tion beyond doubt.

MINNESOTA INSTITUTES FOR DEFECTIVES.

There are also state schools for the deaf, dumb, blind, and the
feeble-minded. These institutions are all located at Faribault, in Rice
county, and each has a very handsome, commodious, and in every way
suitable building, where these unfortunates are instructed in every
branch of learning and industry of which they are capable. During the
last two years there have been enrolled 275 deaf and dumb children in
the school especially devoted to them, where they receive the best
education that science and experience can provide. This school has
already been instrumental in preparing hundreds of deaf and mute youth
to be useful and intelligent citizens of the state, and year by year a
few are graduated, well prepared to take their places beside the hearing
and speaking youth who leave the public schools. About one-third of the
time is devoted to manual training.

The school for the blind is entirely separate from that of the deaf and
dumb, and is equipped with all the appliances of a modern special school
of this character. It makes a specialty of musical instruction and
industrial training, such as broom-making, hammock weaving, bead work
and sewing. The course of study embraces a period of seven years,
beginning with the kindergarten, and ending with the ordinary studies of
English classes in the high schools. The school is free to all blind
children in the state between the ages of eight and twenty-six, to whom
board, care and tuition are furnished. The average number of pupils at
this school for the past few years is between seventy and one hundred.

There is also a

STATE SCHOOL FOR DEPENDENT AND NEGLECTED CHILDREN.

This school is located at Owatonna, in Steele county, and is one of the
most valuable of all the many establishments which the state has
provided for the encouragement of good citizenship. There are eleven
buildings, which comprise all the agencies that tend to make abandoned
children useful citizens and rescue them from a life of vagrancy and
crime.

The object of this institution is to provide a temporary home and school
for the dependent and neglected children of the state. No child in
Minnesota need go without a home if the officers of the several counties
do their duty. There is not a semblance of any degrading or criminal
feature in the manner of obtaining admittance to this school. Under the
law, it is the duty of every c