CORRECTIONAL AGRICULTURE 291 



rowed from the monasteries of another age stamp it as an 

 "asylum." It is just another farm. Groups of attractive, two- 

 story brick buildings, where patients live, eat and sleep, lie back 

 from the road, but even these are more than likely to be passed 

 without notice. 



"The scientific treatment, education, employment and custody 

 of epileptics," says the law, shall be the object of this farm 

 community. Translated, this means that here the epileptics of 

 the state may lead as nearly as possible the normal life of farm- 

 ers. Those for whom most can be done educationally are given 

 the preference; purely custodial cases and persons violently in- 

 sane are not received, though the law does not prohibit them. 



Inmates do not have to work quite so hard as most farmers, 

 for they are the wards, not the servants of the state. Nor can 

 they come and go entirely as they please, for epilepsy is usually 

 accompanied by mental defectiveness and supervision is there- 

 fore necessary. This supervision may amount to no more than 

 being constantly within sight of other inmates, for epileptics dis- 

 play the same fellow-feeling and care for one another as the 

 deaf. An epileptic who stands by and does nothing while his 

 fellow has a seizure often finds himself an outcast for a time 

 from his associates. 



Two hundred and thirty men and boys are now living in 

 comfort on this farm. When the land has been fully improved 

 and all buildings have been erected the village will be equipped 

 to care for about 1,000 or 1,200. Women, it is hoped, will be 

 admitted next year. They will live in separate buildings a mile 

 from the men. 



The care of epileptics, like that of feeble-minded, is in the main 

 an educational problem. A school is to be erected, and shops 

 for various forms of industrial activity. The work of the farm 

 also is given an educational value. There is almost no kind of 

 farm labor in which the epileptics do not assist. They help in 

 the growing of crops, the care of live stock and poultry, in 

 building fences, in making and repairing roads, and in keeping 

 the weeds down at the sides of the road. Sixteen epileptic 

 teamsters, whose seizures come only at night or can be predicted 

 beforehand, water, feed and bed their own horses. "I do not 

 believe," declares Dr. W. C. Van Nuys, superintendent of the 



