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.