BERNARDIN ST. PIERRE, in his Wishes of a Solitary, asks for his country
neither wealth, nor military glory, nor magnificent palaces and
monuments, nor splendor of court nobility, nor clerical pomp. "Rather,"
he says, "O France, may no beggar tread thy plains, no sick or suffering
man ask in vain for relief; in all thy hamlets may every young woman find
a lover and every lover a true wife; may the young be trained arightly
and guarded from evil; may the old close their days in the tranquil hope
of those who love God and their fellow-men."
We are reminded of the amiable wish of the French essayist--a wish even
yet very far from realization, we fear, in the empire of Napoleon III.--
by the perusal of two documents recently submitted to the legislature of
the State of Massachusetts. They indicate, in our view, the real glory
of a state, and foreshadow the coming of that time when Milton's
definition of a true commonwealth shall be no longer a prophecy, but the
description of an existing fact,--"a huge Christian personage, a mighty
growth and stature of an honest man, moved by the purpose of a love of
God and of mankind."
Some years ago, the Legislature of Massachusetts, at the suggestion of
several benevolent gentlemen whose attention had been turned to the
subject, appointed a commission to inquire into the condition of the
idiots of the Commonwealth, to ascertain their numbers, and whether
anything could be done in their behalf.
The commissioners were Dr. Samuel G. Howe, so well and honorably known
for his long and arduous labors in behalf of the blind, Judge Byington,
and Dr. Gilman Kimball. The burden of the labor fell upon the chairman,
who entered upon it with the enthusiasm, perseverance, and practical
adaptation of means to ends which have made him so efficient in his
varied schemes of benevolence. On the 26th of the second month, 1848, a
full report of the results of this labor was made to the Governor,
accompanied by statistical tables and minute details. One hundred towns
had been visited by the chairman or his reliable agent, in which five
hundred and seventy-five persons in a state of idiocy were discovered.
These were examined carefully in respect to their physical as well as
mental condition, no inquiry being omitted which was calculated to throw
light upon the remote or immediate causes of this mournful imperfection
in the creation of God. The proximate causes Dr. Howe mentions are to be
found in the state of the bodily organization, deranged and
disproportioned by some violation of natural law on the part of the
parents or remoter ancestors of the sufferers. Out of 420 cases of
idiocy, he had obtained information respecting the condition of the
progenitors of 359; and in all but four of these eases he found that one
or the other, or both, of their immediate progenitors had in some way
departed widely from the condition of health; they were scrofulous, or
predisposed to affections of the brain, and insanity, or had intermarried
with blood-relations, or had been intemperate, or guilty of sensual
excesses.
Of the 575 cases, 420 were those of idiocy from birth, and 155 of idiocy
afterwards. Of the born idiots, 187 were under twenty-five years of age,
and all but 13 seemed capable of improvement. Of those above twenty-five
years of age, 73 appeared incapable of improvement in their mental
condition, being helpless as children at seven years of age; 43 out of
the 420 seemed as helpless as children at two years of age; 33 were in
the condition of mere infants; and 220 were supported at the public
charge in almshouses. A large proportion of them were found to be given
over to filthy and loathsome habits, gluttony, and lust, and constantly
sinking lower towards the condition of absolute brutishness.
Those in private houses were found, if possible, in a still more
deplorable state. Their parents were generally poor, feeble in mind and
body, and often of very intemperate habits. Many of them seemed scarcely
able to take care of themselves, and totally unfit for the training of
ordinary children. It was the blind leading the blind, imbecility
teaching imbecility. Some instances of the experiments of parental
ignorance upon idiotic offspring, which fell under the observation of Dr.
Howe, are related in his report Idiotic children were found with their
heads covered over with cold poultices of oak-bark, which the foolish
parents supposed would tan the brain and harden it as the tanner does his
ox-hides, and so make it capable of retaining impressions and remembering
lessons. In other cases, finding that the child could not be made to
comprehend anything, the sagacious heads of the household, on the
supposition that its brain was too hard, tortured it with hot poultices
of bread and milk to soften it. Others plastered over their children's
heads with tar. Some administered strong doses of mercury, to "solder up
the openings" in the head and make it tight and strong. Others
encouraged the savage gluttony of their children, stimulating their
unnatural and bestial appetites, on the ground that "the poor creatures
had nothing else to enjoy but their food, and they should have enough of
that!"
In consequence of this report, the legislature, in the spring of 1848,
made an annual appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars, for three
years, for the purpose of training and teaching ten idiot children, to be
selected by the Governor and Council. The trustees of the Asylum for the
Blind, under the charge of Dr. Howe, made arrangements for receiving
these pupils. The school was opened in the autumn of 1848; and its first
annual report, addressed to the Governor and printed by order of the
Senate, is now before us.
Of the ten pupils, it appears that not one had the usual command of
muscular motion,--the languid body obeyed not the service of the imbecile
will. Some could walk and use their limbs and hands in simple motions;
others could make only make slight use of their muscles; and two were
without any power of locomotion.
