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Universi^ M icrailm s International 300 N. ZEEB ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND 8115130

L ev stik, F rank R ic h a r d

A HISTORY OF THE EDUCATION AND TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY RETARDED IN OHIO, 1787-1920

The Ohio State University Ph .D. 1981

University Microfilms I ntern St io n a! 300 N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106 A HISTORY OF THE EDUCATION AND

TREATMENT OF THE MENTALLY RETARDED

IN OHIO, 1787-1920

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of The Ohio State University

By Frank R. Levstik, B.A., M.A.

•k * * * *

The Ohio State University 1981

Reading Committee : Approved By

Prof. Robert H. Eremner Prof. Paul C. Bowers Z X ^ V" ///? Prof. Gary W. Reichard /\ Adviser Department of History ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank Dr. Robert H. Bremner for his many hours of assistance and patience in this project as well as other members of my reading committee. The

Archives of American Psychology at the University of Akron deserve mention for awarding the author a research scholarship. Particular thanks go to Mrs. Charles Ott who typed the dissertation in draft and final forms.

11 VITA

March 3 ,1943 ...... Born - Chicago, Illinois

1966 ...... B.A., Pikeville College, Pikeville, Kentucky

1966-1968 ...... Teaching Assistant, Department of History, Virginia Poly­ technic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia

1968...... M.A., Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Blacksburg, Virginia

1969-1974 ...... Archives Specialist, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio

1976 ...... State Archivist, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio

PUBLICATIONS

Co-author, Union Bibliography of Ohio Printed State Documents, 1803-1970 (Columbus, 1974).

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: American Social History

Modern American Political History. Professor K. Austin Kerr

Nineteenth Century American Social and Econ­ omic History. Professor Merton L. Dillon

Chinese Intellectual History. Professor Hao Chang

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...... Ü

VITA ...... iii

LIST OF T A B L E S ...... V

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Chapter

I. The Feeble-Minded in a Rural Society, 1787-1839 ...... 3

II. The Years of Hope, 1840-1868 ...... 15

III. Custodial Care Emerges, 1869-1879 ...... 57

IV. Treatment in a Custodial Setting, 1880-1897 ...... 90

V. Segregation, Sterilization and Education, 1898-1920 ...... 125

BIBLIOGRAPHY 167

IV LIST OF TABLES Table Page

1. Inmate Population of the Ohio Institu­ tion for Feeble-Minded Youth ...... 165

2. Numbers of Handicapped in Ohio by Decade... 166

V INTRODUCTION

A history of the education and treatment of the men­ tally retarded in Ohio provides a means for examining state response to a special group of handicapped citizens. An ignored chapter in the history of social welfare in Ohio, in particular, and the United States, in general, a study of this particular group is pertinent given their changing role in American society. There are no pro­ fessional histories of institutions for the mentally retarded nor individual studies of the state response to this segment of society. Social historians instead focused on studies of the mentally ill in America as

Gerald Grob's Mental Institutions in America : Social

Policy to 1875 and Norman Dain's Concepts of Insanity in the United States, 1789-1865. These same authors also completed studies of individual state mental hos­ pitals. First, Gerald Grob, The State and the Mentally

111, a history of Worcester State Hospital in Massachu­ setts and secondly, Dain's Disordered Minds; The First

Century of Eastern State Hospital in Williamsburg,

Virginia 1766-1866.

For the mentally retarded, there are useful second­ ary accounts as Martin W. Barr Mental Defectives; Their History, Treatment and Training and Leo Kanner, A History of the Care and Study of the Mentally Retarded. The single professional history is Peter L. Tyor's doctoral dissertation written in 1972 at Northwestern University titled Segregation or Surgery; The Mentally Retarded in

America, 1850-1920.

Research into this neglected facet of American social history has been encouraged by the availability of primary source material to the author, the participation of relatives in the education of the mentally retarded, and family involvement with the education of the excep­ tional child. CHAPTER I

THE FEEBLE-MINDED IN A RURAL SOCIETY 1787-1639

The mentally retarded, scattered among a total popu­

lation of 3,000 souls in 1790 in the Northwest Territory, presented no particular problem for a frontier society.

Population centers tended to be isolated and largely rural and agricultural. Individuals affected by mental retardation were regularly cared for by the family and by the community on an emergency basis.

The Northwest Territory's first poor law, passed

in November 1790, made no specific provision for the maintenance of the mentally retarded, but took cognizance of public responsibility for the relief of any person

found to be "wretched and a proper object of public charity."^ Under this broad definition, such indigent retarded as resided in the Northwest Territory may have been eligible for some form of public assistance.

During the territorial period, the only legislation which was addressed to those suffering from mental illness

focused on the appointment of guardians. Beginning in

1795, the County Probate Judge could call an inquest, wherein six freeholders of the same township would meet and determine whether an "idiot, non compos, lunatic

or insane person" was incapable of caring for him or

herself. If an individual was so judged, the Probate

Judge appointed guardians to take care of the person and 2 his estate.

At approximately the same time, a continent away,

in France, Jean Marc Gaspard Itard became involved in

the education and training of "Victor, The Wild Boy of

Aveyron." In 1799, a youth of eleven or twelve years of

age had been discovered in the woods of Aveyron, a

remote rural area in France. Totally unsocialized and

displaying the eating, drinking and elimination habits

of an animal, the youth was brought to Itard, a phy­

sician at the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. For five

years, Itard worked with "Victor" attempting to bring

him from savagery to civilization. While not successful

in achieving his goal, Itard’s work resulted in the

boy's gaining an ability to identify letters of the

alphabet, recognize objects, comprehend words, apply

names to objects and demonstrate the possibility of

modifying the actions of a mentally retarded indiv­

idual. ^

Two years after Ohio was admitted as a state, the

statutes regarding the appointment of guardians of the

mentally ill underwent modification. The Court of 5

Common Pleas was empowered to make an inquest on the sub­

ject and the number of freeholders called to make such a

determination increased from six to twelve. Court ap­

pointed guardians still retained responsibility for the 4 care of the person and his estate.

For the next decade Ohio statute remained unchanged

in this area. Passage of "An act to provide for the

safekeeping of lunatics, and for other purposes" on

February 13, 1815, placed new responsibilities upon the

overseers of the poor for the care of the mentally ill.

The Justice of the Peace of a particular township could

summon a jury of seven men to certify whether a person was "idiot, non compos, lunatic or insane." When a

person was adjudged to be suffering from such a disa­

bility, the justice of the peace issued a warrant to the

overseers of the poor to provide for his or her mainten­

ance. Such persons found to be in danger of destroying

life or property were to be committed to the county jail.

The overseers of the poor were to handle the estate of

the mentally afflicted by calling upon the Court of

Common Pleas to appoint a guardian of the afflicted's

estate.^

On February 26, 1816, the new legislation author­

izing the establishment of poorhouses marked the

beginnings of a system that would last well into the twentieth century.^ Although no specific mention was made of the care of the mentally retarded under the poorhouse roof, it can be assumed that the "idiot" was maintained by virtue of "being wretched and a proper object of public charity."

The first real recognition of assistance for the mentally retarded in Ohio came at the beginning of the second decade of the nineteenth century. In February

1820, the General Assembly passed legislation specific­ ally dealing with the relief of the mentally retarded.

Under the act County Commissioners could issue funds for the support of "indigent and helpless" idiots within their 7 borders.

In December 1820, Dr. Daniel Drake, the noted

Cincinnati physician, lobbied successfully for creation of a publicly supported medical facility and mental

O asylum. Establishment in 1821 of the Commercial Hos­ pital and Lunatic Asylum in Cincinnati to provide for the reception, safekeeping, comfort and medical treatment of idiots, lunatics, and insane persons of the state and for all boatmen on the Ohio River was an important first step in institutional care for the mentally retarded.^

The structure, completed in 1823 on a four acre lot near the Miami Canal, stood four stories tall and measured fifty-three by forty-two feet. It was divided 7 into thirteen apartments and with a wing added in 1827, provided twenty-two apartments for the care and safe­ keeping of the mentally ill. Within a decade of its creation a visiting Commission, appointed by the General

Assembly found "the part alloted to the reception of lunatics, idiots and insane persons, is in no respect entitled to the appellation of a Lunatic Asylum." The

Commission discovered "patients of all classes of every description of character, the moral, the religious and the profane, in every state of mental alienation, from the quiet, the noisy and the imbecile, the half rational, mono maniac and slobbering idiot, the convalescent patients and the hopeless incurable, with no distinction except to sex . . . huddled together, or shut up in their cells, deprived of the benefits of pure air and wholesome exercise.

The earliest attempts at educating the mentally retarded took place at the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum.

The Asylum, established in 1827, was the first publicly supported institution in the United States for the education of the deaf. In 183 0 the Superintendent reported that two students, after "adequate trial," were found lacking in sufficient intellect to justify being continued in the institution. He warned that many deaf "have imperfect mental as well as bodily 8 formation" and declared that any deaf child seeking educa­ tion had to possess a "sound mind."^^

While the mentally retarded occasionally appeared in public educational institutions, others could be found in less favorable circumstances. The Commercial

Hospital and Lunatic Asylum in Cincinnati recorded the presence of four idiots in 1830 and two in 1831, amidst

"the noise and uproar of furious and ungovernable maniacs."

A visiting commission appointed in 1831 to study the problem of proper care for the mentally ill advocated establishment of an asylum separated from the noise and bustle of the city. Support of the patients would be pro­ vided by their counties of residence and their own estates. The Commission's recommendation lay dormant for several years until the State Medical Convention, convening in Columbus in January 1834, memorialized the

Ohio General Assembly on the subject. The Convention reaffirmed the 1831 report and called for erection of an

Asylum "that will be creditable to the State, and in all respects, adapted to the relief, and cure of mental 12 derangement."

In 1835 in response to the agitation of the Med­ ical Convention of Ohio, the Ohio General Assembly passed legislation creating the Ohio Lunatic Asylum. During the planning and construction stages of the Asylum, 9 the Board of Trustees designated "rooms of the upper 13 stories for the accommodation of the idiotic class."

The General Assembly came to realize the neces­ sity of ascertaining the number of idiots, lunatics, and blind persons in the state for the purposes of the lunatic asylum. Following the passage of a resolution on March 5, 1835, the County Auditors undertook a census of these afflicted peoples. On the basis of their findings Governor Robert Lucas' executive message of December 1835, reported 280 male and 228 female idiots 14 in the state.

County Auditors failed to determine the age group of some of the idiots, but reports filed with the Gover­ nor indicated that of the 328 idiots whose age could be determined, 41 were under ten years of age, 100 from ten to nineteen years, 93 in their twenties, 55 in their thirties, 27 in their forties, 10 in their fifties, and 2 over sixty years of age. Over two-fifths of the identifiable retarded population were children. One- third of these were supported by family or friends; another third received no public or private support; and less than twenty-five percent were supported by public institutions. Those institutionalized resided in county poorhouses. Masters or mistresses of mentally retarded children who had been bound out 10 under the poor law were not required to provide educa­ tion or clothes for their ward.^^

The auditors generally limited themselves to statistical information such as age, sex, and means of support. When they mentioned social conditions, their reports were quite descriptive. Washington County Aud­ itor William Whittlesey described a forty-five year old idiot who was kept chained as "a helpless loathsome ob­ ject afflicted with sores, . . . listless and requiring constant attention." Monroe County Auditor Jacob Headlee reported a mentally retarded man who "never learned to speak intelligibly, sits mostly in a crooked position, helpless to feed or dress himself, head much too large for body." In Geauga County Auditor William Kerr noted

"a stranger left at the port of the Grand River confined 17 in jail as the best way to keep him harmless."

Although Superintendent William Awl of the Ohio

Lunatic Asylum initially designated rooms for the retarded, he noted in 1837 that the "idiotic class must be excluded unless additional buildings be erected for their special accommodation."^® Further south in Cincinnati, the trustees of the Commercial Hospital identified t;;cnty-two idiots in their institution and hoped that the Ohio

Lunatic Asylum would take them as well as the mentally ill. 11

Registers of patients indicate that despite Awl's wish to exclude them, mentally retarded youths were some­ times received at the asylum. Patient #44, "an idiotic ten-year old boy entered the institution in February 1839, to remain forty weeks before being discharged as incur­ able." In July 1839, Patient #106, an "idiotic sixteen year old also entered the Asylum only to be dismissed 20 fifty-one days later as incurable."

An act for the government of the Ohio Lunatic

Asylum, passed on March 13, 1838, prohibited "an idiot, or person naturally without mind" from gaining admission to the institution. During the same session, further modifications were made in the statutes regarding the mentally retarded. A measure passed on March 9, 1838, empowered the Associate Judge of a county to call an inquest into the mental condition of a county resident with five freeholders to determine the particular case.

Unlike earlier statute, the freeholders were not required to be residents of the township in which the subject of the inquest lived. Two physicians were to 21 appear and testify in the case. In spite of statutory limitations the Commercial Hospital and Lunatic Asylum in Cincinnati continued in the late 1830s to provide for 22 the maintenance of mentally retarded residents. 12

The first three decades of the nineteenth century found Ohio's concern for the mentally retarded limited to their removal from home and community if found in danger of destroying life or property. No legislative provision was directed toward the education or special care of the mentally retarded. Nevertheless, admin­ istrators of Ohio benevolent institions did provide some small measure of care for this class of citizens. By

1840, the needs of the mentally retarded outgrew the ability of local institutions to provide proper assist­ ance and signalled the need for special programs. NOTES

Salmon P. Chase (éd.), The Statues of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory, 1788-1833 (Cincinnati, 1833- 25), Vol. I, 107-109. Hereafter cited as Chase, Statutes.

^Ibid, 127. 3 Edward Seguin, Idiocy; Its Treatment by the Physiological Method (Albany, 1907), 22-23. 4 Chase, Statutes, I, 489.

^Ibid., II, 869.

®Ibiu., 998

^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XVIII, 94.

8 Edward D. Mansfield, Memoirs of the Life and Ser­ vices of Danial Drake, M. D . (Cincinnati, 1855), 142.

^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XIX, 58-66.

^^Ohio, Senate Journal 1831-1832 (Columbus, 1831), 36-40. Hereafter cited as Senate Journal.

^^Third Annual Report of the Trustees and Super­ intendent of The Deaf and Dumb Asylum of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1830), 5. Hereafter cited as Third Deaf and Dumb; unless otherwise stated, further references will provide number.

^^Ohio, House Journal 1834-1835 (Columbus, 1835), 366. Hereafter cited as House Journal

13 Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum, December 14, 1836. Ohio Department of Mental Health Records, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society. 13 14

^^Annual Message of Governor Robert Lucas, December 8, 1835, as quoted in Ohio, Eecutive Documents, 1834- 1835 (Columbus, 1836), 15.

^^Senate Journal 1835-1835, 47.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XXIX, 316.

17 William Whittlesey to Robert Lucas, October 26, 1835; Jacob Headlee to Robert Lucas, October 17, 1835; William Kerr to Robert Lucas, October 27, 1835, Robert Lucas Papers, Ohio Historical Society.

18 Third Annual Report of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum (Columbus, 1838), 4. Hereafter cited as Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report with year indicated.

19 First Annual Report of the Trustees of the Medical College of Ohio (Columbus, 1839), 9. Hereafter cited as Medical College with year indicated.

20 Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1839, 8, 10.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XXXVI, 40.

^^Medical College 1840, 8. CHAPTER II

THE YEARS OF HOPE 1840-1868

Although the state of Ohio attempted to avoid involve­ ment with the mentally retarded, members of the medical profession began to investigate the training of "idiots."

During the winter of 1840, a young physician from the

Western Reserve, Norton Strange Townshend, visited Paris to observe attempts to educate the mentally retarded at the Hospice des Incurables and the Bicetre.^ In

Columbus, during that same year. Dr. William Awl, observed

"a vast number of demented and imbecile classes who are constantly accumulating in a public asylum, and cannot possibly receive proper attention, with convenience and 2 comfort in other circumstances." At the Commercial

Hospital and Lunatic Asylum in Cincinnati, growing 3 numbers of idiots came under care. Even a private orphanage such as the Cincinnati Orphan Asylum was faced with the dilemma. A weekly visiting committee at the institution in April 1841, found its "attention was directed by the matron toward two children . . . sent in by the Trustees the week previous. One of them appears quite idiotical, the other deformed and unable to

15 16 walk. They are both very troublesome and require much care." "We come under the impression that the charter or constitution does not provide for diseased or deformed children," "The committee objected, would it be well to confer with the Trustees on the subject?"^

Although Dr. Awl of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum mainly devoted his interest to the status of the mentally ill, his institution's annual reports contained reflections on the retarded. In 1843 Awl found "idiotism and imbecil­ ity" observable "in early life." He believed a frequent cause of imbecility was masturbation.^

In 1844 at the first meeting of the Association of

Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the

Insane, Dr. Awl of Ohio, first brought public attention in the United States to the importance and need of asylums for the care and instruction of idiots. During the session, Drs. Amariah Brigham of New York, Awl of

Ohio, and White of New York were appointed to a committee to report on the subject to the next session of the

Association.^ Interest in provision for the education and treatment of the mentally retarded in Ohio began to build after the historic Philadelphia meeting of the

Association. The Ohio Lunatic Asylum directors noted the presence of over 1,200 insane and idiotic persons in Ohio, half of whom were mentally retarded. 17

Superintendent Awl continued to use the annual report to educate the Ohio public on proper care for the retarded.

Referring to the therapeutic value of the Asylum Farm,

Awl commented "the light minded and loquacious imbecile 7 can learn to dig and plant with very good effect."

The medical profession in Ohio was not alone in advocating education for the mentally retarded. William

Chapin, Superintendent of the Ohio Asylum for the Blind visited the Bicetre in Paris in 1845, where 850 of the

3,000 inmates were idiots. Chapin viewed the operation of the school for idiotic patients where reading, writing, O music and drawing were taught. In 1845 Horatio N.

Hubbell, Superintendent of the Ohio Deaf and Dumb Asylum in his nineteenth annual report quoted the observations of the European tour of George Day and Lewis Weld of New

York on idiot instruction in Prussia and Saxony. Four years later, he suggested that "something be undertaken for the improvement of this class of persons in Ohio."

Hubbell traced progress in the instruction of the mentally retarded in Europe and the United States and noted that during his tenure as superintendent a number of mentally retarded children had been brought to the

Asylum for instruction. In his opinion methods of instructing the deaf were unsuited to the mentally 9 retarded. 18

Superintendent Chapin of the Blind Asylum recalled some of the pupils discharged from his institution were expelled because of mental incapacity. The Directors of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum reaffirmed their position that

"no idiot or person naturally without mind can be received into the Asylum.Superintendent Hubbell revived the issue of the mentally retarded at the Deaf Asylum noting we have occasionally sent us for instruction children who are either idiots, or verging so far to\;ards idiocy, that they are found incapable of improvement . . . In all such cases, as soon as the melancholy fact can be ascertained on actual trial, they are discharged." He estimated that approximately twelve to fifteen mentally retarded had sought admission to the Asylum since its opening two 12 decades earlier.

In a preface to the 1849 Annual report of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum, the institutional trustees suggested "an institution for their welfare would erect another monu­ ment to the philanthropy and greatness of our state."

Superintendent Hubbell's indefatigable recognition of the status of Ohio's mentally retarded surfaced at mid­ century with the annual report reflecting on the mentally retarded and their needs. He asked for legisla­ tive and public sympathy to provide them with advan­ tages appropriate to their condition, as had occurred 19 with the deaf, blind and mentally ill. Like others before him, Hubbell affirmed that programs for the retarded were

"full of promise, as had been demonstrated on both sides of the Atlantic.

Increased public recognition of the retarded and educational programs aimed at their improvement, no doubt had some part in substantive changes to Ohio statutes concerning care of the retarded. By virtue of an act passed March 19, 1850, the Clerk of the Court of Common

Pleas, following an inquest, could direct confinement in the county poorhouse or county jail of a mentally retarded person. While incarcerated in the jail, the retardate was not to be lodged in the same cell with a person charged with or convicted of a crime. The act also sought to define for the first time in Ohio, the meaning of the word "idiot." The statute define "idiot" as "a person foolish from birth— one supposed to be naturally without mind.

The summer of 1850 also marked the convening at

Columbus of Ohio's Second Constitutional Convention to reshape and update the original version of 1802. While specific mention of the "idiot" was limited, the results of the Convention were not without their impact on the future status of the mentally retarded. For the first time, a constitutional restriction was placed on the 20 rights of the mentally retarded. Out of the Convention came Article Five, Section Six, relating to the elective

franchise. The new section read "no idiot or insane persons shall be entitled to the privileges of an elec­

tor." Early in the proceedings former Governor Joseph

Vance, a member of the Convention Committee on Public

Institutions offered a report stating "Institutions for benefit of those classes of inhabitants of the state who

are deprived of reason, or any of the senses, shall

always be supported and fostered by the state." As

finally approved by the Convention and incorporated into

Article Seven, Section One, of the Constitution the

statement read "Institutions for benefit of the insane,

blind, and deaf and dumb, shall always be supported and

fostered by the state." Constitutional recognition was

thus given only to those institutions that existed at 15 the convening of the convention.

The course of events in Europe combined to provide

a special thrust to instruction for the mentally retarded

in Ohio. Edward Seguin, distrusting the new regime in

France after the 1848 Revolution, emigrated to the

United States and settled in Cleveland. Seguin, born in

1812, at Clamecy, France had devoted his life to the

investigation and treatment of idiocy. By the date of 21 his arrival in Ohio, Seguin had become the first profes­ sional to specialize in the treatment of the mentally retarded. In 1837 Seguin established his own school in

France for the instruction of the mentally retarded.

Several years later, he affiliated with the Hospice des

Incurables and the Bicetre in Paris. Three separate commissions in 1842, 1843, and 1844— investigated

Seguin's results and the Paris Academy of Science reported in 1844 that Seguin had conquered the problem of educa­ tion for the mentally retarded. In 1846, he published his classic textbook Traitment moral, hygeine et educa­ tion des idiots et des autres enfants arriérés. In the

Fall of 1851, Seguin addressed a series of letters to the editor of the Cleveland Daily True Democrat tracing the history of the care and instruction of the retarded and advocating the desirability of state provision on their behalf.

