Second year: Algebra (from quadratics), geometry, composition, Caesar (Gallic War), Cicero (Orations), Allen and Greenough’s Latin Grammar, Myer’s General History, Goodwin’s Greek Grammar (optional), Xenophon’s Anabasis (optional).
Third year: Olney’s or Loomis’s Plane and Spherical Trigonometry, Loomis’s Analytical Geometry (optional), Orton’s Zoology, Gray’s Botany, Remsen’s Chemistry, laboratory practice, Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s Iliad (optional), Meiklejohn’s History of English Literature and Language (two books), Maertz’s English Literature, Hadley’s History, original composition.
Fourth year: Loomis’s Calculus (optional), Dana’s Mechanics, Gage’s Natural Philosophy, Young’s Astronomy, laboratory practice, qualitative analysis, Steel’s Hygienic Physiology, Edgren’s French Grammar, Super’s French Reader, Demosthenes on the Crown (optional), Hart’s Composition and Rhetoric, original composition, Hill’s-Jevon’s Elementary Logic.
Fifth year: Arnold’s Manual of English Literature, Maertz’s English Literature, original composition, Guizot’s History of Civilization, Sheldon’s German Grammar, Joynes’s German Reader, LeConte’s Geology, Guyot’s Earth and Man, Hill’s Elements of Psychology, Haven’s Moral Philosophy, Butler’s Analogy, Bascom’s Elements of Beauty, Perry’s Political Economy, Gallaudet’s International Law.
Even in 1893 we were told that of the graduates of the college “fifty-seven have been engaged in teaching, four have entered the ministry; three have become editors and publishers of newspapers; three others have taken positions connected with journalism; fifteen have entered the civil service of the government,—one of these, who had risen rapidly to a high and responsible position, resigned to enter upon the practice of law in patent cases, in Cincinnati and Chicago, and has been admitted to practise in the Supreme Court of the United States; one is the official botanist of a state, who has correspondents in several countries of Europe who have repeatedly purchased his collections, and he has written papers upon seed tests and related subjects which have been published and circulated by the agricultural department; one, while filling a position as instructor in a western institution, has rendered important service to the coast survey as a microscopist, and one is engaged as an engraver in the chief office of the survey; of three who became draughtsmen in architects’ offices, one is in successful practice as an architect on his own account, which is also true of another, who completed his preparation by a course of study in Europe; one has been repeatedly elected recorder of deeds in a southern city, and two others are recorders’ clerks in the west; one was elected and still sits as a city councilman; another has been elected city treasurer and is at present cashier of a national bank; one has become eminent as a practical chemist and assayer; two are members of the faculty of the college, and two others are rendering valuable service as instructors therein; some have gone into mercantile and other offices; some have undertaken business on their own account; while not a few have chosen agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in which the advantages of thorough mental training will give them a superiority over those not so well educated. Of those alluded to as having engaged in teaching, one has been the principal of a flourishing institution in Pennsylvania; one is now in his second year as principal of the Ohio institution; one has been at the head of a day school in Cincinnati, and later of the Colorado institution; a third has had charge of the Oregon institution; a fourth is at the head of a day school in St Louis; three others have respectively founded and are now at the head of schools in New Mexico, North Dakota, and Evansville, Indiana, and others have done pioneer work in establishing schools in Florida and in Utah.”
Later years would unfold a similar tale of subsequent students; in 1907 there were 134 in the college and 59 in the Kendall School.
There is a normal department attached to the college, to which are admitted six hearing young men and women for one year who are recommended as being anxious to study methods of teaching the deaf and likely to profit thereby. Their course of study for 1898-1899 included careful training in the oral method, instruction in Bell’s Visible Speech, instruction in the anatomy of the vocal organs, lectures on sound, observation of methods, oral and manual, in Kendall School, lectures on various subjects connected with the deaf and their education, lectures on pedagogy, lessons in the language of signs, practical work with classes in Kendall School under the direction of the teachers, correction of essays of the introductory class, &c. But the greatest advantage of the year’s course is that the half-dozen hearing students live in the college, have their meals with the hundred deaf, and mix with them all day long—if they wish it—in social intercourse and recreation. We are very far indeed from saying that one such year is sufficient to make a hearing man a qualified teacher of the deaf, but the arrangement is based on the right principle, and it sets his feet on the right path to learn how to teach—so far as this art can be learned. The recent regulation of the board of education in England, prohibiting hearing pupil teachers in schools for the deaf, is deplorable, retrograde and inimical to the best interests of the deaf. It shows a complete ignorance of their needs. The younger a teacher begins to mix with that class the better he will teach them.
In 1886 a royal commission investigated the condition and education of the deaf in Great Britain, and in 1889 issued its report. Some of the recommendations most worthy of notice were that deaf children from seven to sixteen years of age should be compelled to attend a day school or institution, part, or the whole, of the expense being borne by the local school authority; that technical instruction should be given, and that all the children should be taught to speak and lip-read on the “pure” oral method unless physically or mentally disqualified, those who had partial hearing or remains of speech being entirely educated by that method. To the last mentioned recommendation—concerning the method to be adopted—two of the commissioners took exception, and another stated his recognition of some advantage in the manual method.
As a result of the report of the royal commission a bill was passed in 1893 making it compulsory for all deaf children to be educated. This was to be done by the local education authority, either by providing day classes or an institution for them, or by sending them to an already existing institution, parents having the choice, within reasonable limits, of the school to which the child should go. School-board classes came into existence in almost every large town where there was no institution, and sometimes where one existed. Those who uphold the day-school system advance the arguments that the pupils are not, under it, cut off from the influence of home life as they are in institutions; that such influences are of great advantage; that this system permits the deaf to mix freely with their hearing brethren, &c. The objections, however, to this arrangement outweigh its possible advantages. The latter, indeed, amount to little; for home influences in many cases, especially in the poorer parts of the large cities, are not the best, and communication with the hearing children who attend some of the day schools may not be an unmixed blessing, nor is freedom to run wild on the streets between school hours. But it may be urged further that it is difficult, except in very large towns, to obtain a sufficient number of deaf children attending a day school to classify them according to their status, while it is more than one teacher can do to give sufficient attention to several children, each at a different stage of instruction from any other. Moreover, the deaf need more than mere school work; they need training in morals and manners, and receive much less of it from their parents than their hearing brothers and sisters. This can only be given in an institution wherein they board and lodge as well as attend classes. The existing institutions were from 1893 placed, by the act of that date, either partly or wholly under the control of the school board. They were put under the inspection of the government, and as long as they fulfilled the requirements of the inspectors as regards education, manual and physical training, outdoor recreation and suitable class-room and dormitory accommodation, they might remain in the hands of a committee who collected, or otherwise provided, one-third of the total expenditure, and received two-thirds from public sources. Or else, the institution might be surrendered entirely to the management of the public school authority, and then the whole of the expenditure was to be borne by that body. Extra government grants of five guineas per pupil are now given for class work and manual or technical training. Such is the state of things at the present day, except, of course, that the school board has given place to the county council as local authority.