[274] In the New York Institution and the New York Institution for Improved Instruction the number is 21, and in the Maryland School, the Pennsylvania Institution and the Western Pennsylvania Institution, 27.
[275] Such is the case in Alabama, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Utah. Confirmation by the Senate is also usual with boards of control.
[276] On rare occasions a deaf man himself is made a member of the board.
[277] In a few states compensation is allowed, as in Indiana, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.
[278] On the arrangements in the several states, see especially Annals, xlviii., 1903, p. 348; lviii., 1913, p. 327. See also Proceedings of American Instructors, iv., 1857, p. 199; vii., 1870, p. 144; ix., 1878, pp. 195, 217; Report of Royal Commission on the Blind, Deaf and Dumb, etc., 1889, iii., p. 456ff.
[279] In certain of these states, however, as Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, and West Virginia, the boards of charities or central boards have only more or less financial concern, the statutes usually referring to some such connection with the several state institutions, though not always mentioning them by name. In one or two states, as Rhode Island, there is connection with a board of purchases and supplies. In Minnesota there is also a board of visitors for state institutions, exerting rather a moral supervision.
[280] The duties of such boards may be indicated from the following extract in a letter to the writer from the Secretary of the Wisconsin Board: The board "appoints the chief officers, purchases all the supplies for the institutions, formulates the provisions under which the institutions are managed, and has almost unlimited power with reference to the institutions". The boards thus have practically complete control of the public institutions of the state, and in some cases state universities have come within their direction. The boards have come especially into favor in states of the West and Middle West. In their favor it is claimed that they secure economy, accuracy, better discipline and more equitable appropriations, introduce business methods, relieve the heads of schools from financial problems, visit other states, and keep in touch with the people. See University of Nebraska Studies, Oct., 1905. The evolution of state control is also here traced. See also Bulletin of Ohio Board of Charities, Dec., 1908, xiv., 6.
[281] In Iowa the school for the blind is under the board of education.
[282] In nearly all the states the schools were placed at first in the hands of special boards of trustees, with connection with no other bodies, and it was only later that any change was brought about. In some states there have been various experiments in the organization of governing boards and in the number of members they were to contain. Several schools at their beginning have been put under the direction of a state educational institution, as the university in Utah, and the normal school in Oklahoma. In a few states the schools have been placed under certain state officers, as in New Mexico and Oregon. In Washington the first board of trustees of the school consisted of a physician, a lawyer and a practical educator.
[283] We have already noted that the colored deaf of the District of Columbia and West Virginia are sent to an outside school.