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

ablutions, when they go to their meals and while they are at the table, to assist them and wait upon them, and to preserve order and to patiently instruct them in habits of propriety and decorum. In the dining room the pupils are classified-both sexes of the best class of pupils being permitted to sit at the same table, where they are allowed to help each other, and are instructed to conform to the customs of ordinary society.

The diet is so arranged and provided as to induce healthy systems, and afford a proper amount of nourishment, care being taken to prevent gluttony, which is a common failing with this class of children. After each meal, by proper attention, the effort is made to regulate the natural habits. Out of school hours, the girls are exercised in household duties, such as washing dishes, sweeping, making beds, ironing, and other domestic employment. The large boys are employed in and out of doors-cutting wood, doing garden work, and all other kinds of work that the facilities of the institution afford-the chief aim being to develope, by every possible means, a capacity for useful occupation. Those who are too young for employment, are taken out to walk, in classes, or to out-door amusements, unless prevented by inclement weather.

Teachers take charge of the pupils five hours of the day, but though the effort is made to classify the children in the school rooms, they are trained principally by individual instruction.

At nine o'clock in the morning, all being assembled, the school is opened with devotional exercises-the children standing in lines, in a reverential attitude, are instructed to repeat the Lord's prayer in concert with their teachers. The rest of the first half hour is usually spent in singing songs and hymns, or in marching and keeping time to music. The other school room exercises consist of special exercises designed to fix the attention, and bring the body and mind under the subjection of the will.

The first means employed with the lower classes of pupils are physical exercises. For this purpose a series of ladders, in various positions, wooden and iron dumb-bells, balance poles, bars, and such other appliances as are found in a well-arranged gymnasium, are used. These comprise, also, what are called general exercises, various movements of the body and limbs, which are calculated to arouse and concentrate the faculties of the mind, marching and keeping time with motions of hands and feet to music. Those of the lowest grade are taught to distinguish varieties in form, by blocks of different shapes, made to fit corresponding cavities in boards, definite ideas of form, size and color, by colored cards of different shades and shapes, cups and balls, beads and charts. They are taught to fix the attention by stringing rings, buttons and beads.

It is the constant effort of the teachers to apply with patience and kindness a proper system of instruction, from physical exercises to other suitable educational means, such as ingenuity may devise and a knowledge of the particular subjects may seem to indicate.

The refining influence and example of the properly qualified and patient teacher are important agencies in the school room. The object system of instruction is adopted as one of the best means of developing the class of minds we have to deal with. Object lessons supply a great want in elementary instruction.

A child's first intellectual impressions are learned wholly in connection with objects. They seem to lead him methodically in the way nature indicates he should be taught. Endeavoring to follow nature in this respect, we cultivate the faculty of observation. A very large proportion are defective in speech. These are exercised in articulation.

Children who cannot be taught to read by the ordinary method, are very often, by what is known as the "word method," and it is generally adopted, and has proved very successful with our pupils.

The power of attention is trained to distinguish outlines, and the faculty of imitation is exercised by drawing upon blackboards and slates, lines, (perpendicular, horizontal and parallel,) squares, angles, curves, and various simple figures, until the hand is considerably familiar with the use of the crayon and pencil.

These are preparatory steps to writing. They are next taught to form, from copies written before them, letters, words, and simple sentences, until, in many cases, a good deal of proficiency in penmanship is acquired.

Ideas of numbers are taught by counting and arranging objects. They are trained and practiced in the school room in the matter of buttoning clothes, lacing and tying shoes, and to wait upon themselves in every particular.

These exercises are necessary, because many, upon admission, are unable to dress and undress themselves. The more advanced are in many instances brought to a knowledge of grammar, geography and arithmetic, to the branches ordinarily taught in grammar schools, and in some instances are led to the much higher courses of study. Enough has been stated, however, to give a general outline of the means adopted in the school room to improve the pupils of the Institution.

Two hours on Sunday are spent in the school room by the teachers, with all the children, in repeating prayers in concert, singing the familiar sacred songs of other Sabbath schools, reading and talking about the characters of the Bible, distributing Sunday school papers, and other appropriate religious exercises.