One of these last, a boy six years of age, who had been stupefied on the
day of his birth by the application of hot rum to his head, could
scarcely see or notice objects, and was almost destitute of the sense of
touch. He could neither stand nor sit upright, nor even creep, but would
lie on the floor in whatever position he was placed. He could not feed
himself nor chew solid food, and had no more sense of decency than an
infant. His intellect was a blank; he had no knowledge, no desires, no
affections. A more hopeless object for experiment could scarcely have
been selected.
A year of patient endeavor has nevertheless wrought a wonderful change in
the condition of this miserable being. Cold bathing, rubbing of the
limbs, exercise of the muscles, exposure to the air, and other appliances
have enabled him to stand upright, to sit at table and feed himself, and
chew his food, and to walk about with slight assistance. His habits are
no longer those of a brute; he observes decency; his eye is brighter; his
cheeks glow with health; his countenance, is more expressive of thought.
He has learned many words and constructs simple sentences; his affections
begin to develop; and there is every prospect that he will be so far
renovated as to be able to provide for himself in manhood.
In the case of another boy, aged twelve years, the improvement has been
equally remarkable. The gentleman who first called attention to him, in
a recent note to Dr. Howe, published in the report, thus speaks of his
present condition: "When I remember his former wild and almost frantic
demeanor when approached by any one, and the apparent impossibility of
communicating with him, and now see him standing in his class, playing
with his fellows, and willingly and familiarly approaching me, examining
what I gave him,--and when I see him already selecting articles named by
his teacher, and even correctly pronouncing words printed on cards,--
improvement does not convey the idea presented to my mind; it is
creation; it is making him anew."
All the pupils have more or less advanced. Their health and habits have
improved; and there is no reason to doubt that the experiment, at the
close of its three years, will be found to have been quite as successful
as its most sanguine projectors could have anticipated. Dr. Howe has
been ably seconded by an accomplished teacher, James B. Richards, who has
devoted his whole time to the pupils. Of the nature and magnitude of
their task, an idea may be formed only by considering the utter
listlessness of idiocy, the incapability of the poor pupil to fix his
attention upon anything, and his general want of susceptibility to
impressions. All his senses are dulled and perverted. Touch, hearing,
sight, smell, are all more or less defective. His gluttony is
unaccompanied with the gratification of taste,--the most savory viands
and the offal which he shares with the pigs equally satisfy him. His
mental state is still worse than his physical. Thought is painful and
irksome to him.
His teacher can only engage his attention by strenuous efforts, loud,
earnest tones, gesticulations and signs, and a constant presentation of
some visible object of bright color and striking form. The eye wanders,
and the spark of consciousness and intelligence which has been fanned
into momentary brightness darkens at the slightest relaxation of the
teacher's exertions. The names of objects presented to him must
sometimes be repeated hundreds of times before he can learn them. Yet
the patience and enthusiasm of the teacher are rewarded by a progress,
slow and unequal, but still marked and manifest. Step by step, often
compelled to turn back and go over the inch of ground he had gained, the
idiot is still creeping forward; and by almost imperceptible degrees his
sick, cramped, and prisoned spirit casts off the burden of its body of
death, breath as from the Almighty--is breathed into him, and he becomes
a living soul.
After the senses of the idiot are trained to take note
of their appropriate objects, the various perceptive faculties are next
to be exercised. The greatest possible number of facts are to be
gathered up through the medium of these faculties into the storehouse of
memory, from whence eventually the higher faculties of mind may draw the
material of general ideas. It has been found difficult, if not
impossible, to teach the idiot to read by the letters first, as in the
ordinary method; but while the varied powers of the three letters, h, a,
t, could not be understood by him, he could be made to comprehend the
complex sign of the word hat, made by uniting the three.
The moral nature of the idiot needs training and development as well as
his physical and mental. All that can be said of him is, that he has the
latent capacity for moral development and culture. Uninstructed and left
to himself, he has no ideas of regulated appetites and propensities, of
decency and delicacy of affection and social relations. The germs of
these ideas, which constitute the glory and beauty of humanity,
undoubtedly exist in him; but there can be no growth without patient and
persevering culture. Where this is afforded, to use the language of the
report, "the idiot may learn what love is, though he may not know the
word which expresses it; he may feel kindly affections while unable to
understand the simplest virtuous principle; and he may begin to live
acceptably to God before he has learned the name by which men call him."
In the facts and statistics presented in the report, light is shed upon
some of the dark pages of God's providence, and it is seen that the
suffering and shame of idiocy are the result of sin, of a violation of
the merciful laws of God and of the harmonies of His benign order. The
penalties which are ordained for the violators of natural laws are
inexorable and certain. For the transgressor of the laws of life there
is, as in the case of Esau, "no place for repentance, though he seek it
earnestly and with tears." The curse cleaves to him and his children.