The advocacy of instruction for the mentally retard­ ed brought the General Assembly to pass a resolution in

March 1851 asking Dr. Samuel H. Smith, Superintendent of the Ohio Lunatic Asylum to report on the subject of

"Idiocy and Idiot Instruction." Smith was specifically requested to provide statistical data on the numbers of mentally retarded, the cost of supporting and educating this class of the population, and the results of 22 experiments in the education of the retarded. The Super­ intendent, unfortunately, never filed such a report with the General Assembly.He did note in his annual report for that same year that the United States census figures for 1850 indicated an idiotic population of 1,399 in

Ohio, a total "considerably under the mark; quite number of cases of idiocy, . . . having been concealed by friends." In an apparent break with earlier policy.

Smith admitted a seven year old girl to the institution although suggesting that she would be "better served by 18 an institution for idiots."

The following year. Governor Reuben Woods' annual message made reference to the status of the retarded, recognizing that little had been done to improve their condition. He mentioned the work at the Colchester

Asylum in England and suggested that the "number of idiots in our state should be ascertained with a view to their care, protection and welfare." Township assessors, he felt, would be capable of determining the numbers at 19 little expense.

Following up on Governor Woods' remarks in his annual message, Horatio N. Hubbell memorialized the

General Assembly on "The Subject of Idiots." Hubbell's memorial suggested the establishment of an institution for the training and instruction of idiots. Although 23 no "systematic effort" had been made to ascertain the number of idiots and imbeciles in the state, Hubbell ad­ duced "several thousand idiots dragging out a miserable existence" in Ohio. As to improvability, Hubbell recounted successes in Massachusetts, Rhode Island and

New York coupled with experiences in France, England,

Prussia, Saxony, and Switzerland. The retarded had especially urgent "claims on public sympathy" due to their deplorable condition. Hubbell said the afflicted could be found in cellars hidden from public view and confined in cages. He estimated that ninety to ninety- five percent of the retarded could benefit from training and instruction. The Superintendent hinted at the etiology of affliction determining "many cases of idiocy are the direct consequences of the sins of the parents, the inequities of the fathers being visited on 20 the heads of the children."

Perhaps in response to increased public attention to the subject, the Ohio General Assembly passed legis­ lation in March 1853 calling upon the jailers of the counties to transfer the mentally retarded to the county infirmary (poorhouse). A further obligation of the act asked County Commissioners operating or consider­ ing operation of a county infirmary to consider provid­ ing "a separate apartment or apartments, in or adjoining 24

such infirmary for the safe-keeping and treatment of

lunatics and idiots." Initially introduced in January

1853 the original language of the bill asked that infirm­

aries "shall provide a separate apartment or apartments"

for the treatment of lunatics and idiots. The final ver­

sion of the bill made such apartments permissive and not 21 obligatory.

Since the resolution of 1850 regarding the instruc­

tion of the mentally retarded failed to be reported,

advocates of improvability focused their attention on the

Governor. In the Fall of 1853, Dr. Norton S. Townshend,

approaching Governor William Medill on the street, in­

quired "Governor, have you anything in your forthcoming message on the education of imbeciles?" "What!" was the reply, "Fools! why you can't teach fools anything can 22 you?" "Oh yes, " Tcwnshend replied. Seguin, himself,

took up the pen bringing the attention of the Governor

to the mentally retarded, requesting him to "take a step before the legislature for the opening of an experimental

asylum for idiotic children." He reminded Medill that

"I have the honor of being the first in France to intro­ duce a system of treatment for idiotic children. I have

fully tested that system under the superintendence of 23 the celebrated Dr. Howe of Boston." 25

Townshend's and Seguin's protestations had their desired effect. On January 12, 1854, Governor Medill, in his annual message, called attention of the General

Assembly to the condition of idiots, their needs and treatment. Medill's message regarding idiocy was referred to a Select Committee of the Ohio Senate for further in­ vestigation. Fortunately, one of the members of the committee was Dr. Townshend, who over a decade earlier had observed instruction of the mentally retarded in

France. On March 28, 1854, Townshend's committee reported back to the Senate on the subject. The committee esti­ mated that there were probably 2,000 mentally retarded persons in the state, one-fourth of whom were under fif­ teen years of age and susceptible of improvement. The report noted the success of idiot instruction in Europe and the United States and recommended an appropriation of

$5,000 for the rent of buildings, purchase of apparatus, salaries for teachers and assistants, and other expenses involved in establishing a school for idiotic and imbecile children. Unfortunately the General Assembly failed to 24 act upon the recommendations during the session. The

Deaf and Dumb Asylum trustees in turn tightened admission requirements by including on the application an inquiry as to whether the child was idiotic. Dr. Robert

Thompson, physician to the Asylum noted "children both 26 mentally and physically incapacitated" seeking admission to

the institution. Applications were often made for "harm- 25 less imbeciles" who could not benefit from the asylum.

The act of 1853, although intended to provide some

sort of classification and safety to the inmates of

county infirmaries, fell far short of the desired goal.

In 1855 Dr. M. T. Cary, physician to the Cincinnati City

Infirmary, described the Pest House, in which to mentally

retarded adults were confined, as "old and but illy ven­

tilated, and deficient in apartments, so much so that

all classes of diseases are thrown together; for instance we are compelled to put smallpox, itch, measles and 2 c syphilis all into the same room." Such a state of

affairs was not an isolated case; Mary Mann, wife of

Antioch College President Horace Mann, visited the Greene

County Infirmary and found an eighty-six year old woman

"thrust into a very small room where there are three beds,

and where imbeciles of all descriptions are her room­ mates." The room was "within two rods of a frightful

mad house occupied by insane people and idiots where 27 howling imprecations assail her ears by night and day."

Even at the opening of the Cincinnati City Infirmary in

1853, the mentally retarded were in evidence, since

Superintendent N. B. Marsh cared for three cases aged 19,

26, and 31. The following year, three more cases were 27 provided for and by 1855, ten cases received assist- 28 ance.

The opening of the legislative session in 1856 brought the réintroduction of the question of idiot instruction.

In February 1856, State Senator William Lawder called for the Committee on Benevolent Institutions to "inquire into the expediency of a state institution for the education of 2 9 idiots." Legislative and public support continued to mount and received a further boost with a visit to Columbus from Dr. Hervey B. Wilbur, Superintendent of the New York

Asylum for Idiots during the winter of 1856. Dr. Wilbur, accompanied by two of his pupils, gave a public demonstra­ tion on the capabilities of idiot instruction before the

Ohio General Assembly and the general public of the city.

On the evening of February 14, 1856, twelve year old Natty

Meakin and Willie McCabe, students at the New York Asylum for Idiots, exhibited craftwork, articulated words, took a grammar examination, and gave a display of arithmetical proficiency. Barely a week later. Dr. R. Hills, editor of the Columbus-based journal. The Medical Counselor or

Weekly Gazette, added his comments to the growing concern for the mentally retarded. Hills observed that the retarded "will be found mostly in jails, the poorhouse infirmaries, or in the wretched tenements of the poorest classes of the community, treated in most if not all 28

instances with less care and affection than the surround­

ing domestic animals." He suggested a number of ways to improve the situation. Initially, the legislature could appropriate a small sum for two years to educate six to

ten students. Secondly, educational privileges might be provided at the lunatic or blind asylums. Meanwhile, a commission could be appointed to examine existing insti­ tutions in the United States and prepare a report for the legislature.^^

In January 1857 State Senator Herman Canfield visited Dr. Wilbur's institution at Syracuse, New York.

Impressed by his observations. Senator Canfield returned to Ohio with plans to introduce a bill establishing such an institution. Legislative debate over the establish­ ment of an asylum was eloquently led by Senator Canfield.

Addressing the legislature on March 27, 1857, Canfield found the current status of the retarded "truly miserable."

They were not the subject of "the smallest attempt to edu­ cate or elevate" he attested. Yet, Canfield found "it an established principle of legislation that it is the duty of the state to educate its youth." The establish­ ment of an Idiotic Asylum was not to "gratify a sickly

sensibility of sentimental benevolence" but to become a part of the ordinary common school system, only "extra­ ordinary in the mode of instruction." The institution 29 would also be an economical measure since of an estimated idiotic population of 2,000, about 500 were under the age of fifteen. Of the latter, 300 received public support amounting to $75 each annually. He closed his appeal

"Will she (Ohio) refuse this small pittance for the educa­ tion of her unfortunate youth to whom her aid will be life 31 and mental resurrection."

An Act of April 15, 1857, established the Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth and provided the first residential program for the instruction of the mentally retarded. Superintendent Paterson, accompanied by newly appointed Asylum trustees Norton Townshend and

Asher Cook, immediately left on a fact-gathering mission visiting the institutions at Syracuse, New York, Barre 32 and South Boston, Massachusetts.

The enabling legislation included a preamble which a decade later served as a model for a state's responsi- biliry in the provision of education for the mentally retarded. Jonathan Pirn, speaking before the Statistic­ al and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland in January, 1864 cited its clear and cogent statement regarding the duty of the state in the education of the retarded. The pre­ amble concluded:

Whereas, The State of Ohio has recognized the educa­ tion of its youth as a duty incumbent upon the State, and has provided for those who are not susceptible 30

of improvement in common schools, modes of instruc­ tion adapted to their wants and capabilities and whereas, it appears by the report of the secretary of state that there are a large number of idiotic youth resident within its borders who are incapable of improvement in ordinary public or private schools, who are a burden to their friends and the community, objects of commiseration, degraded and helpless, and whereas experience has satisfactorily demonstrated that under the system of instruction adopted in schools for idiots in other states and Europe, that these youths may be elevated, their habits corrected, and their health and morals greatly improved, and they be enabled to obtain their own support; now therefore in the discharge of the duty of the State to educate its weak and helpless children as well as the gifted and strong, and to elevate a hitherto neglected class . . .

Private benevolence was inadequate, Pim asserted. The preamble pointed to a clear cut State provision for the 33 education of the retarded.

The medical profession, so early interested in the plight of the retarded, did not allow the need for estab­ lishment of the Asylum to go unnoticed. In June 1857 at the annual meeting of the Ohio State Medical Society, Dr.

Thompson called attention to the institution and spoke of the advantages to be derived from it.^^

With an initial appropriation of $3,000, the trustees leased a home in Columbus with accommodations for thirty pupils. The institution, opening on August 3,

1857, received sixteen pupils during its first year of operation. Admission to the Asylum was limited to child­ ren between the ages of six and fifteen, their support being paid by relatives, friends, township trustees or the state. 31

Instruction of the mentally retarded gave emphasis

to gymnastic and calisthenic exercises, an educational program advocated by Dr. Edward Seguin, the ranking inter­ national authority in idiot instruction. Exercises,

"systematically and persistently enforced" Superintend­ ent Paterson noted, "give precision of movement to the

limbs, promote physical strength, activity, self- confidence, and powerfully assist in securing and fixing the attention." Further requisites of care were "Bathing and a prescribed diet, the manner and times of taking food,

the hours of sleeping and waking for exercise and rest, 35 are all to be regulated and brought into requisition."

A typical day at the Asylum began at 5 a.m. with the children bathing and dressing. At 6 a.m. they ate break­

fast. From the end of breakfast until 9 a.m. the child­ ren spent in play and unrestrained exercise. Promptly at 9 a.m. the student body assembled in the gymnasium to engage in singing to piano accompaniment. A half hour

later, general exercises began with various movements of the body and limbs followed by linear drawing at 10

a.m. From half past ten until eleven the children were

taught to distinguish shapes, forms, size and color

through the use of colored cards, cups and balls, beads

and blocks. Recess followed until 11:15 a.m. when exer­ cises in articulation began, followed by simple activ­

ities in numeration and addition. At 11:45 a.m. general 32 exercises were resumed until the lunch hour. Following the noon meal, general exercises continued in the gym­ nasium followed by simple intellectual activities at

2:30 p.m. such as reading words and simple sentences, spelling and putting up letters of the alphabet. At a quarter of three, writing was undertaken with attention focused upon copying on blackboards, letters, words and simple sentences. Reading began at 3 p.m., taught by the word method and continued for a half hour before a resumption of singing and marching in the school gym­ nasium. School hours ended at 4 p.m. with remaining hours spent on the playground or gymnasium learning gymnastic sports and exercises prior to the evening meal.36

Enrollment in 1858 was twenty-six, the staff was relatively small but experienced. Assisting Dr. Robert

Paterson was Charles T. Wilbur, formerly of the New York

Asylum for Idiots and brother of Hervey Wilbur, that institution's superintendent. Teachers were Miss Emily

Whitman and Julia Burbank, both formerly associated with the New York Asylum.

Of the twenty-six students enrolled in 1858 eight were supported in whole or in part by friends or guard­ ians while the remaining eighteen were indigent and sup­ ported by the state. The Ohio Asylum, a residential 33 institution, operated eleven months a year with the month of August given for vacation and a return to family and guardians.

Word of the Asylum's existence soon spread state­ wide, aided by the annual report. Such recognition assisted in making the institution a residuary legatee of the estate of Mr. Charles Chapman of Avon, Lorain County,

Ohio. Chapman's bequest of $3,000 was made "in the hope that some of the least favored by nature may, through the agency of that institution, receive the blessings of a useful education." The bequest. Superintendent Paterson hoped, would be used for "the erection of a permanent building for additional school rooms with dormitories above."

In the formative years of the Asylum student bodies remained relatively small (1857, 16; 1858, 26; and

1859, 30) because of the lack of physical accommodations for their proper care and education. The early efforts appear relatively meager when balanced against an estim­ ated population of 2,000 idiots in Ohio, 500 of whom were under the age of fifteen. In 1859 as many as fifty ap­ plications for admission were backlogged awaiting expan-- 39 sion of the Asylum.

The early admissions, Paterson noted, were "well marked cases of idiocy some of them of a low grade," 34

yet "a majority have improved very well considering the

class to which they belong." The etiology of their con­

dition was "in a very few cases" due to a "quantity" of

the brain being faulty. The majority, however, possessed

"brains primarily defective in organization." A few

cases evidenced "mental derangement as well as imbecility."

Attempts at classification evaded the staff because the

idiot presented "a greater variety of characters as

regards intellectual capacity and moral bias than exists 40 among other classes who are above them in mental power."

In his annual message of 1859, Governor Salmon P.

Chase asked the General Assembly to decide the question

of a permanent establishment and location of the Asylum.

Once in operation, the Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile

Youth ran into opposition. On March 9, 1860, State Rep­

resentative James M. Stout of Monroe County introduced a

bill to repeal the act establishing the asylum. The

legislative committee to whom the question of repeal was

referred found the Asylum's critics doubting the capa­

bility of the mentally retarded to receive instruction

or benefit from such a program. After visiting the

Asylum, however, the Committee placed "full confidence in

the success of the experiment." In fact, they preferred

"not to consider it now an experiment" and instead urged

the General Assembly to expand the capacity of the 35

institution. The Asylum Board of Trustees reacted to the threat of repeal by stating that a discontinuance of the

Asylum would indicate "a retrogression in humane feeling and a mistake in political economy" and most importantly a departure from the maxim "The State should educate the children." To abolish the Asylum, the General Assembly would not be relieved of the subject for there must be some system and that system prescribed by the General

Assembly. The alternative they saw were human beings left

"to rot and decay in filth and wretchedness in county in­

firmaries" or kept "in cells where the gloom of the dungeon is only enlightened by the clanking of fetters and chains and idiotic ravings.

Despite such pressures and concerns the institu­

tional population continued to grow, crowding the building with thirty-five residents in 1860. The Superintendent

suggested that a small farm be operated not only as an

educational experience but as a means to cover student

expenses through agricultural production. For the first

time, the adult retarded were mentioned as possible

beneficiaries of such a system. The farm seemed an

alternative far better than maintaining them in county

jails, infirmaries and lunatic asylums. The farm idea

brought positive responses from Dr. Hervey Wilbur at the

New York Asylum for Idiots and Dr. Joseph Parish at the 36

Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Youth.

Superintendent Paterson went so far as to suggest two tracts of land near Columbus owned by the state as possible loca- 42 tions for an expanded institution and farm.

By 1860 Superintendent Paterson reflected further on etiology of idiocy being related to the ill-health of parents, ill-judged matrimonial alliances, over-indulgen- cies, hereditary tendencies to physical infirmaties, and consequent infirm mental and moral manifestations, to­ gether with defective treatment in infancy. A majority of the admissions he found "congenitally defective" with approximately ten percent healthy in body and mind at birth becoming retarded as a result of childhood diseases.

Interestingly enough, case histories of the first one hundred admissions indicated from five to ten percent showing signs of insanity.

The question of discontinuing the Asylum arose again in 1861. One source of opposition centered on a legal question. Omission of the "Idiot Asylum" from the list­ ing of institutions in the Ohio Constitution of 1851 opened a legal loophole for its opponents. The chief objection again centered on the "capability" of the mentally retarded to receive instruction or benefit from the institution. Subsequent resolutions came forward requesting the Superintendent of the Asylum to provide 37

statistics on the number of patients and the expenditures

involved in their support. The Superintendent of the

Asylum received further requests on January 28, 1861, to give an exhibition of the improvement of the pupils under his instruction before the General Assembly. A Select

Committee of the Idiotic School convened to investigate the question. In the course of its study, the committee traced the history of the first systematic efforts at the

instruction of the retarded from 1838 to 1861, finding both European, domestic and local examples of the viabil­ ity of such instructional programs. The economic argu­ ment alluded to in the resolutions was also considered.

Institutional cost was reviewed and found to "compare

favorably with that of any other benevolent institution in the state." The Committee of 1861, like its prede­ cessor, advised against repeal of the enabling legisla­ tion and in favor of the utility and success of the insti- 44 tution.

The commencement of the new year brought with it a change in the Asylum superintendency. Dr. Paterson resigned to take charge of the Lunatic Asylum in Iowa.

Elevated to the Superintendency was Dr. Gustavus A. Doren, most recently the Assistant Superintendent of the insti­

tution. Doren thus began an affiliation with the insti­

tution which continued until his death in 1905. Doren, 38 born on May 25, 1838, in Athens, Tennessee, came to the city of Columbus in 1850 with his parents. During his late teens, he entered the office of Dr. Robert Paterson as a student of medicine, then spent a year at Cincinnati attending medical lectures and then entered the Berkshire

Medical College at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He was 21 when he graduated in 1859. Shortly after graduation young Doren came back to Columbus and obtained the posi­ tion of Assistant Superintendent.^^

Ever sensitive to the need of affirming the institu­ tion's success. Superintendent Doren's first annual report noted that fourteen of the residents had learned to read and write, seven girls to sew neatly and perform light domestic duties and five boys to perform light tasks about the garden. The Trustees also authorized expansion of the institution's capacity with the addition of a story to a building attached to the main structure. Enrollment was able to expand to forty-seven students. Doren reactivated the idea of a farm where pupils could learn the skills necessary to prevent their becoming "helpless burdens upon

[the] community." The question of some provision for the adult retarded was raised but Doren viewed the institu­ tion as educational and not custodial. In recognition of the needs, the Asylum trustees were authorized by a legislative resolution to accept private donations of 39 monies and lands for an expanded institution.^^

In April 1862 the General Assembly amended the statutes relating to the mentally ill to provide that "no idiot shall be admitted to the lunatic asylum." The change gave credence to the fact that a lunatic asylum could not provide proper care or instruction for the men­ tally retarded. As a result. Superintendent Oscar Kend­ rick of the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum in Cleveland 47 rejected admission applications for two imbeciles.

Enrollment at the Idiot Asylum continued to grow with fifty-seven children under instruction by 1862. Dr.

Doren's annual reports continued to show progress in the instruction of the retarded. Twenty-eight students he noted, could read and write, 24 appreciate the relation­ ship and significance of numbers, 11 work in the garden,

15 sew neatly and 10 are able to make a garment. Ever cognizant of opposition to the institution, Doren warned that "The presence of idiots in the community may be regarded with indifference for a time but the neighbor­ hood of such individuals most surely feels the con­ sequences of the neglect of timely efforts for their improvement. Property will be destroyed, or personal violence will result from their fits of ungovernable 48 passion or freaks of mischief." 40

Just as quickly Doren sought to ward off possible criticism of such added expense by stating "It is not intended therefore that the Institution, as the rep­ resentative of her bounty, shall assume the guardianship or custody of any of this class during their whole life."

As in years earlier the necessity of a farm or work shop for the "steady and regular employment" of the pupils was . 49 raised.

Doren's remark did not pass unnoticed. In the next legislative session State Senator Lucius Bierce of Summit

County offered a resolution asking the Standing Committee of the Reform Farm and State Asylum for Idiotic and

Imbecile Youth to investigate "enlarging the accommoda­ tions of the Idiotic Asylum." Noting that the institution could only accommodate fifty pupils, the Committee believed the physical plant should be expanded. To confirm the position, it obtained reasonably accurate statistics from ten average size counties indicating 312 idiots, so that the committee estimated nearly 2,732 for the entire state. The committee found its current location inade­ quate because it was situated on only three acres, sur­ rounded by slaughter houses, streets and alleys prevent­ ing exercises outside of the limited grounds. A new location, the committee felt, should have grounds as 41 extensive as possible, be convenient and accessible to

the students, legislature and general public, and be sit­ uated on a high spot with the benefits of pure air. The committee concluded its report by recommending that a suitable site in the vicinity of the Capitol be purchased and that the Institution be permanently established on the

site. The action would go far, the committee felt, toward putting the Idiot Asylum on "an equal footing with other benevolent institutions of the state.

Superintendent Doren continued to document the progress made by the students especially as related to their progress since first admitted to the institution.

Of the fifty pupils, Doren said, "The friends of all but eight regarded their children incapable of any useful occupation." At admittance "not one knew anything of

ideas expressed by printed or written words"; none could write; 27 were unable to speak a sentence; 17 were unable

to talk at all; 35 couldn't dress themselves; 7 didn't

feed themselves; and not one had an idea of time. Doren

stated that after training in the Asylum 27 could read

and write, 17 read words, and 9 send letters home to

their families.

