Popular Education Part 15

EDUCATION AND IDIOCY.[49]--The education of idiots has. .h.i.therto been regarded as paradoxical, and still is by the ma.s.s of mankind; but that it is possible to improve the condition of this most wretched and helpless cla.s.s of persons none need longer doubt. The experiment has succeeded in both Europe and America. Ma.s.sachusetts has the honor of taking the lead in this country; and it is meet that it should be so, for she has long, like a wise parent, been accustomed to care for all her children. She had most readily and generously seconded the efforts of humane men for the relief of the insane, the deaf mutes, and the blind, and made provision for their care and instruction. She extended her maternal love to the _bodies_ of those who were in hopeless idiocy, but as for _minds_, they seemed to have none; they were, therefore, kept out of sight of the public as much as possible until the year 1846, when a board of commissioners were appointed "to inquire into the condition of the idiots of the commonwealth, to ascertain their number, and whether any thing can be done in their behalf."

[49] The statements under this head are drawn from Dr. Howe's Report on Idiocy, made in February last, and communicated by the governor to the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Ma.s.sachusetts. The author visited the Inst.i.tution in South Boston during the past summer, and derived much information on the subject from personal observation and inquiry.

In their report the commissioners say that, "by diligent and careful inquiries in nearly one hundred towns in different parts of the state, we have ascertained the existence and examined the condition of _five hundred and seventy-five_ human beings who are condemned to hopeless idiocy, who are considered and treated as idiots by their neighbors, and left to their own brutishness. They are also idiotic in a legal sense; that is, they are regarded as incapable of entering into contracts, and are irresponsible for their actions."

The commissioners conclude that, "if the other parts of the state contain the same proportion of idiots to their whole population, the total number in the commonwealth is between _fourteen and fifteen hundred_!" Now if we make the same estimate in proportion to the entire population, it will appear that in the United States there are upward of _thirty-five thousand_ persons in the most wretched and helpless condition of idiocy.

In view of the great number of idiots in the commonwealth, the commissioners say, "it appeared to us certain that the existence of so many idiots in every generation must be the consequence of some violation of the _natural laws_; that where there was so much suffering there must have been sin. We resolved, therefore, to seek for the _sources_ of the evil, as well as to gauge the depth and extent of the misery."

Some of the causes of idiocy are set forth in the report, two of which are as follows: first, _the low condition of the physical organization_ of one or both parents, induced often by _intemperance_; second, _the intermarriage of relatives_.

The report states that out of 420 cases of congenital idiocy which were examined, some information was gained respecting the condition of the progenitors of 359. Now in all these cases, save only four, it was found that one or the other, or both, of the immediate progenitors of the unfortunate sufferer had in some way widely departed from the normal condition of health, and violated the natural laws. That is to say, one or the other, or both of them, had been very unhealthy or scrofulous; or hereditarily predisposed to affections of the brain, causing occasional insanity; or had intermarried with blood relatives; or had been intemperate; or had been guilty of sensual excesses which impair the const.i.tution.[50]

[50] The subject of hereditary transmission of diseased tendency is of vast importance, but it is a difficult one to treat, because a squeamish delicacy makes people avoid it; but if ever the race is to be relieved of a t.i.the of the bodily ills which flesh is now heir to, it must be by a clear understanding of, and a willing obedience to, the law which makes the parents the blessing or the curse of the children; the givers of strength, and vigor, and beauty, or the dispensers of debility, and disease, and deformity. It is by the lever of enlightened parental love, more than by any other power, that mankind is to be raised to the highest attainable point of bodily perfection.--DR. S. G. HOWE.

INTEMPERANCE AND IDIOCY.--Out of the three hundred and fifty-nine idiots, the condition of whose progenitors was ascertained, _ninety-nine were the children of drunkards_. But this does not tell the whole story by any means. By drunkard is meant a person who is a notorious and habitual sot. Many persons who are habitually intemperate do not get this name _even now_; much less would they have done so twenty-five or thirty years ago. By a pretty careful inquiry, with an especial view of ascertaining the number of idiots of the lowest cla.s.s whose parents were known to be _temperate_ persons, it is found that _not one quarter_ can be so considered.

From the pretty uniform action of a physiological law, which is now becoming well understood, it appears that idiots, fools, and simpletons, either in the first or second generation, are common among the progeny of intemperate persons, and may be considered as an effect of the _habitual_ use of alcohol, even in moderate quant.i.ties. If, moreover, one considers how many children of intemperate parents there are who, without being idiots, are deficient in bodily and mental energy, and predisposed by their very organization to have cravings for alcoholic stimulants, it will be seen what an immense burden the drinkers of one generation throw upon the succeeding one.

