haracter which render them dangerous
members of society. Their influence for evil, direct and indirect, no
man can estimate. The chaplains and other officers of our State prisons
and penitentiaries will testify that a large proportion of the inmates
of those establishments, though not idiots, are weak-minded and
imbecile; and it by no means a rare circumstance to find persons, who
should properly be under treatment as idiots, suffering the doom of the
felon.

Under these circumstances, the question, What can be done with this
unfortunate and helpless class? becomes one of great importance.

A careful examination of the institutions for their training in this
country and Europe, and an extended inquiry into their present condition
when not under instruction, have enabled us to arrive at the following
conclusions.

There is very little hope of any considerable permanent improvement of
the idiot, if not placed under training before his sixteenth year.
His habits may, indeed, be somewhat amended, and the mind temporarily
roused; but this improvement will seldom continue after he is removed
from the institution.

The existence of severe epilepsy, or other profound disease, is a
serious bar to success.

Of those not affected by epilepsy, who are brought under instruction in
childhood, from one third to one fourth may be so far improved as to
become capable of performing the ordinary duties of life with tolerable
fidelity and ability. They may acquire sufficient knowledge to be able
to read, to write, to understand the elementary facts of geography,
history, and arithmetic; they may be capable of writing a passable
letter; they may acquire a sufficient knowledge of farming, or of the
mechanic arts, to be able to work well and faithfully under appropriate
supervision; they may attain a sufficient knowledge of the government
and laws under which they live, to be qualified to exercise the
electoral franchise quite as well as many of those who do exercise it;
they may make such advances in morals, as to act with justice and honor
toward their fellow-men, and exhibit the influence of Christianity in
changing their degraded and wayward natures to purity, chastity, and
holiness.

A larger class, probably one half of the whole, can be so much
benefited, as to become cleanly in their habits, quiet in their
deportment, capable, perhaps, of reading and writing, but not of
original composition, able to perform, with suitable super