The Deaf: Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United StatesBest, Harry
History
The Deaf: Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United States
Best, Harry
Deaf -- Education -- United States; Deaf -- United States
The great argument for the day school is that it is not well that
children be "institutionalized." The institution life is said not to be
the normal life, and its habits and associations are not in accord with
the principles now being largely held in America. It is coming to be
more and more realized that the home should always be the center of
interest and attachment in the well established community, and that the
character and influence of the family should be maintained unimpaired.
In connection with orphan and other child-caring agencies, a greater
emphasis than ever before is being put on the question of how to reduce
the life to one of normality, and the "placing-out" of dependent
children in homes where they can grow up as normal children is now a
popular faith. The great watchword to-day in intelligent and
constructive philanthropy is the "ideal of the normal," and it is on
this ground that the institution is declared to be removed from the
standard of the highest interests of society. Even though a child should
profit in the institution, and even though he should be sent out into
the world strong and self-reliant, yet while in the institution, he is
out of line, and is just so far displaced from the ideal of the normal;
and even though the institution is cleanlier, more sanitary and
otherwise better equipped than the quarters from which the child comes,
still the institution cannot be justified, for no solution can be
acceptable if in the end it results in the breaking up of the home.[300]
More specific charges are also brought against the institution. Here
life for the inmates is made too easy, and little can be known by them
of the actual struggles of the world. The life is machine-like, and all
is routine clockwork. By the discipline, which is necessary, much of the
spontaneity of growing children is destroyed, and the surroundings are
pervaded with the spirit of uniformity, "solidarity" and "dead
levelism." On the other hand, the children fail to learn many important
lessons in domestic economy which would be before them every day in the
home; and they lose the attitude towards life, morally and socially,
which is given by the home.[301]
The arguments for the day school may be stated more concretely yet. The
special day school may be co-ordinated with, or made a part of, the
state's educational system, standing on a level with its other schools.
Deaf children here come to feel their place in the normal world, while
people in general become more ready to regard them in a proper manner.
These children at the same time are not made strangers to their own
family circles and communities; and certain ones, by a school nearer
home and consequently more acceptable to their parents, may be reached
who would otherwise possibly never enter an institution.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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