| Summary: | Newsletter of the North Dakota School for the Deaf. THE NORTH DAKOTA BANNER (Jlit ^fartb ^taiuxfc J&ctttnex. 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 as to the doings of their children here. 3. To make the public better acquainted with the deaf, and the School in particular. Contributions of interest are solicited. They must be accompanied by the name and address of the writer as a guarantee of good faith, but not necessarily for publication. Address all subscriptions and communications to THE BANNER Devils Lake, N. D. Entered at the jjostoffice as second-class matter. Saturday, April 1, 1911. We regret to note that Supt. Driggs of the Utah School has had to be operated on for appendicitis and trust that he will speedily recover. Supt. Dobyns, of the Mississippi School and chairman on program for the convention at Delavan, writes that he has positive assurance that the list of delegates to the convention will be large and representative both from this couutryand abroad. A goodly part of the Volta Review for March is devoted to the blind-deaf with a cover portrait of Samuel Gridley Howe, the father of the education of the blind-deaf. The leading article is about the Heurtin Family of Yerton, Near Nantes,France. Of eleven children, three were born blind-deaf, one deaf and nearly blind, one blind, and four died young; two only can hear and see. The policy of Gallaudct in turning over each student, at his entrance, to a member of the faculty who stands in loco parentis and to whom the youth cau tell his troubles, hopes, ambitions and possibty his love affairs strikes us as a most admirable arrangement and ought to bring instructors and students in closer contact. X ^ So far as finances go, this School got all it asked for from the Legislature. As its support is derived from the Mill Tax and from interest on lands, there was but one request made for funds. The sum of $20,000 was asked for the completion of the school building. This amount was given and the bill has been approved by Governor Burke and as a result next fall the children will have a line new school building in which to attend school. The walls are all up and the money appropriated is for interior finish. / The Washington School is fighting an epidemic of the measles which broke out last month. There were fifteen cases, but oue proved serious enough to require the attendance of a physician all night, and the parents of the patient were summoned at once. The danger is past, and the temporary quarters for a hospital in the attic of the school building is fast losing hold on its occupants. In about 1S51 a monument was erected at the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, Conn., in memory of Thomas H. Gallaudct, the founder of the School there and the first teacher of the deaf in America. The donors of this monument were the deaf themselves. The monument now plainly shows its age and is in need of repairs, and the question has arisen as to who should care for it—the deaf all over the country, the National Association of the Deaf or the New England Gallaudct Association. We believe that the care of this monument should be left to the people who initiated the movement in 1851— the deaf themselves, not any particular organization of the deaf. Mr. Hanson, the .President of the N. A. D. has a good plan. It is that all the money required to repair the Gallaudct monument be raised in one day, just as the city of Seattle raised $600,000 in one day for the Alaska Yukon Pacific Exposition. But it would take a year or so of preparation and advertisement. He suggests that the day set apart fo r this purpose be Gallaudet’s birthday, Dec. 10th, 1912. It looks like a good plan, and should be carried out. During the session of the Legislature just finished a bill for a board of control was passed similar to the Iowa bill in all particulars except the method of appointing the members of the board. N. This bill has been approved by Gover- ^ xnor Burke tho he calls attention to the above section which he claims is unconstitutional. During the consideration of this bill, we did all in our power to prevent this School being included under its provisions. Mr. Hoge,tbe introducer of the bill, was one of the House members who visited the School last February on a tour of inspection. We took this matter with him when he was here and he admitted, after an inspection of our work, that this School ought not to be placed in theclassification as made by this bill and assured us that he would have the School dropped from the provisions of the bill. This was not done and the only reason we have heard thus far why this School and the School for the Blind are included was to give the proposed board a sufficient uumber of institutions to control to make a showing. The institutions included under the jurisdiction of the new board are the Penitentiary. Insane Asylum, School for Feeble-Minded, Reform School, School for Blind and School for Deaf. Under the session laws of 1901, we are classed with the University, Agricultural College, Normals, etc. and recognized as part of the educational system of the State and this new classification is very distasteful to the deaf and their friends, unjust and uncalled for. The education of the deaf and blind of ANY state is NO MORE a charity than is the education of ANY hearing youth in public school, normal school, agricultural college or university. This classification has been opposed by the deaf and their friends in every state in the Union where the deaf have been classified with the penal and charitable. They should make opposition to such classification and should he commended, not scored for so doing. Include the educational institutions of the State and our opposition to a hoard of control fades into nothing. That opposition i» NOT directed against aboard of control because it is such but against having the stigma of charity attached to the education of our pupils here who simply ask the State to give them what is their right under the constitution,— a free education. But, for the present, this School will have to accept the position in which it finds itself and do all it can to prove the worth of its claims as educational by the character and results attained. There is nothing but good will toward the members, whoever they may be, of the new Board of Control and every effort will be made by those now connected with this School to co-operate with them in their efforts to give to North Dakota the best institutions possible whether charitable, penal or educational. “You may call it a vase or a vaz as you will: but the scent of the rose will cling to it still”. Call us charitable if it must be done but we have been educational, arc now. and a 1 wavs will be.
|
|---|