IDIOCY AND THE MARRIAGE OF RELATIVES.--Out of the three hundred and fifty-nine cases of congenital idiocy already referred to, in which the parentage was ascertained, "seventeen were _known_ to be the children of parents nearly related by blood; but, as many of these cases were adults, it was impossible to ascertain, in some cases, whether their parents, who were dead, were related or not before marriage. From some collateral evidence, we conclude that at least three more cases should be added to the seventeen. This would show that more than one twentieth of the idiots examined are offspring of the marriage of relations. Now, as marriages between near relations are by no means in the ratio of one to twenty, nor even, perhaps, as one to a thousand to the marriages between persons not related, it follows that the proportion of idiotic progeny is vastly greater in the former than in the latter case. Then it should be considered that idiocy is only _one_ form in which Nature manifests that she has been offended by such intermarriages. It is probable that blindness, deafness, imbecility, and other infirmities, are more likely to be the lot of the children of parents related by blood than of others. The probability, therefore, of unhealthy or infirm issue from such marriages becomes fearfully great, and the existence of the law against them is made out as clearly as though it were written on tables of stone.

"The statistics of the seventeen families, the heads of which, being blood relatives, intermarried, tells a fearful tale. Most of the parents were intemperate or scrofulous; some were both the one and the other; of course, there were other causes to increase chances of infirm offspring besides that of the intermarriage. There were born unto them ninety-five children, of whom forty-four were idiotic, twelve others were scrofulous and puny, one was deaf, and one was a dwarf! In some cases, all the children were either idiotic, or very scrofulous and puny. In one family of eight children, five were idiotic."

CONDITION OF IDIOTS.--From what has been said of the character of parents to whom are born the greatest proportion of this most wretched and helpless cla.s.s of persons, their condition and treatment might be inferred. To rear healthy children properly, a knowledge of the principles of physiology and mental science is essentially necessary.

This knowledge is still more important in the treatment of idiots. Dr.

Howe is of the opinion that it requires a rarer and higher kind of talent to teach an idiot than a youth of superior talent. When the time comes that schools for idiots are established all over the country, he thinks "it will be found more difficult to get good teachers for them than to get good professors for our colleges."

After excepting five or six alms-houses in which the idiots are treated both kindly and wisely, the commissioners say, "the general condition of those at the public charge is most deplorable. They are filthy, gluttonous, lazy, and given up to abominations of various kinds. They not only do not improve, but they sink deeper and deeper into bodily depravity and mental degradation. Bad, however, as is the condition of the idiots who are at public charge, and gross as is the ignorance of those who take the charge of them about their real wants and capabilities, we are constrained to say that the condition of those in private houses is, generally speaking, still worse, and the ignorance of the relatives and friends who support them is still more profound."

This is not to be wondered at when we consider that idiots are generally born of a very poor stock--of persons who are subject to some disorders of the brain, or who are themselves scrofulous and puny to the last degree. Such persons are, generally, very feeble in intellect, poor in purse, and intemperate in habits. A great many of them are hardly able to take care of themselves. They are unfit to teach or train common children; how much less to take the charge of idiots, whose education is the most difficult of all!

The commissioners ascertained, mainly by personal observation, the condition of three hundred and fifty-five idiotic persons who are not town or state paupers. Of these there may be, at the most, five who are treated very judiciously; who are taught by wise and discreet persons, and whose faculties and capabilities are developed to their fullest extent; but the remaining three hundred and fifty are generally "in a most deplorable condition as it respects their bodily, mental, and moral treatment."[51]

[51] One would hardly be credited if he should put down half the instances of gross ignorance manifested by parents in this enlightened community [the State of Ma.s.sachusetts] in the treatment of idiotic children. Sometimes they find that the children seem to comprehend what they hear, but soon forget it; hence they conclude that the brain is soft, and can not retain impressions, and then they cover the head with cold poultices of oak-bark in order to tan or harden the fibers. Others, finding that it is exceedingly difficult to make any impression upon the mind, conclude that the brain is too hard, and they torture the poor child with hot and _softening_ poultices of bread and milk; or they plaster tar over the whole skull, and keep it on for a long time. _These are innocent applications compared with some, which doubtless render weak-minded children perfectly idiotic._--DR. S. G. HOWE.

What a striking ill.u.s.tration have we here of the necessity of diffusing correct physiological information more widely among the ma.s.ses than has yet been done even in enlightened Ma.s.sachusetts!

