Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 04, February, 1858», страница 5

There can be no question of the benevolence of attempting the restoration to society, and to active and useful life, of these awkward, undeveloped, and backward youth,—of educating their hitherto undeveloped faculties, of eradicating those habits which rendered them disagreeable, and often almost unendurable; but these youths are not idiots, and no such analogy exists between them and idiots as would enable us to infer with certainty the successful treatment of the latter from the comparatively rapid development of the former.

In our own country more satisfactory data exist for determining this point. The movement for the instruction of idiots commenced almost simultaneously in New York and Massachusetts. The first school for idiots in this country was commenced at Barre, Massachusetts, by Dr. H.B. Wilbur, in July, 1848; and the Massachusetts Experimental School, by Dr. S.G. Howe, in October of the same year. There are now in the United States six institutions for the instruction and training of this unfortunate class, namely: the Massachusetts School, at South Boston, still under the general superintendence of Dr. Howe; a private institution for idiots, imbeciles, backward and eccentric children at Barre, under the care of Dr. George Brown, being the one originally founded by Dr. Wilbur; the New York State Asylum for Idiots, at Syracuse, of which Dr. Wilbur is the superintendent; a private school for idiots and imbeciles at Haerlem, N.Y., under the care of Mr. J.B. Richards; the Pennsylvania Training School for Idiots, at Germantown, Penn., under the care of Dr. Parish; and an Experimental School, recently organized, at Columbus, Ohio, under an appropriation from the State legislature, presided over by Dr. Patterson. Of these, only the first three have had an experience sufficiently long to offer any reliable results from which the success of idiot instruction can be deduced.

The solution of the question, whether the idiot can be elevated to the standard of mediocrity, physically and intellectually, is not merely one of interest to the psychologist, who seeks to ascertain the metes and bounds of the mental capacity of the race; it is also of paramount importance to the political economist, who wishes to determine the productive force of the community, physical and intellectual; it is of practical interest to the statesman, who seeks to know how large a proportion of the population are necessarily dependent upon the state or individuals for their support; it is a matter of pecuniary importance to the tax-payer, who is naturally desirous of learning whether these drones in the hive, who not only perform no labor themselves, but require others to attend them, and who often, also, from their imbecility, are made the tools and dupes of others in the commission of crime, cannot be transformed into producers instead of consumers, and become quiet and orderly citizens, instead of pests in the community.

The statistics of idiocy are necessarily imperfect. No United States census or State enumeration is at all reliable; the idea of what constitutes idiocy is so very vague, that one census-taker would report none, in a district where another might find twenty. It is very seldom the case that the friends or relatives of an idiot will admit that he is more than a little eccentric; many of the worst cases in the institutions for idiots were brought there by friends who protested that they were not idiots, but only a little singular in their habits.

In Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Ohio, efforts have been made, by correspondence with physicians and town officers, to obtain data from which an approximate estimate might be attained. These efforts, though not so satisfactory as could be desired, are yet sufficient to authorize the conclusion that there are in those three States (and probably the same figures would hold good for the rest of the Union) about one fifth of one per cent. of the population who are idiots of low grade, and about the same number who are of weak and imbecile intellect. This would give us in the United States about fifty-two thousand idiots, and as many more imbeciles. At the lowest estimate, the cost of supporting this vast army of the unfortunate, beyond the trifling sum which a few of them may be able to earn, is more than ten millions of dollars per annum. Nor is this all, or even the worst feature of their case. The greater part of them are without sense of shame, without any notions of chastity or decency, and so weak in moral sense as to be the ready tools and dupes of artful villains, and often themselves exhibit a perverseness and malignity of character 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 supervision, many kinds of work which require little close thought, and, under the care of friends, of becoming happy and useful. This class, if neglected after leaving the school, will be likely to relapse into some of their early habits, but if properly cared for, may continue to improve.

A small number, and as frequently, perhaps, as otherwise, those apparently the most promising at entering, will make little or no progress. It cannot be predicted beforehand that such will be the result of any case, for the most hopeless at entering have often made decided advancement; but the fact remains, that no methods of instruction yet adopted will invariably develope the slumbering intellect, or strengthen and correct the enfeebled or depraved will.

The institutions for the training of idiots should be greatly multiplied, and should have a department for awkward, eccentric, and backward children. The methods adopted would be of great benefit to these, and would often call into activity intellects which might be useful in their proper spheres.

We regard this great movement for the improvement of a class hitherto considered so hopeless, as one of the most honorable and benevolent enterprises of our time. It is yet in its infancy; but we hope to see, ere many years have passed, in every State of our Union, asylums reared, where these waifs of humanity shall be gathered, and such training given them as may develope in the highest degree possible the hitherto rudimentary faculties of their minds, and render them capable of performing, in some humble measure, their part in the drama of life.

