re to provide a home of rest for the infirm of our class
during their declining years, so that they may find here comfort and
happiness in congenial companionship and intelligent conversation.

At present there are five homes for the deaf.[116] They are found in the
states of Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, there being
two in New York.[117] The first to be created was the Gallaudet Home at
Wappinger's Falls, New York, founded in 1885; the second the Ohio Home
at Westerville in 1896; the third the home of St. Elizabeth's
Industrial School in New York City in 1897; the fourth the New England
Home at Everett, Massachusetts, in 1901;[118] and the fifth the
Pennsylvania Home at Doyleston in 1902. The homes in Ohio and
Pennsylvania are owned and controlled by the societies for the deaf in
these respective states, the management being in the hands of trustees,
in the former of twenty, and in the latter of nine. The Gallaudet Home
is under the Church Mission to Deaf-Mutes of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, with the direction vested in a board of twenty-five trustees.
The home in Massachusetts is controlled by a private society organized
for the purpose, with a board of fifteen trustees in charge. The home in
New York City is a part of St. Elizabeth's Industrial School of the
Roman Catholic Church.[119]

The homes are for the most part for the deaf of restricted areas, those
in Pennsylvania and Ohio being for the deaf in these respective states.
With but one exception,[120] they are open to the "aged and infirm," in
some there being an age limitation of sixty years. The homes are in
general free to those qualified to enter, and though a charge may be
exacted from persons able to pay, this is seldom done, the homes being
intended for the destitute and friendless.

The total number of inmates in the homes is 106, ranging in different
ones from 13 to 30, and averaging about 20. The total annual cost of
maintenance is $30,190, making the average cost of each inmate
$290.[121] The value of the property of the homes is about $375,000, one
home having two-thirds of this, and two homes four-fifths.

As little is received in the way of pay from inmates,[122] the homes
have to depend for the most part upon private benevolence for their
support. In the case of the Ohio and Pennsylvania homes this support
comes largely from the deaf themselves.[123] In nearly all the homes
there are a certain number of inmates,