The applications received have been from the counties of Illinois and

other States, as follows:

Adams.

Alexander

Bond.

Boone..

Bureau

Brown

Carroll.

Cass

Champaign

Christian
Clark

Clay
Clinton

Coles

Cook.
DeKalb.

De Witt

Douglas
Edgar
Edwards.
Effingham

Fayette..
Franklin.

Fulton..
Greene

Grundy.

Hancock
Hardin
Henderson.

Henry
Iroquois

.14

2

6

2

1

It is found that a larger proportion of the applications received during the last year have been acceptable cases for school room instruction, than during any preceding year. Though in many parts of the State the existence and aims of the Institution are unknown, we have had applications from all but seventeen of the counties of the State, and those

seventeen counties are certainly known to have resident in them, in the aggregate, two hundred and twenty-four idiots.

When the results of education, at the Institution, are more generally known, and it is understood that its inmates are kindly treated, and are, in the main, better cared for than elsewhere, it is presumed that applications will become still more numerous.

From the fact that we have been unable, for want of room, to receive as pupils a large proportion of those who have made application for admission, it is supposed that many others have been deterred from seeking admission on that account.

The pupils now inmates of the institution are from the following Senatorial districts of the State:

In the selection of pupils, in view of the fact that the accommodations have been very limited compared with the applications for admission, it has been the aim to admit those who, in age and capacity for improvement, were the most suitable cases for school room instruction, because as an experiment the welfare of the entire class in the State has been more or less dependent upon the success of the efforts of the Institution to improve the condition of those who have been admitted. It has also been the aim to have the various sections of the State fairly represented. We have been compelled to decline admission to those who have been afflicted with epilepsy, or those whose history, as stated by friends, seemed to indicate a pre-disposition to diseases of an epileptiform nature -for not only have we had no room for such, but it is questionable whether the effort to stimulate the mental faculties in the school room does not, in such cases, have a tendency to arouse the dormant malady. With such, medical and hospital treatment, or custody in an asylum, are indicated, rather than school room instruction.

Our buildings are not arranged for custodial cases, and when, upon trial, those admitted are found to belong to that class, we have declined to take them again, or to receive those whose history seemed to indicate

that they were hopelessly idiotic. The evidence of the statistics obtained at this Institution seem to prove that the congenital idiot is a far more promising subject for mental improvement than those cases of idiocy or dementia (as a strict adhesion to the usual accepted definition of idiocy would designate it) resulting from convulsions or diseases of the brain or nervous system.

Nearly all dismissed from the institution as custodial cases have been rendered idiotic by acute inflammation of the brain, in infancy or childhood. It is the appropriate province of this report to show what facts have been developed in relation to the subject of idiocy in general.

The number in the community known to exist-the ratio of increase to the general population-the condition of idiots in Illinois,-the comparative attention they have received from the people of the State, and the results of efforts in their behalf, are matters of vital interest to the public, and this report would be incomplete unless these points were briefly alluded to.

The number of idiots in Illinois is estimated to be nearly three thousand. With a known population of 1738 (whose names are recorded in the office of the Secretary of the Board of Public Charities at Springfield), of whom 359 are now of a suitable age for education, only 82 are inmates of the State Institution.

In the eighth annual report of the Massachusetts State Board of Public Charities, dated Jan., 1872, it is stated of idiots that "they increase in numbers, and the rate of increase is greater than that of the general population." It further adds, "certainly the persistent existence of á large class of idiotic persons among all civilized people shows that the general regard for human life is active enough to save many who, in savage or barberous societies, could not outlive childhood.

The regard for life, however, has been greater than the respect for that humanity which sanctifies life; because children, so kept alive, are almost universallly neglected and left to grow up in brutishness.

It is a duty to preserve every spark of human life; but it is a correlative duty to give every one alive the best possible opportunity for developing the talents and the capacities, be they greater or less, which inhere in him as a human being. Experience proves

what from a priori consideration we should infer, that idiots of all kind (unless during active disease) share in that capacity for improvement possessed by all living things.

The general condition of idiots

is a great deal worse

than it ought to be or need to be. During childhood instinctive parental affection provides for them a share of that tender love which is to the moral nature what the mother's milk is to the body. But as they grow up, even the ties of kin are seldom strong enough to secure for them persistent kindness or even regard.

