2.

A strong desire and great energy for putting into practice what science suggests in order to help them.

3. Intelligence, training, and study in those persons who are called to teach in and to direct the special institutions.

Therefore, to the inquiry of my European colleagues, what are the Americans doing for the education of the deaf? I can answer without any hesitation: They are doing the best which it is possible to do in the present conditions of science; and in a not far distant future they will be our guides in the progressive development of our special line of education. "Victorious America!"

THE ORGANIZATION OF ASSOCIATIONS OF PARENTS OF DEAF CHILDREN AS AN AID TO SCHOOLS

MRS. HELEN M. HEFFERAN, CHICAGO, ILL., PRESIDENT OF THE ILLINOIS MOTHERS' CONGRESS

The two great institutions which contribute most to the life of the child are the school and the home, and the two elements in this environment that influence him most for good or evil are the mother and the teacher. I believe the best educational results cannot be obtained without the co-operation of these two.

Many organizations have been formed in the last ten years for purely philanthropic purposes to alleviate human suffering -- and they have work enough to do; but what we need most at the present time are organizations that will get at the root of the evil in our social system. We know that there are many social evils which have their origin in the mismanagement of childhood, and we need organizations to study the child in every possible way. I am convinced that the first and most important study for both mother and teacher is the study of the child; there is no more important study.

It is gratifying to feel that this zest for child study, this attempt to make the child's mind an open book, is taking the precedence of all other studies in our educational circles, because it is the basis for all educational work.

The greatest obstacle, I believe, to educational progress today is the profound apathy and indifference to real education on the part of the parents. Many a mother who would die for her child will not and cannot be made to think intelligently of that child's nature, to study the child and use all possible means at hand for that study. These mothers are like the fisherman's wife who was feeding her eight-months-old baby a herring. Someone who knew more about nourishing children remonstrated with her. "Don't tell me how to bring up children!" she replied angrily, "haven't I buried ten?"

The teachers feel this indifference keenly. They say we are content to put our children in one end of the educational oven and take them out at the other end "done." If they are "underdone" we blame the teacher and the method and the school, and if they are "overdone" we blame the teacher and the method and the school; but if they are just "well done" we say it is inherited genius.

Many "parents' organizations" now exist in connection with schools for the hearing and the deaf.

The methods at present in use for the deaf, which are in advance of former methods, all parents should become acquainted with. The new movement of sending the schools to the people, of having schools as near to the homes of the pupils as possible, that association with hearing children may contribute to the success and happiness of a deaf child, should be impressed on the parents. The parents should realize that the home influence must always be the best for the future as well as the present welfare of the deaf child, and the nearer we bring the small community of the deaf school to the great fundamental community of the home the better for the child.

Then, too, parents are responsible for very many wrongs done the deaf child in the past. He has been encouraged to shun públicity, and has been made supersensitive by being individualized and set apart for undue sympathy, being allowed to dwell in a little universe by himself. Popular tradition had it that deaf children were all cast in one mold and very unlike normal children. We know that this is not so; we have them with strong individualities, each unlike, as results of environment and degrees of deafness, as well as temperament and mental endowments. We therefore have among those deprived of hearing, just as among those who hear, the bright child, the average, the dull, the feeble-minded, and the occasional genius. But they all share alike the inability to speak and the lack of the knowledge of language, which formerly led to the belief that the deaf were incapable of being educated. But educators have proven to us that this is not so, and are bringing parents to a realization of this fact. And now to the help of the individual parent has been added the help of the parents' associations to bring about a knowledge of the importance of the teaching of speech and lip reading to the deaf, of motor training, and of all forms of expression.

Many such parents' organizations exist now thruout the country, and are bringing comfort, help, and hope into many homes. I know of one such organization in Chicago, the "Little Deaf Child's League," a federation of small clubs. It has encouraged home instruction in lip. reading; aided in raising funds for the schools for the deaf; helped deaf children financially, so that they might attend the public school in the neighborhood. It has brought deaf children into more extensive social relations with hearing persons; brought about a visiting habit in the

schools, so that every day parents may be seen in these departments; but above all it has been teaching parents that all the pedagogical principles pertaining to the education of the normal child are applicable to the deaf also.

The period of childhood is short, but the greatest work intrusted to parents is to be done within that time, and these organizations will have done a good work if they result in sympathy, co-operation, and entire harmony between parent and teacher so that both will have a good knowledge of child-need and child-nature.

DISCUSSION

DR. ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL, the president. — There is no other thing more important than this of bringing the parents of deaf children into close touch with the work being done for their children. There are associations of parents in Boston, Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Halifax, Cincinnati, and other places.

Why should there not be associations of this kind in connection with the public-school work? Mrs. Bell took up the work of organizing an association at Baddeck, Nova Scotia, and it has been of inestimable advantage to the Baddeck Academy. Why should there not be an association of parents in connection with every public school in the country?.

A member stated there was such an association in St. Paul.

W. D. PARKER, state inspector, schools for the deaf, Madison, Wis.-Some years ago there was organized in Milwaukee what is known as the "Phonological Society" in connection with the school for the deaf. This society has extended its work and influence to other cities in Wisconsin, and there are now in successful operation eighteen day schools for the deaf in the state, a number of them with parents' associations as adjuncts. There should be encouragement to the idea of joint effort of parent and teacher in the education of the child.

