Second annual report of the trustees of the New-York State Asylum for Idiots.

  • New York State Asylum for Idiots.
Date:
[1853?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Second annual report of the trustees of the New-York State Asylum for Idiots. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/38 (page 6)
    vert the attention of the superintendent from his appropriate duties. A building that would accommodate about 100 pupils with the necessary teachers, servants, &c., would enable us to receive eight pupils from each judicial district, making 64, and leave room for 36 pay pupils, a number which would soon be filled. There should be room for pay pupils, to afford an apportunity to those who are able and anxious to pay for that kind of training and instruction of their children, which can be obtained nowhere else in the State, and also materially aid the revenues of the insti¬ tution. Some enquiries have been made, and it is believed that sufficient land can be procured in an eligible situation, and a plain substan tial building, with all necessary out-liouses, can be erected, at an expense not exceeding twenty thousand dollars for the whole. The State now supports one hundred and ninety-two pupils at the institution for the deaf and dumb in New-York,at an expense including the appropriation of $5,000,of about $155 for each. It also supports at the institution for the blind in New-York, ninety- six pupils, at an expense including the appropriation made in 1850, of $10,000, of about $200 for each pupil. Deducting the special appropriations, the ordinary expense of a pupil in each of these institutions is $130 annually. The children received at the asylum for idiots, must, necessarily, from their tender age and physical disabilities, require more care, and a larger number of servants than either the deaf mutes or the blind, and the latter contribute something by their labor to their own support. Still, it is believed from past experience and care¬ ful calculations, that sixty-four pupils can be supported and in¬ structed at an average expense to the State of $150 each. The deficiency, if any, would be supplied by the compensation received from 36 pay pupils, many of whose parents would be glad to pay large sums. In our judgment, an appropriation of $10,000 each year, will be adequate for the support of an institution for 100 pupils classed as before mentioned.