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Training and Teaching Idiots

Training and Teaching Idiots is a book that was published In February 1850 by Samuel Gridley Howe. It is written as a report to George N. Briggs, the governor of Massachusetts at that time. Howe wrote this book in 1850 to eductate about cognitive disabilities and emphasize the need for proper care and training for disabled persons. It has 72 pages.

Historical context

before publication of the book

The author

Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876) was a nineteenth century United States physician, abolitionist, and an advocate of education for the blind. He founded the first school for blind children in the U.S., the Perkins Institution of the Blind in South Boston in 1832. In 1848, Howe received money from the Massachussetts state government, which he used to open an experimental school of ten students with mental disabilities at Perkins school.

View on disabilities before 1850

The way people with cognitive disablities were treated in the U.S. was around 1850 already changed from punishment to caring for the people. Still, it was more common to let them be then to take efforts in training them. Disabled people were living, when not with their families, in almshouses, which were the precursors of asylums. In the almshouses idiots lived among paupers and did not receive special care or treatment. The first training schools for children with disabilities were established in the 1840s, a few years before the book was published. In 1849, the first sheltered workshop for blind people is established at the Perkins Institution in Massachusetts.

Political correctness

During the time the book was written, the term "idiot" was commonly considered a polite term for people with cognitive disabilities. Today it is a derogatory term for a stupid person.

Content

Howe classifies mental disabilities into three groups, simpletons, fools and idiots, latter being the most disabled. He educates about "causes of idiocy", which he names firstly low condition of the physical organization of one or both parents and secondly the intermarriage of relatives. Further, while some people are born with their mental disability with a physical cause, others developed their conditions during their lifespan due to external causes, eg. abusive upbringing or neglect.

Howe states that idiocy has the tendency to grow worse if neglected, which implies a need for proper training and care. With the right training, many idiots have the potential to improve a lot and live a better life.(book cite)

Howe points out that education up to normal functioning cannot be expected for people with mental disabilities. He emphasizes the need for physical exercise to develop mental power and a specialized diet, since the mentally disabled are prone to overeating.

While he suggests special schools for children with disabilities, he promotes teaching pupils of different idiocy grades jointly. This way the children can help and learn from eachother.

Reception

Because of Howe's work, the establishment of new idiocy asylums was promoted. This experiment brought his work to world-wide attention. Because of his continuous efforts, Howe has been considered to be the most significant and far-sighted figure in the American history of special education. The book has been selected by scholars as being culturally important. New editions of the book are purchisable still today (July 2019)/in the 21st century.

Since the 1990s mental disabilities are usually being treated if the patient wants and needs treatment. Mental health treatment can be done ambulant or institutionalized in a mental health clinic. The reason for treatment becoming more widespread is a higher public awareness, less stigmatisation, better availability of diagnosis and screening programs and medication and the doctor's growing willingness to prescribe treatment or medication.