and the classes of patients you purpose to admit.  I doubt, however, whether you can do better than to adopt the general form of the Wakefield Asylum, and as you are providing for only a small number, it deserves consideration whether all the rooms might not be advantageously placed on the ground floor.  This plan affords great facilities to easy inspection, and safe communication with airing grounds, and the roof might project so far over the building, as to form an excellent collonnade for the patients; which seems peculiarly desirable under an American Sun.

With these views, I send a sketch drawn by the Architect whose plan is to be adopted at Wakefield; and though it may not be, in many respects, adapted to your particular wants, yet I hope it will not be altogether useless.  Should it be thought too expensive, I think the rooms, 1, 2, and 3, might be dispensed with, and rooms marked “attendants, sick and bath,” might be appropriated to the patients during the day.  The attendants room is not a requisite, though it has been thought that it would be more agreeable to patients of superior rank, not to have the society of a servant.  This, however, chiefly applies to the convalescents, and these might occupy the room marked ‘sick’, whilst the middle class, and the attendants, would be in the centre, marked “attendants.”  A sick and bath room might probably be obtained in the galleries:  if you are inclined for the sake of appearance, to make the centre building two stories high, you might bring the wings nearer to the centre, and accommodate most of the convalescent patients with bed rooms in the upper story.  In this case, perhaps it would be desirable to give the wings a radiating form.  You will however be best able to modify the sketch to your particular wants, if the general idea should meet your approbation.

I observe with pleasure, that one leading feature of your new institution, is the introduction of employment amongst the patients, an object which I am persuaded is of the utmost importance in the moral treatment of insanity.  It is related of an institution in Spain, which accommodated all ranks, and in which the lower class were generally employed, that a great proportion of these recovered, whilst the number of the Grandees was exceedingly small.  It will however, require great address to induce patients to engage in manual labour, who have not been accustomed to it previously to their indisposition, and it must be admitted, that where the reluctance on the part of the patient is great, the irritation which compulsory means are likely to excite, will probably be more injurious to the patient, than the exercise will be beneficial.  The employment of insane persons should, as far as it is practicable, be adapted to their previous habits, inclinations and capacities, and, though horticultural pursuits may be most desirable, the greatest benefit will, I believe, be found to result from the patient being engaged in that employment in which he can most