Arguments against the Day School
The argument against the day school rests upon the fact that the deaf form, educationally, a special class, very small in most communities, who have to be reached by unusual methods. To them the large institution offers advantages not likely to be had outside. For this reason the case against the institution, however cogent and logical it may be in general, cannot well apply.
In the institution the children may be under intelligent supervision and direction their entire time, and they may be able to get, outside school hours, a part of the education which the hearing child so naturally acquires, for in an institution learning continues outside the classroom as well as within. The "picking up" of knowledge and bits of information, which the hearing child begins to make use of from the time he first hears human words, and the importance and value of which the general public cannot be expected to appreciate, is lost in the greatest measure to the deaf in the home. Here ready means of communication are lacking, and the necessary care and attention cannot be expected to be given in the household. Even though deaf children can and do mingle with their hearing acquaintances, they cannot get so much happiness or zest out of their sports and intercourse as they can with their own deaf comrades; and while, no matter what their surroundings are, the difficulties of most of them in mastering language will never be overcome, still in associations with similar deaf children there will be far more stimuli to react on their consciousness, and the tendency will be for them to become more and more in their mental actions like the normal. In the home there can be no great assurance of study and supervision; and the growing deaf child, not being able to appreciate the forces that surround him as the hearing child does, may the more easily fall under unwholesome influences. In the institution there can be suitable discipline, regular attendance, enlightened general oversight, and co-ordination of all that is concerned in the child's proper development. Furthermore, although there may be a growing feeling against the institution life, there is, on the other hand, an increasing social questioning as to the advisability of a child's remaining in a particular home if his welfare is not properly safeguarded.
In many day schools there are comparatively few pupils, and in most of these we cannot expect to find the carefully graded classes, with a place for every pupil according to his needs, bright or dull, quick to learn or slow. A pupil in a day school, if not neglected to some extent, may be required to do work for which he is quite unfitted, being either beyond it or incapable of it. The backward child will here be the worst sufferer, for if there are but few classes, he can get little of the special attention he needs; and his progress cannot be the same as when in a class of like pupils and under an appropriate and patient teacher.
Again, the attention that is given in an institution with a considerable number of pupils to the learning of a trade—accounting in strong measure for success in after life—means much more to a deaf child than it could to any other. In an institution there will usually be found larger equipment, fuller apparatus and more varied lines than in any but a very large day school; and in its trade department habits of industry will be formed, talents developed, a knowledge of mechanism and the use of tools implanted, an ardor enkindled for the mastership of a trade, and an appreciation of the part to be played in the great world of industrial activity, besides the incentive of being in a great workshop with other workers—all in far greater measure and more effectively than would be possible anywhere else, save in a great trade school, in which there could not be expected to be taken the special care and provision necessitated by the want of hearing of the pupils.
Finally, it may be said that we have no evidence, as respects institutions for the deaf, to show that they have in any way undermined the character or mission of the home, or that their results have been other than desirable in a well-ordered state. Hence we are told, in a word, that no matter how strong and valid are the theoretical objections to an institution, yet so far as the practical issues are concerned, in the preparation of the deaf for the world, and in what really counts for their development and progress, the institution, for many at least, occupies a position of demonstrated usefulness, recognition of which cannot rightly be withheld.[303]
Evening Day Schools for Adults
Thus far in this chapter we have discussed day schools in relation to children, that is, pupils in the usual sense. But there is another form of day schools to which attention is to be directed. This is in the creation of evening day schools for the use of adults only, the field open to which is as yet apparently but little realized.
Occasion for such schools arises chiefly in communities, especially large cities, where a considerable number of adult deaf persons are within reach, and where a real need may often be found. The matter is to be regarded in effect as the extension of the means of education by the state to include as large a part of the population as possible—a movement which is being so notably evidenced in the opening of evening schools of not a few kinds in cities to-day. With the deaf the demand is of a peculiar nature. Their avenues for receiving instruction are materially restricted, and for some, especially the congenitally deaf, the acquisition of correct language always remains a difficult problem, while to others the advantages of the regular schools may have been limited. A large number of the deaf will not require such special opportunities, but for a portion of them the assistance may be of quite substantial character.[304]