This is not to be wondered at when we consider that idiots are generally born of a very poor stock—of persons who are subject to some disorders of the brain, or who are themselves scrofulous and puny to the last degree. Such persons are, generally, very feeble in intellect, poor in purse, and intemperate in habits. A great many of them are hardly able to take care of themselves. They are unfit to teach or train common children; how much less to take the charge of idiots, whose education is the most difficult of all!
The commissioners ascertained, mainly by personal observation, the condition of three hundred and fifty-five idiotic persons who are not town or state paupers. Of these there may be, at the most, five who are treated very judiciously; who are taught by wise and discreet persons, and whose faculties and capabilities are developed to their fullest extent; but the remaining three hundred and fifty are generally "in a most deplorable condition as it respects their bodily, mental, and moral treatment."[51]
The commissioners come to the unquestionable conclusion in their report that "nothing can afford a stronger argument in favor of an institution for the proper training and teaching of idiots, and the dissemination of information upon the subject, than the striking difference manifested in the condition of the few children who are properly cared for and judiciously treated, and those who are neglected or abused. There are cases in our community of youths who are idiotic from birth, but who, under proper care and training, have become cleanly in person, quiet in deportment, industrious in habits, and who would almost pass in society for persons of common intelligence; and yet their natural capacity was no greater than that of others, who, from ignorance or neglect of their parents, have become filthy, gluttonous, lazy, vicious, depraved, and are rapidly sinking into driveling idiocy. This fact alone should be enough to encourage the state to take measures at once for the establishment of a school or institution for teaching or training idiots, if it were but a matter of experiment."
Massachusetts is the only state in the Union that as yet has attempted to do any thing for the education and training of this hitherto neglected class of persons. The result of the first year's experiment has been most gratifying and encouraging. Of the whole number received, there was not one who was in a situation where any great improvement in his condition was probable, or hardly possible; they were growing worse in habits, and more confirmed in their idiocy. But the process of deterioration in the pupils has been entirely stopped, and that of improvement has commenced; and though a year is a very short time in the instruction of such persons, yet its effects are manifest in all of them. They have improved in personal appearance and habits, in general health, in vigor, and in activity of body. Some of them can control their appetites in a considerable degree; they sit at the table with their teachers, and feed themselves decently. Almost all of them have improved in the understanding and the use of speech. Some of them have made considerable progress in the knowledge of language; they can select words printed on slips of paper, and a few can read simple sentences. But, what is most important, they have made a start forward.
"There is ground for confidence that the reasonable hopes of the friends of the experiment will be satisfied. All that they promised has been accomplished, so far as was possible in the period of a year. It has been demonstrated that idiots are capable of improvement, and that they can be raised from a state of low degradation to a higher condition. How far they can be elevated, and to what extent they may be educated, can only be shown by the experience of the future. The result of the past year's trial, however, gives confidence that each succeeding year will show even more progress than any preceding one."
Education and Insanity.—It is well established that a defective and faulty education through the period of infancy and childhood is one of the most prolific causes of insanity. Such an education, or rather miseducation, causes a predisposition in many, and excites one where it already exists, which ultimately renders the animal propensities of our nature uncontrollable. Appetites indulged and perverted, passions unrestrained, propensities rendered vigorous by indulgence, and subjected to no salutary restraint, bring persons into a condition in which both moral and physical causes easily operate to produce insanity, if they do not produce it themselves.
We must look to well-directed systems of popular education, having for their object physical improvement, no less than mental and moral culture, to relieve us from many of the evils which "flesh is heir to," and nothing can so effectually secure us from this most formidable disease (as well as from others not less appalling) as that system of instruction which teaches us how to preserve the normal condition of the body and the mind; to fortify the one against the catalogue of physical causes which every where assail us, and to elevate the other above the influence of the trials and disappointments of life, so that the host of moral causes which affect the brain, through the medium of the mind, shall be inoperative and harmless.
Those first principles of physical education which teach us how to avoid disease are all-important to all liable to insanity from hereditary predisposition. The physical health must be attended to, and the training of the faculties of the mind be such as to counteract the over-active propensities of our nature—correcting the bias of the mind to wrong currents and to too great activity by bringing into action the antagonizing powers, and thus giving a sound body and a well-balanced mind. Neglect of this early training entails evils upon the young which are felt in all after life.
These positions are stated and amplified in the able reports of Dr. S. B. Woodward, superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester, Mass., to which the reader is referred. They are also corroborated by persons who have had the care of the insane in other institutions. In the eighteenth annual report of the physician and superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, Dr. Brigham says, "a knowledge of the nature of the disease would frequently lead to its prevention. Insanity, in most cases, arises from undue excitement and labor of the brain; for even if a predisposition to it is inherited, an exciting cause is essential to its development. Hence every thing likely to cause great excitement of the brain, especially in early life, should be avoided.
"The records of cases at this institution and my own observation justify me in saying that the neglect of moral discipline, the too great indulgence of the passions and emotions in early life, together with the excessive and premature exercise of the mental powers, are among the most frequent causes that predispose to insanity. But these causes are in no other way operative in producing insanity than by unduly exciting the brain. By neglect of moral discipline, a character is formed subject to violent passions, and to extreme emotions and anxiety from the unavoidable evils and disappointments of life, and thus the brain, by being often and violently agitated, becomes diseased; and by too early exercising and prematurely developing the mental powers, this organ is rendered more susceptible and liable to disease.