Sir Frederick Bateman

“ Science has done much for the idiot, and she will do more, for her motto is "Excelsior," and her votaries are not content to linger with complacency on the heights already attained, but they look for the period when, by the powerful lever of an enlightened philanthropy, this benighted race shall be raised from the grovelling level of the brute, to the highest attainable pitch of bodily perfection. ”

“ Suffice it to say that as the cause is always antecedent to any personal history of the child, idiocy is never dependent on the idiot himself, who has never become so through any vices of his own; he being in many instances the feeble expression of parental defects, and sometimes of parental vices, and is therefore more an object for commiseration than certain lunatics, who, in many instances, have become so through faults of their own. ”

“ True philanthropy never stops short of the remotest boundary of human want, and in urging upon you the claims of the Eastern Counties' Asylum for Idiots, I would have you remember that I am pleading for a class who cannot plead for themselves, and whose very silence is eloquent with an appeal for your merciful aid. ”

“ The pseudo-philosophers of our time have bewildered the public mind by the wild flights of their imagination; thought, the so-called spiritual attributes of man, are merely a function of brain protoplasm; the brain, say they, secretes thought, just as the liver secretes bile, or as oxygen and [ 57] sulphur produce sulphuric acid, and all the varied phenomena of nature are nothing more than the molecular changes of matter; the operations of the mind are but the products of the caudate cells of the brain, and volition and consciousness are mere physical manifestations. ”

“ The late Bishop of Carlisle, in rebutting this phosphorus theory, remarks, "Why should we not go further and assert that there could be no thought without carbon or without any other element of which the human body is composed; for you can have no actual thought without a living creature, and no living creature without a body, and no body without carbon." ”

“ I repeat it, we must take care not to confound the organ with the person who possesses this organ: the eye is not that which sees, it is only the organ by which we see; the ear is not that which hears, it is only the organ by which we hear. Precisely in the same way and in the same sense, the brain is the organ of mind, the organ by which our mental faculties become externally manifested. That it cannot be otherwise is shewn by the results of memory. The brain is of a perishable nature, its atoms are constantly changing ”

“ A society has lately been formed under the name of "The National Association for promoting the welfare of the Feeble-minded," the object of which is to establish homes for defective and feeble-minded children of a class more highly-endowed with intelligence than those who would be received into an ordinary idiot asylum; statistics having shown that ignorance and mental dulness tend to crime in various forms. ”

“ Not only in the 16th century, but certain philosophers of a later date have questioned the idiot's place in creation, and have disputed his right to be classed among the human family; and some scientists—believers in the so-called doctrine of Evolution, as applied to the Descent of Man—have gone so far as to pretend that the brain of the microcephalic idiot is so far removed from the human type, as to constitute him a connecting link between man and the anthropoid apes! ”

“ The care and treatment of the idiot, therefore, becomes a vital question of Political Economy; for by relieving a household of the burden and anxiety incident to the care of the afflicted child, the parents are enabled to devote all their energies to the support of their family. Moreover, there is often a moral aspect corresponding with the mental aspect of this question, and the presence of an idiot often becomes a source of real danger. ”

“ The wear and tear of an excitable idiot child has wrecked many a family and reduced it to pauperism, for not only is such child a dead weight on the material prosperity of the family, but the hands of those who have to work for their livelihood, are sadly tied and hampered, when such an inmate has to be constantly looked after in the home ”

“ The first idiot that attracted the attention of scientific men was looked upon as a savage man, and every treatise on the subject contains some allusion to the so-called savage of the Aveyron, who excited so much curiosity, speculation, and interest among the psychologists of Paris in the early part of the present century.
In old books on medical nomenclature idiocy was classed amongst the varieties of insanity, and the visitor to a lunatic asylum half a century ago, would find the idiot skulking in the corner of a courtyard chained to a staple, and lying on a litter of straw ”

“ I ask you to come and help us in our attempts to rescue a large section of the human family from the worse than Cimmerian darkness in which they have been hitherto enshrouded; come and help us to awaken faculties hitherto dormant, to restore lost minds, to arouse these unhappy beings from a moral death to a new birth of perception and feeling ”

“ All honour to these ladies, who, having learnt the elementary truth that privileges involve responsibilities, instead of hiding their talents in the napkin of selfishness, prefer to go forth as messengers of mercy, to try and flash the electric fire of philanthropy into the slumbering hearts of others, and to induce them to join in their grand and good work. ”

“ Great confusion exists in the public mind as to the nature of idiocy. What is an idiot? Dr. Séguin, a celebrated writer on this subject, has described idiocy as a "specific infirmity of the cerebro-spinal centre," a definition which I need not say applies to a variety of infirmities to which flesh is heir, and such a definition only serves as a cloak for ignorance. Shakespeare, that wonderfully accurate observer of human nature, in several of his dramas has given a very good description of the acts of the idiot, who, he says, is "one who holds his bauble for his God;" ”

“ If, on the other hand, you have been spared this overwhelming calamity in your own family, and have had the joy of watching the dawn of infant intelligence, and have experienced the delight of seeing the capacities shown in the early life of [ 116] your own children gradually ripen and develop into the intelligence of manhood, you will look with an eye of pity on the numerous households rendered miserable by the intolerable incubus of the presence in their midst of an idiot child, and will, I am sure, consider any assistance you can render to so good a cause in the light of a thank-offering. ”

“ Thus, he says, "the canary bird and the Arctic sparrow have brains proportionately larger than those of any other known animals, including man, and yet no one will contend that these animals stand at the top of the scale of mental development. Man, who certainly stands at the head of the class of mammals, and of all other animals, so far as mind is concerned, rarely has a brain more than one-fiftieth the weight of the body, a proportion which is much greater in several other mammals, and is, as we have seen, exceeded by many of the smaller birds." ”

