First annual report of the trustees and superintendent of the Ohio Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth, to the fifty-third general assembly for the year 1857.
- Ohio State Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth.
- Date:
- 1858
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: First annual report of the trustees and superintendent of the Ohio Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth, to the fifty-third general assembly for the year 1857. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![most elementary character. It is necessary, for instance, in teaching the compound sounds, such as cA, thy gr^ hvy cr^ to resolve them into their original elements, and teach the child each constituent, at first, separately, and afterwards in combination., The attention is attracted and the perceptive faculties cultivated by lessons in objects;; form and size are taught by blocks of different sizes and forms, which the pupil is required to insert into corresponding cavities in a board; color by wooden figures of the same form but of different hues. Practice in working with crewels, and pic¬ ture lessons have also proved of great advantage. “ Words are next taught, not letters, for a word can be associated with an object,, in the mind of a pupil, while letters can not; next, the ideas of form and size,, already acquired, are put in practice by writing and drawing ; geography is taught by outline maps, and the elementary principles of grammar by exercises dictated by the teacher. ** The idea of number is, perhaps, the most difficult of acquisition for the idiot. Very few can count beyond three or four when brought to the Asylum. This inca¬ pacity is overcome by patient and repeated exercises, until, step by step, the mys¬ teries of numeration, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division have been unraveled. The process is slow and painful, but it is at last crowned with success., “In the development of the moral nature, great difficulties are encountered., The comprehension of an abstract idea is far beyond an idiot^s capacity; his con¬ ception of goodness must be derived from the manifestation of it in his teachers and, friends; of sin, from his own misconduct or that of others; hence, with him, love; must be the key note of all progress, and under its genial influence, his stubborni and refractory nature will yield like wax before the fire; his vicious and hurtfull propensities become subject to control; and learning to love “his brother whomi he hath seen,” he soon attains to some knowledge and love for “ God whom he hath not seen,” and his humble, childlike faith should put to the blush many, who with more exalted intellects are wandering in the mazes of unbelief. “Not far from one-fourth of all the idiots in any State or country, are suscepti¬ ble of improvement by the treatment we have described. In the countries where; cretinism prevails, pupils over seven years of age are not considered as capable ofi successful instruction, but in other countries idiots are received up to the age ofi fifteen or sixteen, and in the English schools up to twenty-five or thirty, even. There is, however, far less hope of material progress in adults than in children; and! it is hardly desirable that those beyond fourteen or fifteen should be placed unden instruction. Epilepsy, not an infrequent concomitant of idiocy, is a serious bar to: improvement, and where severe, entirely precludes the idea of any considerable; success.” Mr. Sumner, before mentioned, in describing to Dr. Howe a day at the BiqUre, says: “ The number of pupils in the school has varied, for some time past, from 80 toi 100. At 5 o’clock they rise, and pass half an hour in washing, combing and dressing; the monitors, pupils more advanced, aiding those whose instruction has; but recently commenced. They then pass into the hall of classes, and range them¬ selves in a double line, no easy task for beginners; when they sing a simple morn¬ ing prayer, repeated to them by the teacher. “ After this, they make their first breakfast of a single slice of bread. The class; for the education of the senses now begins, and fills up the time till A. M. In: the first or highest division, several occupy themselves in surface or landscape drawing; and others, less advanced, in geometrical drawing upon the blackboard.! The third division, divided into sections, is of those who are exercising the senses; of smell, taste, sight, observing color and form, by the method before described.: The sense of hearing is exercised, among other means, by the pupils learning toi distinguish and name, while blindfolded, the natural sounds as produced by the; cords of a bass viol. Meanwhile, the youngest class of 18 or 26, is going through] its elementary gymnastics of the moving power. »](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b30318348_0012.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