With more cases to reflect upon, Doren concluded

that the exciting cause of idiocy was "primarily heredi­

tary, " due to "our disease and degeneracy as people." 42

Without hesitancy, he found imbecile children the legiti­ mate offspring of "minds crazed by dissipation, enfeebled nervous organizations, from alcoholic excesses, the use of narcotics, mental and physical exhaustion from over­ taxing mind and body." Of the 156 cases received from

1857 to 1863, the Superintendent found the condition a result of consanguinity in 9 cases; insanity 5 cases; and either deafness, blindness, nervous disease or insanity in 43 cases, or between one-fifth and one-fourth of the 52 cases traceable to hereditary influence. Making his plea for expanding the institutions facilities, Doren noted that permitting only one of fifteen persons of this class in the state capable of improvement, to partake of the Institution's benefits, was hardly sound political economy or very humanitarian.^^

By the Spring of 1864, the press of applications for admission to the Asylum and the physical and struc­ tural inadequacy of the leased facilities, brought the

General Assembly to consider the purchase of lands and the construction of buildings for a new Asylum. The

General Assembly quickly sought professional suggestions on the subject. The first individual approached was

Dr. William M. Awl, who two decades earlier had first brought public attention to the education of the mental­ ly retarded. Awl, admitted his inability to give "an 43 entirely disinterested view on the subject," and sup­ ported a new and larger institution on the following grounds; (1) Recent experiences had proven the mentally retarded capable of much valuable improvement; (2) Edu­ cation is amongst the most valued favors of life and the blind, deaf and idiotic have a right to a share of the money expended for this purpose and (3) To discontinue the Asylum would be a step downwards for Ohio, especial­ ly in reference to her charities, with the possibility 54 of misconceived and unfavorable results.

Dr. R. D. Hills, Superintendent of the Ohio Lunatic

Asylum, was also approached on the subject. Hills quickly traced the success in instruction in Europe and the United States, including his personal observations at the Saltpetriere and Bicetre Hospitals in France. As to permanently establishing the Idiot Asylum as one of the curative or educational institutions of the state.

Hills replied, "Yes, I believe that all the hopeless suffering classes made so by the congenital or acci­ dental deprivation of the proper use of any of our im­ portant senses, or of our mental faculties, should be cared for by the State; that in each deparment every effort should be made to increase, as far as possible, 55 the capabilities of enjoyment of life and usefulness." 44

The minority report of the same committee assigned to this question opposed the purchase on the basis of the work with the mentally retarded was too recent and inconclusive as regarded the preparation of individuals turned back into society. The minority sought the opinion of Dr. 0. M. Langdon, Superintendent of Longview

Asylum in Cincinnati. Langdon asserted that the mentally retarded "can never be educated any more than the lower animals . . . and . . . that they can be taught to reason and judge . . . I do not believe." Education of the mentally retarded, Langdon felt "would be better left to the discretion of parents, township trustees, school directors and individual energy and the State should no more take charge of their education than that of engineers, doctors, preachers or blacksmiths."^^ The majority opinion prevailed and the General Assembly appropriated

$25,000 to purchase lands and construct buildings.

"It is the undoubted right and the bounden duty of government to provide for the instruction of ALL its youth" Daniel Webster had said in 1822. In similar vein, Emerson E. White, Ohio Commissioner of Common

Schools, in 1864, affirmed that the public institutions of the State specially founded for the education of the deaf and dumb, blind, and other unfortunate youth

(idiotic), were parts of her common school system. To 45

White, they were simply free schools, established for those who could not be instructed in the usual methods. "They are the fulfillment on the part of the State of a 'bounden duty' plus a sacred obligation to provide even the children of misfortune with instruction adapted to their capacity and circumstances." White's reference in his annual report marked the first time a major Ohio public educator 57 made mention of this branch of instruction.

Dr. Doren reaffirmed White's educational principles.

He viewed the Ohio Constitution as placing "every child in the State stolid or astute, imbecile or quick witted, upon the same common level, so far as its right to the bounty of an education is concerned. Upon the existence of this capacity, therefore the duty to instruct as well as the right to be instructed attaches."

The new Asylum Doren originally projected would have accommodated five to six hundred pupils. Knowing the political climate of the State, Doren settled for accommo­ dations for 250 to 300 pupils "at this time." In that same session, the Legislature made provision for the

Asylum trustees to make use of the State Farm west of the

Scioto River.

Despite legislation and protestations to the con­ trary, the existence of the mentally retarded continued to crop up in the reports of benevolent institutions. 46

The fifth annual report of the Orphans Home Society of

Columbus made mention that of thirty-six children cared for at the home, two had been sent to the Idiot Asylum.

Dr. O. M. Langdon, of Longview Asylum in Cincinnati noted that 47 of 1,017 patients entering that institution were 59 mentally retarded.

The year 1865 opened without a hint of the termina­ tion of the Asylum. Indeed, events seemed to have taken a more positive tone. Common Schools Commissioner White echoed his sentiments of the year earlier regarding the

Asylum's role as part of the common school system.

"Their special work is education," he said and although

"it is true they provide their pupils attending each school with board as well as instruction, but this does not make them, in any true sense, asylums." The statutes relating to the enumeration of idiots were modified somewhat in April 1865, when the requirements were made quadrennially instead of annually.

The medical profession, a group keenly interested in the welfare of the mentally ill, also began to examine their condition through the Ohio State Medical Society.

Beginning in 1865, the Society either investigated the status of the mentally ill or made it a topic of the annual meeting. Though the society's focus was centered on the "insane," its investigations brought them in 47 contact with the mentally retarded. In May 1865 a com­ mittee of Jefferson County Medical Society visited the

Jefferson County Infirmary and during the visit observed a locked cell where "Daniel Lupton [idiotic] wore only a shirt." The floors of cell and hall were wet with urine which Lupton voided on the cell floor. Nearby was another inmate, Ross (idiotic) who was without a cell.

He wore only a shirt and occupied a straw tick in the hall. Visiting the infirmary a bit later, the committee still found Ross in the hall. He sat on the floor, lean­ ing against the wall, completely nude. Although the weather was quite cool, he was not furnished bed-tick, quilt, sheet or shirt to protect him. Conditions such as those found by the physicians could probably be replicated at county infirmaries across the state, and told dramatically the status of the adult retarded in Ohio.Gl

The Asylum continued to cater to a growing number of youngsters and had 50 under instruction at the year’s end. With nearly a decade of operation and the exper­ ience of working with the retarded, Doren related the increasing importance of pupil "classification accord­ ing to intellectual grades." More and more, he urged the necessity of focational training for the students enabling them to produce something for their self support 48 upon their return to the community. High on the list, of course, was a farm, as well as learning in the "simpler trades.

Doren subscribed to the theories of educating the mentally retarded that other superintendents followed throughout the nation. Based largely on the theories of

Dr. Edward Seguin, activity focused upon the physiological education which as adapted aimed at strengthening the body and muscular systems to correct any physical abnor­ malities. Students would engage in gymnastic exercises, eat properly and enjoy the proper environment. Holding a Trinitarian hypothesis. Seguin saw first the education of the activity, then the intelligence, followed by the will. Physiological education, he felt brought them all into harmony.

The editors of the Cincinnati Journal of Medicine chided the Ohio citizenry for its callousness regarding the Idiot Asylum. In the Spring of 1866, the Journal editors observed that no donations came forth for land for the Asylum. Instead, "plenty of offers to sell land were made, God help us!" Almost sarcastically, the

Journal opined "It can not be possible that the State of

Ohio has within its borders no rich citizens who would give of his lands to this unfortunate, wretched, and 64 helpless class of mortals." 49

The emphasis on physiology was reaffirmed by Doren's report of 1866 in which he stated "We are to begin, with these children, with the education of the body." Training, as a result "related to things, instead of ideas." Con- versly, this system of education could be one based on books but "results from that source must not be expected."

Activities such as farming and gardening plus simple handicrafts were "incalculable stimulants" to the children. Doren reflected upon the causes of mental re­ tardation tracing them to marriages of consanguinty, intemperance, and the stresses of the American culture.

His reflections on the latter sound terribly current "The terrible strain that is kept up, both physically and mentally, upon our people in the 'scramble'— for it is nothing else— for money and position, the popular errors arising from the hotbed system of education, and the forcing of faculties beyond their endurance.

Shortly after taking office. Governor Jacob D. Cox called for the establishment of a Board of State Charities to oversee the operation of benevolent and reformatory institutions of the state and its various political sub­ divisions. Established on April 17, 186 7, the Board was composed of five members appointed by the Governor.

Among its various duties were the investigation of the whole system of public charitable and correctional 50

institutions of the state, and recommendation of such

changes and additional provisions as they may deem neces­

sary for their economical and efficient administration.

The first board included: Albert Douglas of Chillicothe;

G. D. Harrington of Columbus; Robert W. Steele of Dayton;

Douglas Putnam of Marietta; and Joseph Perkins of Cleve­

land. Appointed Secretary of the Board was Dr. Albert

Gallatin Byers, former chaplain of the Ohio Penitentiary.

In his capacity of Secretary, Byers received reports of

conditions in public institutions and also traveled

throughout the state making first-hand observations of

the treatment of the indigent and afflicted. A keen observer of the human condition. Dr. Byers soon became

an ardent advocate of proper care for the mentally

retarded. In his visit to the Franklin County Infirmary, he discovered an outer building housing "a maniac and

an idiot, the latter entirely nude, crouching amid his

own filth." The mentally disturbed at the Greene County

Infirmary fared little better. On a lot adjacent to the building for the mentally ill, surrounded by a high

board fence "insane and idiotic females" enjoyed respite

from their cells. They were exposed to "a pitiless noon

day sun without so much as a shrub to protect them from

the burning rays." The women's skins were "literally

crisp from their exposure to the heat." In his first 51 annual report, Byers suggested a separation of the men­ tally ill and mentally retarded. He sought a uniformity of struction in buildings and then a strict and uniform classification of inmates, as essential to "a wise and economical dispensation of public charities.

In the 1840s the idea of establishing an institu­ tion for the education of the mentally retarded kept pace with increased emphasis given to other sorts of afflic­ tions as mental illness, deafness and blindness. Cul­ minating in 1857, with the establishment of the Idiot

Asylum, annual reports documented improvements in the social and academic skills of pupils under care. The success of the Asylum in educating its charges shifted the institution from an experimental to a permanent edu­ cational emphasis. By late 1869, the opening of new facilities and increased public recognition of the deplor­ able conditions in local bnevolent institutions gave hope that the mentally retarded would no longer suffer from such extreme neglect. NOTES

Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio (norwalk, 1896), Vol. I, 100. Hereafter cited as Howe, Historical Collections.

2 Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1840, 25.

^Medical College 1840, 7.

^Cincinnati Children's Home Weekly Report of the Visiting Committee, 1841, Cincinnati Children's Home Papers, Cincinnati Historical Society.

^Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1843, 40.

^American Journal of Insanity, Vol. I (1845), 256.

7 Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1845, 148.

O Fifth Annual Report of the Ohio Asylum for the Blind (Columbus), 7. Hereafter cited as Blind Asylum Report with year indicated.

^Eighteenth Deaf and Dumb (1845), 62.

^^Blind Asylum Report 1845, 7.

^^Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1845, 117.

^^Twenty-first Deaf and Dumb (1848), 106.

l^Ibid. (1849), 10.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XXXXVIII, 85.

V. Smith, Official Reports of Debates and Proceedings of the Ohio State Convention (Columbus, 1851), 328, 635.

52 53

^^Cleveland Daily True Democrat, December 5, 8, 10, 1851.

^^Senate Journal 1851, 927.

18 Ohio Lunatic Asylum Report 1851, 520.

19 Annual Message of Governor Rueben Wood, January 5, 1852, as quoted in Ohio, Executive Documents, 1852 (Columbus, 1852), 20-21.

20 House Journal 1852, 13-15.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. L, 375.

22 Howe, Historical Collections, I, 639.

2 3 Edward Seguin to William Medill, December 26, 1853, William Medill Papers, Ohio Historical Society.

24 Senate Journal 1854, 11-29.

2 5 Twenty-seventh Deaf and Dumb (1854), 31.

n çr Third Annual Report of the Cincinnati City Infirmary (Cincinnati, 1856), 75, 79.

27 Mary Mann to Salmon P. Chase, December 6, 1858, Salmon P. Chase Papers, Ohio Historical Society.

2 8 Fourth and Fifth Annual Report of the Cincinnati City (Cincinnati, 1856), 92, 103.

^^Senate Journal 1856, 170.

^^First Annual Report of the Trustees and Superin­ tendent of the Ohio Asylum for the Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth (Columbus, 1857), 93. Hereafter cited as Idiot Asylum Report with year indicated. The Medical Counselor or Weekly Gazette, Vol. II, (February 23, 1856), 188-189. 54

^^Ohio State Journal, April 8, 1857.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1857, 5.

3 3 Marvin Rosen, Gerald Clark and Marvin Kivits, The History of Mental Retardation ; Collected Papers (Baltimore, 1976), I, 99.

^^Transactions of the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Medical Society (June 2-5, 1857, 20.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1857, 13.

^^Ibid, 1858, 16-17.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1858, 13.

O O Idiot Asylum Report 1858, 12.

^^Ibid.

40ibid., 1854, 14.

^^House Journal 1860, 89-100.

Idiot Asylum Report 1860, 9.

43ibid., 13.

44 House Journal 1861, 80-86

^^Biographical sketch from Preliminary Inventory to the Gustavus Doren Papers, Ohio Historical Society. 4fi Idiot Asylum Report 1861, 7-9.

^^Seventh Annual Report of the Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum (Columbus, 1863), 8. 55

Idiot Asylum Report 1862, 1, 9.

49 ^Ibid., 9.

^^Senate Journal 1863, 24-26.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1863, 8.

S^ibid., 19.

S^ibid., 20.

S4 Senate Journal 1864, 21.

S^ibid., 29.

S^ibid., 32-33.

57 Eleventh Annual Report of the Commissioner of Common Schools as quoted in Ohio, Executive Documents 1864 (Columbus, 1865), pt. 1, 396-397.

5 8 Ohio State Journal, January 8, 1864.

^^Fifth Annual Report of the Longview Asylum (Colum­ bus, 1865, 82 8.

^^Twelfth Annual Report of the Commissioner of Common Schools as quoted in Ohio, Executive Documents 1865 (Columbus, 1866), pt. 2, 544-545.

^^Transactions of the Twentieth Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Medical Society, June 21, 1865, 68-74.

9 Idiot Asylum Report 1865, 11, 14.

fk 9 Edward Seguin, Idiocy; Its Treatment by the Physio­ logical Method (Albany, 1907), 58.

^^Cincinnati Journal of Medicine, Vol. 1, April April, 1866, 208-209. 56

65. Idiot Asylum Report 1866, 10, 16

^^First Annual Report of the Board of State Chari- ties (Columbus, 1868), 21-25. Hereafter cited as Board of Charities Report with year indicated. CHAPTER III

CUSTODIAL CARE EMERGES 1869-1879

In July 1868, nearly four years after the state ap­ propriation, the new buildings for the institution were occupied. Located on land west of the Scioto River in

Columbus, the new facilities could accommodate 150 pupils. By late 1868 Superintendent Doren reported 105 students in attendance, a near 100 percent increase in enrollment over the previous year. With expanded facili­ ties, "the industrial capacity" of each child could now be studied and developed.

Since 1868 was a transition period for leaving the old and moving into new buildings. State Board of Chari­ ties Secretary Byers decided not to make a formal visit to the Asylum. His visits to county infirmaries and statistical compilations were more detailed. From reports filed with his office, 381 mentally retarded individuals were receiving care in county infirmaries. The quality of care appeared uniformly poor. Observations at the

Geauga County Infirmary noted "A girl of perhaps twenty- one years of age, an idiot of very low grade intellect, if she possessed any, had during the year, become mother

57 58

of twin children under circumstances utterly revolting,

and entailing sufferings upon that witless being indes­

cribably horrible." In Coshocton County, a small six­

teen by twenty-four foot house on the infirmary grounds was partitioned off by shingle lathing, giving it the

appearance of an ordinary corn crib. Inside were cells

or cribs for the confinement of the mentally retarded.

Meigs County, in southeastern Ohio, maintained a small

non-descript building confining several colored persons

among them an idiotic boy, possessing a genius for music.

Byers thought the boy's talents could be cultivated at

the State Asylum, rendering his condition much more com­

fortable . ^

No sooner had the Asylum settled into the practical work of education of the mentally retarded, than in 1869,

the Ohio General Assembly Committee on Benevolent In­

stitutions inquired into the propriety of converting the

grounds and buildings of the Idiotic Asylum into an

institution for the care and reformation of inebriates.

The pupils in the Asylum were to be returned to the

county infirmaries. Although the Committee concurred

that an inebriate asylum would be of merit, it concluded

that confiscation of the Idiot Asylum would be neither

proper nor expedient. The county infirmaries to which

the mentally retarded were to be referred, were, the 59

Committee concluded "not only poor houses in the literal sense of the term, but are as poor and miserably managed, as the structures are dilapidated and the inmates wretched. Besides, a very large number of counties have no infirmaries at all, and therefore could not comply with either the spirit or letter of the resolution." To reinforce its decision, the committee reminded the public of the history of infirmaries and their disgraceful and shameful conditions especially as documented by the Board 2 of State Charities in the 1867 and 1868 annual reports.

The State Board of Charities occasionally found infirmary care adequate. At the Knox County Infirmary

"The very idiots, here as repulsive in form and feature and mental condition as any to be found elsewhere, are rendered fairly attractive by the care and cleanliness which characterizes their keeping." In the Cincinnati

City Infirmary, the problem of classification was noted when Dr. Bunker, infirmary physician, observed "epilep­ tics and idiots are classed with lunatics, which is probably correct, as an inmate received from Longview is classed by us as idiotic." Mentally retarded children at other benevolent institutions could be docu­ mented with the transfer of four children to the Idiot

Asylum from the Washington County Children's Home. The 60 maintenance of the retarded in the Fairfield County

Infirmary reaffirmed the wretched state of the mentally

ill. In a frame building containing eight cells, eight by ten feet each, six insane, two epileptics and eight idiotic are kept. Seven of them were in the yard under the fierce heat of an August noon-day sun, two of them— women— were nearly naked— one of them with her hands tied.^

The Board subsequently visited the Idiotic Asylum expressing "unqualified approval" of its general management and satisfaction with the "good work" it was accomplishing. So impressed were members of the board with its progress and usefulness that the Board offered

several recommendations for the consideration of state authorities; (1) enlargement of the institution to provide

for all the mentally retarded of the state and (2) con­

struction of six or eight plain but comfortable pavilions

adjacent to the present institution accommodating fifty

to seventy residents each at a total cost of $60,000.

The Board further recognized three classifications of

the mentally retarded in the state: "First, those coming

under the present provision of the law, rendering them

eligible to the State Asylum, i.e. such as are capable of

some mental culture. Second, those so devoid of mind

as to preclude the possibility of mental culture, yet 61 possessing physical organizations, susceptible of training by mere force of habit, to manual labor and cleanliness of person, and third, those who are utterly destitute of mind or so malformed in body as to preclude either culture of thought or personal habits and who in consequence of their utter helplessness demand and should by every prompting of humanity, receive the utmost consideration and constant care.

Board members believed their recommendations to be practicable and realized what such action would mean to the Idiotic Asylum. Instead of continuing as a school for children of feeble mind, the state would enlarge it to as to make it in reality what the popular mind viewed it to be— an Asylum for Idiots, where all the idiots of the state would be congregated. At the risk of appearing too presumptuous with their recommendations, the Board stated that no consultation had occurred with the Board of Trustees of the Idiotic Asylum about their suggestions. In a plea which was to become almost an annual ritual, the Board recommended the condition of the retarded to the thought and investigation of the legislature whereby some means of relief could be found to remedy the evils to which Ohio's retarded were exposed. The Board reported 130 students at the Asylum and estimated that the county infirmaries cared for 62 approximately 337, for a total of 467 institutionalized mentally retarded in the State. Although Knox and Stark

Counties attempted to bestow some attention upon them, the assistance was not repeated across the state.

Citations of improvement were noted by the Board (1869) in that of a Geauga County girl sent from the Infirmary to the State Asylum. At the time of her departure from the county she was described as "nude, filthy, requiring to be fed, troublesome, and exceedingly repulsive."

Under the skillful treatment of the Asylum she "ceased from her mad ravings and submitted to be clothed and acquired the habit of feeding herself." The Board re­ flected that the child "did not in any legal sense have claim upon the protection, care and treatment of the institution" yet, "moral obligations could be met without positive infringement of legal rights" and so the child was kept and cared for.^

In the first decade following the establishment of the Asylum, the annual reports provided glowing accounts of the progress of the pupils. Superintendent Doren reported the numbers who had learned to read and write, speak, and otherwise improve themselves since entrance into the Asylum. While regulations limited admission to those between six and fifteen, the Superintendent began to realize the need for provision for the mentally 63 retarded adult. As early as 1860, Dr. Doren suggested the purchase of a farm for the permanent retention and employ­ ment of the mentally retarded adult.^

Educational facilities at the State Asylum failed to keep pace with the demand for applications for admis­ sion despite the expansion of the institution in 1868.

Children at the institution represented only a fraction of the mentally retarded population in Ohio. Thousands more could be found in jails, reformatories, mental hospitals, orphans' asylums, children's homes and county infirmaries. In 1870, Charities Board Secretary Byers reported 505 retardates in the infirmaries "of whom, from one-third to one-half of the numbers are helpless— unable to work— and the others able to perform a reason- 7 able amount of physical labor.

The care of the mentally retarded child in the home was often not much better than that received in the

Infirmary. The Marietta, Ohio, Register described the following incident:

A family living in Matamoras, Washington County, Ohio by the name of Daily had an idiotic son about 11 years of age, who annoyed the neighbors considerably by taking anything he saw that pleased his fancy. The neighbors insisted that the child be sent to an asylum, where he could have proper attention. The parents concluded that they could manage him; so they got a small chain and fastened it around his neck and gave him in charge of his two brothers who drove 64

him around the streets wherever they went. If the child stopped to look at anything that attracted his attention, they would give him a cut of the whip and drive him on. When they wearied of driv­ ing him around, he was taken to a hog-pen and the chain fastened up overhead so he could not reach it and left to stand in the hot sun. The neigh­ bors protested against such treatment, and he was then taken to the house and chained to the porch, so that he could neither sit nor lie down. The child being subject to fits, was left in this con­ dition by the parents, who well knew that a fit was coming on the child. The father going to his work on the lower end of town, and the mother upstairs in the house, when a neighbor passing saw the child hanging dead, the knees nearly touching the floor.8

Horror stories such as these as regards the care of the mentally retarded became the rule rather than the exception bringing interested state organizations to sug­ gest changes in provision for the mentally retarded.

