CHAPTER XVI QUESTION OF THE CHARITY CONNECTION OF SCHOOLS Institutions 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 classification they have been assigned. We find that with many of the states the institutions 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 classification, but of late years an increasing number of states have made a change and now regard the institutions as merely educational. It would be difficult to say with precision to what scheme of classification 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 classification, 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, Massachusetts, 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 institutions continue to be regarded as charitable to a greater or less extent from their connection with charity boards or from some other classification. 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 associations that do not comport with independence and manliness of character. Besides, education has long ceased to be thought of as charitable, and only such institutions as are for the education of the deaf and blind are left with the undesirable signification of the word. In addition, the state maintains institutions for certain of its classes, as the insane, the feeble-minded and the infirm, which as a rule are in no sense educational from our standpoint, and other institutions of a reformatory, corrective or punitive character, and with them have to be classed the institutions for the deaf, all being known as the state's "charitable institutions," or "state institutions;" while the public rarely makes discrimination, or notes the distinctions involved.

The chief trouble, then, in classifying 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 classes. The deaf thus become wards of the state, and constitute one of its dependent classes. They are "inmates" of an "eleemosynary" institution, 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 institutions 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] 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 institutions 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 institutions, 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 institutions, 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 classes 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 institutions 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 institutions are not necessarily regarded as charitable.[513] Many of them hold the institutions 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 classification 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]

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 entitled 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 associations. 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 class, 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 institutions 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]

The second is a resolution adopted by the National Association of the Deaf:[518]

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 classified 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 institutions, 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 associations 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 entitled to an educational classification.

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.

---