Twentieth annual report of the New York Asylum for Idiots : transmitted to the Legislature January 12, 1871 / New York State Asylum for Idiots.

  • New York State Asylum for Idiots
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Twentieth annual report of the New York Asylum for Idiots : transmitted to the Legislature January 12, 1871 / New York State Asylum for Idiots. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    founded them. This was eminently true in the history of our own State Asylum for Idiots. The experimental school which preceded it was located at Albany. Its first board of trustees were men eminent in the State and nation. Owing to the fact that the enterprise was quite new in this country, it was visited very generally by the members of both Houses of the Legislature for several years. And it is proper to mention here, that the successive acts of legislation which changed its character to that of a permanent State institution, were passed without a dissenting vote. The growth of like institutions in other States has been a similar experience, and similarly healthy. It seems to me that this uniformitv of result has arisen from the c/ fact, that the results obtained in the experimental stage exceeded the prudent anticipations and cautious expressions of those most interested in the management of the incipient institution. The late John C. Spencer, then chairman of the board, thus gave expression to the prudent disposition of that body, in the second annual report of the asylum : “ A recurrence to our first report will show with what caution, not to say doubt, the trustees entered upon the discharge of their duties. The popular and current opinion that this class of afflicted humanity were incapable of any essential improvement had not been entirely changed by the imperfect information we possessed of the efforts made in other countries. Still, enough had been ascertained to justify an experiment on a moderate scale. It had been dis¬ covered that the term ‘idiot’ very inaccurately described the differ- ent conditions of imbecility of intellect; that there were grades and degrees at great distances from each other; that the effects of bodily injuries had been confounded with original organization ; that ill treatment and neglect had obscured minds naturally healthy, and, finally, that by proper discrimination and training, adapted to each case, in many instances the intellect had been aroused or developed, and new creatures born into the world. Fearing to trust too much to the sympathies and glowing hopes which such facts were calcula¬ ted to excite, the trustees determined to test the experiment which the Legislature had authorized, by the same rigid rule which they would apply to any new theory in physics, viz., to see for themselves how it worked ; to compare the condition of the pupils when admit¬ ted, with their condition at subsequent periods.”
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