Legislation, too, was modified to better ascertain the numbers of retarded. In May, 1869, local assessors were required by statute to determine the number of "idiots" whose parents were related to each other by blood. Such legal injunctions were not without their practical problems. The Secretary of State observed that "to ascertain the number of marriages between blood relations, and the number of idiots in any township or ward, is too delicate a task for a township assessor. It is asking too much of this officer to demand at his hands and inventory of the quality and specific gravity of 65 the brain fiber of his neighbor." He noted that 69 counties reported only 123 retarded. "It is apparent" the Secretary g opined, "that this law is a failure."

In 1870 the State Board of Charities stated its belief that "on the score of economy as well as humanity, it will be wise for the state to provide a home for all these pauper idiots, who are found in the infirmaries— to be placed under the supervision of the Trustees of the

Idiotic Asylum." Such action would involve an enlarge­ ment of facilities and the purchase of additional land.

The Board desired that expansion would not interfere with the appropriate work of the Institution "the benefit of such of the idiotic as are capable of any mental training or culture." Board Secretary Byers continued to report the status of the infirmary retardate. At the Athens

County Infirmary, it was necessary to employ a competent watchman to "protect the lives and secure the comfort of these unfortunates." The Belmont County Jail held "a driveling idiot charged with rape ." Further north at the

Columbiana County Infirmary, Byers found 67 in the inmate population of 101 "insane or idiotic.

Byers went on to make some general observations on the idiotic. Their condition, he found became more and more pitiable year after year. He warned that "the indis­ criminate association of human beings led to the 66 propagation of children begotten of witless mothers who inherit a parent's idiocy." Byers cited the example of a young retarded girl who gave birth to twins without possessing the ordinary maternal instincts for her off­ spring. If expansion of the Asylum seemed unworkable,

Byers asked that "some other plan be devised." Even the creation of a "mere receptacle" for this class of people seemed an improvement for those possessing the "most casual knowledge of their condition and character."

Referring to the work of the State Institution for

Imbeciles, Byers noted that it proved "that idiocy in its lowest form is susceptible of education." The idiot— the worst of them— can be trained to the habits of cleanliness and care. Although the work required patience and skill, it lightened the blight and bitterness of daily existence for the retarded. The establishment of such an institution, Byers opined, would "not be a mere recep­ tacle, but an asylum in every sense of the word, where protection and relief might be afforded" as well as such

"training and care as the peculiarities of each of these unfortunates might require." The 505 idiotic found in infirmaries could be reduced to 271 "physically able to labor" and 234 "more or less helpless." The latter number made an average of a fraction over two and one-half per county, enough to present problems, yet a figure too small 67 to justify special provision for their separate mainten­ ance .

In that same year, 1870, the Asylum Trustees argued that an expanded institution would keep the residents

"shielded from becoming the victims or tools of the more designing and depraved. Thus, as a protection to society we believe such institutions have a value for transcend­ ing their cost." Superintendent Doren reminded the public that the farm and garden at the institution was

"conducted in the interest of the children" for their training to habits of industry and not for the purpose of 12 productiveness.

Diversity of habitation for the retarded was fur­ ther demonstrated by Dr. O. D. Norton's observation at the Cincinnati Workhouse in 1871. He noted "There are still a few cases of hopeless imbecility that could be 13 far better cared for at the City Infirmary." Possi­ bility of expanded facilities at the State Asylum con­ tinued as Charities Board Secretary Byers requested Dr.

Doren to draw up plans for an enlargement of the insti­ tution. Doren complied, with tracings for six pavilions connected to the existing building, with estimated construction costs at $16,000 each. Financing for such a project could come from the transfer of eight 68 mills per $100 from the county to the state tax dupli-

cate.^ 14

The presence of multiple handicapped children in

public institutions was noted in the 1830's, yet not

until four decades later did the question of proper care

surface again. In 1872, Dr. J. W. Hamilton, physician

to the Blind Asylum observed "several children of feeble

minds." "Perhaps our Institution is the best and only

place for them," he said, although "their double mis­

fortune would seem to entitle them to the best care

the state has to give them." The management and train­

ing of blind children at the institution for weak-

minded children might be inconvenient or impracticable,

yet their management at the Blind Asylum appeared

equally difficult and unsatisfactory. The Hare Orphan's

Home in Columbus also sent children to the Idiot

Asylum. During the late Civil War years public school edu­

cators had referred to the teaching of the retarded but

only as the Asylum fulfilled this need. Some educators

began to pay more attention to the institution and

methods used there. The Cincinnati school superin­

tendent, John Hancock, visited in 1872 finding himself

"deeply moved . . . by what I saw on that occasion."

Hancock found "object teaching" the only method used in 69 instruction. At the lowest grade, Hancock saw lessons in color and form going on with teaching apparatus such as cups and balls of different colors, plus blocks of wood of different shapes and a board with notches to receive them. Reading was taught by the word method whereby the child was taught each word by associating it with its appropriate object. Students in the highest department studied arithmetic, geography and grammar and read in the fifth reader. The impact of Seguin's philos­ ophy on the physiological method came through with the large share of attention paid to physical training. Han­ cock witnessed children "exercising with wands, dumb­ bells and rings to the tune of a piano. One child then sang a solo, accompanied by a chorus. The exercise closed with a cotillion danced in excellent time and with perfect decorum." Superintendent Hancock found the

"experience suggestive and the methods pursued as the very foundation rock upon which the science of education is based.

Superintendent Hancock continued his advocacy and reflections on the mentally retarded at a meeting of the

Ohio School Superintendents Association in July 1872 in remarks on "Methods in Deaf Mute Education." Hancock noted that "idiotic youth are also I think instructed by

£ similar method. Idiotic children are not only deprived 70

of one sense, but at best possess all the senses in a very

feeble degree." Instruction must be "many repetitions,

at last the feeble intellect is induced to take hold, and

gets a firmer grasp upon things about it. So in all

things it is a building up process ..." In Hancock's

Superintendent's Annual Report to the Cincinnati Board of

Education he raised the question of whether "making the

education of the deaf mutes, the blind and the imbeciles

a part of the public school system in our cities and

towns, is a practicable and desirable one." He noted

that "Ohio had made the amplest provision for the educa­

tion of all of these classes, much better than any city

or town can possibly make." Hancock acknowledged that

parents felt comfortable "having their children educated

at home, so that they might have a constant oversight

of their welfare, and enjoy their society" but felt that

the balance of advantages at state institutions was so

decided that every thoughtful parent would be willing to

make the sacrifice involved. One suggestion he did offer was to alter the present law to allow admissions at an

_ . 16 earlier age.

While educators observed and suggested, the medical

profession sought to refine its opinions on the subject

of the mentally retarded. The editor of the Physio-

Medical Recorder published in Cincinnati remarked on a 71

lecture of Edward Seguin observing "habits and hygiene of fashionable life have a tendency to debase parents and the penalty falls upon a multitude of unfortunate children. Among the wealthier classes, as the result of endless siestas and satieties, idiocy is aggravated 17 ..." Edward D. Mansfield, former Ohio Commissioner of Statistics, added his perspective to the question of the retarded in an essay prepared for the United States

Commissioner of Education. Mansfield viewed "imbecil­

ity" as "one of the greatest causes of pauperism. The two types were 'natural' as well as acquired." The 18 latter type, he thought to be the majority of cases.

Attempts were also made to compile statistical data on the number of mentally retarded. The Ohio Secretary of State counted 2,338 in 1870, with 860 under the age of 20. The largest single group were those in the 19 20 to 30 years age bracket with a total of 562.

The Board of State Charities created in 1867 was abolished in 1872 and not restored until four years

later. During the interim, the Prison Reform and

Children's Aid Association of Ohio came into being and hired the Reverend Albert G. Byers as its agent. Taking up where he had left off with the state board, Byers visited a number of infirmaries in which he pointed out

the condition of the retarded. At the Coschocton 72

County Infirmary there existed a pen where "an idiotic girl" had been kept for years in a state of neglect.

Byers found her sleeping in the orchard under a fierce

July sun, with her face and limbs fearfully bronzed from the exposure. In the local Franklin County Infirmary,

Byers found "idiotic" children, causing him to reflect that "This marvel of carelessness or indifference among county officials loses its wonder in the fact that such children are found in the infirmary, located as it is under the very shadow of state institutions to which these poor children are eligible." Still other children were found at the Greene County, Pickaway County, and

Clark County Infirmaries. Byers' statistics revealed

325 idiotic in infirmaries as of September 1875. In some cases the idiotic population made up a significant share of county infirmary populace. Of the 118 inmates in Belmont County, 37 were idiotic, of 106 in Fairfield

County, 28 were idiotic and of 85 in Miami County, 17 20 were idiotic.

The Secretary of State and Byers' statistics with all their shortcomings nevertheless pointed out the

limited facilities and programs for the retarded. Dr.

Doren at the State Asylum reported 310 residents with

facilities "greatly crowded, [however], and the best results are not to be expected under such a condition of things." The crowding, he found "against nature. 73 opposed to health, welfare, spirits and everything con­ nected with the future of those who have to undergo the loss of identity and individuality in great classes."

The improvement of mental and physical conditions "cannot be dealt with in classes, but must be labored with and instructed individually." Doren reminded the readers of his report "that no special immunity is enjoyed by any from the ravages of the condition. Besides accident,

Doren found some of the predisposing causes to be the effects of intemperance, the marked eccentricities of 21 insanity and those who indulge in debauching.

The year 18 71 marked the end of twenty years of operation of state, under the Constitution of 1851. The document provided for the twenty-year reassessment of its operation and in fall elections, Ohio voters gave definite sanction to the convening of a Constitutional

Convention to consider changes to the basic document.

Nearly two years later, January 1873, the legislature provided for the election of delegates. Commencing in

Columbus in May 1873, the Convention concluded its deliberations nearly a year later in Cincinnati. Alter­ ations in the judicial system, licensing for liquor sales, and corporate regulation were expected to provide the biggest items for discussion. 74

During their deliberations, delegates were divided into committees, prominent among which was the one on public institutions. The session of June 4, 1873, pro­ vided the earliest reference to the mentally retarded in an amendment to article VII regarding what benevolent institutions would be supported by the state. Delegate

Cunningham from Allen County proposed the addition of

"imbecile" to the list of institutions supported by the state. Lewis D. Campbell of Butler County felt the in­ clusion unnecessary for the "idiotic" had not been slighted but were provided for within the class known as the insane. Delegate Cunningham felt that by a stretch of interpretation, perhaps, insane could be applied to all imbeciles, but he was unwilling to admit it would. "Why not recognize this as one of the provisions to be inserted in the fundamental law?" he said. Cunningham went on to say that "Science has provided a remedy by which certain grades can be improved . . . and I believe it is the duty of this Convention . . . to recognize this as one dis­ tinct branch." Three days later. Delegate Pease of Stark

County affirmed Cunningham's suggestions, stating "I don't believe we have a right— a moral right— to ignore the fact of the existence of this institution for the benefit of idiots— the idiotic institution." Pease briefly outlined the work of the institution, the 75 numbers of idiots in the state, and the public obligation to their care. He closed his remarks stating "I protest before this Convention, of having the institution ignored by the report submitted to the committee." Minutes later. Delegate Dorsey of Miami County, pointed out that there was a broad difference between the man who is in­ sane and the child who is an imbecile. In one, the treat­ ment is curatorial, in the other the treatment is that of development, and endeavoring to improve that which is imperfect, not endeavoring to restore that which is unsound.

Taking somewhat of an opposite tack. Delegate Herron from Hamilton County, spoke against a specific reference fearing that "all of that class are entitled to the same advantages as those now in the institution. Compulsory support by the state would lead to a class of our people being thrown off by relatives and friends." Delegate

Gardner of Fayette County replied; "In wealthy families this unfortunate class of people can be and are cared for, but unfortunately, all the people of this great

State do not belong to that class." He presented sev­ eral personal observations, one from his boyhood where three mentally retarded Highland County children "were kept confined as dumb animals, . . . chained up in a private room by themselves and kept there without any 76 mental or physical training." He continued "Why does my friend and neighbor send his boy to the Idiotic Asylum?

Because he has not the means at his command to give him

the education, and improvement, and intellectual develop­ ment that this institution has." Delegate West of Logan

County who had believed earlier that the Asylum would not become a success" repeated "I thank God I was mistaken.

Some little use can result from it and now I am prepared to incorporate that institution with the one for the blind and deaf and dumb." He did reiterate that "I do not believe that the time will ever come when one of those children ever can be brought to that condition where he 23 or she will become a man or woman."

On May 11, 1874, just prior to adjournment, the last major debate occurred on the subject of the Idiot Asylum.

Delegate Hitchcock from Geauga County moved to amend

Article VII relating to public institutions so that the

"idiotic" asylum would "always be supported by the state

"rather than being supported so long as the General

Assembly may deem them necessary." Delegate Campbell

took the opposite position, saying "On the contrary, if

it can be found to be a useless institution, I can see no reason why it should not be subject to the control of

the Legislature and be discontinued." A vote was taken on Delegate Hitchcock's motion which received a majority 77 of votes but fell short of passage as it did not receive the vote of two-thirds of those present. The vote ended consideration of the subject of the retarded. The con­ sensus appeared clear; most delegates did not assail the desirability of such an institution, yet the perpetual support of the Asylum seemed a financial burden the state need not be obligated to continue.

Submitted to the voters in August 1874, the proposed

Constitution and three special propositions were defeated by a vote of 250,169 against and 102,885 in favor. Al­ though some proposed changes to the Constitution as re­ lated to the idiotic met with defeat, the debate on the subject evidenced a growing awareness of the status of the mentally retarded and a solid core of supporters 24 wishing to ameliorate their condition.

By 1874 the new buildings at the state Asylum were occupied and appeared to relieve the over-crowded rooms in the main building. Enrollment jumped to 386 with Dr.

Doren reporting 234 students being taught to read and

199 to write. The older boys also labored on the farm and gardens of the institution. The expansion of the institution as well as its proximity to the City of

Columbus gave rise to the Board of Trustees recommenda­ tion that telegraphic communications with the fire depart­ ment of the city be made as speedily as possible. The 78 comment came as a result of a fire in the Central Build­ ing.

Enrollment continued to climb at the asylum, with

1875 figures at the 423 mark. The male residents contin­ ued to work on the farm and in the gardens although Dr.

Doren found it "difficult to train the girls to a class of labor that will be one of more permanent benefit to them than such as are incident to ordinary house work."

Evidencing a shift from the academic to the manual aspects of the student's training, the Board of Trustees sought an appropriation for a workshop where children could be employed.

The Centennial of the nation found the Asylum again crowded to utmost capacity with enrollment at 499 pupils.

The workshop suggested earlier had been completed and

Doren directed "all efforts for bettering the conditions of feeble-minded persons toward the substitution of habits of industry for the aimless life of idleness that they lead." The absolute importance of the subject forced

Doren to reiterate and urge the "importance of adopting comprehensive and systematic plans for remedying the 2 7 great lack in our organization." The problems of education and after-care for the retarded were further evidenced through Infirmary Superintendents' reports sent to Governor Rutherford B. Hayes. In Hocking 79

County, a 17 year old "feeble-minded" girl was refused 2 8 admittance to the district school. Still another 17 year old "idiotic boy" returned from the state institu­ tion and was placed in the Logan County Infirmary's In­ sane Department. A five year resident of the State

Asylum, the boy gave evidence of overwork and appeared to 29 be dying of a pulmonary disease. In Stark County, a

17-year old girl and a 19-year old boy sent back from the State Asylum to their parents were placed in the

County Infirmary.At the Hamilton County Infirmary the retarded were employed in "housework and upon the farm" and the population included "defective" five and eight year old males.

The recreated Board of State Charities, with Albert

Byers as Secretary, renewed its focus on this special group. Byers counted 373 idiotic inmates of infirmaries, for an average of 4-1/2 per county or just enough to create a nuisance. The Board revived its recommendation of 1871 requesting that additional buildings be erected on land 32 adjacent to the present grounds of the institution.

The Board of State Charities continued its assault on the defects of the infirmary system and in 1878 ad­ vocated that provisions be made at state asylums so that no insane, epileptic or idiotic inmate should remain in any county infirmary. To emphasize the objectionable 80 situation in infirmaries, Secretary Byers presented what he called a typical case of "idiocy"; ten year old

Malichia Stevens in the Columbiana County Infirmary.

"He is a born idiot utterly witless in mind, rather dwarfed in body, and almost blind. His habits are ex­ ceedingly loathesome. Natural functions are with him simply mechanical. His food is almost uniformly ejected from the stomach and unless removed from the floor and beyond his reach is swallowed over and over. He is kept thus confined in a sitting room appropriated to the use of the old and feeble women." Dr. Byers said that in speaking of this case as one of typical idiocy, "I do not wish to be understood as using the word typical in a technical sense and relating to idiocy, but as relating to the conditions of idiocy in poor houses." This child represents quite a number of the same class found in our infirmaries whose presence is a nuisance, and for whose care, if it can be given them at all, the entire house­ hold is subjected to more or less discomfort. The Board of State Charities Byers noted succeeded in securing

some care and yet this instance only indicated the utter

incompetency of infirmaries to provide suitable care.

Byers raised the question why Ohio which had won for

itself an enviable distinction in providing educational

facilities for idiotic and imbecile youth, should fail to 81 provide a competent custodial care for children of this class. As a possible solution on grounds of economy,

Byers suggested "the entire population of pauper idiots in our state could be brought together under the intel­ ligent, humane and experienced care of our State Asylum for Idiots and Imbeciles." According to Byers' statis­ tics, 479 mentally retarded adults were cared for in county infirmaries. The Fairfield County Infirmary 3 3 topped the list with 28 such residents.

The Ohio Asylum and its administration also came in for its share of public recognition at the third annual session of the Association of Medical Officers of Amer­ ican Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons held in Syracuse, New York in June 1878. Superintendent

Doren mentioned 400 children at the institution and said that he did not find it desirable to increase the resi­ dent population much beyond that level. He reported an appropriation of $180,000 for institutional improvements and spoke of how the money would be spent. Doren seemed unsettled as to what direction the institution would take; either expansion of educational facilities or increased care for the custodial classes. Doren thought the money would be put to purely educational purposes, leaving to the legislature the task of providing for the lower grades of intelligence in infirmaries to be made. 82

Elaborating further on state policy. Dr. Doren noted that his institution was regarded "as part of the common school system." Admission was on common basis whether the child was from a rich or poor home. Although admit­ ting no paying pupils, the institution did ask parents to provide clothing. If parents proved unable to do so, 34 the state provided funding for that purpose.

At Dr. Seguin's request, Doren discussed special methods for working with the retarded peculiar to the

Ohio institution. Large social gatherings where all children go to the Music Hall for singing, marching, dancing and calisthenics were unique to Ohio. Children were also to attend chapel on Sunday with only 15 or 20 unable to attend. Seguin's "garden system of training" was followed as wel.l. All children able to walk were turned out of doors to work. With nearly 350 acres of grounds, large numbers of children found regular employ­ ment in the care of farm stock and gardening activities.

Doren took special pride in the musical abilities of the students. In January 1878, the Institution organ­ ized an orchestra of two cornets, a bass horn, bass violin, violincello, two first violins, three second, one flageolet, one flute, and a triangle.

The growth in numbers and population in state- supported benevolent institutions did not go unnoticed 83 by the medical profession. At the annual meeting of the

Ohio State Medical Society in 1879, Dr. H. J. Herrick of

Cleveland raised the point that the state had something to do besides making provision to receive and care for the army of insane, imbeciles and epileptics. He urged that the state must inquire into the causes of these infirmaties and then apply all means at it command to restore people from those infirmaties.^^

Horror stories regarding the care of the mentally retarded as observed by the Board of State Charities soon became the rule rather than the exception. In 1879, at the Trumbull County Infirmary "a poor imbecile colored boy was hobbled with a chain about his ankles

. . . " Further south in Vinton County, an "exceedingly repulsive looking" and "miserably deformed" retarded woman gave birth to a "monstrosity" which survived birth but for a brief time. In Geauga County, Secretary Byers observed a woman whom he had called to the attention of the Board of State Charities in 1868 in a condition of neglect. She was subsequently sent to the State Insti­ tution where after ten years residence she returned to the county and crib area from where she was taken.

There she roamed about naked, protected from the gaze of visitors only by a wooden screen placed in front of her cell. The "idiotic" population of infirmaries continued 84

to climb, with 498 residing therein according to the

37 Board of State Charities' 1879 tally. The entire con­

dition of their care received further recognition in the

remarks of General Roeliff Brinkerhoff, an Ohio Board of

State Charities member, at the annual convention of the

National Conference of Charities: "In most infirmaries

there are some inmates who are idiots or imbeciles . . .

and frequently they are provided for in a rear building

separate from other inmates. These classes, however,

ought not to be in an infirmary at all but should be

provided for in idiotic . . . asylums entirely apart 3 8 from the ordinary poor."

Reaffirming earlier positions on the issue of facil­

ities for the adult retarded. Secretary Byers noted that

"the state for years has been exercising a strange dis­

crimination between youthful and adult idiots." But was

this all, was this really the thing for the State to do?

Why hesitate to provide custodial care for idiots as well

as educational facilities? Why, when the school had

done its utmost for a certain class of our pauper idiots

should they be sent back to swell the list in our infirm­

aries .

Changes in the provision of care for the mentally

retarded were suggested by other interested state organ­

izations. The suggested changes took several forms 85 but the idea of exclusive state provision eventually pre­ vailed. At the Annual Conference of County Infirmary

Officials in 1880 Dr. Thomas Blackstone, physician to the Pickaway County Infirmary, took a different position.

