Library Collections: Document: Full Text


New York State Asylum For Idiots, Fourth Annual Report Of The Trustees

Creator: n/a
Date: January 23, 1855
Source: Steve Taylor Collection

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 5:

58  

One was removed because she was regarded by the Superintendent and her friends as having received all the education necessary for the fulfillment of her probable duties and relations in life. Three have been removed at the request of the Superintendent because confirmed epileptics. One was retained at home at the close of vacation, on account of feeble health, but with the expectation of returning next year. One is now in an Insane Asylum. Two have been removed by death.

59  

Till the middle of the month of August last, we were blessed with the same remarkable exemption from sickness in our large family that we have been called upon gratefully to acknowledge in our former reports. About that time, owing as I now suppose, to some defect in the drainage of the building now occupied, several cases of typhus fever occurred. Though the epidemic was of a mild form, yet, as I have mentioned above, two of our pupils fell victims to it. There was in both of the cases that proved fatal, an apparent development of a pre-existing, though latent disease of the brain.

60  

While much may be done by judicious management to prevent disease in such an institution as ours, whenever it does gain a footing greater fatality may be anticipated than elsewhere, and with persons of a "sound mind in a sound body."

61  

The teachers, attendants, and servants are, with one or two exceptions, the same, whose fidelity and zeal I took occasion to notice in my last report. Their continuance with me to this time will sufficiently indicate my sense of the continued worth and proper manner of their services. The results of their perseverance and patience in the management and instruction of the pupils you have witnessed from time to time. I described those results in general terms last year, and I have nothing to add to that description, but that longer continued labors have been attended with still greater effects.

62  

With the legislative appropriation for the last fiscal year, we were able to meet the current expenses of the Asylum, make considerable alterations in our present buildings for the accommodation of ten additional pupils, and add more than a thousand dollars to the capital of the institution, in the form of additions to our furniture, apparatus, stable stock, &c.

63  

Our whole capital, as represented by furniture, &c., and which has cost us from the commencement some $6,000 in the aggregate, has been purchased by funds alotted us for current expenses.

64  

As this report, in connection with the report of. the board of trustees, will be extensively distributed throughout the State, I will offer a simple statement of a few facts that will suffice, I think, to place the practicability of educating idiots correctly before the Legislature and the public.

65  

But a few years ago, and the proposition to educate idiots was regarded as impracticable and visionary. Even in 1851, when by an act of the New York Legislature, provision had been made for an experimental school for idiots, to continue two years, the gentlemen chosen by the Governor and Senate to have the general oversight of the institution, and carefully test the experiment the Legislature had authorized, entered upon the discharge of that duty "with caution, not to say doubt."

66  

The experimental school has now been in operation for more than three years, in the vicinity of Albany -- quite convenient for a proper supervision by the trustees, and quite accessible to the Legislature and the public. What has been the result?

67  

The trustees of the asylum in their previous reports have declared, as the result of their observations, comparisons and deliberate convictions, that the experiment has entirely and fully succeeded. Three successive Legislatures have emphasized their approval of the objects and their faith in the success of the institution, by making appropriations for its continuance and extension and its establishment as a legitimate object of the State's bounty and support, without a dissenting voice. It is due to ourselves to add that their convictions and acts were not the result of any exhibitions of a few pupils before them, but from the fact that most of the members of the Legislature for the past three years actually visited the asylum and witnessed the practical operation of our system of training, management and instruction. In some cases they had personally known the condition of the pupils, when received at the asylum. Their witness, therefore, is not of sympathy merely, but of intelligent convictions.

68  

During the past summer there was a vacation of four weeks at the asylum, and all of our pupils who could conveniently be sent home visited their families and friends. The parents had thus an opportunity to judge for themselves of the progress in education made by their children during their residence at the asylum.

69  

The additional testimony they furnish to the success of the institution lies in the different stand-point which they occupy and from which they view the whole subject. They only can know just what was the condition of the individual pupils when sent to the asylum. They only can fully appreciate the more subtle evidences of improvement in the pupils, as seen in difference of deportment and habits; in increased manifestations of observation or judgment; in the little details of every day life; in attention, or in disposition or propensities.

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20    All Pages