The Deaf Part 24

the several charitable and penal inst.i.tutions are enumerated, among which is the school for the deaf, while direction is also given as to the sale of land held for the benefit of the school. In New Mexico[500]

the school is enumerated among the educational inst.i.tutions, reference also being made to the public land; and in Virginia[501] the school is mentioned in connection with the composition of the state board of education. In the Texas const.i.tution[502] a permanent fund is provided from the lands which have been granted prior to its adoption, while another reference is made to the printing to be done at the school. In the North Dakota const.i.tution[503] the lands from Congress are declared to be a perpetual fund and inviolable, while in another place the location of the school is provided for. In the Alabama const.i.tution[504]

the legislature is expressly declared not to be empowered to change the location of the school. In New York[505] the const.i.tutional provisions have reference to the subsidies granted to private inst.i.tutions, it being stated that "nothing in the const.i.tution shall prevent the legislature from making such provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents ... as it may deem proper," and that the legislature is not to be prohibited from action by the prohibition of the credit or land of the state being "given to private a.s.sociations, corporations and undertakings." In Louisiana[506] a similar, though less explicit, reference to state aid is found.

FOOTNOTES:

[475] The const.i.tutions of most of the states provide for the education of all their children, and the deaf could well be included here.

Moreover, in the const.i.tution of Nebraska (VIII., 12) there is a provision for children growing up in mendicancy and crime; and in that of Wyoming (VII., 18) that such charitable, penal or reformatory inst.i.tutions shall be established as the claims of humanity and the public good many require. In either of these the provision might be construed to apply to schools for the deaf.

[476] In the const.i.tutions of some states, as Michigan, Mississippi, New York, and South Carolina, there were provisions in the preceding as well as the present drafts.

[477] In the const.i.tutions no reference is made to the deaf other than in provisions for schools, except in the case of Mississippi, where exemption from a certain tax is found.

[478] In these const.i.tutional references, the provision is as a rule found under some general head as "public inst.i.tutions", "state inst.i.tutions", or "miscellaneous". In the South Carolina const.i.tution the provision is found under the caption "charitable", and in the North Carolina under "charitable and penal". Under the heading of "education"

are the provisions in the const.i.tutions of Arizona (one clause), Colorado (as an amendment), Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma (one clause), Texas (though under the sub-t.i.tle "charitable"), Utah (one clause), and Virginia.

[479] XXII., 15; XI., 1.

[480] VIII., 1. A later amendment cla.s.sifies it with the educational inst.i.tutions of the state.

[481] XIII., 1. Adopted the same year that the school was established.

[482] X., 1.

[483] VII., 1.

[484] XI., 15.

[485] X., 1; XI., 12.

[486] XIII., 1.

[487] VII., 1.

[488] XII., 1; X., 4.

[489] X., 10; XIX., 2, 3.

[490] XIII., 1.

[491] It is to be noted that in nearly all the states having government donations of land, reference is made to its inviolability.

[492] XIX., 19.

[493] IX., 1.

[494] VIII., 209.

[495] XII., 2; XXI., 1.

[496] XII., 12.

[497] XI., 10.

[498] IX., 14, as amended.

[499] XIV., 1.

[500] XII., 11.

[501] IX., 130.

[502] VII., 9; XVI., 21.

[503] IX., 159; XIX., 215. See also amendment, 1904, sec. 5.

[504] XIV., 267.

[505] VIII., 9, 14.

[506] 53.

CHAPTER XVI

QUESTION OF THE CHARITY CONNECTION OF SCHOOLS

INSt.i.tUTIONS SOMETIMES REGARDED AS EDUCATIONAL: SOMETIMES AS CHARITABLE

In considering the relation of the state to its schools for the deaf, the question is raised as to the way they are regarded by the state, and in what scheme of cla.s.sification they have been a.s.signed. We find that with many of the states the inst.i.tutions are held to be charitable, and the further question is presented as to whether this is proper and just.

In times past this has been the usual cla.s.sification, but of late years an increasing number of states have made a change and now regard the inst.i.tutions as merely educational. It would be difficult to say with precision to what scheme of cla.s.sification the schools in the several states should be ascribed; and in quite a number the lines shade off one into the other. From what has been said in the preceding chapters and also from certain legislative cla.s.sification, it would seem that the schools in the following states are regarded largely, if not entirely, as educational: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Ma.s.sachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, Vermont, and West Virginia. In about half of the states, however, the inst.i.tutions continue to be regarded as charitable to a greater or less extent from their connection with charity boards or from some other cla.s.sification. Some are recognized as educational, but at the same time not held altogether free from the charitable touch.[507]

CHARITY IN CONNECTION WITH SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF

Considerable difficulty at the outset rests with the word charity. In its best sense, it is the finest word in our language, and from its springs flow all benevolence, material and spiritual: when looked upon scientifically much of the repugnance and prejudice felt toward it is lost, and it becomes the touchstone for the remedy of human ills. In one sense, education is most surely and deeply charitable, whether or not it is held to be but the equipment of the state for its self-preservation. This has long been accepted, and so unanimously have the states undertaken the instruction of their children that its very discussion is now unknown.

But popularly conceived, charity is still something doled out and granted by the giver as a matter of grace, and to the recipient are carried a.s.sociations that do not comport with independence and manliness of character. Besides, education has long ceased to be thought of as charitable, and only such inst.i.tutions as are for the education of the deaf and blind are left with the undesirable signification of the word.

In addition, the state maintains inst.i.tutions for certain of its cla.s.ses, as the insane, the feeble-minded and the infirm, which as a rule are in no sense educational from our standpoint, and other inst.i.tutions of a reformatory, corrective or punitive character, and with them have to be cla.s.sed the inst.i.tutions for the deaf, all being known as the state's "charitable inst.i.tutions," or "state inst.i.tutions;"

while the public rarely makes discrimination, or notes the distinctions involved.

The chief trouble, then, in cla.s.sifying the schools for the deaf as charitable is this connection of the word charity, and the grouping of the deaf with certain other parts of the state's population which other children do not have to share. The deaf are thus differentiated from children who have no defect of sense, and the education of the one is thus education, and of the other charity. Schools in which the deaf are educated would thus seem not to be given their just status. They are misrepresented by being aligned, on the one hand, with people of defective or diseased minds, and on the other, with the state's delinquent and criminal cla.s.ses. The deaf thus become wards of the state, and const.i.tute one of its dependent cla.s.ses. They are "inmates"

of an "eleemosynary" inst.i.tution, and the fact that it is all for education is lost sight of.[508]

But, we are told, the treatment of deaf children should rest upon an altogether different basis, and they should, even in appearance, receive an education as a right and as nothing else. Education as the paramount privilege of American children is so deeply established in American inst.i.tutions and character that it would seem to be a principle to be applied to all the children of the state. Admission into schools for the deaf has become more and more like that in the regular schools.[509]