In this view, how important becomes the subject of the hereditary
transmission of moral and physical disease and debility! and how
necessary it is that there should be a clearer understanding of, and a
willing obedience, at any cost, to the eternal law which makes the parent
the blessing or the curse of the child, giving strength and beauty, and
the capacity to know and do the will of God, or bequeathing
loathsomeness, deformity, and animal appetite, incapable of the
restraints of the moral faculties! Even if the labors of Dr. Howe and
his benevolent associates do not materially lessen the amount of present
actual evil and suffering in this respect, they will not be put forth in
vain if they have the effect of calling public attention to the great
laws of our being, the violation of which has made this goodly earth a
vast lazarhouse of pain and sorrow.
The late annual message of the Governor of Massachusetts invites our
attention to a kindred institution of charity. The chief magistrate
congratulates the legislature, in language creditable to his mind and
heart, on the opening of the Reform School for Juvenile Criminals,
established by an act of a previous legislature. The act provides that,
when any boy under sixteen years of age shall be convicted of crime
punishable by imprisonment other than such an offence as is punished by
imprisonment for life, he may be, at the discretion of the court or
justice, sent to the State Reform School, or sentenced to such
imprisonment as the law now provides for his offence. The school is
placed under the care of trustees, who may either refuse to receive a boy
thus sent there, or, after he has been received, for reasons set forth in
the act, may order him to be committed to prison under the previous penal
law of the state. They are also authorized to apprentice the boys, at
their discretion, to inhabitants of the Commonwealth. And whenever any
boy shall be discharged, either as reformed or as having reached the age
of twenty-one years, his discharge is a full release from his sentence.
It is made the duty of the trustees to cause the boys to be instructed in
piety and morality, and in branches of useful knowledge, in some regular
course of labor, mechanical, agricultural, or horticultural, and such
other trades and arts as may be best adapted to secure the amendment,
reformation, and future benefit of the boys. The class of offenders for
whom this act provides are generally the offspring of parents depraved by
crime or suffering from poverty and want,--the victims often of
circumstances of evil which almost constitute a necessity,--issuing from
homes polluted and miserable, from the sight and hearing of loathsome
impurities and hideous discords, to avenge upon society the ignorance,
and destitution, and neglect with which it is too often justly
chargeable. In 1846 three hundred of these youthful violators of law
were sentenced to jails and other places of punishment in Massachusetts,
where they incurred the fearful liability of being still more thoroughly
corrupted by contact with older criminals, familiar with atrocity, and
rolling their loathsome vices "as a sweet morsel under the tongue." In
view of this state of things the Reform School has been established,
twenty-two thousand dollars having been contributed to the state for that
purpose by an unknown benefactor of his race. The school is located in
Westboro', on a fine farm of two hundred acres. The buildings are in the
form of a square, with a court in the centre, three stories in front,
with wings. They are constructed with a degree of architectural taste,
and their site is happily chosen,--a gentle eminence, overlooking one of
the loveliest of the small lakes which form a pleasing feature in New
England scenery. From this place the atmosphere and associations of the
prison are excluded. The discipline is strict, as a matter of course;
but it is that of a well-regulated home or school-room,--order, neatness,
and harmony within doors; and without, the beautiful 'sights and sounds
and healthful influences of Nature. One would almost suppose that the
poetical dream of Coleridge, in his tragedy of Remorse, had found its
realization in the Westboro' School, and that, weary of the hopelessness
and cruelty of the old penal system, our legislators had embodied in
their statutes the idea of the poet:--
"With other ministrations thou, O Nature,
Healest thy wandering and distempered child
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing
Amidst this general dance and minstrelsy."
Thus it is that the Christian idea of reformation, rather than revenge,
is slowly but surely incorporating itself in our statute books. We have
only to look back but a single century to be able to appreciate the
immense gain for humanity in the treatment of criminals which has been
secured in that space of time. Then the use of torture was common
throughout Europe. Inability to comprehend and believe certain religious
dogmas was a crime to be expiated by death, or confiscation of estate, or
lingering imprisonment. Petty offences against property furnished
subjects for the hangman. The stocks and the whipping-post stood by the
side of the meeting-house. Tongues were bored with redhot irons and ears
shorn off. The jails were loathsome dungeons, swarming with vermin,
unventilated, unwarmed. A century and a half ago the populace of
Massachusetts were convulsed with grim merriment at the writhings of a
miserable woman scourged at the cart-tail or strangling in the ducking-
stool; crowds hastened to enjoy the spectacle of an old man enduring the
unutterable torment of the 'peine forte et dare,'--pressed slowly to
death under planks,--for refusing to plead to an indictment for
witchcraft. What a change from all this to the opening of the State
Reform School, to the humane regulations of prisons and penitentiaries,
to keen-eyed benevolence watching over the administration of justice,
which, in securing society from lawless aggression, is not suffered to
overlook the true interest and reformation of the criminal, nor to forget
that the magistrate, in the words of the Apostle, is to be indeed "the
minister of God to man for good!"