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All cannot be equally improved, but it is rare to discover a single instance in which some benefit is not imparted, while many may be raised to a position of social comfort, and to gain a good livelihood by the exercise of their respective handicrafts under vigilant employers to whom they act as journeymen. Thus the solitary and useless are made social and industrious, while, relieved from the blight of their deplorable condition, they become conscious of their humanity, as well as, in a measure, independent, happy, and confident, instead of helpless, sad, and distrustful.

Nothing more surprises a visitor to a well-managed asylum for imbeciles than the entire absence of that gloom which most persons naturally expect to find hanging over it like a dark cloud. Mr. Sidney assures us that a summer fête at Earlswood was a truly joyous scene, and all the preparations for it in the shape of tents, flags, and preparations for games, gave the grounds before the building the aspect of great gayety. These of course would be readily provided by generous promoters of the charity anxious to give the inmates the pleasure of a gala; but the real matter of astonishment was in the fact that nearly every one of these useful and ornamental appendages of the holiday were made in the institution, and had been erected, coloured, painted, and otherwise decorated by the inmates. The same operatives constructed a balloon, painted and repaired Punch and Judy, and set out the croquet and wickets for cricket. Some formed a Nigger Troupe, and with blackened faces and grotesque dresses joined the attendants in a performance of great humour. Many of the pupils were to be seen leading their infirm fellows, and carefully tending them during the routine of the day. Nothing could be more decorous or more joyous, the discipline being perfectly maintained with the utmost liberty for the most unrestrained pleasure; and not a spectator left that home of those who but for the exertions made in their behalf would have been outcasts, without expressions of gratification and the conviction that the work was eminently compensating.

The consequences of judicious care bestowed by friends of the feeble-minded on the unfortunates to whom they are directed, we have described and illustrated by examples of individual benefit; we must now take a larger view as regards their extended influence on this mournfully numerous and helpless portion of the human family. To give freedom and happiness to thousands of imprisoned minds and miserable beings is worthy of the anxious consideration of philanthropists in all nations. Wherever the great double experiment has been made -- for it is double, medicinal and instructive, the skilled physician and patient teacher going hand in hand -- all patients have been improved in personal appearance, health, habits, and comfort; most in vigour, decency, self-control, perception, speech, and knowledge of objects; many in powers of all kinds, observation, manners, thought, habits, pursuits, industry, and religion; while some are actually fitted to mingle with the world, and even educated persons, with due care. This age, in which men have penetrated into the hidden forces of matter, has also made great discoveries as regards the connection between organism and mind. Hence it has been enabled to replace both senses in the cases of the blind and deaf mutes, and to raise defective powers in an idiot, kindness being the keynote of all progress.

In addition to the benefits conferred on the individuals who are raised by these institutions to the level of humanity, science has everything to gain from a more extended and systematic observation of the phenomena of idiotcy. Inquiry may be made into all that has any bearing on cases of congenital idiots, and we may at last arrive at some more definite view of the causes of this malady than the present guess-work, on which, because it is so, we forbear to speculate. Most men who have thought much on the subject have had their notions and theories; but we are far from knowing certainly how it has happened that human beings have been born, in whom the harmony of nature has been so disturbed by the excesses or defects of physical constitution. American writers have been very forward in propounding their views, and we think they had been more prudent and philosophical if they had waited for more complete investigation. We can only say of these helpless ones that they have entered life in a state of imperfection that has hitherto been regarded as hopeless; but by the means used to convert the hopeless into hopeful human beings, we shall best learn the needful lessons of every kind respecting them. We find in all a more or less incomplete physical structure; the bony parts of the body are fragile, the teeth are subject to very early decay, the muscles are infirm and often flabby, the gait is ill-balanced, the appetite is voracious, while the digestion is imperfect, the taste has no discrimination, the sensations are benumbed, and the blood and secretions impure. To make accurate investigation into all these things, with a view to beneficial operations, is due from society to the thousands of its members who are blighted and bowed down by them. No single accompaniment of such a condition, if it prevails largely, may be deemed unimportant, whether it belongs to one organ or another, to the brain, the tongue, the ear, the nose, the lips, the palate, or any part of the body.