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SYRACUSE JOURNAL -- Friday, May 12, 1911
________________________________________

     NONE ARE GOING FROM SYRACUSE 
            TO LETCHWORTH
           _______________
           
   540 Inmates of Institution for
   Feeble Minded Comfortable Here.
            ____________
            
       STATE'S NEW EXPERIMENT
            ____________
            
   Groups of Colony Buildings in
        Hudson Valley Form
             Village
             __________
             
   Superintendent Carson of the Syra-
cuse State Institution for Feeble-Mind-
ed Children states that he does not ex-
pect its population will be decreased on
account of the opening on June 1 of 
the state's new institute for the care
of feeble minded and epileptics at
Letchworth.  There are now 540 in-
mates of the Syracuse institution, all of
whom can comfortably be cared for
here.  Dr. Carson says that he under-
stands 100 boys are to be transferred
from Randal's Island, New York City,
to Letchworth.  He does not anticipate
any transfers from Syracuse.
  Letchworth comprises a village of
2,000 acres in Rockland County.  It is
about three miles west of the Hudson
River, near Haverstraw, but nearer to
Theills, from where the new intitu-
tion will receive its mail.  Dr. C. S.
Little, former superintendent of the
New Hampshire State School for Fee-
ble Minded will be in charge of affairs
at Letchworth.
   Basing the calculation upon census
reports, the commission that decided
upon Letchworth village as a site for
another custodial institution, estimated
that there are fully 12,000 feeble-mind-
ed persons in the State of New York. 
About 4,000 of them are in institutions
and about 1,000 more are on the wait-
ing list.  About 2,000 others, reports
indicate, are being improperly housed
in almshouses and homes in receipt of
public money.  It would appear, there-
fore, that about 5,000 are unaccounted
for.
   Scientists of undoubted authority
hold to the opinion that segregation of
all feeble minded below a certain
grade or standard will eventually have
solved the whole problem of idiocy and
feeblemindedness.  Provision for six
distinct colonies has been made at
Letchworth in the erection of six sep-
arate groups of buildings.  There will
be improvable boys, girls, men and 
women, infirm women and infirm men.
   Assemblyman A. E. Smith, majority
leader, recently introduced a legislative
measure to appropriate 600,000 for the 
completion of several of the most im-
mediately necessary buildings at
Letchworth and to carry out some of
the most pressingly urgent projects of
the Board of Managers.  The purpose
of the village institution is to keep in
custody for the whole reproductive pe-
riod of their lives a colony of about
2,500 feeble-minded and epileptic per-
sons in conditions as nearly normal as
can practically be devised and pro-
vided.  There will be work for those
who can work and outdoor sports for
those whose mental and physical con-
dition prevent them from working.

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