Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/492

 472 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

With the training school as a nucleus, the chief executive department, the hospital for the sick, the industrial building, and the departments for the very lowest custodial grades being closely connected with it, let there be attached to each institution one or more large tracts of land, in, or near, a state of nature, and containing as many of the natural opportunities of wood, stone, brick-clay, coal, etc., as possible. Especially let there be a soil that is, or may be made, highly fertile. Upon such a tract let there be erected a few simple, substantial buildings, sufficient, to begin with, for a colony of two hundred trained male imbeciles, graduates of the training school, who have been taught to labor. At least one-fourth of these should be of the brightest class of high-grade imbeciles ; the remainder may be of the middle and lower grades, of whom a fair proportion may be of the custodial class. Let all the male employes be mechanics or practical farmers. Let the colonists build houses, to receive from time to time all the graduates of the training school whose labor can be spared from the mother house, and all the middle-grade non-improvable idiots who may be received by the institution after the colony begins. Let the houses be plain, substantial buildings, con- structed of the available material on the land, whether that be stone quarried, or bricks made, on the premises. Along with the erection of the cottages should go the building of halls, gymna- siums, and chapels, as may be desired. Let the method of life be simple and plain, as near the normal life of the farmer and the gardener as possible. Let the lands be cleared, ditched, and brought to the highest possible state of cultivation ; the grounds around the buildings adorned with shrubbery, lawns, and flower gardens. Let the whole colony become a "village of the sim- ple," its inhabitants an industrious, celibate community, having all that other villagers enjoy, except the excitement of popular elections, and the pleasures, trials, and anxieties of married life.

Such a colony, having the mother house as its market for the produce of its farm, dairy, orchards, and gardens, could, when completed, be made to pay much of its maintenance cost by its products. The cost of its buildings and equipment, on the plan outlined, would be surprisingly low. The colony should be

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