In brief, the aim of the establishment is: the improvement of the inmates in their general health, by diet, physical training, exercise, bath

ing and all other suitable appliances, with such use of medicines as may be beneficial; the awakening, regulation and development of the mental powers, by those means peculiarly adapted to this class, which have already been found so effectual in this and similar institutions; the employment of those educational resources which have been developed in this and similar institutions, with as much modification and extension as may be necessary to meet the peculiarities of the pupils; in the cases of the best class of pupils, the providing of some suitable occupation, giving healthy employment to all their powers, especially keeping in view such occupations as may fit the pupils for future uesfulness and intercourse with society.

In making a statement of the progress of the pupils and the results of the system of instruction pursued at the Institution it is presumed that the testimony of the parents or friends of the pupils will be the best evidence that we can offer. This was obtained by sending blanks with questions to be answered by friends, after the pupils had been at home, during the summer vacation, several weeks, and their friends had opportunity to observe and compare their condition with what it was before they had been sent to the Institution. The questions and answers being too voluminous for the body of this report will be found attached as an appendix.

For want of work shops, and the means to employ skilled overseers, the only employments practicable for the boys have been gardening and the ordinary labor about the premises. With boys and girls in their occupations a very perceptible degree of improvement has been manifested, and warrants the assertion that a large proportion of those who are regarded as suitable subjects for the school-room can be made useful beings.

It is not claimed by those engaged in this specialty that all who come within this class in the community can be so trained or instructed that they may or can become self-sustaining. It is the fact, however, that there are large numbers of a teachable age who would otherwise remain always a burden upon the community, but who can, by the system of education adopted in the Institution, be so developed that they can perform labor and render themselves so useful that they will no longer require others to provide for them.

It is not claimed that the precise ends of education in the different grades of idiocy have yet been fully determined, nor that the best methods have been in all cases reached. A larger and wider experience will doubtless bring out new aims and new adjustments to meet those aims. Still, the general direction in which the efforts to improve the condition of the class in question should tend is now pretty well established. Their instruction and training demand no new principles of education. It simply applies such as are well grounded to the peculiar conditions. that idiocy presents.

With the child whose mental powers have been arrested in their development, it is necessary to patiently study its peculiarities, and to carefully adapt methods of drawing out its latent faculties until they gradually grow and expand under culture.

This cannot be accomplished at home, by parents, who are absorbed in the busy cares and duties of life.

The most intelligent parents are conscious of and confess their inability to discipline or properly instruct their unfortunate children. The result is that they grow up ungoverned, with passionate and perverse dispositions-making homes unhappy-a terrible burden and source of anxiety to friends as well as frequently an annoyance to neighbors.

An idiot child is sometimes imprisoned at home in the most secret manner, as if it were disgraceful to have a relative in this sad condition. Intelligent children are often kept from school or useful labor, or poor widows from the labor necessary to support themselves and families, to care for imbecile children.

Whether in families poor or rich, at twenty-one years of age, they be come wards of the State, and when parents die, families break up, and brothers and sisters are scattered, the unfortunate becomes a vagabond or finds his way "over the hill to the poor house."

It is not two months since I was informed of the death of an idiot girl within ten miles of this Institution, who was believed by my informant to have actually died of starvation, because of the neglect of an intemperate father to provide even food enough to keep her alive. In the same family there are said to be two other idiot children, whose condition must certainly be deplorable. One of them is said to be a suitable case for our school, but we have not the room to receive it.

Notwithstanding the awakening of public sentiment to the condition of the unfortunate insane of the State, and the growing interest felt in the welfare of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind, how little has been done comparatively for idiots, who are, as has been proven by the Secretary of the Board of Public Charities, "as numerous as the insane."

Is it right for the people of the large and prosperous commonwealth of Illinois, to permit such a state of things? Do not the dictates of humanity prompt more decided steps for their relief?

At the Institution the condition of the idiot is more nearly that of any other child at school. They are constantly under the care of teachiers or attendants. The attendants have classes assigned them, and have charge of them at all hours out of school hours-sleep in the same rooms or a room adjoining, opening into their dormitories, so that attention can be bestowed upon them at night if necessary, an effort being made by proper attention, at stated hours, to regulate them in their habits, and cultivate habits of decency and cleanliness. They are with them when they rise, when they dress, when they perform the morning