The commissioners come to the unquestionable conclusion in their report that "nothing can afford a stronger argument in favor of an inst.i.tution for the proper training and teaching of idiots, and the dissemination of information upon the subject, than the striking difference manifested in the condition of the few children who are properly cared for and judiciously treated, and those who are neglected or abused. There are cases in our community of youths who are idiotic from birth, but who, under proper care and training, have become cleanly in person, quiet in deportment, industrious in habits, and who would almost pa.s.s in society for persons of common intelligence; and yet their natural capacity was no greater than that of others, who, from ignorance or neglect of their parents, have become filthy, gluttonous, lazy, vicious, depraved, and are rapidly sinking into driveling idiocy. This fact alone should be enough to encourage the state to take measures at once for the establishment of a school or inst.i.tution for teaching or training idiots, if it were but a matter of experiment."

Ma.s.sachusetts is the only state in the Union that as yet has attempted to do any thing for the education and training of this. .h.i.therto neglected cla.s.s of persons. The result of the first year's experiment has been most gratifying and encouraging. Of the whole number received, there was not one who was in a situation where any great improvement in his condition was probable, or hardly possible; they were growing worse in habits, and more confirmed in their idiocy. But the process of deterioration in the pupils has been entirely stopped, and that of improvement has commenced; and though a year is a very short time in the instruction of such persons, yet its effects are manifest in all of them. They have improved in personal appearance and habits, in general health, in vigor, and in activity of body. Some of them can control their appet.i.tes in a considerable degree; they sit at the table with their teachers, and feed themselves decently. Almost all of them have improved in the understanding and the use of speech. Some of them have made considerable progress in the knowledge of language; they can select words printed on slips of paper, and a few can read simple sentences.

But, what is most important, THEY HAVE MADE A START FORWARD.

"There is ground for confidence that the reasonable hopes of the friends of the experiment will be satisfied. All that they promised has been accomplished, so far as was possible in the period of a year. It has been demonstrated that idiots are CAPABLE OF IMPROVEMENT, and that they can be raised from a state of _low degradation_ to a HIGHER CONDITION.

How far they can be elevated, and to what extent they may be educated, can only be shown by the experience of the future. The result of the past year's trial, however, gives confidence that each succeeding year will show even more progress than any preceding one."

EDUCATION AND INSANITY.--It is well established that a defective and faulty education through the period of infancy and childhood is one of the most prolific causes of insanity. Such an education, or rather miseducation, causes a predisposition in many, and excites one where it already exists, which ultimately renders the animal propensities of our nature uncontrollable. Appet.i.tes indulged and perverted, pa.s.sions unrestrained, propensities rendered vigorous by indulgence, and subjected to no salutary restraint, bring persons into a condition in which both moral and physical causes easily operate to produce insanity, if they do not produce it themselves.

We must look to well-directed systems of popular education, having for their object physical improvement, no less than mental and moral culture, to relieve us from many of the evils which "flesh is heir to,"

and nothing can so effectually secure us from this most formidable disease (as well as from others not less appalling) as that system of instruction which teaches us how to preserve the normal condition of the body and the mind; to fortify the one against the catalogue of physical causes which every where a.s.sail us, and to elevate the other above the influence of the trials and disappointments of life, so that the host of moral causes which affect the brain, through the medium of the mind, shall be inoperative and harmless.

Those first principles of physical education which teach us how to avoid disease are all-important to all liable to insanity from hereditary predisposition. The physical health must be attended to, and the training of the faculties of the mind be such as to counteract the over-active propensities of our nature--correcting the bias of the mind to wrong currents and to too great activity by bringing into action the antagonizing powers, and thus giving a sound body and a well-balanced mind. Neglect of this early training entails evils upon the young which are felt in all after life.

These positions are stated and amplified in the able reports of Dr. S.

B. Woodward, superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester, Ma.s.s., to which the reader is referred. They are also corroborated by persons who have had the care of the insane in other inst.i.tutions. In the eighteenth annual report of the physician and superintendent of the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, Dr. Brigham says, "a knowledge of the nature of the disease would frequently lead to its prevention.

Insanity, in most cases, arises from undue excitement and labor of the brain; for even if a predisposition to it is inherited, an exciting cause is essential to its development. Hence every thing likely to cause great excitement of the brain, especially in early life, should be avoided.

"The records of cases at this inst.i.tution and my own observation justify me in saying that the neglect of moral discipline, the too great indulgence of the pa.s.sions and emotions in early life, together with the excessive and premature exercise of the mental powers, are among the most frequent causes that predispose to insanity. But these causes are in no other way operative in producing insanity than by unduly exciting the brain. By neglect of moral discipline, a character is formed subject to violent pa.s.sions, and to extreme emotions and anxiety from the unavoidable evils and disappointments of life, and thus the brain, by being often and violently agitated, becomes diseased; and by too early exercising and prematurely developing the mental powers, this organ is rendered more susceptible and liable to disease.

