"Moralizing Idiocy"

Seguin's definition of idiocy rested on "educational potential" (Trent 18).

However, Linus Brockett, in 1855, took idiocy as a reflection of physical abnormalities:

"We should define idiocy...as the result of an infirmity of the body which prevents, to a greater or less extent, the development of the physical, moral and intellectual powers" (qtd in Trent 18).

R. J. Patterson notes "Idiocy, then, has a physical rather than a mental origin" (qtd in Trent 18).

As Trent notes, "For these early reformers the pathological emphasis was associated with a widely held view of degenerative and polymorphous heredity. Idiocy was related to many 'sins of the father': intemperance, poverty, consanguinity (meaning marriage between cousins), insanity, scrofula, consumption, licentious habits, failed attempts at abortion, and overwork in the quest for wealth and power. 'The vast majority of idiocy in our world,' claimed Brockett, 'is the direct result of violation of the physical and moral laws which govern our being; that often times the sins of the father are thus visited upon their children; and that the parent, for the sake of a momentary gratification of his depraved appetite, inflicts upon his hapless offspring a life of utter vacuity'" (qtd in Trent 18).

"A moral component was linked closely" (Trent 19).

I found this description of an "idiot" in 1860 particularly relevant for autism studies: "Given to making bizarre noises, masturbating frequently and in public, eating their own excrement, and abusing themselves, these transformed 'worst cases' convinced audiences of the salubrious effects of careful and intensive education" (Trent 19). It was, particularly, this description that got me thinking about the archival research into 19th century "idiots"--these behaviors are very, very common among autistics.