Dr. Blackstone viewed the Idiot Asylum as "an actual disadvantage to one of this class, from the fact that con­ finement effeminates, making one less able to bear the buffets of the world. To educate a few hundred beings with intellects inferior to many of the lower animals,"

Blackstone said "and at the same time do comparatively little for the thousands of bright children in the infirmaries was to be led by visionary enthusiasts try­ ing to do impossibilities at the expense of a too confid­ ing and sympathetic public." Blackstone suggested that counties provide suitable accommodations for the men­ tally retarded, and that the Idiot Asylum be converted into a State School, where all the very promising 40 children could go from infirmary schools."

At the afternoon session, following Dr. Blackstone's paper, the delegates rejected his expressed views and supported having the state assume charge of these classes as advocated by the Board of State Charities. General

Brinkerhoff, in attendance at the meeting, went so far as to say that adoption of Dr. Blackstone's views "would throw us back one hundred years in the march of progress 86 in the treatment of special diseases." State Senator

Peter Hitchcock, a trustee of the Idiot Asylum and ad­ vocate of programs for the mentally retarded, while in attendance at the conference offered a resolution

"declaring it the sense of the Conference that humanity, the best interests of the public, and of the unfortunate insane, epileptic and idiotic will be best served by removing them from county infirmaries to state custody."

The Committee on Resolutions soon thereafter adopted the following resolution: That suitable buildings be provided by the state for lunatics, idiots, and epileptics and that they be removed from our infirmaries. On the follow­ ing day, January 23, 18 80, the Conference attendees 41 visited the Imbecile Asylum.

The completion of new buildings at the Idiot Asylum during the 1870s, allowed for a 300 per cent increase in the student body by early 1880. The work of the State

Board of Charities pointed out the condition of the adult retarded and emphasized that measures be taken for their care. Custodial care under the administration of the

Idiot Asylum seemed the most humane response to the situation of the retarded. NOTES

^Idiot Asylum Report 1868, 12. Board of Charities Report, 1868, 9.

^House Journal 1869, appendix, 199-204.

^Board of Charities Report 1869, 52, 62.

^Ibid, 1869, 772.

^Ibid, 773-774.

^Idiot Asylum Report 1860, 9.

^Board of Charities Report 1870, 90.

8 Marietta Register, September 28, 1871. 9 Annual Report of the Secretary of State (Columbus, 1872), 61.

^^Board of Charities Report 1870, 48.

l^Ibid, 11.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1870, 7, 11.

^^First Annual Report of the Cincinnati City Work­ house (Cincinnati, 1871), 10.

^^Board of Charities Report 1871, 74.

^^Ohio Educational Monthly, Vol. XXI, April 1872, 132-133.

^^The 1872 Annual Report of the Cincinnati Board of Education (Cincinnati, 1872), 108-109.

87 88

17 The Physio-Medical Recorder, Vol. XXXV, April, 1871, 186-187.

18 Edward D. Mansfield, "The Relation Between Educa­ tion and Pauperism," Report of the Commissioner of Education for the Year 1872 (Washington, 1873), s¥6.

19 Annual Report of the Secretary of State (Columbus 1874), 349-350.

20 Report of the Prison Reform and Childrens Aid Association (Columbus, 1875) 14, 18, 91.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1897, 9.

^^Philip D. Jordan, Ohio Comes of Age 1873-1900 (Columbus, 1943), 15-21. Official Report of Proceedings and Debates of the Third Constitutional Convention of Ohio (Cleveland, 1873), 174, 201, 206, 207. Hereafter cited as Third Constitutional Debates.

^^Third Constitutional Debates, 221, 464.

24 Ibid, II, pt. 2, 3428-3429.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1874, 8.

^^Ibid, 1875, 5, 8, 9.

^^Ibid, 1876, 8-9.

2 8 Superintendent to Board of State Charities, August 4, 1876, Rutherford B. Hayes Papers, Hayes Memor­ ial Library.

2 9 Superintendent to Board of State Charities, Aug­ ust 11, 1876, Hayes Papers, Hayes Memorial Library.

^^Superintendent to Board of State Charities, December 6, 1876, Hayes Papers, Hayes Memorial Library.

31 Superintendent to Board of State Charities, December 9, 1876, Hayes Papers, Hayes Memorial Library. 89

^^Board of Charities Report 1877, 368.

^^Ibid, 1878, 562-63.

^^Proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons, Vol. Ill, 1878, 103.

^^Ibid, IQj.

^^Transactions of the Thirty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Ohio State Medical Society, June 3-5, 1879, 171.

^'Board of Charities Report 1879, 89.

38 sixth National Conference of Charities and Cor­ rections (Boston, 1879), 111.

3Q Board of Charities Report 1879, 88.

40 Ohio State Journal, January 21, 1880.

^^Ibid, January 22-23, 1880. CHAPTER IV

TREATMENT IN A CUSTODIAL SETTING 1880-1897

By the last two decades of the nineteenth century it

became apparent that Ihe successful integration of the

mentally retarded into the community after release from

the State Ssylum was not a viable alternative to continued

institutionalization. Instead, physicians and welfare

administrators alike suggested the creation of a custodial

institution for the permanent care of this class. The

early idealism of the educational program of the Asylum

ameliorating the innate deficiencies of the mentally

retarded gave way to the notion that only a minority of

the students could be safely discharged. Evidences of

the shift in thought on the subject are the name change

for the Asylum which took place in 1880 and the State

Board of Charities' evaluation of the nature of the

institution which occurred the same year. The year 1880

acted as a watershed for it marked the last year the

state institution would be named the Ohio Asylum for the

Education of Idiotic and Imbecile Youth, a designation it had carried since its establishment in 1857. Beginning

in 1881, the institution came to be known as the Ohio

90 91

Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth. The change came with­ out fanfare for no statute was enacted nor mention made of it in the annual report. The State Board of Charities stated that the Asylum had "heretofore been, in its char­ acter and methods, rather educational, than custodial, which in our judgment should not be the case in the future."

Acknowledging that educational facilities should be avail­ able for the mentally retarded, the Board nevertheless felt such education could be of little avail. "Very few of these children" the Board stated, were capable of earn­ ing a living or surviving in the world unprotected. This statement as to the character of the Asylum should not be dismissed or ignored for it was not a subtle distinction but a critical one.^

The significance of the relationship between hered­ ity and mental retardation had been commented upon almost from the time when the Asylum was first established.

Robert L. Dugdale's The Jukes; A Study in Crime, Pauperism,

Disease and Heredity, first published in 1875 became the standard by which many Ohioans viewed the mentally re­ tarded. Dugdale's story traced the recurrence of certain traits through several generations of a single family. He believed that certain types of behavior and affliction, such as prostitution, pauperism, crime and mental retarda­ tion were capable of being transmitted from one generation 92 to another. Through a study of 709 Jukes or persons married to Jukes, Dugdale found 128 prostitutes, 76 criminals, 45 alcoholics, 208 paupers and 85 diseased or defective per- 2 sons.

While institutional care appeared to have a paternal­ istic bent, it embodied a humane sin for the mentally retarded child and adult. The special institution provided care superior to the squalor and neglect so common in the county infirmaries. Life in the infirmary exposed the mentally retarded to all sorts of social maladaptives ranging from the mentally ill to the vagrant. The efforts for removal of the retarded from the infirmaries coincided with similar actions on behalf of the dependent child which made it unlawful to house the latter class in the county infirmaries after January 1884.

The State Asylum opened the year 1880 with 613 resi­ dents, a near 20 percent increase over the previous year.

Superintendent Doren continued to suggest the necessity of securing a tract of land for the care of the adult retard­ ed. The Board of Trustees voiced another critical concern in its report noting "that the protection against fire is wholly inadequate. The hose in use is worn and insuf­ ficient . . . We ask the appropriation of the sum of

$3,000 for the purchase of hose and making of connections and fittings."^ 93

The State Board of Charities followed up on Dr.

Doren's suggestion for a custodial department recommend­ ing either renting or purchasing land to provide work for adults. The Board believed the custodial depart­ ment, under efficient management, could be largely self- supporting and yield thousands of dollars worth of vegetables and other produce supplying state institutions in Columbus.

Board Secretary Byers denied that opinions regard­ ing the future direction of the Asylum were intended to disparage the good work already accomplished educating mentally retarded children or to denigrate the educational advantages of the Asylum. Byers said "Let the school go forward, bring to its teachings all that may, to any extent, be benefited, but let the state no longer dis­ criminate against . . . those who cannot be educated."

Some attention was focused on the admission policy of the

Asylum which closed its doors to those with physical defect or low order of mind, set 15 years as the maximum age for admission and required a bond from the parents or friends to furnish clothes and cover other incidental expenses for the children. Byers noted complaints regard­ ing the policies and gave examples of their burden on the poor parent and the effect of removal of children from the Asylum to parents "most reluctant to resume care and 94 responsibility for them." The Board reiterated the facts of "filthiness, deformity and helplessness" afflicting the mentally retarded in the county infirmaries. As if to reaffirm the complaints of proper care, the Board identified 20 boys and girls, former students at the

State Asylum, present in various county infirmaries.^

On the morning of November 18, 1881, shortly before

10 a.m., a fire was discovered in the subcellar of the

Main Administration Building of the Asylum. Assistance was immediately summoned from the Columbus Fire Depart­ ment, London(Ohio) Fire Department, and the Central Asylum for the Insane. By 10:15 a.m., help arrived but not in time to save the Main Administration Building from total destruction. The flames were extinguished with slight damage to adjoining buildings. Miraculously, not a single pupil was killed or injured, due in large measure to the selfless efforts of the staff to save the pupils from harm. The physical devastation to the building was obvious, yet the greatest impact may have been on the contents. First, the fire destroyed all stores main­ tained by the institution. All clothing and household effects of the resident employees were lost while they worked to assist the residents. Dr. Doren lost his medical library, clothing, and household effects covering a twenty to twenty-five year period. The most serious 95 loss was the clinical history of every case with results, the history of the institution's influence on every in­ mate, and the results of the effort for their education.

Dr. Doren observed "This was very complete . . . history of families and collateral branches. That was as com­ plete as patient research could make it." In addition, account books, appropriation ledgers, clothing, books, and stock books were consumed by the flames.^ Later investigations traced the fire to an inmate, Elmer Gwynn, who started the fire at the request of another inmate,

David Goodrich. The latter believed that the destruction of the institution would bring his release. In the subsequent annual report, the Board of Trustees quoted remarks in the 1869, 1879, and 1880 annual reports regard­ ing the need for precautions against fire. The plan presented to the Ohio General Assembly called for a re­ production of the burned building but with fireproofing, and repairs to the damaged adjoining structures. Recon­ struction figures were estimated near the $300,000 mark.^ In neighboring Indiana, Alexander Johnson reflected upon the structure as "a large, 3-story and basement, congregate building with the two wings and the administration part connecting them." He found the building to be "one which appeals to ambitious archi­ tects and trustees who love to see their names chiselled on the front pillars of a pretentious edifice . . . As 96

the Ohio school was famous it was copied in many states besides Indiana."^ Imposing Gothic structures surrounded by a wooded area evoked the image of a well-ordered life and reflected the paternalistic care offered within its walls.

The immediate effects of the fire upon student life were barely noticeable as less than seventy-five child­

ren were removed from the institution by their parents

in the aftermath of the fire. Displaced by the destruc­

tion of their residence, the teaching staff came to

occupy a ward in the asylum hospital, later moving to a

subdivided portion of the laundry building. The old barn was fitted up and provided occupancy for ninety boys. A

room constructed for a storing shed became a dining room.

Soon after the fire, cases of diptheria and typhoid fever

broke out at the institution leading to several deaths

and adding to the tragic circumstances following its

O aftermath.

Doren's annual report predicted a year of gloom and

fatality. An epidemic of scarlet fever visited upon the

state institution in late November 1882, fulfilled Dr.

Doren's gloomiest projections, presenting 183 cases and

resulting in six deaths. School room and dormitories

became hospital wards, teachers and attendants became

nurses, and the Institution was placed in a state of 97 quarantine. The medical situation prompted renewed emphasis on the importance of ample hospital provision and isolation wards for contagious diseases. Plans were submitted to the General Assembly for the reconstruction of the destroyed and damaged buildings with a price tag of $204,000. In response, the legislature appropriated

$175,000, necessitating some cost cutting in the exterior appointments of the rebuilt structure. Construction contracts were not let until August 1882, nearly nine 9 months after the conflagration.

The Ohio House of Representatives convened in Col­ umbus on January 2, 1882 and within days took up the question of the Asylum fire. Representative Lewis Brun­ ner of Wyandot County offered a resolution appointing a select committee of five "to carefully inquire into the cause of the calamitous fire that occurred upon the night of November 19, 1881, at the Institution for the Educa­ tion of the Idiotic . . . and to make any further exam­ inations into the affairs of that institution as to them may seem proper." By a vote of 76-0, the resolution was adopted and the committee heard testimony from various witnesses. The investigation involved three different questions: (1) What was the cause of the fire? (2) What were the means at hand to extinguish the flames? and

(3) Were there any specific charges against the management 98 of the institution? On the last question, Allen O. Myers, correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer and Howard L.

Conard, correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette, requested permission to appear before the committee to file specific charges against the management of the institution. The commictee agreed to their request, but after innumerable delays and the lack of specific charges being filed by

Messrs. Myers and Conard, proceeded to inquire into the subject on their own. During the hearings, the Committee questioned Doren, G. A. Williams, a detective, D. D.

Trenseniden, Chief Engineer of the Columbus Fire Depart­ ment, Harriet Purple, Matron of the Asylum, John F. Oglevee,

Auditor of State, J. T. Mathews, chief clerk of the

Auditor's Office and J. J. Hanna, clerk in the land depart­ ment of the Auditor's office. The Committee heard tes­ timony through late March without receiving any specific charges from the two newspaper correspondents. It con­ cluded that the fire was set by an inmate whose motive was release from the institution. The means to extinguish any fire was a water supply from the Scioto

River forced by two pumps to the institution. After a thorough and exhaustive examination into financial transactions of the institution, the committee con­ cluded that the financial management had been "in all respects, in an eminent degree satisfactory and for the 99 best interest of the state.Cleared of any culpa­ bility or mismanagement relating to the fire or institu­ tion, Doren and the Trustees continued to urge the

"supreme importance of the establishment of the cus­ todial branch." Once in operation, "all girl adults" could be employed for the benefit of themselves and the

State, and be "protected from a contact with the world.

Doren's concerns were answered on April 8, 1882, when Representative Leroy Ellsworth of Lawrence County introduced a bill "to provide custodial care for idiots and imbeciles." Introduced late in the session, the bill had a first reading and failed of further considera- 12 tion during the legislative session.

The completion of construction at the Institution, soon brought new demands on its use. Even with the mod­ ifications made to the new Administration Building cap­ acity stood at 700 residents. The Superintendent and

Trustees continued to urge the purchase of land and the expansion of facilities to aid the adult retarded. "What is needed" the Board said "is a home where suitable work can be found for these children, forever doomed to be children." If discharged, "They must find refuge in infirmaries or jails, or what in most cases is equally 13 ill-fitted for them, the homes from which they came."^ 100

Perhaps the faith that parents placed in the program at the Asylum are exemplified by several items of corres­ pondence to Doren;

Astabula Harbor, 0. Apr. 22, 1885

My dear sir

I must say to you that my visit to Columbus has pleased me very much. I had know idea that our Sophia was so far advanced. She is progressing wonderfully & I must say that we are over joyed - Why it was 3 a.m. before we retired, talking of the institution & Sophia.

What surprised me most was that she hade such progress in reading. Why "Dr" Miss Wright had her read a whole page & she done it nicley & her manuevering on.the black board convinced me that you have not been idle. Why Dr. you have know idea how greatful we are (I also speak for Mrs. N.) to you, & the noble corps of teachers.

I must complement you on your selection of teachers that have such a fine gentle wasy of getting all there is out of them (scholars).

I think Miss Wright has got Sophia doing very fine. I take great pleasure in informing you have I admire her (Miss Wrights) course in regard to Sophia.

Please say to Sophia that we all well & very much pleased with headway she is making. Say to her that I am getting the ship ready & expect to sail by the 5th of next month. Hoping the institution may have a flourish­ ing existence. I remain yours greatfully,. Richard Neville

Two months later, H. Anderman of New Philadelphia, Ohio wrote :

Dear Doctor,

. . . We feel doubly grateful to your considerate and obliging latitude, you accord to us, in the time of taking our unfortunate Anna home. We will under existing 101 circumstances have to leave it a little later this time; but we must always have her with us a while; perhaps not as long as we used to keep her, but let her feeble mind return fresh the impression, that there are at her home, beings that love he, . . . May the good God always sup­ port y o u . 15

At the Twelfth Annual Session of the National Con­ ference of Charities, Ohio's work with the retarded came in for its share of recognition. The standing committee of the Conference reported:

The educational and industrial departments of the institution at Columbus are models, and their work of the best. Industrial training is nowhere more thoroughly recognized as the chief formative of mind and morals.

The unfortunate girls heretofore alluded to in various parts of this report are, and have always been under permanent detention at Columbus, employ­ ment having been made for them and their lives kept innocent.1°

The Association of Medical Officers of American

Institutions for Idiotic and Feebleminded Persons meeting in 1886 heard Doren address them on the work of the Ohio

institution. His philosophy was paternalistic, yet humane.

First, Doren noted that "the objects of this institution are as dear to our people as those of any other State

Institutions, educational or benevolent; that no erosion of duty towards the feeble-minded will be tolerated "

Secondly, "all who need it are to have a permanent home where they will lead quiet and happy lives." The pupils would be "isolated, or insulated from the world . . . a world will be made about them, adapted in every way 102 17 to their protection and happiness ..."

On April 6, 1889, the Ohio General Assembly adopted a resolution, directing five questions to the Board of

Trustees of the Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth.

1. Is it expedient to provide for the custodial care of all idiotic paupers on a farm pur­ chased for such purposes?

2. Can such a farm of 500 to 700 acres be pur­ chased, convenient to the state institution and at what cost per acre?

3. Ml at are the probable costs of providint suit­ able buildings, furniture and equipment for the same and can the inmates labor defray a part of the cost of such farm?

4. What will be the probable per capita annual cost of operating the institution?

5. Could the custodial farm be operated as a department of the Institution for Feeble- Minded Youth?18

In the annual report of 1890, the State Board of

Charities replied that full and complete answers had been provided in the reports of the Trustees and Superintend­ ent of the Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth. The State

Board of Charities repeated the request for 1,000 acres of land, with necessary buildings, implements and stock,

administration of the custodial farm by the Trustees,

and belief in the ability of the farm to be self- 19 sustaining.

In discussing the Institution for Feeble-Minded

Youth, the State Board of Charities noted a strong 103 sentiment in the state opposing the eleemosynary character of its management. The "Asylum" aspects of the institu­ tion proved offensive and degrading to the sensibilities of some friends and families of institutional residents.

Despite such views the Board reaffirmed the eleemosynary 20 character of the institution.

The steady increase in Institution population was no more evident than in 1893 when Superintendent Doren re­ ported 900 inmates under care. The Superintendent, speak­ ing at the November 28th Trustees' meeting, directed at­ tention to the "great necessity for special provision for epileptic feeble-minded children.” Once again, the request made almost continually since 1860 came forth; the state must provide custodial facilities for adult 21 idiots. ^

The following year over 900 inmates occupied the

Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth with the pressure for admission so great that every available space had to be used for the accommodation of children. The State Board of Charities, reviewing the results of educating the mentally retarded noted great progress. The retarded were able to grasp the basics of an English education, display respectable proficiency in the mechanic arts, make excellent farmers and gardeners, and perform military drills. These positive statements aside, the Board felt 104

the retarded could never learn "self restraint and self

respect" and lacked a moral sense. The wisest policy was

to guard and preserve them from social contact with the world as well as separating the sexes.

In the 1894 State Board report the topic "Charity

and Partisan Management" came under discussion with

favorable reference to the operation of the Institution

for Feeble-Minded Youth. The writer noted that it "has

never been subject to the baneful influence of partisan­

ship." Even more flattering were some added general

comments about the operation of the institution;

The institution now stands without a peer of its kind, and is the admiration, not only of the State but of nations beyond the sea. The results attained are concluded to be superior to those of any other similar institution on the globe. Would it have attained this proud eminence had its management been subjected to the frequent changes that have occurred in the history of our charitable institutions? All candor, all exper­ ience will answer n o ! 22

The following year brought renewed requests for a

custodial farm and additional buildings. The protective work for society provided by the State Institution received

emphasis. Without it, the mentally retarded would

"steadily increase their kind, swelling the great class of

degenerates who have to be provided for in prisons and

asylums, poor houses and jails." To an institution

already filled beyond capacity, a fire which struck a

portion of the southern wing of the establishment made 105 23 the present situation nearly untenable.

Dr. Eugene Carpenter writing in the Columbus (Ohio)

Medical Journal made several observations on the care of the mentally retarded. He felt that it was best for society to have "all such persons cared for early and perpetually by the state." Although education under the tutelage of a careful and competent nurse might be advised for well-to-do families, the greatest good would take place at the State Institution. "Here" Carpenter stated "they are out of sight and their condition is not a constant reminder to their parents." Carpenter men­ tioned that surgery sometimes provided success, although it largely accomplished nothing or ended fatally. "Still, it was worth the risk," he thought. Carpenter's advice to parents maintaining the retarded child or adult at home focused on body development. "Keep them fat, avoiding animal food and stimulating diet" he suggested. Parents were to "watch and guard them at puberty, train them in good habits, bodily, mental and moral, to discipline justly, by depriving of privileges." Finally, their

"lives should be systematic and orderly, avoiding the 24 tasting of temper."

The Seventh Annual Ohio State Conference of Charities and Corrections meeting in Toledo discussed the question of custodial care of imbeciles, noting a bill had been 106 submitted to address the problem. General Roeliff Brinker- hoff urged the attendees to bring this subject to the attention of their members of the Legislature, by having them visit the infirmaries to observe the situation first hand. Perhaps an observation at the Preble County Infirm- ary typified the condition of the retarded. A visitor discovered a young retarded boy placed in a crib (the type commonplace in mental hospitals) with a lid. Its use was questioned, for all the youth needed was a bed 25 with high side pieces to prevent him from falling out.

