The Deaf Part 25

The schools are open, as a general rule, only to those able and fitted to be educated, and the mentally and physically disqualified are often rejected. When a child has completed the prescribed number of years of attendance, he can be provided for no longer, and at vacation time in nearly all schools he must depart. The schools, as we are to see, have become free to all, while compulsory education laws have also been made to apply. Hence if schools for the deaf are educational, they can be regarded as charitable only to the extent that all schools are so considered; they should not be looked upon in a different light, and the public should be as fully alive to their claims.[510]

ARGUMENTS FOR THE CONNECTION WITH THE BOARDS OF CHARITIES

Hitherto we have been discussing the theory in regard to the proper place in which the inst.i.tutions are to be held, but we are now to see what are the actual grounds upon which the connection with the state board of charities is to be justified. Much might be said of the practical workings of schools in connection with such boards, and it is claimed that the schools get the substance at least in the way of beneficial treatment. By one superintendent it has been stated thus: "In theory it is all wrong, but in practice it could not be improved upon."

Where the boards are composed of capable, broad-minded, sympathetic men, the needs of the schools can be satisfactorily looked into, and their experience with other inst.i.tutions, where the problems are akin in the way of housing a large number of people, can be utilized to great advantage, especially in connection with sanitary, hospital and other arrangements.[511] Such boards may secure supplies on more favorable terms, may systematize all the inst.i.tutions, may properly apportion the appropriations to be asked of the legislature, may exercise a wider supervision, and may correlate all the means of the state for the maintenance of certain cla.s.ses of its population. These boards may also have peculiar opportunities for coming across poor and neglected children and of getting them in the schools. Lastly, and most important of all, even though the inst.i.tutions are educational, there is much also to be considered besides education alone, for a home and board are furnished during the school year, and usually transportation and clothing as well to those in need of them.[512]

By the boards of charity themselves the inst.i.tutions are not necessarily regarded as charitable.[513] Many of them hold the inst.i.tutions to be educational, despite the charity connection, and few are unwilling to give recognition to their educational features. In none is there a desire to injure or stigmatize the deaf. The aim is to consider the matter in its practical bearings, and the question is held to be largely one of cla.s.sification and administration. With all the fact weighs that board, lodging, etc., are given entirely free.[514] The clearest and fullest presentation of the point of view of the charity boards is given in the following extract from a letter by one board:[515]

The inst.i.tutions are doubtless both educational and charitable, or at least ought to be, using these words in their ordinary application. It is not a question of merit or demerit on the part of the unfortunates or their families. It is not a question whether they are ent.i.tled to an education as much as normal children. So far as there is any real issue, it is one of cla.s.sification for purposes of administration. The question seems to be whether the inst.i.tutions that care for the above mentioned cla.s.ses can best be administered under the department of charities that has charge of public inst.i.tutions, or the department of education that usually has to do with inst.i.tutions that furnish education only in the limited technical sense, where pupils attend school a few hours a day, but are not boarded at the inst.i.tutions. Because an inst.i.tution is an educational inst.i.tution, I think it may be none the less a charitable inst.i.tution. For example, it would hardly be denied that an orphan asylum is a charitable inst.i.tution; yet an orphan asylum that was not an educational inst.i.tution would be deplorable. In the state inst.i.tutions for the deaf and the blind, throughout the country, the educational side is very properly emphasized.... These inmates would properly be cla.s.sed as public dependents as they usually have been.... The whole trouble seems to arise from a feeling of aversion to the word "charity", and probably the word has been degraded.... To refer to the inst.i.tutions under consideration as "educational inst.i.tutions", without any qualification, would not be in the interest of clearness of thought, and would either lead to confusion or to some qualifying phrases, because the deaf and the blind are certainly different enough from the normal child to be considered, for many purposes, in a separate cla.s.s, and the inst.i.tutions which educate and support them, it would seem to me, need some term by which they can be designated, which would distinguish them from the educational inst.i.tutions designed for the normal child.

ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION TO THE CONNECTION

Yet over against all the arguments for the connection with the boards of charities the voice of the educators of the deaf is in unison that the connection of the schools be completely severed with whatever is of charitable signification.[516] This feeling cannot all be ascribed to the prejudice regarding the words employed. In the dissolving of the charity connection an issue not to be disregarded is the moral effect on the public. A right conception is to be obtained respecting the education of the deaf, and while in the schools and in after life they are ent.i.tled to the recognition of the true character of this education and of their status in the community. If the deaf after they have left the schools have shown that they are capable of wrestling unaided with the difficulties of life, and are really not objects of charity at all, then they should be spared all discriminating a.s.sociations. Indeed, as our new view of charity is the making of men capable of standing alone, and economic units of gain in society, so the deaf should not be considered as a distinct or dependent cla.s.s, when by the use of certain expressions this is done; and we should hold that if their work in the world has justified them, then no barriers should be raised which their fellows in society do not have to meet, and that their education should be offered to them without discrimination or stigma.