"I am confident there is too much mental labor imposed upon youth at our schools and colleges. There have been several admissions of young ladies at this inst.i.tution direct from boarding-schools, and of young men from college, where they had studied excessively. Should such intense exertion of the mind in youth not lead to insanity or immediate disease, it predisposes to dyspepsy, hysteria, hypochondriasis, and affections allied to insanity, and which are often its precursors. Should that portion of the community who now act most wisely in obtaining a knowledge of the functions of the digestive organs, and in carefully guarding them from undue excitation, be equally regardful of the brain, they would do a very great service to society, and, in my opinion, do much toward arresting the alarming increase of insanity, and all disorders of the nervous system."[52]

[52] In the education of many, very many, I fear, the same mistake is made as in the case of Lord Dudley, thus described in a late number of the London Quarterly Review: "The irritable susceptibility of the brain was stimulated at the expense of bodily power and health. His foolish tutors took a pride in his precocious progress, which they ought to have kept back. They watered the forced plant with the blood of life; they encouraged the violation of Nature's laws, which are not to be broken in vain; they infringed the condition of conjoint moral and physical existence; they imprisoned him in a vicious circle, where the overworked brain injured the stomach, which reacted to the injury of the brain.

They watched the slightest deviation from the rules of logic, and neglected those of dietetics, to which the former are a farce. They thought of no exercises but Latin; they gave him a Gradus instead of a cricket-bat, until his mind became too keen for its mortal coil, and the foundation was laid for ill health, derangement of stomach, moral pusillanimity, irresolution, lowness of spirits, and all the Protean miseries of nervous disorders, by which his after life was haunted, and which are sadly depicted in almost every letter before us."

EDUCATION INCREASES HUMAN HAPPINESS.

What is a man If his chief good and market of his time Be but to sleep and feed? a beast, no more.

Sure He that made us with such large discourse, Looking before and after, gave us not That capability and G.o.dlike reason To rust in us unused.--SHAKSPEARE.

All the happiness of man is derived from discovering, applying, or obeying the laws of his Creator; and all his misery is the result of ignorance or disobedience.--DR. WAYLAND.

If the doctrines taught and the sentiments inculcated in the preceding chapters of this work, but more especially in the preceding sections of this chapter, are true; if it is established that education dissipates the evils of ignorance; that it increases the productiveness of labor; that it diminishes pauperism and crime--if all this is true, it may seem a work of supererogation to attempt the establishment of the proposition that education increases human happiness. I admit this seeming impropriety; for that the proposition is true may be legitimately inferred from what has gone before. But I wish to amplify and extend this thought, and to show that education has, if possible, still higher claims upon our attention than have yet been presented; that it not only has the power of removing physical and moral evils, and of multiplying and augmenting personal and social enjoyments, but that, when rightly understood, it const.i.tutes our chief good; that to it, and to it only, we may safely look for man's highest and enduring joys, and for the permanent elevation of the race.

MAN IN IGNORANCE.--That we may be the better prepared to appreciate the advantages of education, and its usefulness as a means of increasing human happiness, let us consider the state and the enjoyments of the man whose mind is shrouded in ignorance. He grows up to manhood like a vegetable, or like one of the lower animals that are fed and nourished for the slaughter. He exerts his physical powers because such exertion is necessary for his subsistence. Were it otherwise, we should most frequently find him dozing over the fire with a gaze as dull and stupid as his ox, regardless of every thing but the gratification of his appet.i.tes. He has, perhaps, been taught the art of reading, but has never applied it to the acquisition of knowledge. His views are chiefly confined to the objects immediately around him, and to the daily avocations in which he is employed. His knowledge of society is circ.u.mscribed within the limits of his neighborhood, and his views of the world are confined within the range of the country in which he resides, or of the blue hills which skirt his horizon.

Of the aspect of the globe in other countries, of the various tribes with which these are peopled, of the seas and rivers, continents and islands, which diversify the landscape of the earth, of the numerous orders of animated beings which people the ocean, the atmosphere, and the land, of the revolutions of nations, and the events which have taken place in the history of the world, he has almost as little conception as have the animals which range the forest.

