634 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



SCHOOLS FOR THE INSANE. 



By CHARLES W. PILGRIM, M. D. 



THE teaching of the insane is by no means a new idea. Early 

 in the history of the Utica Asylum Dr. Brigham made the 

 experiment of having winter classes, and wrote in his annual 

 report for 1844 of the great advantages resulting therefrom. 

 These classes, however, were not long continued, and, if I mis- 

 take not, a like history was enacted in the Northampton Lunatic 

 Asylum, where Dr. Earle, our oldest American alienist, instituted 

 a similar work at about the same time. Dr. Kirkbride, another 

 pioneer in American asylums, advocated the education of the 

 insane ; but, instead of having organized schools, he had what 

 were known as " companions," who visited the patients in differ- 

 ent wards and gave them instruction by reading and conversa- 

 tion. I know, however, of no single attempt in this direction 

 in any of the American asylums which was at all prolonged, and, 

 with one exception, the result was the same with the experiments 

 which were made from time to time in various parts of Great 

 Britain and the Continent. The exception was the Richmond Dis- 

 trict Lunatic Asylum in Dublin, where Dr. Lalor's zeal and en- 

 ergy elaborated the idea and made of it such a success that his 

 asylum became known on account of its school to alienists in the 

 most distant parts of the world. In 1885, when the school had 

 been in successful operation for about thirty years, I had the 

 pleasure of spending three days with the venerable old man, who 

 is justly called the " father of the school system." He has since 

 laid down the burden of life, but the system which he inaugu- 

 rated still lives, and is carried on under the direction of his suc- 

 cessor. 



At the time of my visit there was a daily average of about four 

 hundred and fifty men, and, as the two departments of the asylum 

 are conducted practically in the same manner, I shall confine my- 

 self to a description of the male division and its school. About 

 forty of the four hundred and fifty men were in the hospital ward 

 and took no part in the school exercises. Of the remainder, eighty- 

 five were engaged during the day in the garden and various indus- 

 trial occupations, but about seventy of them attended school on 

 three evenings in the week for an hour after supper. A little 

 more than a hundred were occupied solely in masonry, farm- 

 work, tailoring, basket-making, shoemaking, etc., and more than 

 two hundred were occupied during the greater part of the day 

 with the school exercises. It will thus be observed that nearly 

 every patient in the asylum, excepting those in the hospital de- 



