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before the era of the kindergarten and the dawn of the new education. Outside of these special schools suitably equipped teachers were not to be found.

Special public school day classes for the feeble-minded have been in operation in various continental countries for more than twenty years. There are many reasons why such classes should be established as a part of the public-school system in large centers of population in this country.

Every American child has the right to be educated according to his need and capacity. It is a great hardship for the parents to send a child of tender years away from home to be educated. Parents with a comfortable home would naturally prefer a public-school class to an institute. Many defective children who now receive no training would be placed in these special classes. The special training would be begun much earlier than is now possible.

These special classes can be quickly and easily organized and increased in number, making a very flexible system of providing and extending facilities for training defectives. They do not involve the expenditure of large sums of money for construction of large institution plants. The actual expense of such training is largely assessed upon the local community receiving the benefit. The admirable special classes in London may well serve as models for classes in this country.

In organizing these special classes, the pupils should be selected under expert medical advice, and should be the merely "backward" or slightly feeble-minded, and not imbecile or idiotic, for the merely backward should not be classed with the actually feeble-minded.

The training and instruction of these children may begin on a much lower plane than with the lowest grades in the public school. It must begin with what the child already knows, and the successive steps should be made very gradual and progressive. The physiological education of the special senses and the training of the muscles to accurate response to directions must precede and prepare the way for so-called intellectual training.

Hand-work and manual training in great variety is of great importance. Objectlessons and familiar nature study should be emphasized. The beginnings of ordinary primary work should be based upon the best modern methods. The progress will be slower, and the pupil cannot be carried so far.

The study of the life-history of these persons has evolved some generalizations which must not be ignored in considering this subject. All degrees of congenital mental defect, from the merely feeble-minded child to the profound idiot, are the result of certain definite structural defects or inferiority of the brain, or the result of brain disease or injury. These brain abnormalities are permanent conditions. No really feeble-minded person ever was, or can be, entirely "cured." It is a question of how much improvement is possible in each individual case.

The hope of the pioneer teachers in this work that many of the slightly feeble-minded could be educated and developed to the point of supporting themselves, and of becoming desirable members of the community, has not been realized. A certain very small proportion do actually leave the schools and lead useful, harmless lives, supporting themselves in a precarious way by their own efforts. Of the great majority of these trained pupils it has been well said that they may become "self-supporting, but not self-controlling." By far the greater number need oversight and supervision as long as they live.

A very large proportion of the feeble minded persons, even the well-trained highergrade cases, eventually become public charges in one way or another. No one familiar with the mental and physical limitations of this class believes that any plan of education can ever materially modify this fact. The brighter class of the feeble-minded, with their weak will power and defective judgment, are easily influenced for evil, and are very likely to become prostitutes, vagrants, or petty criminals. They are powerless to resist the physical temptations of adult life, and should be protected from their own weakness and

the cupidity of others. Especially should they be prevented from marriage and the reproduction of their kind.

Feeble-minded children may be tolerated in the community, but it is a great responsibility to inaugurate any plan on a large scale which does not provide for withdrawing defective adults from the community.

HOW CAN THE TERM "CHARITABLE" BE JUSTLY APPLIED TO THE EDUCATION OF ANY CHILDREN?

EDWARD ALLEN FAY, VICE-PRESIDENT OF GALLAUDET COLLEGE, WASHINGTON, D. C.; EDITOR OF "AMERICAN ANNALS OF THE DEAF"

At the time, now nearly a hundred years ago, when the first schools for the education of special classes were established in America, such schools already existed in Great Britain. The British schools were generally called "institutions;" the largest and most important of them was styled an "asylum”—a title which it still retains; another bore and bears the name of "hospital."

These British schools were founded and maintained entirely by private charity, and were therefore classed as charitable institutions, tho their educational purpose was recognized. The same is true not only of special schools, but of all the English free schools of that time; they were known as "charity schools." In America, on the contrary, our free schools have always been supported by public taxation, and education in them has. never been regarded as charitable, but as the birthright of every child.

The early founders of American schools for special classes in their preliminary steps followed English precedent. They contributed money, interested their friends, sought subscriptions, secured acts of incorporation from the state legislatures, and (most unfortunately) called their schools" asylums" or "institutions."

Long before that time, however, the duty of the state to provide for the education of all its children had been recognized in this country, and as soon as the special schools were established they applied to the legislatures for support on the ground that their pupils had the same right as other children to education at the public expense. The justice of this claim was generally recognized, and appropriations were made by the legislatures for that purpose. In a few of the older states this arrangement continues; the schools are under corporate management and have endowment funds resulting from former gifts and bequests, which the state supplements by paying a per capita rate for the pupils in attendance.

So far as the education of these pupils is paid for by the state, it cannot be called charitable, for the state cannot dispense charity. The state educates these children, as it does all its children, in its own interest; for educated they become self-supporting citizens, while left uneducated

they are liable to become criminals and paupers. The schools are sometimes spoken of as "institutions aided by the state;" it would be more correct to say that the state is aided by the institutions, for with the help of their endowment funds it is enabled to educate its children at less than cost.

If, however, we consider these early schools from the point of view of their origin, their corporate character, and their endowment, they may be classed, legally at least, as charitable institutions. The same is true of our incorporated colleges and universities; in the eye of the law they are charitable institutions. In the famous Dartmouth College case Chief Justice Marshall held that a college was an eleemosynary corporation; and the same opinion has been reaffirmed in a score of judicial decisions. The principle is well established that "a charity, in a legal sense, includes not only gifts for the benefit of the poor, but endowments for the advancement of learning, or institutions for the encouragement of science and art, without any particular reference to the poor;" and that "schools established by private donations and carried on for the benefit of the public, not with a view to profit, are institutions of charity."