The benefits derived from the relation with the board of charities may be more than offset by the connection with educational agencies, where the school is recognized as part of the state's educational system. In respect to the providing of maintenance for the pupils, this can be regarded as but an incidence, when any other plan would be impracticable. The main, overshadowing purpose in the work of the inst.i.tutions is education, and what are supplied beyond are only to render this the more effective. But after all this is said, the opponents of the charity connection insist that the burden of proof is upon those who advocate the connection. Why, they ask, should the deaf children of the state who are as capable of being educated as others be considered objects of the state's charity? Why any more than other children?

The feeling in the matter may be indicated by two declarations on the subject, one by the educators of the deaf, and the other by the deaf themselves. The first is in the form of a resolution adopted by the Convention of American Instructors:[517]

_Resolved_, that the deaf youth of our land unquestionably deserve, and are lawfully ent.i.tled to, the same educational care and aid as their more fortunate brothers and sisters; and that this education, the const.i.tutional duty of the state, should be accorded them as a matter of right, not of charity, standing in the law, as it is in fact, a part of the common school system.

The second is a resolution adopted by the National a.s.sociation of the Deaf:[518]

_Whereas_, the privilege of an education is the birthright of every American child ...; and

_Whereas_, the deaf child ... has the same inalienable right to the same education as his more fortunate hearing brother; and

_Whereas_, ... the [modern] movement ... [is] giving schools for the deaf their proper place as part of the public school system of the country; and

_Whereas_, ... eighty-one per cent [of the deaf are] gainfully employed of those who have had schooling, thus indicating the value of education ...; therefore be it

_Resolved_, ... that education of the deaf on the part of the state is simply fulfillment of its duty as a matter of right and justice, not sympathetic charity and benevolence to the deaf; ... that schools for the deaf should not be known and regarded, nor cla.s.sified, as benevolent or charitable inst.i.tutions, ... [but] as strictly educational inst.i.tutions, a part of the common school system ... [and not with such a.s.sociations as] tend to foster a spirit of dependence in the pupils and mark them as the objects of charity of the state....

CONCLUSIONS IN RESPECT TO THE CHARITY CONNECTION OF SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF

Certain inferences or conclusions may now be reached regarding our question as to whether schools for the deaf may be regarded and cla.s.sified as charitable.

1. In America the schools have been regarded both as educational and charitable, but there is an increasing tendency to consider them as purely educational. At present about half of the states hold them entirely or in the main as educational.

2. The state boards or public authorities that regard the schools as charitable are in no wise prompted by any desire to discriminate against the deaf, or to deny that they are less capable or worthy of education than others. The question is held to be mainly one of administration.

3. Inasmuch as board and a home are provided in the inst.i.tutions, and in some cases clothing and transportation also, the charitable element is present, and in point of fact the schools must be regarded _ad hoc_ as charitable.

4. This charitable feature, however, plays a slight and almost negligible part in the work of the schools, being in fact only incidental, and the educational aims take precedence over all else.

5. Because of the a.s.sociations involved in the charity connection, which are not shared in by the regular schools, and because of the little to suggest charity in the after lives of the deaf, the schools for the deaf have reason to protest against the connection. As education is the one purpose of the schools, and as their operations are conducted solely to this end, they are ent.i.tled to an educational cla.s.sification.

6. That the schools for the deaf should thus be held and treated, to the farthest possible extent, as purely educational, is demanded both by justice and by the regard for the proper effect on the deaf and on the public.

FOOTNOTES:

[507] Thus, in addition to the states named above, in the const.i.tutions of Michigan, Oklahoma and Virginia the inst.i.tutions are designated educational. In certain states also, as we have seen, the state superintendent of public instruction is _ex-officio_ member of the governing board, and in a few other states report is made to the department of education. In New York and North Carolina the schools are visited by this department. In a number also an educational cla.s.sification is found in some of the statutory references or captions.

See in particular on this subject, _Annals_, xlviii., 1903, p. 348; lviii., 1913, p. 327.

[508] The earlier conception of the schools is in part ill.u.s.trated by the name "asylum" given. British schools were often called asylums or hospitals, and were largely founded and supported by charity. Likewise in America the term "asylum" was frequently given to the schools when first started. But the name has now been generally discarded, and in but one state is the t.i.tle retained, New Mexico. "School" is now mostly used, while in a few "inst.i.tution" is employed. See _Annals_, _loc.

cit._ See also Report of Board of Penal, Pauper and Charitable Inst.i.tutions of Michigan, 1878, p. 41.

