Schools for the
training of idiots were established, on a small scale at first, by some
benevolent ladies, at Bath, Brighton, and Lancaster, England. In
1847, an effort was made to establish an institution in some degree
commensurate with the wants of the unfortunate class for whom it
was intended. In this movement, Dr. John Conolly, the father of the
non-restraint system in the treatment of the insane, Rev. Dr. Andrew
Reed, Rev. Edwin Sidney, and Sir S.M. Peto have distinguished themselves
by their zeal and liberality. Extensive buildings were rented at
Highgate, near London, and at Colchester, for the accommodation of
idiotic pupils, while a strenuous and successful effort was made to
obtain the necessary funds for the erection of an asylum of great size.
The Royal Institution for Idiots, completed in 1856, has between four
hundred and five hundred beds, and is already nearly or quite full.
Essex Hall, at Colchester, has also been fitted up as a permanent
establishment for their instruction, and furnishes accommodation for
some two hundred more. Two small institutions, supported by private
beneficence, have also been organized in Scotland.
The British institutions have admitted, to a very considerable extent,
a class of pupils who are not properly idiots, but only persons of
imbecile purpose, or simply awkward, and of partially developed
intellects.
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