In a legal sense, then, our endowed special schools must submit to be classed with all endowed schools, colleges, and universities as charitable institutions. But the legal sense is not the common sense; in the popular conception the idea of charity is not associated with ordinary schools, colleges, and universities; they are considered, not from the legal point of view of their endowment, but from the common-sense point of view of their purpose. Their purpose is educational; they are therefore universally regarded as educational institutions. The purpose of schools for special classes is also educational; should they not be regarded as educational institutions? There is not a student in Harvard or Yale the expenses of whose education are not paid in large part from endowment funds, irrespective of tuition fees; but no one ever thinks of applying the term "charitable" to the education of students at Harvard or Yale; why should it be applied to the education of pupils in the Perkins Institution or the Clarke School? This question was put to the Massachusetts legislature in 1875, and the result was that these schools were removed from the supervision of the state board of charities and placed, where they properly belong, under the supervision of the state board of education. But not all states are as enlightened as Massachusetts.

What has been said of the charitable character, from a legal point of view, of certain endowed and incorporated special schools applies only to a few schools in a few of our oldest states (Connecticut, District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, and Pennsylvania). The great majority of our American schools for special classes are public schools; they have been established by the state legislatures, in some cases they have been provided for in the state constitutions; they are maintained

wholly by public taxation. There is no reason whatever for regarding

them as charitable.

In some of the states the purely educational character of these schools, their entire dissociation from the idea of charity, is recognized; in others In ten states (Alabama, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, North Dakota, and Virginia) it has been clearly defined by legislative or constitutional action. In two (Florida and New Jersey) the schools are under the direct control of the state board of education. In nine (Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Montana, New York, Ohio, and Tennessee) they make reports to the state board of education or the state superintendent of public instruction. In seven (Alabama, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, South Carolina, and Virginia) the superintendent of public instruction is ex officio a member of the board of trustees. In two (Michigan and New York) the schools are subject to the supervision or visitation of the superintendent of public instruction. In five (California, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin) provision is made for day schools for the deaf in various localities in addition to the large state school; there are also day schools in three cities (Boston, Chicago, and St. Louis) in other states. These day schools are all classed as part of the common-school system.

On the other hand, the special schools in two states (Kansas and South Dakota) are under the direct control of the state board of charities. In nine (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee) the board of charities has the right of inspection, recommendation, and suggestion. In one state (Kentucky) the committee of the legislature that has charge of the affairs of these schools is entitled "committee on charitable institutions;" in another (Mississippi) "committee on benevolent institutions ;" and in a third (South Carolina), “committee on penal and charitable institutions.” Probably a similar erroneous nomenclature is used by the legislatures of several other states.

On the whole, taking all the circumstances into consideration, the special schools in nineteen states (Alabama, California, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Utah, Virginia, and West Virginia) seem to be classed by the state. authorities as purely educational, and in twenty-two states (Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas,

1 Perhaps the most explicit legislative action is that of the Congress of the United States relating to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in the District of Columbia. After providing that the admission of pupils from the district shall be subject to the approval of the superintendent of public schools, the law adds: "And said institution shall not be regarded nor classified as an institution of charity."

Washington, and Wisconsin) as charitable, or partly charitable and partly educational.

When we consider that within our own memory these schools were universally classed as charitable institutions, it is certainly a gratifying sign of progress that in nineteen states their true character is now officially recognized. Probably the popular conception, however, even in those states lags somewhat behind the official recognition. While a little reflection will convince any reasonable man that the term "charitable" cannot justly be applied to the education of any children, the unthinking public everywhere are slow to realize it.

One reason why people are slow to comprehend the true character of our special schools is doubtless the unfortunate names of "asylum" and "institution"—especially “asylum "— which were given these schools in former years and which still cling to some of them. Another reason why some people regard our special schools as charitable is that food and shelter as well as instruction during the school term are provided by the state. They are willing to admit that free tuition and opportunity for self-development should not be called charitable, but they insist that free board should. The state, however, does not provide board for her children as an act of charity; she provides it as a necessary incident of their education. For ordinary children schooling is brought to their doors; in some cases, where they live at an inconvenient distance, the pupils are transported daily to school at public expense, because it costs less to bring the children to school than to bring the school to the children. On the same principle, it is found to be more economical, as well as productive of better results, to instruct the deaf and the blind in central schools, paying for their food and shelter during the term, than it would be to bring the school to their doors or bring them daily to the school.

The heads of schools generally insist that their work should be classed as educational and not charitable, but perhaps they themselves are sometimes responsible to some extent for the erroneous classification. It may happen that they have at their service a state board of charities composed of intelligent, sympathetic men who take an active interest in the welfare of the school, make valuable suggestions, support them in their endeavors to obtain needed appropriations, and defend their good name against unwarranted attacks and unjust criticism. On the other hand, the state superintendent of public instruction may be a man who cares nothing for the interests of the special classes, performs his duties in connection with their education in a perfunctory manner, or neglects them altogether. There is a state in which that officer is required by law to visit the state school for the deaf once a year, but, as a matter of fact, he has visited it only twice in ten years. It is not strange under such circumstances that the

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