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CHAPTER XXI.

PROGRESS IN THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF.

By EDWARD ALLEN FAY,

Gallaudet College, Washington, D. C.

CONTENTS. New schools and their forms of organization-Schools for the deaf are educational, not charitable institutions-Freedom from political control-Compulsory education School age-Smaller classes-Oral teaching and the combined systemAuricular instruction-Industrial training-Montessori training-Musical vibrationHigher education-The training of teachers.

NEW SCHOOLS AND THEIR FORMS OF ORGANIZATION.

Nine new schools for the deaf were opened in the United States during the year 1912-13. Two of these-the Arizona school, which is a department of the University of Arizona, and the Austine Institution, an endowed school at Brattleboro, Vt.-are public residential schools, providing free education for all the deaf in their respective States and deriving their support wholly or in part from State appropriations. Every State in the Union now has one or more schools of this class except Delaware, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Wyoming. These four States do not, however, neglect their deaf children, but arrange for their education in other States. There are 64 public residential schools, which contained on November 10, 1912, 10,837 pupils, who constitute 82 per cent of all the deaf under instruction in the United States. These schools offer deaf children better care and supervision than the average home, exert a good influence out of school as well as during school hours, add to an academic education a thorough industrial training, impart moral and religious but not sectarian instruction, and at the end of the course send them out into the world upright, intelligent, self-supporting, wealth-producing citizens. Home ties during the school period are maintained by a long summer vacation.

Six of the new schools established during the year are public day schools. The number of day schools for the deaf in the United States (70) is now larger than that of the residential schools, but their pupils, numbering 1,773, constitute only 13 per cent of the whole number. In California, Michigan, and Wisconsin the day schools are supported by per capita appropriations from the State,

while classrooms are furnished and teachers are employed by the city or town in which the school is carried on; in the other States they are supported wholly by the city or town. The day school permits the deaf child to live at home, which as a rule is the right place for children, and insures him out of school hours, an environment of hearing persons. These are real advantages where home conditions are favorable, but in many cases the influences of the home and of the street are such as to counteract the good influences of the school. The children, moreover, are exposed to accidents in going to and from school, their education suffers from irregularity of attendance, and except in large cities the schools are so small that proper grading and classification are impossible.

One of the schools opened during the past year is a private establishment. There are 20 private and denominational schools for the deaf in the United States, containing 583 pupils, which is 4 per cent of the whole number under instruction. They have the same reasons for existence as similar schools for hearing children; some of them offer more luxury and more individual attention than the public schools, and others insure the special kind of religious teaching and influence that the parents deem essential.

There has been a marked improvement in the status of schools for the deaf within recent years in two directions: First, in the recognition more generally accorded them as educational rather than charitable institutions; second, in their greater emancipation from political interference and control.

SCHOOLS FOR THE DEAF ARE EDUCATIONAL, NOT CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. When the first schools for the deaf were established in this country nearly a hundred years ago, though their object was educational, they were regarded as charitable institutions. They owed their existence to the contributions of charitable individuals; they were modeled after the European schools, and at that time not only schools for the deaf, but all schools in Europe, except those for the wealthy, were charitable institutions. In America, however, the duty of the State to provide free schools for its children had already been recognized, and the supporters of the schools for the deaf were not slow to perceive that their pupils had the same right as other children to education at public expense. The justice of this claim was recognized and appropriations were made by the legislatures for this purpose. usually in the form of per capita payments to the incorporated schools which had been organized and endowed by benevolent individuals or societies. But the old idea of charity, under which the schools had been established, persisted for a long time, for it was fostered by the unfortunate names of "asylum" and "institution "especially asylum "-given to the early schools, and it was strength

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ened by the circumstance that the pupils received free board and lodging. In fact, in the eyes of the law the 19 incorporated schools for the deaf possessing some endowment funds-2 in Connecticut, 1 in the District of Columbia, 1 in Maryland, 3 in Massachusetts, 8 in New York, 3 in Pennsylvania, and 1 in Vermont-are charitable institutions from a legal point of view, as are all endowed schools, colleges, and universities. But the legal point of view is not the general point of view; our schools, colleges, and universities are educational in their purpose, and they are, therefore, universally regarded as educational institutions. So also ought our endowed schools for the deaf to be regarded, and more and more the public has come to understand that fact.

As to the 45 public residential schools for the deaf which have received no endowment from individuals but were established and have always been controlled by the State, there has never been any good reason for regarding them as anything but educational; but the old nomenclature and the old habit of mind derived from the endowed schools still prevailed when the earlier of these strictly State schools were established, and it is only slowly that they have taken their proper place in the estimation of the public within recent years. At the present time only two schools still bear the legal title of " asylum," and concerning one of these the legislature at its last session, in a statute providing for changes in its governing board, used the name "school for the deaf" throughout the statute; many formerly called "institutions" have had their titles changed to "schools "; legislatures are beginning to realize that they have no right to dispense charity, and that if the pupils receive food and shelter during the school term it is not as a charity, but as a necessary incident of their education. A recent inquiry shows that the following public residential schools are now classified as educational and not charitable institutions: The Alabama, American, Arizona, Austine, California, Colorado, Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Maine schools; the two schools in Maryland and the three schools in Massachusetts; the Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, and New Mexico schools; the eight schools in New York; the North Carolina school at Raleigh; the Ohio school; the Oklahoma school at Sulphur; the Oregon, South Carolina, and Utah schools; the two schools in Virginia and the West Virginia school-in all 42 schools. In 1903 an inquiry similar to this was made. At that time the number reporting a purely educational classification was 21. We have, therefore, the gratifying intelligence that the number of public residential schools classified as educational and not charitable has just doubled within the past 10 years.

A majority of the 22 public residential schools for the deaf not named in the above list are legally entitled "schools," and to the