The hand book of idiotcy : showing the idiot's condition, the numerous causes of idiotcy, and the most experienced methods of training and educating the idiot ... / by James Abbott.

  • James Abbott
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The hand book of idiotcy : showing the idiot's condition, the numerous causes of idiotcy, and the most experienced methods of training and educating the idiot ... / by James Abbott. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/92 (page 64)
    G4 At the Institutions under the Governments of other coun- tries, it has been found that intellects, which seemed extinct, were really only dormant, and, generally speaking, required only time and care to stimulate and bring them out. Dr. Guggenbiilil, a physician of eminence, in speaking of the success that has attended the Institution in Switzerland, men- tions the case of a child of seven years of age, a complete Idiot, who was in a few years enabled to speak two languages, and was afterwards trained for a schoolmaster. If you, my Lords and Gentlemen, will it, the Idiot of this country need be no longer so,—his mihealthy frame,—the ab- normal condition of his physical functions,—his deficiency of nervous stimulus, may all be meliorated, if not cm-ed ;—his imperfect perception, vacant thoughts, frivolous fancies, and eccentric bearing, are all capable of mehoration;—in fine, the imperfect material which envelopes his soul, may be greatly removed, and the folly, weakness, obtuseness, or mental in- ability, may be pm’ified. If, therefore, in America, in Wurtemberg, in Prussia, in Switzerland, in France, the Idiot finds in the Government a refuge and a cure, why not in England ? If improvement prove hopeless in some few cases, deteri- oration in others is stopped,—comfort succeeds degradation, and repulsiveness becomes changed into decency. Looking at home, we see what the Independent Dissenters did at Park House, Highgate, and at Colchester, previous to their removal to Red-Hill, near Reigate: there Idiots were taught to read, write, and to cast accounts; to learn grammar, geography, drawing, basket-making, shoe-making, tailoring, dancing, drilling, gymnastics, sewing, knitting, and domestic work. Of two hundred and fifty-six patients, ninety-eight could read and spell, eighty-six could write, twenty-five could draw, twenty work in the garden, forty-four sewed, knitted, and ])laited, six were carpenters, twenty could dance, seventy learned by objeets, eighteen worked from dictation, and learned