Author Topic: Instruction Of Idiots  (Read 936 times)

hubag bohol

  • AMBASSADOR
  • THE SOURCE
  • *****
  • Posts: 89964
  • "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...
    • View Profile
Instruction Of Idiots
« on: July 31, 2015, 07:06:05 PM »
"Instruction Of Idiots"

Creator:       J.G.W. (author)
Date:       1849
Publication:       Friends' Review
Source:       Available at selected libraries


Introduction

This article appeared in a Philadelphia Quaker periodical as efforts to educate children with cognitive disabilities first started in the United States. Samuel Gridley Howe, then principal of the Perkins Asylum for the Blind and famous as Laura Bridgman’s teacher, was beginning a new endeavor, the establishment of a school for idiots. His research mirrored that of Dorothea Dix, who had done numerous state surveys of indigent individuals with mental disabilities. Her efforts led to the construction of insane asylums. Howe’s work promoted new idiocy asylums. Like Dix, Howe succeeded in obtaining financial support for the Massachusetts state government. Howe used the money to open in 1848 an experimental school of ten students with cognitive disabilities at Perkins in South Boston. (A permanent school, the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth, later the Walter E. Fernald State School, opened in 1851.) The author concluded by stressing the religious roots of humanitarian reform.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=80653.0
...than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

Book your travel tickets anywhere in the world, go to www.12go.co

unionbank online loan application low interest, credit card, easy and fast approval

hubag bohol

  • AMBASSADOR
  • THE SOURCE
  • *****
  • Posts: 89964
  • "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...
    • View Profile
Re: Instruction Of Idiots
« Reply #1 on: July 31, 2015, 07:07:38 PM »
1
Some five years ago the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the suggestion of several benevolent gentlemen, whose attention had been turned to the subject, appointed a Commission to inquire into the condition of the idiots of the Commonwealth -- to ascertain their numbers, and whether anything could be done in their behalf.

2     
The commissioners were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, so well and honourably known for his long and arduous labors in behalf of the blind, Judge Byington, and Gilman Kemball.

3     
The burden of the labour fell upon the chairman, who entered upon it with the enthusiasm, perseverance and practical adaptation of means to ends, which have made him so efficient in his varied schemes of benevolence. On the 26th of the 2d month, 1848, a full report of the results of this labour was made to the Governor, accompanied by statistical tables and minute details. One hundred towns had been visited by the chairman or his reliable agent, in which five hundred and seventy five persons in a state of idiocy were discovered. There were examined carefully, in respect to their physical as well as mental condition; no inquiry being omitted which was calculated to throw light upon the remote or immediate causes of this mournful imperfection in the creation of God. The proximate causes Dr. Howe mentions are to be found in the state of the bodily organization -- deranged and disproportioned by some violation of natural law on the part of the parents or remoter ancestors of the sufferers. Out of 420 cases of idiocy, he had obtained information respecting the condition of the progenitors of 359; and in all but four of these cases he found that one or the other, or both of their immediate progenitors had in some way departed widely from the condition of health; they were scrofulous, or predisposed to affections of the brain, and insanity, or had intermarried with blood relations, or had been intemperate, or guilty of sensual excesses.

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=80653.0
...than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

Book your travel tickets anywhere in the world, go to www.12go.co

hubag bohol

  • AMBASSADOR
  • THE SOURCE
  • *****
  • Posts: 89964
  • "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool...
    • View Profile
Re: Instruction Of Idiots
« Reply #2 on: July 31, 2015, 07:08:20 PM »
4     
Of the 575 cases, 420 were those of idiocy from birth, and 155 of idiocy afterwards. Of the born idiots, 187 were under 25 years of age, and all but 13 seemed capable of improvement. Of those above 25 years of age, 73 appeared incapable of improvement in their mental condition, being helpless as children at 7 years of age. Forty-three out of the 420 seemed helpless as children at two years of age, and 33 were in the condition of mere infants. Two hundred and twenty were supported at the public charge in alms-houses. A large proportion of them were found to be given over to filthy and loathsome habits, gluttony and lust, and constantly sinking lower towards the condition of absolute brutishness.


More at: http://www.disabilitymuseum.org/dhm/lib/detail.html?id=1365

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=80653.0
...than to speak out and remove all doubt." - Abraham Lincoln

Book your travel tickets anywhere in the world, go to www.12go.co

unionbank online loan application low interest, credit card, easy and fast approval

Tags: