The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-05-08
OTHER WAY OF MEETING PROBLEM IS DROWNING
 OF DETECTIVES
May 4, 1887

May 4, 1857 Editor, Waterbury Democrat:
 Excerpts from letter to MT. Roger Connolly, New Haven Register, from Mrs. Sidney Davidson on his edi- torial of April 29th, 1887.
 For ten years there has been agitation for, and desperate need of, new school for the feeble minded. The need has been ex- pressed in the platform of both par- ties. In 1895 the Governor request ed this Commission to plan school to house and train 1900 children who were then on the waiting list. You refer erroneously to 800. The list is now over 1900. These are cases that have been brought before the courts and welfare agencies. They have been thoroughly investigated and found urgently in need of in- stiutional care. According to the best advice, there are at least 30,- GOO persons in Connecticut with an I. o. of less than 70, and for the protection and need of society, 5,O0O will need institutional training and stabilization sometime in their lives. How are we going to meet this prob- lem? First, through special training classes in our public school and second, through institutional care for the worst cases and for those from broken homes. These institu- tions must cooperate with the normal schools to train teachers to teach special classes in the public schools. In addition, the training schools must be 50 built and oper- ated that they can study each child of the higher type and fit them, through training, to hold down the simple jobs that they are capable of, thus releasing beds at the msti- tuition for other cases. This can and is being done in many states, and is done to a certain extent in Connecticut. Because Mansfield has the worst cases and because they have not the facilities to work with, they have been handicapped in carrying out a larger program of parole.
 Three years ago, MT. Hall esti- mated that a new school would cost about $3,5O0 a bed, including all fs- cilities for service and training. MT. Hall and the governor put the re- quest in for $4,0o0,000. When our preliminary study was completed, we found we could build a com plete school to house 1,200 children; train the trainable types; house employees; equip the farm with stock, etc., at about $3,200 per bed, or $500 under Mir. Halls estimate. Our prices were of March l, 1887. To my knowledge there are no ten- his courts planned. The buildings will be simple. If you call 1t luxury to sleep in a dormitory with from 10 to 25 others, let me know. We have planned small units for our trainable types, because we can bet ter study the individual, and our studies confirm that they are less expensive than big units. Should you object to this when we already have them in our reformatories for young offenders, and they are re- garded as efficient units? For all of our cuStodial type of cases we are planning large and simple units with a simple program of care and attendant type of employees.
 There is nothing in our plans to give you grounds for your state ment that this institution will lead to numerous other such institutions. It is, in fact, the opposite. It is just such needs that we are trying to meet, so that the state will not have to build institution after in- stitution. We are taxpayers, too, but we want to get our moneys worth out of this program, 50 we have approached it not only from welfare point of view, but from an economic point of view.
 Finally we have gotten figures of what other states have spent per bed on schools for the feeble-mind- ed in the last fifteen years. This alone will answed your statement that the plans are eKtravagaat. The costs follow:
 Building Costs in Other Statee
 1. Letchw0rth Village = Thiells,