Vol. II-3

Slowly, but almost surely, they come to be looked upon as discreditable to the family, as burdensome, and finally objects of aversion. Owing to original defect or weakness of organization, most of them die young; but those whose lives are prolonged, sometimes unconsciously avenge themselves upon society for the neglect and wrongs they have suffered at its hands. They are apt to breed an atmosphere of demoralization about them. They affect injuriously, not only the rude boys who mock them; the men who impose upon them and the inmates of alms houses to which they are consigned, but society generally; because toleration of the sight of human beings left to sink into brutishness without an effort to save them, must lower the moral standard of any community.

Customs are a sort of law; and we may apply to idiots what Beccaria said of another class: There can be no true liberty where the law permit that in any circumstances a man shall cease to be considered as a person, and become a thing.'

In most of the States of our Union, and in some parts of our own State, idiots are not regarded as persons, but as things; and, moreover, as disagreeable and repulsive things, which are to be kept out of sight and out of mind.

Idiots, as a class, did not share in the beneficent effects of that awakening of public conscience which wrought such a change in the condition of lunatics."

The foregoing extracts show that in the State of Massachusetts, where the standard of physical and moral well-being ought to be very high, from its industrial, educational and moral advantages, the ratio of idiots to the general population is upon the increase-and there is comparative indifference, to their condition, although their misery and susceptibility for improvement are recognized and acknowledged.

The facts, as stated in relation to the condition of idiots in Massachusetts, and of the apathy of the people of that State to their condition, are just as true of every State in the Union.

The statements of the Boards of Public Charities of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and of Illinois, in their latest printed reports, represent even a worse state of things in relation to idiots in county alms-houses, and to the condition of the idiot population of their respective communities.

New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio have large and successful institutions for their education and training, and have done considerable more in their behalf than has the State of Massachusetts. These institutions and the good results they are accomplishing, are invariably spoken of in the highest terms of praise.

Of idiots in county poor houses in Illinois, it is reasonable to conclude that they fare no better than the other pauper inmates. I will quote

from the report of the Illinois State Board of Public Charities upon this subject:

"The association of the sexes, which, in most alms houses, cannot be prevented, leads to unmentionable evils, of which one is the perpetuation of the degeneration of the race. In the vicinity of large

towns the county farm sometimes becomes a place of resort for the lowest and worst men, who hang about the premises to the annoyance of the keeper, and the prejudice of the paupers.

The children in alms-houses have little or no hope of ever being lifted by any agency whatever out of the pauper class. They are, almost without exception, uninstructed and untrained. Of all the wretched inmates the most wretched are the idiotic and insane, whom no effort is made to save."

These statements of our State Board of Charities are certainly worthy of credence, for there could be no reason why we should consider them as being exaggerated.

What do they suggest as a remedy? It is very explicitly stated, "as fast and far as practicable the idiotic should be transferred from the county farms to State Institutions."

There can be no opinions or statements of greater weight or more entitled to the confidence of communities than those emanating from the State Boards of Public Charities. They are usually composed of men of eminence, selected for their wisdom and experience in public matters, who are expected to investigate and report impartially for the public good. They aim, and it is pre-eminently their mission, to solve the difficult social problems of the relation of the State to its helpless and unfortunate children.

The fate of the poor idiot, condemned to associate continually with the veriest dregs of the community, cannot be otherwise than to render it miserable in the extreme. Its condition is far worse than that of any other pauper, for it is dependent upon others, and its stay in the poor house is compulsory, while that of all other classes except the insane is not. The condition of idiots in private families is, generally speaking, no better than it is in the county poor houses.

In the families of the ignorant and indigent, they are seldom properly cared for, but are allowed to relapse into hopeless debasement, without an effort being made for their rescue or improvement.

In the families of the more intelligent, though they are sometimes cared for kindly, are waited upon and tenderly kept from suffering by affectionate parents or friends, yet, from want of knowledge of the proper means of management and training, and a more than ordinary feeling of sympathy for their unfortunate condition, they are permitted to remain undisciplined and uninstructed because of their disinclination for mental or physical effort.