670 beport — 1878. 



are said in all the divisions of the Richmond Asylum, the Protestants and Roman 

 Catholics being in separate rooms, and in care of an attendant of their own reli- 

 gious belief (being a school attendant, when possible). The average number 

 attending morning and evening prayers is 322 males and 486 females, making 808 

 of both sexes. 



In reference to the employment or occupation of the insane in this asylum, I 

 consider that one of the advantages of the school system is, that it provides an 

 occupation for some, and leads to the occupation of others who would otherwise be 

 wholly imoccupied. In reference to industrial employment, I wish to observe that 

 I try to provide such as is most suited to the tastes or antecedents of the patients, 

 and at the same time such as, with certain limitations, is most useful to the insti- 

 tution. 



The total disuse of restraint, and the very infrequent use of seclusion — the 

 freedom allowed to all our patients to exercise and have various sorts of games on 

 the open grounds, in place of enclosed yards — are very gratifying features. The 

 number and cost of our staff, estimated per head on the daily average number of 

 patients, is less in this than in the other district lunatic asylums of Ireland ; and 

 this fact, taken in connection with our large teaching and training power, shows 

 that education and industrial employment carried out, as they are here, systema- 

 tically, by skilled hands, do not necessarily ' increase expense. The cost per head 

 for salaries and wages here, estimated on the average number in the house, was for 

 1876 41. 0s. 5d., compared with 41. 19s. Gd., the average cost per head of the staff in 

 all the other district lunatic asylums in Ireland in the same year. Our staff of 

 officers and servants was at the rate of one for every 8-8 patients — the staff of all 

 other district asylums in Ireland was one to every 66 patients. 



In the number of the Journal of Mental Science for October 1860 I published a 

 paper in which I advocated large in preference to small asylums, and any person 

 desirous of doing so can there see the reasons on which I grounded my preference. 

 The experience which I have since had in the education and training of lunatics 

 makes me still more in favour of large asylums than I was in 1860, particularly in 

 view of this question of education ; and as the same general principles and 

 machinery are applicable in their case, so far as training is concerned, as in that of 

 idiots and imbeciles, it may be presumed that if the result of experience and 

 reasoning has led to a decided preference for large over small training institutions, 

 in the case of the latter, it should favoar a similar preference in the case of the 

 former. The Earlswood Asylum, which had 184 idiots and imbeciles in training in 

 1857, and 509 in 1877, appears to have advanced in efficiency and public estimation 

 as it has enlarged in size. The Charity Organisation Society and the Metro- 

 politan Asylum Board appear to think 500 a favourable size for a training 

 school for imbecile children. The Charity Organisation Society also states that : — 

 " Training schools and adult asylums, however they may differ in their internal 

 arrangements, have mutual relations which often make it desirable that they should 

 be in each other's neighbourhood, and under the same general superintendence." 

 I coincide in this opinion, and I think it is from a wise forethought that a site has 

 been selected at Darenth, sufficiently large for an asylum for adults, in addition to 

 the training school for 500 children now near completion. It is probable that such 

 an asylum, with accommodation for 2000 adults, will be built at Darenth, and 

 ample evidence is thus afforded that extended experience and consideration is found 

 to favour large and combined in preference to small and distinct asylums. 



Ever since physical repression and fear have ceased to be the principles relied 

 on for maintaining even tolerable security, order, and quiet, and promoting recovery 

 or improvement amongst the insane in confinement, medical and moral treatment 

 have been brought more and more into requisition. Moral treatment is only 

 another name for education and training. But the great defect in carrying out the 

 recognised principles of moral treatment has been that the agents employed have 

 not been sufficiently adapted to the object in view. It is absurd to expect that 

 moral treatment can be efficiently carried out by a few resident medical and other 

 officers, however intelligent and well-intentioned, through their direct and personal 

 exertions, which are necessarily desultory. There must be an organisation in con- 



