| Summary: | Newsletter of the North Dakota School for the Deaf. THE NORTH DAKOTA BANNER Site -bCitt-ili ^aJuxin gunner. D. F. BANGS T. SHERIDAN Editors. Published every other Saturday during the School term at the School for the Deaf at Devils Lake, with the following objects in view: 1. As a means of teaching language to the pupils in connection with the printer’s, trade. 2. To keep parents or guardians of pupils posted'us to the doiugs of their children here. 8. To make t-lie public better acquainted >vith the aeafy and the School in particular. Contributions of interest are solicited. They must be accompanied by tbe name and address of the writer as a guarantee of good faith, but not necessarily for publication. Address all subscriptions and communications o THE BANNER Devils Lake, N. D. Eutered at tbe ^osroffice as second-class matter. Saturday, Mar^ec 18, 1911. The Missouri Legislature has given the School at Fulton $213,500 for support for the coming two years. 'A new residence is to be provided for the Superintendent, at a cost of $10,000. Dr. Dobtns has completed the program of the Convention and sent copies broadcast The Convention meets on July 6 and will continue in session until the 14th. A treat is in store for all who attend it. w They- are having the -/spring fever’ out in Colorado and with it an exciting game of base-ball one Tuesday afternoon not long ago. Thele is no danger of this “fever" striking us for a few weeks at least. The high cost of li ving seems to be felt every where, schools for the deaf not excepted. The per capita cost at the Mt. Airy School, Pennsylvania, for the fiscal year ending May 31st, 191'), was $327.95, while, for the previous year the cost was $295, a per capita iucroase of $32.95. Ne A bill has been introduced in the Nebraska Legislature to make the instruction at the School for the Deaf by the oral method compulsory. This is, of course, intended as a blow at the sign language. Schools for the deaf should have a free rein in determining what methods are best and only men of long experience in tbe education of the deaf are competent to pass judgment upon such matters. ^Thb Iowa School has several eases of scarlet fever and varioloid, though the patients, only fifteen of them, are all convalescent and are expected to bo discharged from the hospital soon. None of them have been con lined to bed as the attack is mild. The press of the State has given greatly exaggerated accounts of the sickness which seems to have worried the management more than the sickness itself. '•e The deaf and blind at the Colorado School are educated under the same roof, but efforts are being made toward a separation, the present location to be retained for the deaf and new quarters to be secured for the blind elsewhere. The methods of educating the deaf and blind are as diversified as the weather at the Equator and the North Pole, and most of the States seem to recognize this fact by having separate schools on separate grounds. There was but one vacancy to be filled on our Board at this session of the Legislature and Governor Burke has wisely re-appointed Mr. F. R. Stevens of Crary to the place. Mr. Stevens has been a member of our Board only two years coming on to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Mr. Fisher and bis re-appointmeut at this time is highly pleasing to the School for lie is a man who takes an interest in doing what he. can to keep the School on the up grade. At present he is in Michigan having gone there last December and is not expected’back till the first of next month. w A certain phase of the controversy over N. A. D. matters is taking on a tone of most pleasing courtesy. It goes something like this:—“Mv dear Gaston! a thousand pardons, but permit me to hit you over the head with this club.” “With the greatest pleasure, my very dear Alphonse! and excuse me while I take the liberty of heaving this brick at you.”—The (Minn.) Companion. Gaston: “Most certainly, my dear Alphonse! but I beg permission of you to procure a soft pillow for my head so that I may survive the blow.” Alphonse: “With profound pleasure, v beloved Gaston! I also beseech you r the loan of a few moments in order that 1 may get into a padded foot-ball suit before the liberty of heaving that brick is yours.” After all no one is hurt. Due President of the N. A. D. lias aced Mr. J. C. Howard of Duluth, Minn., in charge of the work of suppressing “Deaf Imposters.” Mr. Howard believes that publicity is the best means of accomplishing the desired end and has embodied his ideas in a notice in the Deaf-Mute's Journal, He suggests that the deaf in each-community take up the matter with their police officials, municipal judges and with the newspapers, and explain to them that it is an invariable fact that every person soliciting aid because of deafness is an niipoxtei'i The deaf of St. Paul and Duluth have enlisted the aid of such officials in their warfare against imposters with gratifying results. w Day schools for the deaf have been started in the public schools of Seattle and Tacoma, Washington, and below • * ■ is an extract from the report of Supt. Clarke of the Washington State School for the Deaf to the Board of C uitrol While I have uo'.hiug to say against these schools when property control led. "I 'feel compelled to call attention to some facts in connection with them. First it may be stated without fear of successful contradiction that no deaf-mute has ever been as well prepared to meet life in any day school as the same child could have been in the State ' Institution of his own state lnul he been sent there at the proper time. This is a broad statement but will be endorsed by a large majority of those who have studied t his question in all parts of the civilized world. The first argument advanced by the advocates of the day schools generally is that the deaf child is better able to acquire speech and English when surrounded by people who use spoken or written English than when in an Institution where nearly every oiie uses or understands the sign language. This sounds reasonable, but results do not prove it,to be true. The facts are that the increased.mental activity consequent on free interchange of ideas by the use of an easy medium of intercourse more than, offsets any advantage gained from the compulsory: restriction to the use of.speech. Even if the day school did produce speech and lip reading (which it <’o-s not) we must remember that to learn to tal k is not the reason deaf children are sent to school. The results desired is the rounded development of the head, the heart and the hand needed to make honest, respectable, producing citizens: Lacking proper preparation, classification and management where the. enrollment of a day school is necessarily small, much headway cannot be made in the education of the mind and hand, but Supt. Clarke realizes that the day schools in Washington have come to stay and advocates measures that will bring the work of the State School and day school together instead of in opposition. He further says: I believe that, the day school is with us to stay and I am sincerely auxious to avoid the senseless and harmful antagonism which ha.j arisen in so many states between the institution and the day school. We are all working for the same end and we should work in harmony. I believe the day school and tlie Institution can work together to the ad vantage of the deaf children. Let the child go to the day school while young, say from 5 until 9. In those four years any good teacher will know whether the child can learn to talk or not.
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