* * * * *

AMOURS DE VOYAGE

 
  Oh, you are sick of self-love, Malvolio,
  And taste with a distempered appetite! Shakspeare.
 
 
Il doutait de tout, même de l'amour.—French Novel.
 
 
Solvitur ambulando. Solutio Sophismatum.
 
 
       Flevit amores
  Non elaboratum ad pedem.—Horace.
 
 
  Over the great windy waters, and over the clear crested summits,
    Unto the sun and the sky, and unto the perfecter earth,
  Come, let us go,—to a land wherein gods of the old time wandered,
    Where every breath even now changes to ether divine.
  Come, let us go; though withal a voice whisper, "The world that we
      live in,
    Whithersoever we turn, still is the same narrow crib;
  'Tis but to prove limitation, and measure a cord, that we travel;
    Let who would 'scape and be free go to his chamber and think;
  'Tis but to change idle fancies for memories wilfully falser;
    'Tis but to go and have been."—Come, little bark, let us go!
 

I.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
    Dear Eustatio, I write that you may write me an answer,
  Or at the least to put us en rapport with each other.
  Rome disappoints me much,—St. Peter's, perhaps, in especial;
  Only the Arch of Titus and view from the Lateran please me:
  This, however, perhaps, is the weather, which truly is horrid.
  Greece must be better, surely; and yet I am feeling so spiteful,
  That I could travel to Athens, to Delphi, and Troy, and Mount Sinai,
  Though but to see with my eyes that these are vanity also.
 
 
    Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but
  Rubbishy seems the word that most exactly would suit it.
  All the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,
  All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,
  Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.
  Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it!
  Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy me these churches!
  However, one can live in Rome as also in London.
  Rome is better than London, because it is other than London.
  It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of
  All one's friends and relations,—yourself (forgive me!) included,—
  All the assujettissement of having been what one has been,
  What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;
  Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.
  Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him,—
  Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn.
 

II.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
    Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.
  Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression
  Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me
  Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brick-work.
  Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo,
  Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.
  Ye gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,
  Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in?
  What do I think of the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars.
  Well, but St. Peter's? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture!
  No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum.
  Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,
  This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea?
  Yet of solidity much, but of splendor little is extant:
  "Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!" their Emperor vaunted;
  "Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!" the Tourist may
      answer.
 

III.—GEORGINA TREVELLYN TO LOUISA –

 
  At last, dearest Louisa, I take up my pen to address you.
  Here we are, you see, with the seven-and-seventy boxes,
  Courier, Papa and Mamma, the children, and Mary and Susan:
  Here we all are at Rome, and delighted of course with St Peter's,
  And very pleasantly lodged in the famous Piazza di Spagna.
  Rome is a wonderful place, but Mary shall tell you about it;
  Not very gay, however; the English are mostly at Naples;
  There are the A.s, we hear, and most of the W. party.
  George, however, is come; did I tell you about his mustachios?
  Dear, I must really stop, for the carriage, they tell me, is waiting.
  Mary will finish; and Susan is writing, they say, to Sophia.
  Adieu, dearest Louise,—evermore your faithful Georgina.
  Who can a Mr. Claude be whom George has taken to be with?
  Very stupid, I think, but George says so very clever.
 

IV.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
  No, the Christian faith, as at any rate I understood it,
  With its humiliations and exaltations combining,
  Exaltations sublime, and yet diviner abasements,
  Aspirations from something most shameful here upon earth and
  In our poor selves to something most perfect above in the heavens,—
  No, the Christian faith, as I, at least, understood it,
  Is not here, O Rome, in any of these thy churches;
  Is not here, but in Freiberg, or Rheims, or Westminster Abbey.
  What in thy Dome I find, in all thy recenter efforts,
  Is a something, I think, more rational far, more earthly,
  Actual, less ideal, devout not in scorn and refusal,
  But in a positive, calm, Stoic-Epicurean acceptance.
  This I begin to detect in St. Peter's and some of the churches,
  Mostly in all that I see of the sixteenth-century masters;
  Overlaid of course with infinite gauds and gewgaws,
  Innocent, playful follies, the toys and trinkets of childhood,
  Forced on maturer years, as the serious one thing essential,
  By the barbarian will of the rigid and ignorant Spaniard.
 

V.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
  Luther, they say, was unwise; like a half-taught German, he could not
  See that old follies were passing most tranquilly out of remembrance;
  Leo the Tenth was employing all efforts to clear out abuses;
  Jupiter, Juno, and Venus, Fine Arts, and Fine Letters, the Poets,
  Scholars, and Sculptors, and Painters, were quietly clearing away the
  Martyrs, and Virgins, and Saints, or at any rate Thomas Aquinas.
  He must forsooth make a fuss and distend his huge Wittenberg lungs, and
  Bring back Theology once yet again in a flood upon Europe:
  Lo, you, for forty days from the windows of heaven it fell; the
  Waters prevail on the earth yet more for a hundred and fifty;
  Are they abating at last? The doves that are sent to explore are
  Wearily fain to return, at the best with a leaflet of promise,—
  Fain to return, as they went, to the wandering wave-tost vessel,—
  Fain to reënter the roof which covers the clean and the unclean.
  Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn't see how things were going;
  Luther was foolish,—but, O great God! what call you Ignatius?
  O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of barbarians,
  Alaric, Attila, Genseric;—why, they came, they killed, they
  Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards,
  These are here still,—how long, O ye Heavens, in the country of Dante?
  These, that fanaticized Europe, which now can forget them, release not
  This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you can see them,—
  Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesu,
  Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,—
  Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,—
  Here, overcrusting with shame, perverting, defacing, debasing,
  Michael Angelo's dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,
  Raphael's Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!
 