On April 22, 1898, the Ohio General Assembly adopted legislation establishing the custodial department thirty- eight years after need for it was first brought to public attention. Under the law the custodial department would come under the administration of the Institution for the

Feeble-Minded Youth. In the construction of buildings consideration was to be given to the various classifica­ tions embraced under feeblemindedness. Specific mention was made of cases of paralysis having a due proportion of space and care. The primary educational program would be agricultural with emphasis on stock raising and crop cultivation. The Board of Trustees was authorized to seek 1,000 to 1,500 acres of good tillable land "con­ veniently" located near the parent institution. As for funds to carry the work forward, the Legislature 107 appropriated $35,000 in 1898 and another $35,000 for

1899. Admission was open to both children and adults; the Probate Court Judge was to endorse the application in the case of children whereas adult commitments were to follow the same course as those seeking admission to a state mental hospital.

The State Board of Charities applauded the action of the Legislature noting;

When it is considered that every other class of dependents or delinquents has a chance of alter­ ing their condition, and this class alone has not, and that their mental infirmity is parental heredity, the importance of custodial care of this class of degenerates and the protection to society will be apparent to e v e r y o n e . 27

While the operation of the State Asylum began to shift from an educational emphasis towards custodial care in the late nineteenth century, there emerged a growing inclina­ tion of Ohio mental health professionals to accept hered­ ity as the fundamental cause of mental retardation. The inclination gave support to the shift toward segregated custodial care with the aim of protecting the mentally retarded from the ravages of society and to protecting society from the social problems associated with inferior mental stock.

Not surprisingly, the causes of mental retardation came to be associated with all kinds of social maladapta- tion. A prime example came from a statement published 108 in the 1886 report of the Franklin County Children's Home which asserted; "Ignorance, indolence, intemperance, un­ controlled anger and licentiousness originate alike a large part of crime, insanity, idiocy and physical defect."

"A sound childhood begets a good manhood,“ declared the report, while out of a vile and wretched infancy a degen- 29 erate and worthless manhood grows."

At the Ohio State Conference of Charities and Cor­ rections in 1891, Doren presented a paper on the "Custodial

Care of Idiots." After repeating the various references in reports from 1869 to the present relating to some provision for the adult retarded, Doren launched into perhaps his most forceful discussion of the topic. Making reference to Dugdale's work, Doren said "plainly and

Unequivocally" that "most if not all of the habitually lewd women, and . . . men, born and bred in the slums of our cities or . . . in our rural districts . . . are both physically and morally defective, degenerate idiots and imbeciles— in short the diseased branches of a diseased tree."^^ Doren went on to ask "How is the number of 'Heredi­ tary' criminal and pauper classes to be reduced unless the source of it be attacked?" The one remedy for this state of affairs, he concluded, was the seclusion and segregation of the "recognized, conceded, undeniable 109 idiot or imbecile." If left uncontrolled, they would slowly undermine and rot the foundations of society and the State." In his concluding remarks, Doren raised the question: If the source can be determined, accurately, of a social disorder like this, should it not be met thoroughly and so far as possible, its increase prevented?

The answer appeared simple: the retarded should not be neglected in any sense, nor at any stage of their lives, if the community was to be protected.

Those in attendance at the Conference commented favorably on Doren's paper and provided examples from their own experience supporting his statements. One infirmary superintendent went so far as to suggest "We don't ask the court any question about it. There are some things we do not go to the court about, and that is one of them." His questioner responded that in his county the idiotic were count committed to the infirmary 32 just as the mentally ill were. In what was probably one of the more scientific observations made on the question. Dr. Elroy M. Avery, President of the Confer­ ence told attendees "that certain characteristics, such as limits of mental power, seem to be dominated by antenatal organization; post-natal environment, e.g. 3 3 has little influence on inherited idiocy." 110

The presence of the mentally retarded in most benevolent settings can be clearly shown by a review of

some of Ohio's benevolent institutions. At the Franklin

County Children's home two children were transferred to

•3 4 the Imbecile Asylum in 1832. The State Board of

Charities followed up noting 611 "deformed, slobbering,

gibbering, witless creatures, crouched on hall floors, wallowing in filthy rooms and running aimlessly about

Ohio's county infirmaries." The Annual Report of the

Charities Board highlighted conditions in several infirm­

aries. The Lucas County Infirmary operated a one-story brick building, forty-two feet long by twenty-eight feet wide with six cells, as an idiot asylum. Further east,

the Wyandot County Infirmary used a ten by twelve foot

frame building to house epileptics and idiots. The

structure, containing two beds and three inmates, appeared unsafe and exceedingly filthy. The Auglaize County

Infirmary placed old decrepit men, epileptics and idiots

in a one-story frame building for the "hiding, rather than

the care" of its residents. Blankets covered the center

of the floor, upon which lay huge piles of human excre- ment.0. 35

Governor Charles Foster, in his 1883 annual message

to the Ohio General Assembly, added further ammunition to

the argument for expanded care when he reminded the Ill legislature that the "pauper imbecile" needed custodial care and must be removed from the infirmaries.^^ The

State Association of Infirmary Directors convening in

Columbus, took up the theme so frequently presented by the State Board of Charities and Doren, mainly, "con­ sideration and action" on the deplorable condition of the epileptic, insane and idiots crowded into our 3 7 infirmaries. Perhaps the single most important legis­ lative action resulting from the Association's agitation was the passage of a law making it unlawful after Janu­ ary 1, 1884 to house children eligible for admission to a county children's home or benevolent institution in the county infirmary. The notable exception to the statute was the fact it did not apply to "idiotic, imbecile or 3 8 insane youth."

The existence of children in the county infirmaries continued to be a problem faced by infirmary personnel.

John Whitaker, Superintendent of the Fulton County In­ firmary sought Charity Board Secretary Byers assistance in placing an eleven year old "idiot boy, active and 39 convulsive" at the Idiot Asylum. In a separate action.

Dr. Doren wrote Superintendent Whitaker denying admission to the boy because "he has convulsions and not a proper 40 subject for . . . this institution being an epileptic."

At the Morgan County Children's Home in McConnelsville, 112 two girls were transferred to the State Asylum, clothing for one being provided by the Home and other furnished 41 by the County Infirmary.

The problem of the retarded in the general popula­ tion brought its share of attention. Their condition is exemplified in a letter to Albert G. Byers from James

Brown, President of the Toleo Humane Society in which he noted "Last week we prosecuted a brutish parent for beat­ ing an imbecile adult. The jury, equally brutish, acquitted him. Where can we find asylum for such a 42 creature?"

The press for admission continued into the following year and when Doren prepared his annual report, the resi- 43 dential population stood at exactly the 700 figure.

The need for expanded provision for the retarded con­ tinued to arise. S. D. Hart, Superintendent of the Wash­ ington County Children's Home wrote Charity Board Secre­ tary Byers of the perplexing situation he faced. Hart wrote "Our infirmary trustees insist that this is the place for all children under 16 years of age, including the imbecile and idiotic. Have trustees the right to 44 refuse any class of subject under 16?" Although Byers' reply is not recorded, admission rules adopted by the trustees of the Washington County Children's Home

"required township trustees to furnish a medical 113 certificate that a child is not imbecile, idiotic, insane or not infected with any contagious disease.The

Franklin County Children's Home soon transferred seven children to the State Asylum.In Meigs County the chief matron of the County Infirmary reported "a little girl

. . . idiotic and deserves to be placed in the asylum."

She was quick to admit that residence in the infirmary

"is not sufficient to do justice by the child.

The act relating to infirmary children was amended in 1884 to permit children in the infirmaries provided 48 that they were separated from adult paupers.

Idiots residing in infirmaries continued to climb with 647 reported to the State Board of Charities. The conditions under which they survived remained at a uni­ formly low level. A visit to the Lucas County Infirmary noted filthy idiotic males in a "miserable fetid atmos­ phere." The bedrooms assigned to these males were dark and hot and opened into a main room which in actuality was only a narrow hall. At the Ashland County Infirmary, the idiotic, epileptic and aged poor were all housed together. State mental hospitals continued to maintain their share of mentally retarded patients as well. Patient tallies submitted to the State Board of Charities revealed the following numbers : Athens, 43; Cleveland, 6; Columbus, 114

32; Dayton, 0; Longview 40; and Toledo, 9; for a total of 130.49

A new note was injected which shifted attention from protecting the mentally retarded from ravages of a cruel and exploitive society to protecting society from the feared contamination of inferior mental stock.

The Trustees reminded the public, "They breed their kind" and warned that a "community" can scarcely be held guilt­ less that does not at least prevent the perpetuation and enlargement of the "evil." The Board warned everyone that the "poor house is no way adapted to their needs" and that care "cannot be well provided for in small num­ bers." To affirm this belief, the Board offered a reso­

lution at its November 25, 1885 meeting for an appropria­

tion of $100,000 to purchase suitable land for cultivation

of adults. The Board's rationale being "We turn out into

the world the boys who have now become men, to create widespread misery of kinds too horrible to be contemplated."

The Board noted that a custodial department would be run

on different economic lines and could be so organized that

residents able to work would be responsible for its up­

keep and contribute to the operation of the present in­

stitution.

The extension of the institution continued to be

urged on the grounds that it would be economical, humane. 115 just, wise, and an example of true statesmanship. The

Board of State Charities warned that the alternative was to return a large number to the various county infirm- 52 aries with all the risks such a policy would entail.

In a gesture intended to reduce criticism of the main­ tenance of the mentally retarded in county infirmaries, the Ohio General Assembly adopted legislation authorizing the County Commissioners to provide separate apartments for "idiots" in the County Infirmary.

With institutional capacity at 700, and enrollment at 768, the Board of Trustees at the February 16, 1887, meeting noted:

Institution now overcroded with inmates, many of whom are friendless and homeless whose discharge would be to the county infirmaries or public schools worse than death in either case and whose fate and future too terrible to contemplate if abandoned by the charity of the s t a t e . 54

The Board called attention to a backlog of 300 seeking admission and asked for aid in the erection of additional buildings. With 715 in residence in late 1887, the

Board echoed the earlier plea to the Ohio General Assembly for the expansion of facilities on the grounds of being 55 "so economical, so humane, so just, and so wise."

Early in 1888, the Ohio Conference of Infirmary

Directors met in annual conference and took up the question of insane and idiotic children. A committee 116 report submitted suggested that "these classes be cared for in private families." A great majority of those at­ tending felt that this practice of "farming out" would open the flood gates "to barbarous acts and cruel treat­ ment." The report was rejected. Instead the Conference adopted a resolution declaring;

That in the opinion of infirmary officials of the state the practice of keeping inmates of the Imbecile Asylum after they have arrived at the age of maturity, to the exclusion of minor persons who should be admitted, be discon­ tinued. 56

Superintendent Doren's annual report, following on the heels of the Infirmary Directors Conference, noted in­ creased enrollment at the Institution and urged completion of new dining rooms and workrooms already planned. Dr.

Doren endorsed the views of the Infirmary Directors:

The solution of the problem of provision for the adults of this class can no longer be deferred. The disposition of a large number now in the institution must be decided at once, as their places are required for young children. They are friendless, and if they must be discharged without any help to them, their only refuge would be the infirmaries. This is particularly distressing in the case or females, and it is a question to be determined whether, after exper­ iencing the benefits of this institution, this disposition is to be considered, if not then immediate provision should be made for this class in connection with an institution especially equipped for their care. It is therefore urged that provision be made for at least 300 adults, which will make room in this institution for many young and improveable children.5? 117

By 1889, when the resident population at the State

Institution hovered around the 856 mark, the needs of the multiple handicapped came in for their share or con­ sideration in Dr. Doren's annual report. He devoted some portion of his narrative to the status of epileptic children at the institution, suggesting for their proper treatment provision of a separate building adapted to their special needs. He thought that it invited tragedy to allow epileptic children to go up and down stairs, for

"they are not only liable to their own injury from a fall, . . . but they might precipitate a number of help­ less children to the bottom of a staircase." Dr. Doren reported that "it terrorizes beyond all description" the dormitory children to witness the "frightful convulsions" of an epileptic child. At the Institution every attempt was made to separate epileptic children from the remainder of the inmate population, resulting, to Doren's chagrin, in a state of affairs amounting to near confinement.

The Superintendent observed a considerable number could always be found at the Institution since there was no other place for them to go. The epileptic child was in fact, like the lepers of old, cast out. The immediate solution suggested was the establishment of a department 5 8 for epileptic imbecile children with suitable buildings.

While large numbers of mentally retarded persons could indeed be found in the county infirmaries, the state 118 mental hospitals maintained significant number of "idiotic" and "imbecilic" residents as well. In 1890, Athens cared for 38; Cleveland, 0; Columbus, 9; Dayton, 0; Longview, 40; and Toledo, 27; for a total of 114.~ The Annual Report of the Cleveland Infirmary Department made special mention of the retarded observing "There is another class who are feeble-minded, idiotic, who, should be kept entirely separated from the insane." The retarded, the directors noted, could be found scattered about the city, in the homes of the poor, who should be provided for in a special home or institution.^^

The application for admission of younger children to the Institution and the inaction of the Ohio General

Assembly made it necessary for Dr. Doren to discharge numbers of older students to the community. With 835 in residence at the Institution, Dr. Doren raised the question

"Where shall the homeless go?" The reply for those returned to the community would be lives as "burdens to society, tools of criminals, and the begetters and multipliers of their kind." Doren predicted that children of epileptic imbeciles would "inevitably and unavoidably" gain admis­ sion to the Institution. Despite restrictions placed on their admission, the obscurity of their symptoms, the reluctance of parents to admit the existence of the con­ dition, and incomplete medical case histories all 119 combined to make it unavoidable that some epileptic children would gain admission to the institution. With the press of admissions to the Institution, rooms formerly used for training and development were given over to the accommodation of inmates.

Reporting tc the public in the following year, both the Board of State Charities and the Trustees of the state institution considered "thorough provisions for all persons of this class (idiots)," the most important subject, and

"holds all others in suspense." Practical, industrial training continued to play a primary role at the Institution with pupils receiving regular and systematic instruction in sewing classes, shops, gardens, farm, laundry and dining rooms of the Institution. Recommendations made in former reports for expanding the provisions of the Insti­ tution were renewed. Visits at the Stark County Children's

Home discovered "a number of imbecile and idiotic children."

The Board found the situation as "injurious" to children of sound mind at the home and a violation of statute re­ garding the maintenance of children's homes. Such a situation only seemed to confirm the necessity of physic­ ally separating the mentally retarded from the other resi­ dents of institutions not only on the grounds of humani­ tarian concerns but as a protection to society and other institutional residents. It also indicated that the 120 character of the Asylum had changed from a single to a multipurpose one. The Asylum came to provide education, industrial training for children, and long-term custodial care for adults.

The final two decades of the nineteenth century gave rise to the notion that society would be served by removal of the retarded to a custodial setting. The educational programs, prominent in the early years of the Asylum received scarcely a mention in the annual reports. The doubling of inmate population by 1900 emphasized the chang­ ing nature of the Asylum, making the Ohio institution the largest one in the nation. NOTES

^Board of Charities Report 1880, 10. 2 Richard L. Dugdale, The Jukes; A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity (New York, 1910), 19, 26, 30, 40, 43, 169.

^Idiot Asylum Report 1880, 9. 4 Board of Charitirs :Report 1880

^Idiot Asylum Report 1881, 8.

^Ibid, 7.

^Alexander Johnson, Adventures (Fort Wayne, 1923), 222.

^Idiot Asylum Report 1881, 9.

^Ibid, 1882, 1535.

^^House Journal 1882, 135-351.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1882, 22.

12 House Journal 1882, 717.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1883, 7.

^^Richard Neville to G. A. Doren, April 22, 1885, Gustavus A. Doren Papers, Ohio Historical Society.

Anderman to G. A. Doren, June 15, 1885, Doren Papers, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Twelfth Annual Session of the National Conference of Charities, 1885 (Buffalo, 1886), 2.

121 122

^^Proceedings of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons, Vol. XI, 1886, 461-462. 1 O House Journal 1889, 333.

19 Board of Charities Report 1891, 9.

2°Ibid.

21 Minutes of the Ohio Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth, November 28, 1893, Ohio Department of Mental Retarda­ tion and Developmental Disabilities, State Archies, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Board of Charities Report 1894, 240.

^^Ibid, 1895, 7.

^^Eugene G. Carpenter,"Some Suggestions As to the Management of Certain Forms of Insanity," Columbus Medical Journal, Vol. XX, March 15, 1898, 261-263.

25 Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. VIII, 1897, 12.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XCIII, 209.

^^Board of Charities Report 1898, 10. 9 o Ibid, 95, 96, 163.

2 9 Fifth Annual Report of the Franklin County Child­ ren's Home (Columbus, 1886) , 2Ï1

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. II, 1891, 58.

^^Ibid.

^^Ibid.

^^Board of Charities Report 1892, 9. 123

^^Second Annual Report of the Franklin County Children's Home (Coluitibus, 1882) , 13.

^^Board of Charities Report, 1882, 10, 28.

^^Annual Message of Governor Charles Foster, as quoted in Ohio Executive Documents, pt. 1 , 17.

^^House Journal 1883, 308.

O O Laws of Ohio, Vol. CXXX, 102.

39 John Whitaker to A. G. Byers, September 15, 1884, State Board of Charities Correspondence, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^G. A. Doren to John Whitaker, August 28, 1884, State Board of Charities Correspondence, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Annual Report of the Morgan County Children's Home for 1884, 6.

James Brown to A. G . Byers, July 28, 1884, State Board of Charities Correspondence, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1884, 6.

44 Dr. S. D. Hart to A. G . Byers, March 24, 1885, State Board of Charities Correspondence, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Annual Report of the Washington County Children's Home (Marietta, 1885), 30.

^^Fifth Annual Report of the Franklin County Children's Home (Columbus, 1886), 19.

^^Mrs. Lewis Hysell to A. G . Byers, July 16, 1885, State Board of Charities Correspondence, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society. 124

"^Laws of Ohio, Vol. CXXX I, 92. 49 Board of Charities Report 1885, 9.

^^Margaret Adams, Mental Retardation and Its Social Dimensions (New York, 1971), 26-27.

51 Idiot Asylum Report 1885, 8.

^^Board of Charities Report 1885, 61.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. CXXXIII, 197.

^^Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Insti­ tution for Feeble-Minded Youth, February 16, 1887. Depart­ ment of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Records, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1887, 8.

^^Ohio State Journal, January 12, 1888.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1888, 9.

SBlbid, 1889, 11.

^^Board of Charities Report 1890, 10.

^^Annual Report of the Cleveland City Infirmary (Cleveland, 1891), 927.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 18 90, 8.

^^Board of Charities Report 1892, 13. CHAPTER V

SEGREGATION, STERILIZATION AND EDUCATION 1898-1920

In the first two decades of the twentieth century,

Ohio's work with the mentally retarded underwent signifi­

cant changes. Encouraged by the results of intelligence

tests and an outpouring of publications on "the menace of

the feeble-minded," the number of clients maintained by

the custodial department grew rapidly and soon filled the

institution to capacity. Special classes were established

in public schools to provide education for children of

subnormal intelligence not needing residential care and

finally Dr. Gustavus Doren, long the conscience ci the

movement on behalf of the mentally retarded in Ohio passed

away without an equally credible spokesman to take his

place.

By the early years of the twentieth century with the

creation of a custodial department for the mentally re­

tarded, most Ohio administrators employed in the fields

of mental retardation and benevolent institutions came to

accept the notion that segregation of the mentally retarded

into colonies or custodial departments not only served the

125 126 client, but society as well. The State Asylum once viewed as a source of cure and rehabilitation had shifted to a preventative focus. Labor in a farm colony setting served not only a therapeutic purpose but provided a measure of

self-support for the residents. The cultivation of crops,

combined with vocational training, reduced operational

costs at the institution and provided produce for other

state benevolent institutions. Mentally retarded women

separated from society would not reproduce their kind and

consequently reduced the number of dependents or paupers destined for public support. Increased numbers of the

adult mentally retarded moved from the infirmary to the

custodial department indicated a further shift from local

toward state provision for the mentally retarded. In a

sense, this change had been gradually taking place over

the last two decades of the nineteenth century. In 1880

and again in 1890, the Ohio institution had the largest

inmate population of any institution of its type in the

United States. As late as 1905, the inmate population

ranked second to that of Illinois.

Superintendent Doren asked passage of the act

creating the custodial department "Marks an epoch which

may be regarded as a new era, as the re-forming of the

institution, and the endowing of it with the needed

facilities for the accomplishment of the work for which 127 it was originally conceived and created." Doren estimated that 1,200 persons would be cared for on the Custodial

Farm, 800 from infirmaries and 400 from the State Insti­ tution. The first priority would be to provide room for

400 teachable children at the State Institution. Other construction would take place more gradually so as to allow room for 300 annually. In February, 1899, the state purchased a farm comprising 1,068 acres, twelve miles southwest of Columbus at a cost of $69,950. A number of sixteen to twenty-one year old boys were transferred to the place to care for the land. The boys, living in tents, harvested hay, cultivated the land, and assisted in the construction of sheds and cottages. Electric lights were also extended to all the existing buildings.^

"We enter a new century with 300 epileptics, 700 idiots and 1300 insane in our county infirmaries," de­ clared the State Board of Charities, "all these classes should be under the State's direct care and supervision."

Some progress was made toward that goal with the creation of the State Custodial Farm. Doren reminded the public that certain restraints must be kept on the mentally retarded. The most important being that "they should be the last of their race." This required their segregation and separation from the community. Doren concluded

"Anything short of radical preventive measures is duty left undone." 128

By 1900 work had commenced in the custodial depart­ ment on a main building to accommodate two hundred, a dining room and kitchen building to accommodate one hundred, plus two main custodial buildings housing two hundred residents each. One million bricks, made by the labor of the residents were accumulated to assist in 2 the expansion of the buildings.

Even with the construction of expanded facilities at the State Institution and custodial department, the men­ tally retarded continued to reside in the various local benevolent institutions. Mrs. J. W. McComb of Portage

County found "idiotic patients are quite numerous in our infirmary." In Gallia County, two feeble-minded children could be found in the Children's Home. Some improvements did occur in Darke County where all "insane and idiotic" were placed in an Asylum building with special attendants in charge of them.^ Superintendent J. W. Jones of the

Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb came to remark on

the type of student. "Sometimes a child reaches a point where it ceases to make progress on account of feeble­ mindedness and is returned to its home." The last action,

Jones reported, took place only after "a long trial" and 4 the child had been given "the benefit of all doubts."