“ With every desire to treat this question from a liberal point of view, I desire to emphasise the fact that men and women have different parts to play on the stage of life, and should be trained differently; but provided mental overpressure is guarded against, I have no fear of women engaging in certain occupations which custom has not hitherto recognised as feminine, and experience has shown us that they may be safely left to follow the promptings of their own powers and instincts. ”

“ In the same way, idiocy may be considered as a disease of the instrument rather than of the performer; the idiot's brain is damaged and has become an unfit instrument for the outward manifestation of the powers of the mind, but the lowest idiot possesses the germs of intellectual activity and moral responsibility ”

“ An eminent physician, whose great energies and rare knowledge of therapeutics are apparently absorbed in the everyday exercise of his noble profession, has yet found time for deep research and original speculation in one of the most fascinating regions in the whole range of Neuro-pathology. The result is such as only the well-directed devotion of a life-time could have produced. Here, in one, we have a student's text-book, a scientist's guide and companion, and, lastly, a psychological treatise certain to attract a large share of attention at the hands of the intelligent general reader. ”

“ I have endeavoured to point out how the care and training of the idiot has become one of the recognised obligations of a philanthropic public. At the Eastern Counties' Asylum, we are trying to mitigate as far as we can this great social calamity, and our efforts have hitherto been crowned with unlooked-for success. We are doing a grand and glorious work, and I ask you to come and help us; the Board of Directors, a noble band of philanthropists, who devote a considerable amount of time to the objects of this charity, ask you to come and help us ”

“ L'idiot a toujours été dans l'infortune et la misère." (The man that is mad is deprived of possessions which he formerly enjoyed, it is a rich man become poor; whereas the idiot has always been in misfortune and misery.) The distinction between the idiot and the insane is clear and marked. The madman suffers from abnormal development of brain, the idiot from an ill-developed brain—the mind of the madman is not in proper balance, in the idiot it is not in proper power. ”

“ An idiot is a human being who possesses the tripartite nature of man—body, soul, and spirit, σωμα, ψυχη, πνευμα, but who is the subject of an infirmity consisting, anatomically, of a defective organisation and want of development of the brain, resulting in an inability, more or less complete, for the exercise of the intellectual, moral, and sensitive faculties. ”

“ I have already stated that the study of idiocy was of great interest to the theologian, for I can imagine no more powerful weapon for combating the materialistic tendencies of the day than is furnished by a consideration of the natural history of the idiot. ”

“ In thus expressing myself, I wish to add that the ultimate goal of the scientist is the establishment of truth, and I should as soon attempt to stop the progress of the avalanche that has become dislodged from the mountain top, as to try to bar the path of scientific progress, or to extinguish the torch of discovery. ”

“ Inasmuch as the instrument by which the manifestation of mind is alone possible is undoubtedly damaged in idiots, they were formerly supposed not to belong to the human family, and their place in the order of creation was disputed. All admitted that they had the σωμα, or material part of our nature; they also conceded to them the ψυχη, or principle of animal life, but they considered that the πνευμα, or spirit of immortal life—that which essentially differentiates man from the brute—was absent in the idiot. ”

“ Now, idiocy is not a form of insanity, and it is most important that no confusion should exist in the public mind upon this point, as the association of idiots and insane patients in the same asylum is a positive disadvantage to both classes. It is always a painful thing to see idiot children, whose mental faculties and physical powers, as I shall presently show, are capable of much development and improvement, wandering, without object or special care, about the wards of a Lunatic Asylum. ”

“ Without expressing any very decided opinion upon the above project, it seems to me that the unnecessary multiplication of charitable institutions is itself an evil, and is not calculated to promote efficiency or economy; and if special provision is made for those just above the highest class of idiots, as is proposed, the present Idiot Asylums must necessarily suffer. ”

“ A celebrated German authority, Herr Saeger, of Berlin, has stated that in his establishment he had indubitable cases of idiocy, in which the head was small and malformed, yet in which the results of education were so triumphant, that they were ultimately able to mix with the world without being recognised as idiots. ”

“ There cannot be a doubt, however, that the habitual use of alcohol, without being carried to the extent of actual intoxication, is calculated to cause a low and feeble condition of the body, and thus conduce to the production of idiocy in the offspring; for we may fairly assume that what too severely tries the nervous system in one generation will appear in their descendants. ”

“ Science and Theology should not be regarded as two opposing citadels, frowning defiance upon each other, but their votaries should look upon each other as co-labourers in the cause of truth, and they should welcome light and knowledge from whatever quarter it may come, being fully convinced that all systems and theories irreconcilable with truth, are built upon the sand, and must ultimately be swept away. ”

“ Yes, the results obtained at our own Asylum and elsewhere, show that much, very much, may be done for the unhappy idiot, who in a private house is an intolerable incubus, but who, under proper training in a suitable asylum, becomes sociable, affectionate, and happy. It has been shown that in the majority of cases, the idiot may not only cease to be a source of annoyance and danger to those around him, but by care and training he [ 87] may be made able to contribute to his own sustenance ”

“ Great prominence has lately been given to this subject by an oration on "Sex in Education," by Sir James Crichton Browne, at the Medical Society of London, in which he called attention to the "growing tendency to ignore intellectual distinctions between the sexes, to assimilate the education of girls to that of boys, and to throw men and women into industrial competition in every walk of life." Elsewhere, he adds, that "to throw women into competition with men is to insure to them a largely increased liability to organic nervous disease.... ”