MENTAL DEFECTIVES AND SOCIAL WELFARE. 749 



readily be seen, as also how entirely incompatible with union must 

 be work further apart in reality than is the training of an imbecile 

 and a normal child. 



For the idiot, who not only can not be trained, but who in many 

 cases is unimprovable even in the simplest matters of self-help, noth- 

 ing is needed but that care and attention found in every well-regulated 

 nursery of delicate children, the sine qua non being regular hours, 

 simple nourishing food, frequent baths, and tender mothering. As 

 many are paralyzed, blind, lame, or epileptic, it is desirable that the 

 dormitories, Avell ventilated, be on the same floor with the living rooms 

 and of easy access to bathrooms and playgrounds. Covered and 

 carefully guarded porches should afford the much-needed fresh air 

 and outdoor life in all weathers. These, with cheerful, sunny play- 

 rooms, provided with simple toys and furnished with bright decora- 

 tions varying with the season, will contribute the maximum of pleasure 

 for this life of perpetual infancy. Low vitality, general poverty of 

 the whole physical make-up, the prevalence of phthisis and epilepsy 

 and kindred diseases require he daily inspection of a physician, while 

 the comfort and well-being of the whole, both workers and children, 

 are insured by a capable and sympatheic house mother. 



The character of attendants is of the first importance, as these are 

 they who live with the children; it should combine that firmness, ten- 

 derness, and balance that constitute an even temperament, capable 

 of recognizing and meeting an occasion without loss of self-control. 

 The duties involve not only the care of the idiots, but the training and 

 direction of idio-imbeciles as aids, and this dealing with natures often 

 wholly animal, requires a certain refinement and dignity of character 

 — at least an entire absence of coarseness — while a knowledge of the 

 simpler manual arts, and if possible of drawing and music, will do 

 much to soften and brighten these darkened natures. As these quali- 

 ties are valuable as well as rare, the remuneration should be in pro- 

 portion: certainly sufficient to induce permanency and to compensate 

 for such isolation. A life of constant wear and tear demands also 

 regular periods of rest, ami the corps therefore should be sufficiently 

 large to give relief hours daily as \yell as vacations. 



The idio-imbecile, but one remove from his weaker brother, to 

 whose wants he may be trained to minister, finds here his fitting place, 

 and the domestic service of these asylums mav be laruelv drawn 

 from this class and also from that of the low-grade imbecile. "Work- 

 ing as an aid, never alone, always under direction, he finds in a 

 monotonous round of the simplest daily avocations his life happiness, 

 his only safety from lapsing into idiocy, and therefore his true home. 



The relief to the home, the actual benefit to the State in this 

 housing and care of the idiot and idio-imbecile can never be fully 



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