary.' More than this is necessary, and I felt bound to 
 complete his sentence by adding to it the noble motto which 
 Don Henry of Portugal engraved on his shield, and by his 
 conduct justified so well, Le talent de hienfaire. Patience and 
 the talent, as well as the desire to do good, are all required, 
 but these can all be found in the community where Laura 
 Bridgman has been taught, and the possibility of success 
 now fully established, it would be an insult to [Pennsylvania] 
 to suppose that she will not be among the first to make 
 those efforts for her Idiot population which many European 
 states are alread}'' commencing." 
 
 Alonzo Potter, 
 John K. Kane, 
 James Martin, 
 Geo. B. Wood, 
 Charles D. Cleaveland. 
 
 PhiladelpLia, Marcb, 1853.
 
 UNI\TRSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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 OCT 2 4 1868 
 
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