erests demand it.
Education should be a matter, forced if need be, for every deaf child,
for terrible as ignorance always is, in the deaf it is the most dreadful
of all.

In America private assistance to schools for the deaf has not been
great, and very few schools have been beneficiaries from resources other
than the state's. To-day, with the exception of a few cases, aid from
private means has ceased to be expected, and calls for such bounty are
now seldom made.

At present nearly all the schools are public institutions, and rely
entirely upon the care of the state. The state has in general recognized
its duty towards the education of the deaf, and has engaged to provide
for it. In half of the states this responsibility is recognized, and
provision guaranteed in the organic law. In all the states the
legislatures have undertaken to see that means of instruction are
offered to all their deaf children, and it is found that, all things
considered, the states have in general taken a keen interest in their
educational welfare. Few schools can boast of overgenerous
appropriations; many not infrequently have failed to receive all that
has been asked for, and have thus often been prevented from doing their
best work. Yet it may be said that if the legislatures have not always
responded with alacrity, or always bounteously, or at all times with a
full sense of their responsibility, they have responded at least with
cheerfulness, and mindful of all the calls upon the state's treasury,
and often according to the best of their light. It has been realized
that the education of the deaf is an expensive undertaking, far more so
than the education of ordinary children; but it is none the less
realized also that this education pays--pays from every possible point
of view.

That the school for the deaf is not given its full educational
recognition is a grievance in some states, and this cannot be regarded
otherwise than unfortunate. In time, however, this will most likely be
changed, and the schools everywhere will come into their proper
standing, and be considered only as the agencies of the state for the
education of its children.

The most deplorable thing in the treatment of the schools by the state
is that in some quarters politics with its baneful influence has been
allowed to interfere. But as hideous and disgraceful as is this action,
we may now believe that in most places its back has been broken, and
that hereafter men