Doren, addressing the Eleventh Annual Ohio Confer­

ence of Charities and Corrections meeting in Lima, spoke 129 on the subject "The Present Outlook for the Feeble-Minded

in Ohio." Doren reviewed the history of attempts to

educate the mentally retarded from the international,

national and local (Ohio) perspective. He folowed up on

these remarks with his vision of the status of the mentally

retarded some fifty years hence:

1. The entire support of the feeble-minded by their own labor.

2. Persistent execution of the April, 1898, legis­ lation will have prodigiously eliminated the feeble-minded as a class by the check placed on their propagation.

In the care of the mentally retarded, he said, "We are in

the van as usual, and proclaim that we intend to stay there."

On the present outlook, Doren saw a sufficient number of

applications for admission to fully crowd the buildings now

under construction at the Institution and Custodial depart­ ment. He reminded his listeners that only in proportion

as the state provided for additional buildings, could the

feeble-minded be removed from infirmaries and homes where

they were so burdensome. Doren urged "rapid extension and

expansion now" for by colonizing all the feeble-minded

they will become self-supporting and the increase in their

propagation stopped."^

New buildings continued to be erected at the Cus­

todial Farm so that by mid-1903, 2 000 feeble-minded persons

were anticipated to be under state care at the Institution 130 and custodial department. The completion of the new buildings would no doubt alleviate the crowded conditions at the State Institution. The Custodial Farm could fur­ nish the Ohio Penitentiary, Columbus State Hospital, plus the Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb, and Blind, with subsistence such as fruits, vegetables, milk and meat.® The completion of additional buildings in 1903 at the Custodial Farm did much to reduce the number of retarded in county infirmaries.

The State Institution provided for retarded persons,

1,173, yet hundreds still resided in the county infirm­ aries . Longview State Hospital in Cincinnati took under its charge many "mentally defective" who were previously under care in the county infirmary. The Committee on Law of the Ohio Conference of Charities and Corrections, recommended the passage of more stringent statutes regu­ lating the marriage of feeble-minded persons. The Ohio

General Assembly obliged by passing legislation in 1904 placing restrictions on the marriage of feeble-minded 7 persons.

During that same year the Board of Trustees of the

Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth sought an Attorney

General's Opinion regarding applicants for admission to the Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth. Ohio Attorney

General Wade H. Ellis advised that "the helplessly 131 deformed, the crippled, the hopeless paralytics, epilep­ tics and insane" are not to be included within the classes accepted by the Institution. He held that the statute did not forbid the transfer of a resident from the "school" to the "custodial" department and that the

Board need not be compelled to accommodate within the In- stition, persons not falling within the classes embraced by the governing act. Those in charge of the institution were authorized to require that all applications be judici­ ally referred and possess a proper certificate made by the O Probate Court.

The most significant e v e n t occurring during 1905 relating to the mentally retarded was the death on March

23 of Gustavus Doren. His death brought to an end a forty-six year affiliation with the Institution and marked the passing of the last active founder of the Association of Medical Officers of American Institution for Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons. During his lifetime. Dr. Doren was one of the real giants in the education of the men­ tally retarded. For nearly half a century, he managed the largest institution of its type in the United States, winning the confidence of Ohio's political leadership and the admiration of the states' citizens. Active in the

Association of Medical Officers for Idiotic and Feeble-

Minded Persons, his professional influence was by example. 132 rathe- than through a written body of knowledge. During his lifetime, he authored no monograph or articles on the subject in the Associations' journal. Perhaps the daily administration of the institution, without the aid of an assistant, severely limited his ability to undertake or publish research on the condition of the mentally re­ tarded. On May 1, 1905, the Board of Trustees appointed

Dr. E. H. Rorick, formerly Superintendent of the Athens 9 State Hospital, as Doren's replacement.

In the year following Doren's death, the new superintendent Dr. E. H. Rorick published a paper in the

Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections on the subject

"Does Farming at State Institutions Pay?" Rorick found the

Custodial Farm "too large and too far" from the State In­ stitution to be profitable. He suggested that no farm should exceed acres and that it should be more conveniently located. A large farm required an extra work force for both management and cultivation and with the additional distance quotient, a decrease in revenues would result.

Ohio Charities Conference President, the Reverend

C. N. Pond found occasion in his annual address to remark on the student orchestra at the Institution for Feeble-

Minded Youth:

How remarkably do they play! A band of boys and girls, whose countenances and general movements indicate the twilight of the soul in which they 133

are doomed to live, draw forth from horn and pipe and reed and string, the witchery of sound. Their struggling natures take fire, the very fibres of siol and harp catch the glow, and the spell ex­ tends itself to every hearer. You wonder whether these unfortunates have not a compensation for dull­ ness of mind, in what seems an almost supernal mastery of sweet sounds.H

Pond closed his remarks noting "It is not strange" that a parent "refuses to be convinced that a dear one is an

imbecile."

In 1906, commitment by the Probate Count became a 12 requirement for admission. On November 13, 1906, a

British Royal Commission appointed by King Edward VII, visited the State Institution. It thoroughly and critical­

ly inspected the school and found it "above standard.

With the completion of several buildings at the cus­

todial department and on the main grounds, large numbers of

patients were able to be accommodated. By 1907, 1,463

inmates resided at the Institution due in large measure to

the inreased accommodations on the Custodial Farm. Still

another factor related to the custodial law itself which

lowered the rate of discharge from the Institution. The

increased burden of inmates brought the Board of Trustees

to appoint an assistant superintendent to be in charge of

the Custodial Farm, namely DrD. S. Burns. At the main

institution another administrative change took place with

that of Dr. E. J. Emerick as Superintendent to replace 14 Dr. E. H. Rorick who had resigned. 134

Superintendent J. W. Jones of the Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb found two classes of feeble-minded children applying in large numbers to his institution, namely the deaf feeble-minded and hearing feeble minded.

The institution policy was to give "the benefit of the doubt" and as a result many deaf feeble-minded and an oc­ casional hearing feeble-minded enrolled there. Jones estimated there were about 100 deaf feeble-minded in the state, enough to necessitate a state school. Finding the presence of the feeble-minded a hindrance, Jones sug­ gested a special building for the feeble-minded deaf at the state institution for the mentally retarded. Youth or if extra land could be obtained, a separate building could be constructed at the Deaf School. Jones credited the Juvenile Court with identifying the deaf feeble­ minded through its work.^^

During 1912, the Institution for Feeble-Minded

Youth continued to admit pupils, although demands for admission exceeded their capacity to care for them. In

November, 1912, 1,770 came under the custody of the

Institution. The Superintendent determined four to five hundred children clamored for admittance and annual increase of two hundred to two hundred fifty could be expected. 135

Writing in the 1913 Annual Report of the Ohio Board of Administration on the "Segregation of the Mentally

Defective” Dr. Emerick observed that an institution for the feeble-minded aimed at educating them and returning them to society had "long ago been abandoned." In its place emerges an institution for care, education and train­ ing segregating the mentally defective from the general publicc Here, they would be "much happier" and "protected and kept out of trouble." Emerick concluded that insti­ tutional preference be given to the feeble-minded girl for they constituted "more of a menace to society," due to the fact that there are three feeble-minded girls to one boy who marry. Dr. Emerick followed up the article with an address to the Ohio State Conference of Charities and

Corrections meeting in Akron on "The State and Feeble-

Mindedness." His address included many of the same argu­ ments used in the earlier article. In a question and answer period following the address, Emerick was asked whether he believed in the principle of sterilization for the mentally defective. He replied "I am not an enthusiast on that subject" and observed that no state had used it to any great advantage. In both article and address, Emerick made reference to the menace of the men­ tally defective delinquent. He noted that the Ohio

General Assembly did take action in this regard by 136 passing legislation creating a state Bureau of Juvenile

Research. The legislation passed in 1913, would go into effect on July 1, 1914. Under its enabling act, the

Bureau would undertake mental, physical and other exam­ inations of children assigned to it by the Ohio Board of

Administration. After examination of the child, an assign­ ment would be made to a suitable state institution or a 17 family placement made.

State provision for the mental defective grew rapid­ ly with 2,155 present at the Institution in late 1916.

Dr. Emerick, in a speech before The Association for the

Study of the Feeble-Minded, noted that administration of an institution once its daily population rose to the 500 1 R to 1,000 inmate level might as well be 10,000 to 20,000.

Fred C. Croxton, President of the Ohio Welfare Con­ ference, reviewed "Ohio's Social Progress, Achievements and Hopes" paying special attention to the subject of institutional care of the feeble-minded. He noted that the capacity of the Columbus and Orient facilities totalled

2,350, yet the population was 2,446, in November, 1919.

The completion of additional buildings by mid-1920 would secure room for 3,130. Croxton conferred with Ohio Gov­ ernor James M. Cox on institutional care for those in state institutions and suggested a new institution for the feeble-minded. Cox responded positively in a letter 137

Croxton shared at the Ohio State Conference of Charities and

Corrections. Cox found it "essential that new units be created for the feeble-minded. The Orient facilities should be increased two or three fold in their capacity" and "two 19 new enterprises . . . should be completed." The new state institution advocated by Governor James M. Cox and

Ohio Welfare Conference President Croxton so ardently in

1919, did not come into being until February 14, 1931, with the opening of Apple Creek State School in northeastern

Ohio.20

While the State Asylum and its facilities continued to expand, contemporary developments in education indi­ cated a growing public interest in the subject of mental retardation. Beginning in 1896, public school systems began to establish special classes for mentally retarded children. Providence, Rhode Island began its classes in

1896, followed by Springfield, Massachusetts (1897),

Chicago (1898), Boston (1899), New York (1900), Phila­ delphia (1901), Los Angeles (1902), Detroit (1903) and

Cleveland (1904)

Ohio educators, since the Civil War, had failed to act upon public school provision for the mentally handi­ capped. Virtually no mention was made of the subject since that time in the annual reports of the State Com­ missioner of Common Schools or those of the Columbus, 138

Cleveland, Dayton or Cincinnati Boards of Education.

When the subject was broached at all, it was to record observations at the State Asylum and the applicability of certain teaching methods to public school use. Although no word came forth from educators on the subject, the lack of compulsory attendance laws until late into the nineteenth century played some role in not bringing this class of students in contact with the public school system.

By the end of the first two decades of the twentieth cen­ tury, public school systems in nearly all of Ohio's major cities operated special classes for the mentally retarded.

The discussion that followed centered less on the approp­ riateness of such classes, but rather whether they should be segregated in special buildings or be in separate classrooms scattered throughout an antire school system.

Cleveland's schools for the mentally regarded began with 58 students enrolled at four different schools. Al­ though considered "more or less experimental" the success of the schools led the Superintendent to recommend four additional ones. Of the four teachers assigned to these classes, two had previously taught at the State Institu­ tion for Feeble-Minded Youth. The Supervisor of Physical

Training for the school district had made the determina­ tion to send the 58 "most marked" students after exam- 22 ining upwards of 100 children. Public school classes 139 for the mentally defective in Cleveland continued to expand with ten teachers and 150 students in 1906. Emphasis was placed on handwork pointing toward an individual becoming 23 self-supporting.

Other Ohio cities scon followed Cleveland's lead in the organization of special classes for the mentally defec­ tive in the public schools. On January 4, 1909, the Cin­ cinnati Public Schools established a Special School for

Defectives. In Toledo, C. L. VanCleve, Superintendent of

Public Schools, received a report on the number of mentally deficient children enrolled in the elementary grades. The research estimated 216 students could be so classified.

While the students were not institutional cases, they were so slow as to "grasp nothing without special instruction."

A test school could be formed, the report suggested, with 25 selected children from all over the city. Ms. Louise

Miller remarking on the subject of "School Gardens" in the

Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections focused her paper on observations in classes for the mentally defective.

Miller opined "that these defectives will never be able to do much that is useful" so that raising food from the soil and placing it on the table is of great value to them.

The contact of the soil, fresh air and sunshine, and work with large tools "cannot fail to be of inestimable value to them."^® 140

In Cincinnati, mentally defective children could be found in five schools, under the supervision of nine teachers and totaling 130 pupils. The carfare for the student was paid and a lunch served. One teacher would be in charge of table games, another instruction, and so forth. A single teacher worked with a small group in dis­ tant schools. In the more heavily populated districts, the children were grouped into centers with several teach­ ers in charge. The Superintendent noted increased atten­ tion being given to the non-typical student. To do so, meant segregating "those whose needs are not met in mass instruction and to adapt instruction to their aptitudes and conditions to the end that equal and exact justice 27 may be done to all."

In 1911 in Cincinnati, six classes operated employ­ ing ten teachers and serving 140 pupils. Fifty per cent of the school day focused on motor training such as physical exercise and manual work (weaving, basketry, clay model­ ing) . The remainder of the day concentrated on the ordi­ nary school branches. A physician joined the staff with a laboratory set up and operated cooperatively by the city physician and Dr. Breese of the Psychology Department at the University of Cincinnati. Ms. Emma Khonky, Super­ visor of Special Classes, taught the special faculty the 2 8 techniques of working with these children. 141

Other large school districts followed the path laid down by Cleveland and Cincinnati by establishing special classes as well. In 1912, Dayton started its first special class serving 22 pupils. While acknowledging that the work had small beginings, the Dayton school administration noted that "the time has come for a special school with a sym­ pathetic, specially trained teacher in charge." The school system perceived the problems of the "defective, retarded, the unusually capable, and the so-called incor­ rigible are always with us and their solution worthy of 29 our highest professional endeavor." In nearby Columbus, the District Superintendent observed that "every school system, has more cases needing such treatment than is realized.

Work in the public schools of Cincinnati continued with the formation of an additional class. The class, under the guidance of a trained kindergartner took charge of those children who were the least mentally developed.

The teacher successfully used Montessori materials and methods with these pupils. Other courses of instruction in the special classes included manual and domestic work.

School statistics proved that 95% of the children who left school found subsequent employment in facories. At the University of Cincinnati, a Psychological Clinic opened with tests administered to pupils once a week. 142

Furthermore, a special course of training was provided for the instruction of teachers. One period a week was spent in the laboratory studying mental tests. Another period covered lectures on the history, classification and treat­ ment of mental deficiency. The Superintendent ended his report on the program declaring a suitable location for a school appeared to be the most important present need.

He suggested a school in the suburbs, easily accessible by street car, so that the children could be segregated in numbers large enough to allow classification. Other accoutrements of the site would be gardens for physical and manual training and a day camp for anemic children.

Dayton's fledgling efforts in the establishment of special classes found seventeen pupils enrolled in 1913.

The segregation of the students from two schools where they were formerly located "proved a real blessing to the children." The typical class day focused on rhythm and hand work with reading, story telling and drill on life 32 experiences. Special classes in Cincinnati remained basically the same serving 110 children, divided into seven classes, five for boys and two for girls. The district found itself unable to accommodate new appli­ cants for entrance and suggested the establishment of a Central School. The School could be a modern, ten room structure with facilities for manual training. 143 domestic science, gymnastics, fruit and vegetable raising.

Clinical work continued with Dr. Breese of the Universtiy of Cincinnati. District studies revealed that of 36,438 pupils attending city schools 657 could be classified as mentally retarded. Although the district suspended expan­ sion of special classes for a year, the Superintendent could "highly commend the work and ask for an opportunity 33 to develop it as funds become available."

In Cleveland, public school facilities expanded for the mentally defective. Special schools for average boys and girls were begun which placed emphasis on manual train­ ing. The expanded facilities made possible the segrega­ tion of the mentally deficient student from the general school population. The Cleveland school Superintendent found this feature especially appealing since the mentally deficient child required an abnormal amount of attention from the classroom teacher which operated to the dis­ advantage of the other students. Expanding programs aside, the Superintendent renewed his request that the mentally deficient be removed from the public schools and 34 placed on a school farm near Cleveland. Enrollment in

Dayton special classes remained limited with only 22 under instruction. The students did represent a broad range of mental capacity from the "low institutional type" to 35 the high grade moron. 144

The Cincinnati school system expanded its program

for the mentally defective through the addition of several

classes. While this did much to further the district goal

of segregating these pupils into special classes, the

Superintendent found problems with school principals in­

suring follow through on the policy. A number of prin­

cipals allowed upwards of a third of the diagnosed men­

tally defective to remain in the regular classroom. In

other instances, students transferred to other schools

often moved without the diagnosis of mental defect. A more unusual aspect of the instructional program came with

the establishment of a class for the blind mental defec­

tive. The experiment was short-lived, with the class

dropped in 1917 since it proved "of little benefit" to

these students of low mentality.Cleveland schools

shifted from single classes for mentally defective child­

ren to centers where two to five teachers could grade

pupils according to their mental capacity. Such a struc­

ture allowed specialized instruction. After nearly a

decade of operation, special classes in Cleveland served 37 436 students and employed 25 teachers. Manual training,

emphasized in Dayton special classes, brought "splendid

results" with students competing for jobs in the local 38 wagon, toy and upholstery shops. 145

In Cleveland, David Mitchell under sponsorship of the Cleveland Foundation surveyed the status of exceptional children. His research resulted in the publication of a monograph Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children, which traced the history and nature of educational pro­ grams for these children in Cleveland public schools. One entire chapter in the monograph focused on the subject

"What Should Be Done for the Feebleminded?" Mitchell first suggested the reclassification of all such children into three main groups, high, middle and low. Individuals in each group could then be trained in things for which they had ability. Secondly, the abilities of the students would determine the type of teacher selected for the dif­ ferent groups. Mitchell felt that teachers of the feeble­ minded need not receive greater compensation than regular classroom teachers. The most effective method of instruc­ tion would take place at a special school rather than special class. Instructional costs would drop and class size increase as a result. The beneficial association of the feebleminded with those attending regular schools appeared exaggerated. The establishment of a special school recognized a segregation imposed on the feeble­ minded by other school children. Finally, the welfare of society rested on the permanent segregation of the feebleminded. The establishment of an institution 146 undertaken by the state, city or both in the Cleveland area seemed the only direction to follow in the situa­ tion.^^

Meanwhile, in the city of Columbus, the public schools continued to address the education of the mental defective. Columbus operated the Opportunity School where

150 students were under instruction. Large as it was, the

Superintendent saw facilities as "entirely inadequate to take care of the mental defectives of school age in the city." Conservatively speaking, the Superintendent esti- 40 mated 500 of this category in the public schools.

During the last years of the nineteenth and the

first decade of the twentieth century, investigations

commenced on the subject of intelligence testing in the

United States. In 1900, the Pennsylvania Training School

for Feeble-minded Children commenced an "anthropometric"

laboratory whose results could be helpful in determining

individual mental and physical development. In 1906,

the Vineland Training School, a private institution

for the mentally retarded, located in New Jersey, chose

Henry H. Goddard to direct the first laboratory for the

study of mental retardation. Goddard came to Vineland

after having taught at the West Chester, Pennsylvania

Normal School. A graduate of Clark University, he had 147 studied there under G. Stanley Hall, a pioneer in child psychology and other educational problems. Two years earlier, Alfred Binet and Thomas Simon developed a stan­ dardized test to identify French children for placement in special classes. Goddard translated Binet's first edi­ tion of Lfe mesure du developpment de l'intelligence chez les jeunes infants (1905)into English in 1909. Using

Binet's work with the pupils at Vineland, Goddard devel­ oped criteria for the evaluation of varying degrees of mental defect. Goddard discovered three levels of mental incapacity. First, were the idiots, with mental ages of less than two years, followed by the imbeciles, with mental ages two to seven and finally morons, who were mentally eight to twelve. In 1910, this classification received official acceptance by the American Association for the Study of the Feeble-Minded. Using the Binet tests in research studies, Goddard concluded that a 41 large portion of crime resulted from feeblemindedness.

Indeed, beginning in 1910 and lasting until 1920, the myth of the menace of the feebleminded prevailed. Ohio was not immune to the siren song of this myth as subse­ quent studies and reports were quick to indicate. Social control of the feebleminded became a dominant theme with the extension of custodial care to cover all the retarded in the country. 148

The Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections in their May, 1910, issue certainly followed up on this theme. The Bulletin asked readers the following questions

"Do you know the very close relationship between feeble­ mindedness, epilepsy, insanity and crime? Do you know the large percentage of the children of the feeble-minded are illegitimate? The misery and suffering, the vice and crime, and the great burden of taxation caused by the feeble-minded in the country are immeasurable. The report sought exact scientific knowledge of the facts in the

State and found out there were none. A permanent com­ mittee associated with the State Board of Charities was suggested to study the relationships among defectiveness, pauperism and crime in Ohio. Some immediate steps were also offered as remedies;

1. Mental defectives, like criminals should be committed to institutions, not merely admitted to them.

2. All paupers, criminals and mental defectives should be registered in the Office of the Commissioner of Charities.

3. After definite proof, all deficient members of degenerate families should be given permanent custodial care.42

In 1911, the Cleveland Public Schools could report

1,281 students had taken the Binet-Simon test with the following results: Idiots and low imbeciles, 40; middle and high imbeciles, 140; low and middle moron, 267; 149 and high grade moron, 22. Of this number 275 were placed in special classes and the remainder left in their regular 43 classroom setting.

The theory of the menace of the feeble-minded was defended in an essay entitled "The Treatment of Defectives

A Problem in Conservation" which appeared in the 1912

Annual Report of the Cleveland Board of Education. "There exists," the Superintendent said, "the menace of the so- called defective class." Although enrollment in special classes totalled 200, examinations of the districts Binet expert "disclosed 7 39 boys and girls who might be classified as mentally deficient." He estimated 1,000 children in the city in the high grade moron down to imbecile range. If allowed to mingle freely in society, they constituted a menace "too manifest to thoughtful persons to require further comment." The Superintendent proposed two solutions to the situation--segregation and sterilization. He dismissed the latter, because it "is fraught with so grave social dangers." Segregation ap­ peared the most promising response to the problem. "It is our opinion" he said, "that the public school is not the proper place for this class." Rather, an institu­ tion for their accommodation should be established near

Cleveland. An institution, located near the city allowed frequent visits of parents to children. More importantly. 150 removal from the public schools eliminated the "blighting effect which comes to backward children who are made to rank with them in the schools." Success in the removal of institutional cases would leave only "the border-line cases" which could be characterized as nothing worse than backward." While not directly condemning foreigners as mental inferiors, the existence of the feeble-minded among recent immigrants, the Superintendent thought "should lend 44 strength to the champion of stricter immigration laws."

