BOARD OF TRUSTEES.

OFFICERS.

President,

GRAHAM LEE.

Secretary,

C. T. WILBUR, M. D., ex-officio.

Treasurer,

WM. S. HOOK.

TRUSTEES:

HON. GRAHAM LEE, HAMLET, MERCER COUNTY.

DAVID PRINCE, M. D., JACKSONVILLE, MORGAN COUNTY. REV. WM. J. RUTLEDGE, SPRINGFIELD, SANGAMON COUNTY.

REPORT OF THE TRUSTEES.

To His Excellency, JOHN M. PALMER, Governor:

SIR:-The close of another fiscal year makes it incumbent upon us to submit this, the Eighth Annual Report of the Illinois Institution for the Education of Feeble-minded Children.

The Rev. Wm. J. Rutledge, of Springfield, having been appointed by your Excellency anirmed by the Senate April 4, 1872, has been duly qualified, and has filled the vacancy in the Board of Trustees of the Institution occasioned by the decease of the Hon. T. Souther, of Alton.

In May last we were generously permitted by the Board of Directors of the State Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, to connect this Institution, by an iron pipe, with their water supply; since which time, to our great relief, we have had an abundant supply of water of very excellent quality.

Owing to an epidemic of diptheria in October last year, and later one of opthalmia, it was found absolutely essential for the well being of the pupils that there should be provided at the earliest opportunity a detached hospital building, in order that contagious diseases might be isolated and separated from the main body of pupils. The only room which could be used for a hospital was one of the regular dormitories directly over the main school room, adjacent to and opening into another dormitory, both of which had to be used for accommodating one whole division of the pupils as regular sleeping apartments.

The noise and confusion of the school room directly under it, which is also, out of school hours, the only sitting room for more than twothirds of the entire number of pupils of the establishment, rendered it an unsuitable place for the proper care of those who were seriously ill, and operated materially to interfere with their convalescence and recovery.

The continually increasing number of pupils rendered it necessary to provide wash rooms and a bath room.

In view of these important considerations, a small frame building, thirty by eighteen feet in dimensions, consisting of a basement used as the bath room—a first story as a wash and cloak room for the girls, and a second story providing a hospital room for eight or ten patients with a nurse, connected by a covered way to the first story of the main building, has been put up during the summer.

It was substantially built with special reference to the fact that it must shortly be vacated and can easily be removed.

This addition gave us the opportunity of remodeling a small room north of the main building, which has been fitted up as a wash room for the small boys.

These changes were necessary in order that we might utilize to advantage our newly acquired greatly needed water privilege. Only those who have had to keep neat and clean rooms constantly occupied, as well as large numbers of children usually deficient in the desire for cleanliness, can comprehend the difficulties the Institution has labored under in times past to bring about a proper degree of cleanliness throughout the establishment.

The temporary character of the buildings of the Institution is such that that they merely shelter without properly accommodating their inmates, and are greatly crowded.

The pupils have only dormitories, school rooms, and a single dining room. One room divided by partial partitions, only seven feet in hight, is occupied by three teachers and five classes, each teacher being compelled to attempt to fix the attention of a class of children with whom there is sometimes almost an utter want of such power, while disturbed by the noise and confusion of the exercises of the other classes and their teachers in the same room, and of the pupils who are not engaged in recitations, but who are necessarily in their custody.

The system generally adopted as the most successful and natural in developing feeble intellects is what is denominated the "object system of instruction," and it necessarily renders it essential to supply quite an extensive assortment of school room apparatus. Large closets, for the storage of this, convenient to the pupils, together with the desks, teachers, tables and settees, so fill up the school rooms that they are very unsuitable sitting rooms and play rooms for the pupils out of school hours, but are the only rooms that the Institution now affords for both purposes.

Five dormitories are all that the present buildings furnish for eightytwo pupils. Twenty-six large boys, with an attendant, sleep in a room thirty by thirty-eight feet, with nine feet ceiling. Thirteen boys sleep in a room nineteen by thirty-one feet, and in the room adjoining, twenty by thirty-one feet, fourteen boys lodge, the hight of the ceiling on this floor being ten feet.

Fifteen girls lodge in a dormitory twenty-four by thirty-one feet, and fourteen more in a room twenty by thirty-one feet, the hight of the ceiling on this floor being only nine feet.

The Institution, it must be remembered, is only an assemblage of light frame buildings, connected by covered ways which have been put up from year to year in connection with the old mansion of the late Governor Duncan-as necessity compelled in the effort to admit as many as possible of the continually increasing applicants-until, in these perilous times of large conflagrations, it is unavoidably a source of serious anxiety to the Board of Trustees, as well as to the officers in charge, on account of the great danger to the inmates in case of fire.

The buildings must be enlarged immediately, if we attempt to accommodate those who are urgently seeking admission, but it does not seem to us wise policy to add other temporary buildings upon this property, which is only rented property.

The probationary position of the Institution should terminate, now that its usefulness to the people of the State has been so universally conceded, and when economy and the necessities of the establishment demand greatly increased accommodations and facilities for the accomplishment of its mission.

It seems to us eminently proper to provide permanent buildings as soon as they can be erected-buildings less liable to the inroads of the dangerous element of fire-if it is the aim of the people of the State to place the Institution in a position to accomplish the largest amount of good.

In this connection we deem it important to urge the necessity of the continuance of an appropriation for insurance so long as the present buildings are occupied for the uses of the Institution, as we are obliged by the terms of our lease to insure a part of the property.

The Secretary of the Board has been notified by the agent of Mrs. Duncan, the lady who owns the premises in use by the Institution, from whom it has been leased in short periods of time, that at the expiration of our lease, two years from the first of March, 1873, it is her desire and intention to occupy the premises herself, and that she is unwil ling to agree to re-lease it again for the uses of the Institution.

Should a sufficient appropriation be made by the General Assembly at its coming session, it would give the Board only about the requisite time needed for providing permanent accommodations for its inmates, upon the expiration of our lease.

As the sole recognized conservators of the interests of such a numerous body of unfortunate individuals, residents of the State, whose claims upon society have been so utterly ignored, this Board would fail of its duty to those who are unable to represent their own misfortunes, did it not persistently, though necessarily briefly, place before the General