, the beginning years of a deaf child's educational
life are the most important of all. They are crucial. It is then he
requires the highest skill, the greatest experience, and the most
perfect conditions. The best teachers can seldom, if ever, be induced to
teach a single child in its home. Usually these teachers are more or
less inferior. But even the best teacher in the world cannot do for a
little deaf child in his home what she could accomplish for him in a
well-organized and properly conducted school.

Neither the intellect nor the character of the deaf child can be as
successfully developed, after five years of age, by a private teacher in
his home as in a good school.

The following elements are essential for the highest educational welfare
of a deaf child:

_First._ The stimulus and incentive of association and competitive
companionship.

_Second._ The contact with more than one mind and more than one speaker.

_Third._ The avoidance of becoming dependent upon some one as an
interpreter, and the cultivation of independence and self-reliance
through constant practice with various teachers.

_Fourth._ A fully equipped and trained organization, providing a
complete and uninterrupted education under one head.

_Fifth._ Regularity of life, and the subordination of all living
conditions to the highest educational advantage (a thing utterly
incompatible with home conditions).

These most necessary conditions are not possible of attainment through
private instruction in the home. The child who is kept at home and given
private instruction too often grows up to be timid, self-distrustful,
and unfitted to cope with the difficulties and oppositions of the
world. He falls an easy prey to temptation and is quickly discouraged by
obstacles. Very often he is selfish, narrow, and overbearing. Not having
those about him of his own age and with the same desires, he has become
accustomed to having people yield to his whims and fancies as child
playmates would not yield. He is more or less excluded from the plays
and pleasures of childhood. All those about him have an advantage over
him.

On the other hand, the tendencies of the school-bred child are to be
simple, natural, and childlike. His inclination to moodiness and
suspiciousness is much less. He is happier. He becomes self-reliant,
independent, and respectful of the rights of others. He is less petulant
and more obedient. The wisest parents do not educate their he