The Forgotten Youth of Washington Territory
A minister's impassioned crusade to establish the territory's first state-funded school for the deaf, blind, and feeble-minded.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the face of the indifference shown toward the plan lately broached for the establishment of a school for defective youth, some have, in a kindly spirit, posited objections which might be encountered. The time to educate is not when such youth are grown, but when they are here. Every day delayed adds to the expense of the welfare, because of the rise of costs and the missing school years. There is one deaf mute to every 1,000 people in Washington Territory. There is one blind person in every 1,000. There is one imbecile in every 1,000. You may never have seen them, but that proves nothing. They do not often parade their misfortunes before the public. The census returns are well known to be imperfect in respect to these classes; parents naturally grieve over an idiotic child and seek to conceal them from the public. If we had an institution, it would require at least 160 acres for a farm, which would furnish all the milk, eggs, and vegetables needed and a handsome margin of produce for sale. By judicious choice of location, the land could be had without cost to the Territory. This is not a private, nor local, nor sectional affair; it is a movement to secure for the unfortunate youth of this Territory such an opportunity for education as they have in other States and Territories; such as hearing children are everywhere given abundantly.
“They do not often parade their misfortunes before the public. But interested persons could give you the names of more than you think there are.”
This 1885 editorial echoes the enduring tension between fiscal austerity and the state's moral obligation to care for its most vulnerable populations. Today, as Seattle and Washington struggle to fund adequate mental health and disability services, the author's argument that early investment pays for itself—and that ignorance is not the same as absence—remains as relevant as it was in the territory's infancy.
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