In 1912, Henry H. Goddard published the Kallikak Family: A

Study in the Heredity of Feeble-mindedness, which traced the family of Martin Kallikak. Goddards' research found

496 descendants of legitimate union normal, while 480 descendants of illegitimate union were an almost unbroken chain of degenerates. A reinforcement of Dugdales' work.

The Kallikak Family did much to popularize the myth of 45 the menace of the feeble-minded.

Perhaps more than ever, the presence of the mentally defectives became a concern of Ohio's social welfare admin­ istrators. The Ohio State Conference of Charities and

Corrections heard three presentations relating to the subject from Dr. Emerick, Starr Cadwallader of the Ohio

Board of Administration and Dr. Thomas Haines, Clinical

Director of the Ohio Bureau of Juvenile Research. All three presentations focused on the menace of the defective 151 delinquent and the hereditary nature of feeblemindedness.

They all emphasized the necessity of protecting the com­ munity and the mentally defective. The solution, placing the feeble-minded in state institutions and keeping them there. Sterilization of the mentally defective as a solu­ tion was avoided. Dr. Thomas Haines skirted the issue saying "I am not here to preach any propaganda of eugenic 46 breeding in the human family."

In the following year. Dr. Haines surveyed admissions to state reformatories and found fifty-seven per cent of the population mentally defective. His research gave credence to the arguments of those who equated feeble­ mindedness with the major cause of social ills such as crime and poverty. The Ohio Bulletin of Charities and

Corrections continued to fuel these interpretations pub­ lishing essays on "Feeble-Mindedness and Juvenile Delin­ quency and Dependency" as well as "Prison Reform and the

Feeble-Minded Criminal." The latter essay, penned by

Joseph P. Byers, executive Secretary of the National Com­ mittee on Provision for the Feebleminded came as part of a national educational campaign appealing to the fear and 47 compassion of the public. Out of Ohio, came several surveys focused on the problem of the feeble-minded. The

Ohio Board of Administration published several bulletins on the subject. Notable among them was "The Family of 152

Sam Sixty" who was arrested for assaults on his sons and daughters and "The Feebleminded in a Rural County of Ohio," which focused on the Happy Hickory Family, a five genera- 48 tion family of mental defectives.

In 1917, the Ohio Board of Administration published a book titled. The Greatest Problem of the Race— Its Own

Conservation. The book was compiled, edited and largely written by J. W. Jones, Superintendent of the Ohio School for the Deaf. Included were several chapters on visits to state institutions including interviews with their admin­ istrators. Individual chapters focused on the blind, criminal, mentally ill, delinquent and feeble-minded. As might be expected, the chapter on the feeble-minded includ­ ed numerous charts showing the relationship between feeble-mindedness and criminality. Jones' purpose in publication was "education of the people concerning the causes and prevention of deafness, blindness, feeble­ mindedness, criminality, insanity, tuberculosis, intem­ perance and general immorality." His hope for the future focused on better sanitation, purer living and careful mating as a powerful preventative "of much of this human 49 waste." Dr. Thomas Haines, speaking on "The Feeble-

Minded Situation in Ohio" offered several options for their treatment. The most effective would be permanent custody and colony life. After proper classification. 153

special schools could be instituted for them, relieving

the regular schools of this provision. Finally, large

numbers could be supervised and protected in private homes under the power of a central authority. Haines did con­ clude that one of Ohio's greatest needs in this area was

the establishment of segregated colonies for feeble­ minded men and women. Reaffirming the hereditary argu­ ment, Haines believed that the rounding up of the larger

part of the feeble-minded population into a custodial set­

ting, would make it impossible for "relatively few feeble- 50 minded persons to be born in the community."

In Columbus, personnel changes took place at the

Bureau of Juvenile Research. In 1918, Dr. Henry H. God­ dard, most recently of the Vineland (N.J. Training School), was appointed Clinical Director of the Bureau replacing

Dr. Thomas Haines. An ardent supporter of the hereditary

nature of feeblemindedness, Goddard was perhaps the nation's foremost spokesman for feeblemindedness as the

root cause of crime and poverty. Within days of the

appointment. Dr. Goddard visited the Ohio State Reforma­

tory in Mansfield to examine several cases brought to his

attention by the institution superintendent. Goddard

examined sixteen cases and found eight feeble-minded,

three feeble-minded and insane, four insane and one normal

case. As a result of his investigation he determined 154 that "three classes of youth" inhabit the reformatory, namely, normal youth, feeble-minded youth and insane youth. He suggested a general plan be followed removing the feeble-minded to the state institution, the insane to the state mental hospital and the normal to a colony or non-prison setting." The whole problem could be erased if a law were passed requiring the Bureau of

Juvenile Research to"examine all persons before commit­ ment , "Goddard said.^^

Dr. Goddard's visitation and research into insti­ tutional populations did not always meet with positive responses from administrative officers. In fact. Super­ intendent R. U. Hastings of the Boys' Industrial School wrote Goddard saying "that unless I requested it, we were to have no more visits of this nature." Hastings went on "To be frank with your Doctor, it will not be con­ venient at any time for any worker to come to the school 52 to make such examinations of any of our boys." The use of the Binet tests to diagnose mental retardation soon under examination. In 1913, Walter Fernald, Superin­ tendent of the Massacusetts School for the Feeble-Minded

found the tests "not decisive where the differential diagnosis of the higher grade from the normal is in question." Other factors, he suggested such as family history, school progress, physical condition, personal 155 history and practical knowledge be used in combination 53 with all the tests to determine the mental defect.

Edgar A. Doll affirmed Fernald noting that the test "is 54 not a complete diagnostic method." Perhaps the most devastating evidence was presented by J. E. Wallace

Wallin, a psychologist for the St. Louis Public Schools.

Wallin tested a group of successful Iowa farmers whose

Binet scores indicated that they were all morons. In fact, one was a farmer-businessman with a life savings of $30,000 and had served as a superintendent of schools.

The evidence was obvious, the tests were in error and could not serve as the sole criterion for evaluating 55 feeble-mindedness. By 1920, with the results of the

Army testing of draft applicants indicating nearly one- half of the United States population being feeble-minded, the credibility of the tests were severely damaged, if not entirely discredited.^^ After 1919, the reports of high proportions of feeble-mindedness seemed less stri­ dent and alarming to Ohio citizens.

The period of American history marked roughly by the end of the Spanish-American War and the United States entry into World War I is usually termed the Progressive

Era. Beginning in the late nineties, progressives mounted an attack on dishonest and inefficient govern­ ments. In Ohio, Samuel M. "Golden Rule" Jones won 156 election as mayor of Toledo and Tom L. Johnson as mayor of

Cleveland. An outgrowth of their efforts were the crea­ tion of research bureaus investigating governmental prob­ lems in a scientific and nonpartisan manner. With the realization that some state functions required highly technical expert knowledge, the progressives fought for the creation of special commissions and government agen­ cies to handle matters such as railroad regulation, taxation and welfare administration. Beginning in 1906

Ohio state government followed that trend with the crea­ tion of the Railroad Commission, followed by the Commis­ sion for the Blind (1908) and the Tax Commission (1910).

A further outgrowth was the four member Ohio Board of

Administration on August 15, 1911, to provide centralized control and administration for eighteen benevolent insti­ tutions, including the Institution for Feeble-Minded 57 Youth. Prior to 1911, state institutions operated under the provision of separate boards of trustees.

Under this type of arrangement, the administration of state hospitals and benevolent institutions were subject to partisan influences connected by biennial guberna­ torial elections and increased operating costs dictated by the central purchasing authority.

During that same year, legislation creating a com­ mission to revise, consolidate and suggest amendments 157 to the statute laws of Ohio which pertain to children came into being. Popularly known as the Children's Code Com­ mission, the body went on to suggest the first Children's

Code in the United States. In their investigations, the commissioners gave attention to the feeble-minded. Their study noted the difficulty faced by multiple handicapped mental defective and suggested an expansion of the State

Institution to serve these children. Segregation of the mentally defective from society came forth as one response.

Surprisingly, sterilization did not seem to be an ap­ proved remedy. The commission recommended repeal of four sections of statute relating to county or individual financial support of the mentally defective,

During the Spring of 1919, the Ohio General Assembly passed a resolution creating a Joint Committee on Admin­ istrative Reorganization. Hiring several field inves­ tigators knowledgeable in government operations, the

Committee was able to provide numerous recommendations to improve the efficiency of state government. Their recom­ mendations included the creation of a Department of Wel­ fare Administration. During consideration of the recom­ mendations changes were made and in 1921, Ohio reorgan­ ized its government structure. Emerging from this reor­ ganization was a new Department of Public Welfare which took responsibility for all the welfare services of the 158 state, including the administration of all state insti- 59 tutions. From 1921 to 1954, the giant Ohio Department of Public Welfare administered institutional programs for the mentally retarded.

Sterilization, advocated by the institutional admin­ istrators and professionals failed to capture public opin­ ion in sufficient numbers for Ohio to enact sterilization laws. By the late 1920s, psychologists raised questions about the ability of mental tests to measure innate intel­ ligence. The rhetoric of despair eventually gave way to that of qualified hope.

In the decades since 1920, programs for the mentally retarded slowly shifted from an institutional to a com­ munity focus. In 1935, an Ohio Government Survey conducted by Colonel C. 0. Sherill noted alternatives in care for the mentally retarded. The survey suggested supervised family or boarding home care to relieve institutional populations, expansion of child guidance and psychiatric centers for early recognition, special classes in public schools, and the use of state institutions as training schools. In 1939, Charles Sherwood, Director of the Ohio

Department of Public Welfare suggested the establish­ ment of community day classes for those with an IQ below

50. During the 1940s parent groups as The Council for the Retarded Child, operated private day classes for 159 children in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Lake County. At

Ohio State University, the Bureau of Special and Adult Edu­ cation under the direction of Dr. Herschel W. Nisonger began the study of these children and programs for their improvement. In 1951, the Ohio General Assembly author­ ized the creation of community training programs making

Ohio somewhat unique in its program for the mentally retarded. For those with an IQ below 50, community train­ ing programs worked with the Department of Public Wel­ fare. The child with an IQ between 50 and 80 received assistance in the public schools under supervision of the

Ohio Department of Education. Finally in 1967, the Gen­ eral Assembly authorized the creation of community boards to operate educational and training programs for the mentally retarded with IQs below 50.

In 1954, the Ohio Department of Public Welfare lost its institutional responsibilities witn the creation of a new Department of Mental Hygiene and Correction.

Eighteen years later, the Ohio General Assembly further subdivided that agency with the establishment of a

Department of Mental Health and Mental Retardation. With the establishment of the Department of Mental Retarda­ tion and Developmental Disabilities on July 1, 1980, perhaps Ohio has come full circle in its programs for the the education and treatment of the mentally retarded. 160

In the near century and a quarter since the opening of the "Idiot Asylum," programs for the mentally retarded have returned to the community from a single central state focus. Integration into the life of the community has replaced separation in a custodial setting as the most desirable manner of working with the mentally re­ tarded. Maybe the continuum of care (comprehensive and coordinated service) for the mentally retarded advocated by President John F. Kennedy's Panel of Mental Retarda­ tion in 1962 is closer to realization than at any time in Ohio's past. NOTES

^Idiot Asylum Report 1899, 10.

^Ibid, 1900, 11. Board of Charities Report 1900, 6.

3 Board of Charities Report, 1900, 61

4 Seventy-Fifth Deaf and Dumb, 13.

^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XI, 1901, 60.

^Idiot Asylum Report 1903, 7.

^Laws of Ohio, Vol. XCVII, 83.

^Opinions of the Attorney General 1904,(Columbus, 1905) 58. 9 Minutes of the Board of Trustees of the Ohio Insti­ tution for Feeble-Minded Youth, May 1, 1905, Department of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, State Archives, Ohio Historical Society.

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XVI, July, 1906, 59.

l^Ibid, April 1906, 5.

^^Laws of Ohio, Vol. SCVIII, 316.

13 Annual Report of the Ohio Department of Public Welfare 1952, (Columbus, 1952), 137.

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1907, 9.

^^Eightieth Deaf and Dumb, 17-18.

161 162

^^Idiot Asylum Report 1912, 8.

17 Annual Report of the Ohio Board of Administration 1913, (Columbus, 1913), 67-69.

18 Proceedings of the Association for the Study of the Pebble-Minded, Vol. XXI, 1916, 111.

19 Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XXVI, July, 1920, 7.

20 Annual Report of the Ohio Department of Public Welfare 1952, (Columbus, 1952), 119.

21 Leo Kanner, A History of the Care and Study of the Mentally Retarded (Springfield, 1964), 115.

22 The 1904 Annual Report of the Cleveland Board of Eduation (Cleveland, 1904, 32. Hereafter cited as Cleveland Board Report with year indicated.

^^Igid, 1906, 59.

^^The 1909 Annual Report of the Cincinnati Board of Education (Cincinnati, 1909), 5. Hereafter cited as Cincinnati Board Report with year indicated.

______to C. L. VanCleve, February 27, 1909, Henry H. Goddard Papers, Archives of American Psychology, University of Akron.

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XXI, July 1911, 65.

^^Cincinnati Board Report 1910, 27.

Z^ibid, 1911, 57.

29 The 1912 Annual Report of the Dayton Board of Education (Dayton 1912), 13. Hereafter cited as Dayton Board Report with year indicated. 163

^^The 1912 Annual Report of the Columbus Board of Education (Columbus^ 1912), 107. Hereafter cited as Columbus Board Report with year indicated.

^^Cincinnati Board Report 1912, 82-83.

^^Dayton Board Report 1913, 93.

^^Cincinnati Board Report 1913, 63.

^^Cleveland Board Report 1914, 14.

35 Dayton Board Report 1914, 111.

^^Cincinnati Board Report 1917, 75.

^^Cleveland Board Report 1914, 69.

O p Dayton Board Report 1915, 115.

39 David Mitchell, Schools and Classes for Excep­ tional Children (Cleveland, 1916), 52-72.

40 Columbus Board Report 1918, 54.

41 Mark Haller, Eugenics ; Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, 1963), 96-97. Here­ after cited as Haller, Eugenics.

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XVI, May 1910, 43.

43 Cleveland Board Report 1911, 6.

^^ibid, 1912, 8-14.

^^Haller, Eugenics, 106-107.

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XXI, January 1915, 42-45. 164

4?ibid.

48 Haller, Eugenics, 108.

49 . J. W. Jones, The Greatest Problem of the Race; $ Its Own Conservation (Columbus, 1 9 1 7 ) , 45.

^^Ohio Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, Vol. XXIII, February, 1917, 34-36.

^^Henry H. Goddard to Ohio Board of Administra­ tion, January 3, 1918, Henry H. Goddard Papers, Archives of American Psychology, University of Akron.

52 R. U. Hastings to Henry H. Goddard, September 15, 1919, Goddard Papers.

53 Walter Fernald "The Diagnosis of the Higher Grades of Mental Defect" Journal of Psycho-Asthenics, XVIII (December 1913), 8.

^^Edgar A. Doll, "On the Use of Term "Feeble- Minded," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, VIII (July 1917), 216-217.

^^J. E. Wallace Wallin, "Who is Feeble-Minded?" Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, Vol. VI (January, 1916), 706-16.

^^Haller, Eugenics, 114.

S^Laws of Ohio, Vol. CII, 211.

C p Report of the Commission to Codify and Revise Laws Relative to Children (Columbus, 1912), 29.

59 Laws of Ohio, Vol. CIX, 124. 165

Table 1; Inmate Population of the Ohio Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth 1860-1920

Year Population 1860 35 1870 170

1880 566

1890 868 1900 1,107

1910 1,606 1920 2,415 166

Table 2 : Numbers of Handicapped in Ohio by Decade Deaf Blind Insane Idiotic

1850 915 642 1,317 1,361

1860 1,171 899 2,293 1,788

1870 1,339 1,366 3,414 2,338

1880 2,301 2,960 7,286 6,460

1890 2,655 3,373 7,599 8,035

1900 1,510 4,466 8,621 1,125*

1910 2,675 3,740 10,594 3,013*

1920 2,763 3,873 12,433 *

Sources : Seventh to Fourteenth Census of the United States and Special Reports on the blind, deaf, insane and feeble­ minded.

*After 1890 the Census Bureau was instructed to survey only those defectives in institutions. In 1920, no statistics could be found. Census data must be used with caution, as it frequently underenumerates the mentally retarded. BIBLIOGRAPHY

UNPUBLISHED MATERIAL

A. Manuscripts

Byers Family. Papers. Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Chase, Salmon P. Papers-Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Cincinnati Children's Home. Papers. Cincinnati His­ torical Society, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Doren, Gustavus. Papers. Archives-Library Division Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Goddard, Henry H. Papers. Archives of American Psy­ chology, University of Akron, Akron, Ohio.

Hayes, Rutherford B. Papers. Rutherford B. Hayes Mem­ orial Library, Fremont, Ohio.

Lucas, Robert. Papers. Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Medill, William. Papers. Archives-Library Division, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

B. State Records

Ohio Institution for Feeble-Minded Youth. Minutes 1881-1911. State Archives, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

Ohio Lunatic Asylum. Minutes 1836-1911. State Archives, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

State Board of Charities. Correspondence 1884-85. State Archives, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio.

PUBLISHED DOCUMENTS

A. State

Ohio. Asylum for the Blind Annual Reports, 1838- 1911.

167 168

Ohio. Board of Administration Annual Report, 1913.

Ohio. Board of State Charities Annual Reports, 1867- 1910.

Ohio. Board of State Charities Annual Reports, 1867- 1910.

Ohio. Bulletin of Charities and Corrections, 1891-1920.

Ohio. Commissioner of Common Schools Annual Reports, 1860-1900.

Ohio. Deaf and Dumb Asylum Annual Reports, 1827-1911.

Ohio. Department of Public Welfare Annual Reports, 1952.

Ohio. Executive Documents, 1837-1913.

Ohio. House Journal, 1803-1921.

Ohio. Idiot Asylum Annual Reports, 1857-1919.

Ohio. Longview Asylum Annual Report, 1864.

Ohio. Northern Ohio Lunatic Asylum Annual Report, 1862.

Ohio. Official Reports of Debates and Proceedings of the Ohio State Convention, 1851.

Ohio. Official Report of Proceedings and Debates of the Third Constitutional Convention of Ohio, 1873.

Ohio. Ohio Lunatic Asylum, Annual Reports, 1838-1910.

Ohio. Opinions of the Attorney General, 1904.

Ohio. Secretary of State Annual Reports, 1871 and 1874.

Ohio. Senate Journal, 1803-1921.

Ohio. Report of the Commission to Codify and Revise Laws Relative to Children, 1911.

B. Local

Annual Report of the Cincinnati City Workhouse (Cincin­ nati, 1871). 169

Annual Report of the Cleveland City Infirmary (Cleve­ land, 1891).

Annual Report of the Morgan County Childrens Home for 1884.

Annual Report of the Washington County Childrens Home (Marietta, 1885) .

Cincinnati. Annual Report of the Board of Education, 1870-1920.

Cleveland. Annual Report of the Board of Education, 1890-1920.

Columbus. Anual Report of the Board of Education, 1910-1920.

Dayton. Annual Report of the Board of Education, 1912-1920.

Second and Fifth Annual Reports of the Franklin County Childrens Home (Columbus, 1882 and 1885).

Third to Fifth Annual Reports of the Cincinnati City Infirmary (Cincinnati, 1856).

LAWS OF OHIO

Chase, Salmon P. (ed.). The Statues of Ohio and of the Northwestern Territory 1788-1833 (Cincinnati 1833-35).

Ohio. Laws of Ohio, 1803-1921.

BOOKS AND ARTICLES

Adams, Margaret. Mental Retardation and Its Social Dimensions (New York, 1971;.

Carpenter, Eugene G. "Some Suggestions As to the Management of Certain Forms of Insanity," Columbus Medical Journal, XX, March 15, 1898, 261-263.

Dugdale, Richard L. The Jukes; A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredity (New York, 1910). 170

Haller, Mark. Eugenics; Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, 1963).

Howe, Henry. Historical Collection of Ohio (Norwalk, 1896.

Johnson, Alexander. Adventures in Social Welfare (Fort Wayne, 1923).

Jones, J. W. The Greatest Problem of the Race: Its Own Conservation (Columbus, 1917).

Jordan, Philip D. Ohio Comes of Age 1873-1900 (Columbus, 1943).

Kanner, Leo. A History of the Care and Study of the Mentally Retarded (Springfield, 1964.

Mansfield, Edward D. "The Relation Between Education and Pauperism," Report of the Commissioner of Edu­ cation for the year 1872 (Washington, 1873).

Mansfield, Edward D. Memoirs of the Life and Services of Daniel Drake, M.D. (Cincinnati, 1855).

Mitchell, David. Schools and Classes for Exceptional Children (Cleveland, 1916).

Report of the Prison Reform and Childrens Aid Assoc­ iation (Cincinnati, 1875).

Rosen, Marvin and Clark, Gerald R. The History of Mental Retardation: Collected Papers (Baltimore, 1975).

Seguin, Edward. Idiocy: Its Treatment by the Physio­ logical Method (Albany, 1907).

Wallin, J. E. Wallace. "Who is Feeble-Minded?" Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, VI, anuary 1916, 706-16.

NEWSPAPERS

Daily True Democrat (Cleveland).

Marietta Register. 171

Ohio State Journal (Columbus).

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Insanity, 1845.

Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions For Idiotic and Feeble-Minded Persons. Proceed- ings, 1876-1895.

Cincinnati Journal of Medicine, 1, April 1866, 208-209.

Journal of. Psycho-Asthenics, 1896-1918.

Nation;'! Conference of Social Welfare Proceedings 1876-1920.

Ohio Educational Monthly 1857-1900.

The Medical Counselor or Weekly Gazette, II, February 23, 1856, 188-189.

The Physio-Medical Recorder, XXXV, April 1871, 186-187.

Transactions of the Ohio State Medical Society, 1857- 1904.