A Home, Not an Institution, for Deaf Children
A Hartford oralist writes to Joseph L. Miller about his plan to open a small school in Walla Walla where deaf children would learn to speak.
The story, cleaned up
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Joseph L. Miller of this city, who is greatly interested in the establishment here of a school for instructing deaf children to talk, beginning in their infancy and preparing them to enter the public schools at the age of eight, has received the following letter from Miss Clara Bell, of Hartford, Conn.:
65 Garden St., Hartford, Conn. Mr. Joseph L. Miller: Dear Sir: Through Miss Garrett I have become interested in your project for establishing a home for our little deaf children in Walla Walla. Some years ago, while visiting friends in New York, I went, out of curiosity, to visit the Lexington American Institution. I had been told that deaf children were there made to talk, which to me seemed an absurdity. I visited the institution, as I said, from mere curiosity—I left it an hour later with the determination to make it my life work. A week later I entered into training and have since grown year by year more interested and more impressed with the marvelous work which lies before us. The absolute ignorance which the outside world has of our work is, of course, a stumbling block, but one has only to visit such schools as Miss Garrett's, Miss Yale's at Northampton, Mass., and those of New York, to realize fully how wonderful the work is. For two years I have had in view the starting of such a school as Miss Garrett's in one of our large cities. But it must be a pure oral school. There can be no medium. A home where both in and out of school hours the children are talked to and treated exactly like hearing children. It is the only way to accomplish the results for which we are all striving; that of placing our deaf children in a position to cope with the world on an equal footing with hearing children. Your project will meet much opposition, for few people realize the necessity of teaching the deaf to care for themselves and make responsible citizens, while still fewer have any idea of the immense proportion of deaf people that our country holds.
The state makes an appropriation for some one large institution, then, figuratively speaking, folds its hands and says 'We have cared for our deaf, and need feel no further responsibility.' In the days when sign and manual training were all that one deprived of hearing could expect by way of education, the large institution had its place, and has done excellent work. But oral work must of necessity be largely individual, which means small schools and small classes. Not an institution where a child is a mere atom in a huge whole, but a home where a child is an individual.
But I have said much more than I intended. This was to be only a short business note, but the subject is one upon which I feel so deeply that I quite forgot myself.
Should you care to write me on the subject I will be glad to furnish you such references as you may desire; and in any case will be glad to give you whatever help might be in my power.
Trusting that your plans will meet with abundant success. Very truly, CLARA L. BELL. Feb. 11, 1903.
“It must be a pure oral school. There can be no medium. A home where both in and out of school hours the children are talked to and treated exactly like hearing children.”
The letter captures a moment when oralism was ascendant in deaf education—an approach later challenged by Deaf cultural advocates who defended sign language and community. The debate over small, individualized classrooms versus large institutions still echoes in special education.
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