Kerlin, Isaac Newton, 1834-1893

Kerlin (University of Pennsylvania, M.D. 1856) served as superintendent of the Pennsylvania Institute for Feeble Minded Children in Elwyn, Pa. from 1858 to 1893. His published works were among the first analyses of causes of mental deficiency in children and adults, and his career was devoted to their care. At Elwyn he conducted autopsies to investigate pathology; he published a classification of the feeble-minded and wrote one of the earliest statistical papers on the causes of idiocy.

Isaac Newton Kerlin (1834-1893), M.D., 1856, University of Pennsylvania, served as superintendent of the Pennsylvania Institute for Feeble-Minded Children in Elwyn, Pennsylvania from 1858 to 1893. His work there included the study and care of children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (mental retardation), as well as the promotion of similar charitable schools. The mission of the Institute was to care for children with special needs, keeping them from living on the streets or being jailed with violent criminals.

Isaac Newton Kerlin was born in Burlington, New Jersey on 27 May 1834. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1856, he acted as the Assistant Superintendent of the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children at Germantown, Pennsylvania (1856-1862). In 1859, the school was relocated to Elwyn, Pennsylvania. In 1862, Kerlin enlisted as a medical officer in the Army of the Potomac, serving for one year before being recalled to the Pennsylvania Institute for Feeble-Minded Children to become Superintendent, a position he held from 1863 to 1893.

In the nearly three decades of this tenure at the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-Minded Children, Kerlin was a leader in the field of mental retardation. During this time, the school saw its greatest growth; at the start of his term there were 144 pupils at the school and upon his death there were well over 800. Starting in 1876, he promoted the development of similar institutions, in the belief that mentally retarded persons should not be neglected in insane asylums, penal institutions, or almshouses. A deeply religious man, Kerlin tolerated no ill-treatment of his patients, prohibiting all attendants from carrying switches, canes, or sticks. All sterilizations of patients at Elwyn were performed with the consent of the parents. Kerlin believed that institutions were not solely for children and that all feeble-minded persons were wards of the state.

Isaac Newton Kerlin was a member of the American Association on Mental Deficiency. He served as the Secretary of the National Association of the Medical Officers of American Institutions for the Feeble-Minded, spending the summer of 1889 abroad examining foreign institutions in Great Britain, Norway, and Denmark. He later served as Nestor and succeeded to President in 1892.

In 1865, Isaac Newton Kerlin married Harriet C. Dix (1842-1892) of Massachusetts. They had four children: John Ware Sharpless; Isaac Newton, Jr.; Ward Dix; and Thaddeus Leavitt. Kerlin died 25 October 1893 and was buried on the grounds at Elwyn.