Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British IslesTuke, Daniel Hack
History
Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles
Tuke, Daniel Hack
Mental health laws -- Great Britain; Mental illness -- Great Britain; Mentally ill -- Care; Psychiatric hospitals -- Great Britain
For those idiots and imbeciles who have been trained up to a certain
point, beyond which it is impossible to advance them, suitable
institutions or departments of institutions--adult custodial
asylums--are suggested. Those idiots who are young, and can be taught,
should be kept, as a general rule, distinct from adult idiots, in
training schools. These two classes of institutions should be united, if
possible, under the same superintendence.
The action to which we have already referred as having been taken by the
Metropolitan Asylum Board, arising out of the Act of 1870, forms a
useful experiment for the consideration and possible guidance of those
engaged in endeavouring to provide for the training and custody of
idiots and imbeciles, not in the metropolis alone, but the country.
After full discussion, the Charity Organization Committee resolved "that
the arrangement which has been made for idiots, imbeciles, and harmless
lunatics in the Metropolitan Asylum District is applicable in its main
principles to the rest of England, viz. that they should be removed from
workhouses and county lunatic asylums, and that young persons of those
classes should be suitably educated and trained." Seeing that experience
clearly proves that the voluntary principle is a failure, or at least
wholly inadequate, for it only touches the fringe of the difficulty, it
becomes absolutely necessary that the State should step in and
supplement charitable effort. The Acts at present in force are possibly
sufficiently elastic to provide for the want, if there was a
determination on the part of the authorities in the various counties to
avail themselves of them; but it is quite certain that no steps will be
taken to do so, unless a new Act makes a distinct and special provision
for the education and training of the idiot classes.
It appeared just to the Committee that not only should the local rates
provide, as they do at the present time, for the charge of this class,
but that assistance should be granted out of the public revenue; the
best mode for such assistance being in the form of advances for the
buildings required on easy terms, liberal capitation grants for young
people under training, and grants of less amount for adults.
It is obvious that an idiot, while under the process of education, is at
least as much entitled to the capitation grant allowed by the Education
Department as the school children of the non-idiotic class.
A certain sum would also be received from the families of some of the
inmates of the training schools and custodial institutions. It is
proposed that those families which, although able to pay their way under
ordinary circumstances, could not possibly defray the entire cost,
should pay according to their means. As in the case of the blind and the
deaf and dumb, it is considered that the relief given to children should
not be counted as parochial relief to their parents.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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