| Description Of Item | From the collection of Thomas Laycock. Titled ‘Education of Idiots and Imbeciles,’ the article opens with a quote from Walter Scott’s novel ‘Waverly’.
The anonymous author responds to the opening of a ‘school for the training of the weak minded’ in Lancaster, England. They describe the school as a combination of a ‘hospital, asylum and college.’ They reference Commissioner Gaskell’s report on the ‘prevalence of idiocy and cretinism in the mountain range separating Lancashire and Yorkshire.’ They praise the work of Dr de Vitre who manages the school that opened in 1870 – which could house ‘500 to 600 inmates […] and has already, since it’s opening in 1870, admitted and subjected to medical and tutorial treatment about 80 boys, with the immediate prospect if receiving an equal number of girls.’ The author states that similar institutions in Scotland were ‘small, sickly and comparatively inoperative’ because they were largely unknown to the public and instead were ‘supported entirely by private subscription and the board paid for the small number of members of the affluent classes’ who used the facility.’ The author argues that within ‘certain limits the idiot may be improved.’ They write that within the right environment, the ‘idle, slovenly, mischievous and grotesque dwarfs which may be found in so many private dwellings, […] highways or streets of remote villages’ can sometimes learn to become ‘tailors, shoemakers, weavers, basket-makers.’ The author finishes the article by describing the positive impact an institution in Larbert [Scotland] has had on patients. The author describes the knowledge and skill some ‘inmates’ have acquired: ’18 can read fairly, 12 who can do easy sums, 15 who can tell the time to a minute, 45 who can use knife and fork, 13 who know all the coins , weights, and can calculate a little, 24 who know all the colours, 67 who attend singing, and 48 who attend church […] 5 boys are employed with the gardener, 10 with the shoe-maker, 3 with the joiner, 3 at sack-making, 4 in pumping; 9 girls can sew and hem fairly, and 12 girls are engaged in domestic services.’ |