The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1850-06-20

darkens at the slightest relaxation of the teachers
exertions The names Of objects presented to
him must sometimes be repeated hundreds of
times before he can learn them. Yet the patience
and enthusiasm of the teacher are rewarded by
progress, slow and unequal, but still marked aud
manifest. Step by step, often compelled to turn
back and 20 over the inch Of ground he had
gained, the idiot is still creeping forward and by
almost imperceptble degrees, his sick cramped,
and prsoned spirit casts of the burden of its
body Of death-breath as from the Almighty is
breathed into him--and he becomes living soul
After the senses of the idiot are trained to take
note Of their appropriate objects, the various per-
ceptiye faculties are next to he exercised The
greatest possible number of facts are to be gathered
up though the medium of these faculties into the
stOrehouse of memory, from whence eventually
the higher faculties of mind may draw the mate
rial Of general ideas. IL has been found difficult
if not impossible, to teach the idiot to read, by
the letters first, as in the ordinary method but
while the varied powers of the three letters h. a.
could notbe understood by him, he could be made
TO comprehend the complex sign of the word hat
made by uniting the three.
The moral nature of the idiot needs training
and development as we'll as his physical and men,
tai. All that can be said of him is that he has
the latent capacity for moral development and
culture. UNRESTRICTED, and left to himself, he
has no ideas of regulated appetites and prOpensi-
ties of decency and delicacy of affection and 80
cial relations. The germs of these ideas, which
constitute the glory and beauty of humanity, un-
doubtedly exist in him, but there can be no
growth without patient and persevering culture
Where this is afforded, to use the language of
the report, the idiot may learn what love is,
though he may not know the word which expresses
it; he may feel kindly affections, while unable to
understand the simplest virtuous principles and
he may begin to live acceptably to God before he
has learned the name by which men call Him.
In the facts and statistics presented in the re.
port light is shed upon some of the dark pages Of
Gods Providence, and it is seen that the suffering
and shame of idiocy are the result of sin, of
violation Of the merciful laws of God, and of the
harmonies Of his benign order. The penalties
which are ordained for the yiolators of natural
laws are memorable and certain. For the trans
s:zSssr % the laws Of life there is, as ID Inc oe
~ Egg ~''.s fx-.0 I-I7.J.55aa e
seek 1t earnestly and with tears" The curse
cleaves to him and his children. In this view,
how important becomes the subject Of the heredi-
tary transmission of moral and physical disease
and debility, and how necessary it is that there
should be clearer understanding Of, and will
ing obedience, at any cost, to the eternal law
which makes the parent the blessing or the curse
Of the child. giving strength and beauty, and the
capacity to know and do the will of God, or be-
queathing loathsomeness, defornity, and animal
appetite, incapable of the restraints of moral fac
ulties? Even if the lsbors of DR.. Howe and his
benevolent associates do not materially lessen the
amount Of present actual evil and suffering in this
respect they will not be put forth in vain if they
have the effect of calling public attention to the
great laws of our being, the violation of which
has made this goodly earth great lazar-house of
pain and sorrow. J. g. w.