VI.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
    Which of three Misses Trevellyn it is that Vernon shall marry
  Is not a thing to be known; for our friend's is one of those natures
  Which have their perfect delight in the general tender-domestic,
  So that he trifles with Mary's shawl, ties Susan's bonnet,
  Dances with all, but at home is most, they say, with Georgina,
  Who is, however, too silly in my apprehension for Vernon.
  I, as before when I wrote, continue to see them a little;
  Not that I like them so much, or care a bajocco for Vernon,
  But I am slow at Italian, have not many English acquaintance,
  And I am asked, in short, and am not good at excuses.
  Middle-class people these, bankers very likely, not wholly
  Pure of the taint of the shop; will at table d'hôte and restaurant
  Have their shilling's worth, their penny's pennyworth even:
  Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!
  Yet they are fairly descended, they give you to know, well connected;
  Doubtless somewhere in some neighborhood have, and careful to keep, some
  Threadbare-genteel relations, who in their turn are enchanted
  Grandly among county people to introduce at assemblies
  To the unpennied cadets our cousins with excellent fortunes.
  Neither man's aristocracy this, nor God's, God knoweth!
 

VII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
    Ah, what a shame, indeed, to abuse these most worthy people!
  Ah, what a sin to have sneered at their innocent rustic pretensions!
  Is it not laudable really, this reverent worship of station?
  Is it not fitting that wealth should tender this homage to culture?
  Is it not touching to witness these efforts, if little availing,
  Painfully made, to perform the old ritual service of manners?
  Shall not devotion atone for the absence of knowledge? and fervor
  Palliate, cover, the fault of a superstitious observance?
  Dear, dear, what have I said? but, alas, just now, like Iago,
  I can be nothing at all, if it is not critical wholly;
  So in fantastic height, in coxcomb exaltation,
  Here in the Garden I walk, can freely concede to the Maker
  That the works of his hand are all very good: his creatures,
  Beast of the field and fowl, he brings them before me; I name them;
  That which I name them, they are,—the bird, the beast, and the cattle.
  But for Adam,—alas, poor critical coxcomb Adam!
  But for Adam there is not found an help-meet for him.
 

VIII.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
  No, great Dome of Agrippa, thou art not Christian! canst not,
  Strip and replaster and daub and do what they will with thee, be so!
  Here underneath the great porch of colossal Corinthian columns,
  Here as I walk, do I dream of the Christian belfries above them;
  Or on a bench as I sit and abide for long hours, till thy whole vast
  Round grows dim as in dreams to my eyes, I repeople thy niches,
  Not with the Martyrs, and Saints, and Confessors, and Virgins,
      and children,
  But with the mightier forms of an older, austerer worship;
  And I recite to myself, how
 
 
            Eager for battle here
  Stood Vulcan, here matronal Juno,
    And with the bow to his shoulder faithful
  He who with pure dew laveth of Castaly
  His flowing locks, who holdeth of Lycia
  The oak forest and the wood that bore him,
    Delos and Patara's own Apollo.⁷
 

IX.—CLAUDE TO EUSTACE

 
    Yet it is pleasant, I own it, to be in their company: pleasant,
  Whatever else it may be, to abide in the feminine presence.
  Pleasant, but wrong, will you say? But this happy, serene coexistence
  Is to some poor soft souls, I fear, a necessity simple,
  Meat and drink and life, and music, filling with sweetness,
  Thrilling with melody sweet, with harmonies strange overwhelming,
  All the long-silent strings of an awkward, meaningless fabric.
  Yet as for that, I could live, I believe, with children; to have those
  Pure and delicate forms encompassing, moving about you,
  This were enough, I could think; and truly with glad resignation
  Could from the dream of romance, from the fever of flushed adolescence,
  Look to escape and subside into peaceful avuncular functions.
  Nephews and nieces! alas, for as yet I have none! and, moreover,
  Mothers are jealous, I fear me, too often, too rightfully; fathers
  Think they have title exclusive to spoiling their own little darlings;
  And by the law of the land, in despite of Malthusian doctrine,
  No sort of proper provision is made for that most patriotic,
  Most meritorious subject, the childless and bachelor uncle.