The mind unveiled, or, A brief history of twenty-two imbecile children [of the Pennsylvania Training School] / [Isaac Newton Kerlin].

  • Kerlin, Isaac N. (Isaac Newton), 1834-1893.
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mind unveiled, or, A brief history of twenty-two imbecile children [of the Pennsylvania Training School] / [Isaac Newton Kerlin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    children on each side, sitting in perfect silence while the food was being dished before them, was a sight unsurpassed in the best regulated family of juveniles. Ihe state of discipline is the more remarkable when it is considered that in nearly every instance, when first entered, they had voracious appetites, entirely unrestrained. One exceptional case to the order of the table was presented while I was there. It was a boy who had been but a short time under care, and was a type of the ungovernable habits of some of the child] en when first introduced. At a signal from a bell, all took their forks properly in their fingers, and commenced eating as deliberately, in most instances, as ordinary children. The dining hour through, light exercise on the piazza and block building were engaged in. Some show much aptitude in the arrangement of wooden bricks. One little fellow was lying at full length on a settee, while a bright-faced girl was inclosing him in a coffin made of blocks! Afternoons are generally spent in block building and letter-board exercise by the smaller children, in plain sewing and knitting by the larger girls, and in oral geography and element- ary grammar by the boys. The Sabbath day is observed by appropriate exer- cises. Psalm recitation and singing, and what the 13
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