Stephen O. Garrison

Stephen Olin Garrison, circa 1880. Courtesy Garrison Family Collection. Stephen Olin Garrison (1853–1900) was a Methodist minister and scholar who developed The Probationer's Catechism for Methodist probationary members and founded The Training School in Vineland, New Jersey. In 1872, he graduated from the Pennington Seminary, a college preparatory school. He went on to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, earning a B.A. in 1876 and a Master's in 1879. Afterwards, he attended the Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey.

Garrison married Elizabeth Baldwin August 29, 1879, with whom he had four children; Charles Henry (1880), Norman Scott (1882), Ida Richardson (1884), and Frances Willard (1887). The latter was originally published in 1888.

Another notable achievement of Garrison centered on care and education of intellectually disabled children. In 1888, Garrison created what came to be known as the Training School at Vineland (described below). Ten years later, he began to suffer from an undisclosed illness. In early 1900 he had surgery in Philadelphia. The surgery was deemed a success and he returned home, but he never fully recovered. He died on April 17, 1900, surrounded by friends and family. He was 46 years old.

The Training School

Garrison had a long-standing concern for people with intellectual disabilities. Two of his siblings were considered "feeble-minded," as the disabled were then called. In the 1840s, his father had tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation requiring New Jersey to provide care for citizens with intellectual disabilities. During the younger Garrison's time in Pennsylvania, he began planning a private school for children with these disabilities. came to dominate thinking on custodial care. He diversified the school's curriculum and created a medical staff including a neurologist, an ophthalmologist, a gynecologist, a pathologist, an otologist, a laryngologist, and specialists in speech defects. But Garrison's interests extended beyond the needs of children.

Garrison was instrumental in creating the Vineland Institution for Feeble-minded Women. It provided custodian care for adults and opened in 1888, just across the street from the Training School. He served for six months as that Institution's superintendent until a permanent replacement was selected. In the late nineteenth century, the treatment of epilepsy was in its infancy. In 1896, Garrison persuaded the New Jersey Legislature to appropriate $58,000 to create the State Village for Epileptics in Skillman, New Jersey. Garrison served as a Trustee and Secretary of that institution until his death.

By 1898, Garrison realized that his health was failing, and began a search for someone who could carry on his work at the Training School. He chose Edward R. Johnstone, the Principal of instruction at a similar institution in Indiana. Johnstone, became Vice Principal at Vineland and, upon Garrison's death, succeeded him as Principal. In 1902, he was named superintendent and served in that capacity until his death in 1945. In a 1988 history of the Training School at Vineland, Eugene Dol argued, “it is probably not an exaggeration to say that for the first half of the 20th century it dominated the field of mental retardation worldwide.”