In regard to the boundless regions that lie beyond him in the firmament, and the bodies that roll there in magnificent grandeur, he has the most confused and inaccurate ideas; indeed, he seldom troubles himself with inquiries in relation to such subjects. Whether the stars are great or small, whether they are near us or at a distance, and whether they move or stand still, are to him matters of trivial importance. If the sun gives him light by day and the moon by night, and the clouds distil their watery treasures upon his parched fields, he is contented, and leaves all such inquiries and investigations to those who have leisure and inclination to engage in them. He views the canopy of heaven as merely a ceiling to our earthly habitation, and the starry orbs as only so many luminous tapers to diversify its aspect, and to afford a glimmering light to the benighted traveler.

Such a person has no idea of the manner in which the understanding may be enlightened and expanded by education; he has no relish for intellectual pursuits, and no conception of the pleasures they afford; and he sets no value on knowledge but in so far as it may increase his riches and his sensual gratifications. He has no desire for making improvements in his trade or domestic arrangements, and gives no countenance to those useful inventions and public improvements which are devised by others. He sets himself against every innovation, whether religious, political, mechanical, or agricultural, and is determined to abide by the "good old customs" of his forefathers, even though they compel him to carry his grist to mill in one end of a bag, with a stone in the other to balance it. Were it dependent upon him, the moral world would stand still, as the material world was supposed to in former times; all useful inventions would cease; existing evils would never be remedied; ignorance and superst.i.tion would universally prevail; the human mind would be arrested in its progress to perfection, and man would never arrive at the true dignity of his intellectual nature.

It is evident that such an individual--and the world contains thousands and millions of such characters--can never have his mind elevated to those sublime objects and contemplations which enrapture the man of science, nor feel those pure and exquisite pleasures which cultivated minds so frequently experience; nor can he form those lofty and expansive conceptions of the Deity which the grandeur and magnificence of his works are calculated to inspire. He is left as a prey to all those foolish notions and vain alarms which are engendered by ignorance and superst.i.tion; and he swallows, without the least hesitation, all the absurdities and childish tales respecting witches, hobgoblins, specters, and apparitions, which have been handed down to him by his forefathers.

While the ignorant man thus gorges his mind with fooleries and absurdities, he spurns at the discoveries of science as impositions on the credulity of mankind, and contrary to reason and common sense. That the sun is a million of times larger than the earth; that light flies from his body at the rate of a hundred thousand miles in the hundredth part of a second; and that the earth is whirling round its axis from day to day with a velocity of a thousand miles every hour, are regarded by him as notions far more improbable and extravagant than the story of the "Wonderful Lamp," and all the other tales of the "Arabian Night's Entertainments." In his hours of leisure from his daily avocations, his thoughts either run wild among the most groveling objects, or sink into sensuality and inanity; and solitude and retirement present no charms to his vacant mind.

While human beings are thus immersed in ignorance, dest.i.tute of rational ideas and of a solid substratum of thought, they can never experience those pleasures and enjoyments which flow from the exercise of the understanding, and which correspond to the dignity of a rational and immortal nature.

AN ENLIGHTENED MIND.--On the other hand, the man whose mind is irradiated with the light of substantial science has views, and feelings, and exquisite enjoyments to which the former is an entire stranger. In consequence of the numerous and multifarious ideas he has acquired, he is introduced, as it were, into a new world, where he is entertained with scenes, objects, and movements, of which the mind enveloped in ignorance can form no conception. He can trace back the stream of time to its commencement, and, gliding along its downward course, can survey the most memorable events which have happened in every part of its progress, from the primeval ages to the present day; the rise of empires, the fall of kings, the revolutions of nations, the battles of warriors, and the important events which have followed in their train; the progress of civilization, and of the arts and sciences; the judgments which have been inflicted on wicked nations, the dawnings of Divine mercy toward our fallen race, the manifestation of the Son of G.o.d in our nature, the physical changes and revolutions which have taken place in the const.i.tution of our globe; in short, the whole of the leading events in the chain of divine dispensation, from the beginning of the world to the period in which we live.

With his mental eye the enlightened man can survey the terraqueous globe in all its variety of aspects; he can contemplate the continents, islands, and oceans which surround its exterior; the numerous rivers by which it is indented; the lofty ranges of mountains which diversify its surface; its winding caverns; its forests, lakes, and sandy deserts; its whirlpools, boiling springs, and glaciers; its sulphurous mountains, bituminous lakes, and the states and empires into which it is distributed; the tides and currents of the ocean; the icebergs of the polar regions, and the verdant scenes of the torrid zone.

Sitting at his fireside during the blasts of winter, the enlightened man can survey the numerous tribes of mankind scattered over the various climates of the earth, and entertain himself with views of their manners, customs, religion, laws, trade, manufactures, marriage ceremonies, civil and ecclesiastical governments, arts, sciences, cities, towns, and villages, and the animals peculiar to every region.