Volume 3

Histories of American schools for the deaf, 1817-1893 / prepared for the Volta Bureau by the principals and superintendents of the schools, and published in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America ; edited by Edward Allen Fay.

Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Histories of American schools for the deaf, 1817-1893 / prepared for the Volta Bureau by the principals and superintendents of the schools, and published in commemoration of the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America ; edited by Edward Allen Fay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In the summer of 1892 the ten-room house next adjoining the School on the north was purchased, and serves as dormi- tories for the girls. A building for school-rooms and gym- nasium was also erected between the two, immediately in the rear, a covered walk on the second floor connecting it with both. In the original building, an eighteen-room house, are the office, reception-room, family parlor, dining-rooms, kitchen, and the dormitories for the boys. The expenses of the School are met by tuition fees, sup- plemented by donations, there still being no permanent endow- ment. The School has, from the first, published a monthly paper, called The New Method, which is, so far as we know, the only one published by an oral school. Children Continually in the Case of Teachers. The home-life of the pupils is made to conform as nearly as possible to that of the best family home, they being eu- couraged by then- teachers to have a knowledge of and an interest in all the details of home-life, each being taught to yield his special preferences, when necessary, to the best in- terests of all. The older are interested in the younger, and the little ones, in turn, learn many things from them more naturally and more rapidly than if associated only with grown persons. The regular lessons are conducted in the school- rooms at regular school-hours; the education of the child, however, begins when he rises in the morning, and ends only when he falls asleep at night. While dressing and undressing he is taught, not laboriously but gradually, by daily repetition, the names of the different articles of clothing and the language expressing the different actions involved, as Button my shoe, Unbutton my apron, Put on, Take off, Comb my hair, etc. In the bath-room, as they gather regularly after each meal with a teacher, they are taught the names and lan- guage pertaining thereto, as water, soap, wash, wipe, sponge, towel, toothbrush, etc. In the dining-room the classes of children, with their teachers, sit at separate tables. A grace suitable to the comprehension of each class is written on the black-board and read in concert; a few simple words for the youngest, and for the older pupils such forms as are in use in Christian families. While the food