452 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIV. No. 351. 



they become older and the psychosis can be 

 determined. Neither the husbands nor the 

 wives of the members of this group are 

 counted in this table. Those enumerated 

 are the direct descendants of the persons in 

 the preceding generation. 



It is not unusual to find in a poor asylum 

 three generations of feeble-mindedness. 

 Not long since, the speaker had grouped 

 before him, at a poor asylum in the south- 

 ern part of the State, four generations of 

 feeble-minded persons — father born in 1817, 

 daughter, granddaughter and great-grand- 

 son. There are nineteen members of this 

 family; nine are feeble-minded and four 

 are illegitimate. Most of them have been 

 inmates of the institution where they were 

 .seen. Some of them recur to it from time 

 to time yet. This is not a single instance, 

 for in other poor asylums an equal number 

 of generations, similarly afflicted, can be 

 found, and in fact there are instances where 

 five generations have at one time or another 

 been inmates of such a county institution. 



Years and years ago a single man here 

 and there — a prophet in a strange land — 

 began to call attention to the condition of 

 the idiot. They were treated as animals in 

 confinement. At the beginning of the pres- 

 ent century the first institution was built 

 for their care. 



Dr. Walter E. Fernald tells us that the 

 first recorded attempt to educate an idiot 

 was made about the year 1800 by Itard, 

 the celebrated physician-in- chief to the Na- 

 tional Institution for the Deaf and Dumb 

 at Paris,, upon a boy found wild in a forest 

 in the center of France, and known as the 

 'Savage of Aveyron.' This boy could not 

 speak any human tongue, and was devoid 

 of all understanding and knowledge. Be- 

 lieving him to be a savage, for five years 

 Itard endeavored with great skill and per- 

 severance to develop at the same time the 

 intelligence of his pupil and the theories 

 of the materialistic school of philosophy. 



Itard finally became convinced that this 

 boy was an idiot, and abandoned the at- 

 tempt to educate him. (Proc. Nat. Conf. 

 Char, and Cor., 1893, page 203.) 



In 1818 the American Asylum for the 

 Deaf and Dumb, at Hartford, Conn,, the first 

 institution of its kind in this country, gave 

 the first instruction off'ered in the United 

 States to idiotic children. Following this 

 several attempts were made in teaching such 

 children in France, Switzerland and Ger- 

 many. But a few could be cared for. Slowly 

 the thought of the possibility of their im- 

 provement spread. The progress of the 

 work was slow. Individuals were inter- 

 ested and pressed into it. Finally a state 

 took some interest. 



In 1846 the first efl'ort was made for legal 

 provision for the instruction of idiots in 

 this country in New York. This was un- 

 successful ; but a few days later in the same 

 year action looking to similar results was 

 begun in Massachusetts. This culminated 

 in legislation in 1848, providing for the 

 education of 'ten indigent idiots.' Thus 

 began our public institutions for idiotic 

 or feeble-minded children. In New York 

 efforts providing for such a school were 

 repeatedly made, but it was not until 1851 

 that they were entirely successful and the 

 act passed in that State. Pennsylvania was 

 the third State to begin the work in 1852. 

 It was followed by Ohio in 1857. One after 

 another of our States has recognized the 

 duty of providing education, training and 

 care for these unfortunates. In a number 

 of States institutions of the highest standing 

 have been developed. Dr. Fernald tells us 

 the early history of these pioneer State insti- 

 tutions in many respects was very similar. 

 They were practically all begun as tenta- 

 tive experiments in the face of great public 

 distrust and doubt as to the value of the 

 results to be obtained. 



At last it became recognized that those 

 who had given years of study to the idiot 