SENATOR J. H. STOUT, of Menomonie, Wis.-We should bear in mind that our school work will go much better if we interest the parents in that work. The schoolhouse door should be open to parents at all times. More than that, school boards and teachers should meet frequently. Finally, it should be on the program that the school children should visit the industries of the town.

MISS MARY MCCOWEN, supervising principal, Chicago day schools for the deaf.We began organizing parents in Chicago as a matter of necessity. The hours of the children before and after school had to be utilized for the benefit of the children, so we had to bring in the parents. We taught them how to help the deaf children out of school. In our meetings we taught the mothers by questions and answers. After the first six months the mothers organized local mothers' classes. We have nine local mothers' classes in Chicago. They hold meetings at various times-some on Sundays as the only time possible. In some districts the parents are mostly foreigners, some not understanding English, or seeming not to. But we talked to them and soon we found that they did understand.

In our day schools we have the long summer vacation. We have started vacation schools, and they are very popular. Parents contribute money for their support. In one of our day schools the hearing children have organized a club to assist the little indigent children.

NECESSARY EVILS

JAMES J. DOW, SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND, FARIBAULT, MINN.

All life is a compromise. From the cradle to the grave we accept the thing we would not, lest a greater evil come upon us. We forego the thing we would, that a greater good may be ours. In many things the world has deliberately accepted the lesser evil to escape a greater or to secure an otherwise unattainable good. In many things the world is still in dispute which of two or many forms of evil to accept that a desired good may be attained. In scarce anything is there the perfection of unalloyed good. The reasonable thing, which, on account of the ignorance or perverseness of humanity, is not always the attainable thing, is the acceptance of that condition which promises the maximum of good with the minimum of incidental and inevitable evil. All the . great and little problems of life are illustrations of the attempt to reach such felicitous conclusions.

In the minor circle of school life, which lies within and forms part of the greater whole of social life, the same problems present themselves and the same necessities appear. On every hand the questions arise, which is the greater evil that must be shunned, even tho a lesser must perforce be accepted? Which is the greater good that must be sought, even tho thereby a lesser good must be sacrificed? Because educational life in its present scope is a vastly newer thing than the social life of the civilized world, there are in it more unsettled problems, more cases where we have not yet agreed upon the good we must retain, upon the sacrifice we must make that we may retain it. Moreover, when such questions have apparently once been settled, the tendency to return, to reconsider, to weigh over again the evidence, is very marked. The evil which has gone along with the settlement of the problem presses upon us and we are not ready to accept it as inevitable.

In this Association we have this week listened to the earnest and impassioned presentation of the evils arising presumably from the absence of the Bible in our public educational system. Our hearts have burned within us at the thought of the possibility of the establishment. of this great literary and religious classic in our school life. But not all of us have forgotten the disastrous and distressing conflicts by which communities have been torn in sunder in the attempt to attain this seemingly most desirable end. Nor have we forgotten the sad but apparently inevitable conclusion slowly forced upon us that the peace and perpetuity of our public-school system demanded that instruction in the Bible be relegated to the church and the home.

This single case is illustrative of what is constantly occurring in the

educational world. Questions are not settled, or do not stay settled, because of the evils which seem to be attendant upon any form of settlement. The pendulum swings to one extreme and returns to the other, the old disputes are revived, the old arguments are reweighed, but decisions do not remain final because of the attendant evils which they carry with them and which we are not willing to accept as inevitable.

It has occured to me to present for your consideration two illustrations of such problems and the evils attendant upon any solution of them now apparent, which are directly involved in the work in which I am engaged (the education of the blind), and which reach out more or less extensively into the general educational field.

The first to which I call your attention is the question of the aggregation of children needing special methods of instruction in institutions more or less remote from their homes. The value of the home life to the growing child is so supremely great that it can hardly be overestimated. I do not mean that the child may not be materially as well cared for elsewhere. I suspect that the average of material comfort in institutions for children is higher than at their homes.

But institutions are not homes, and, even with the best and highest intention, can never be homes. The home idea as developed in the family life can only be got in the home itself, and the child removed from the home during the critical decade between six and sixteen can never really know the meaning of the word "home." Any deprivation of the opportunity to form this home idea is an evil of appalling magnitude. This has become so fully recognized that boarding schools for the elementary education of normal children are in little favor. They exist mainly for those who are homeless, or for those whose parents are willing to relieve themselves of the responsibilities which properly devolve upon them in the home.

In the case of secondary education, the question is less positively settled, but the strong current of intelligent opinion today sets toward home education. The remarkable development of the public high school in the last twenty years is significant as an evidence of the trend of public opinion in this direction. Both sides of the case have recently been ably presented in the Educational Review, of New York; but, regardless of the value of the arguments on either side, it is coming to be generally accepted that, where conditions will in any way permit, secondary education should be pursued at the pupil's home. And it can scarcely be doubted that the strongest impulse toward this conclusion comes from a recognition of the importance of the home life upon the youth at this critical period. We are not willing the definition of "home" should become "a place in which to spend vacations."

So much for the case of the normal child. The argument is in some aspects still stronger in the case of children with such defects as loss of