Some of these, who have arrived even at the age of
twenty-five or thirty years, have been greatly benefited, and, after
two or three years' instruction, have left the institution with as much
intelligence, apparently, as most of those in the same walk of life.
This result is, and should be, a matter of great gratification to the
managers; but it is hardly just to regard success in such cases as cures
of idiocy. The greater part of the admissions to the Royal Institution
are from the pauper and poor laboring classes; and the simple
substitution of wholesome and sufficient food for a meagre and
innutritious diet is alone sufficient to effect a marked change in them.
The greater part of the pupils in that institution are instructed in
some of the simpler mechanic arts, and the Reports assure us that they
have generally acquired them with facility.
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.
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