[509] In Ma.s.sachusetts appropriations were once "for beneficiaries in asylums for the deaf and dumb", but now they are "for the education of deaf pupils in schools designated by law".

[510] In a legal sense, nearly all educational inst.i.tutions can be called charitable, especially if they are private affairs, and gifts for such purposes are held in the law as for charitable purposes. See 4 Wheaton, 518; 2 How. (U. S.), 227; 14 How., 277; 44 Mo., 570; 25 O. St., 229. Not many cases have arisen in regard to the status of inst.i.tutions for the deaf. In 1900 the Columbia Inst.i.tution was held in the opinion of the Attorney-General to be under the department of charities, but Congress the next year declared it to be educational. See _Annals_, xlvi., 1901, p. 345. In Colorado an opinion was rendered that the school was educational alone, and not subject to the civil service rules, and this was later ratified in the const.i.tution and by the legislature. Some of the courts have been inclined to view the inst.i.tutions as charitable.

In Nebraska the school for the deaf was at first considered an asylum and in the same cla.s.s with almshouses, rather than educational. 6 Neb., 286. See also 43 Neb., 184. In New York the provision of the law allowing the State Board of Charities to inspect the Inst.i.tution for the Blind was attacked, and it was held that, though the inst.i.tution was partly educational and was visited by the department of education, yet the word charity was to be taken in its usual meaning, and if the inst.i.tution as a private body educated, clothed and maintained indigent pupils, it was charitable. 154 New York, 14 (1897).

[511] See Report of Illinois Board of Charities, 1872, pp. 13ff., 32ff.

[512] In a few cases a home during vacation is afforded to the indigent or unprotected.

[513] In order to discover how these inst.i.tutions are regarded by the departments of charities, letters of inquiry were sent by the writer to all the states of the Union. Replies were received in 45 out of 49 cases, coming from boards of charities, boards of control, or in their absence from commissioners of education or other state officials,--and in a few cases from individuals or societies to whom the communication was turned over. In the answers, the inst.i.tutions were called charitable by 6, educational by 13, both charitable and educational by 12, while by 14 the question was not specifically answered. In some instances, these replies were only private opinions, but they represent none the less the views of those most in touch with the charity activities of the states.

In a few cases the replies were at variance with what has been accepted regarding certain states. It was also found that boards of control do not necessarily consider the inst.i.tutions as charitable.

[514] By one board, while such schools are admitted to be partly educational, they are held "charitable in that they afford a home for certain defective persons during the time of their dependence". By one board the pupils are called "charity patients".

[515] The District of Columbia.

[516] Many of the schools in their reports take pains to disclaim any but a strictly educational character. Of the Michigan school it is expressly stated that it is "not an asylum, reformatory or hospital"; of the Colorado that it is "not an 'asylum' or 'home' for the afflicted; it is not a hospital for the care and treatment of the eyes and ears; and it is not a place for the detention and care of imbeciles"; of the Illinois that it is "not a reformatory, poor house, hospital or asylum"; of the Indiana that it is "not an asylum, place of refuge, reform school, almshouse, children's home or hospital"; of the Georgia that it is "in no sense an asylum ... or charitable inst.i.tution"; and of the Mississippi that it is "in no sense an asylum ... a home ... [nor a place] for medical treatment." See also Report of Commissioner of Public Lands and Buildings of Nebraska, 1896, p. 356; Education Department of New York, 1912, p. 81.

[517] Proceedings, xvii., 1905, p. 168. See also _ibid._, xv., 1898, p.

216; _Annals_, lv., 1910, p. 133. The schools are also said to be "maintained solely for the instruction of a large and interesting cla.s.s of children who, by reason of a physical infirmity, the loss of hearing, are denied instruction in the public schools". Dr. A. L. E. Crouter, Proceedings of National Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1906, p. 249. See also Report of Kentucky School, 1909, p. 17.

[518] Proceedings, viii., 1907, p. 40. See also _ibid._, v., 1896, p.

47.

CHAPTER XVII

PROVISIONS CONCERNING ADMISSION OF PUPILS INTO SCHOOLS

RULES AS TO THE PAYMENT OF FEES

Hitherto we have considered the several forms of provision for the schools for the deaf, and the general treatment accorded them. We now turn our examination to the schools themselves in their relation to the pupils who enter them. Our first concern is with the provisions as to the admission of pupils into the schools.

We find that the schools, to all intents and purposes, are free to all applicants mentally and physically qualified to enter.[519] Usually, when started, the schools were free to the indigent only, though some, especially in the West, were made free to all from the very beginning.

However, there was little attempt to observe closely these limitations, and in time, as we have seen, they were for the most part given up.[520] At present limitations of any kind are found in the smaller number of states, and exist in these in form rather than in practice, so that to-day laws or regulations of a restrictive nature may be regarded as but nominal.