st schools were created by societies of private citizens, funds
being contributed from "membership fees" in the societies, from
subscriptions and from other private donations.[226] To the aid of these
schools the state later came with appropriations; but while an oversight
and general control were assumed by it, the schools were left as
private corporations. With the establishment, however, of the Kentucky
School in 1823, a second stage is reached in the extension of the new
work, the state now undertaking the task itself and providing the
schools at its own initiative and expense. At first admission into the
schools was restricted to a certain number of pupils, often based upon
some political division of the state, as a senatorial district in
Tennessee, or a judicial in Ohio. When such limitations were swept away,
we have the third stage in the provision for the education of the deaf.
The fourth and last stage--though not necessarily in this order in any
one particular state, and not in every case formally accomplished--is
attained when in Indiana all charges are removed, and education is made
free to all.[227] In the schools created in later times all these steps
were usually merged into one: limitations of any kind were mostly
omitted, and the schools were in general thrown open to all from the
beginning.

Thus is reached the culminative point in the course of the provision for
the education of the deaf in America. No longer was private benevolence
to inaugurate and carry on the work, but the state was coming to see its
responsibility in part, finally to realize its full duty in making
education free to all its deaf population, just as it was free to the
rest of its citizens.[228]

In many instances, before action by the state, instruction of a small
collection of deaf children was taken up by a group of citizens;[229]
but hardly had this been done when as a rule the state proved itself
ready and willing to move in and shoulder the responsibility. These
private schools were thus often the nuclei of the state institutions, at
first aided to an extent, and then taken over. In fact, the private
schools were not infrequently started more or less as experimental
affairs, but with the expectation that the state would speedily come to
their help. "The idea of the founders seemed to be to give barely enough
to keep the school going, and to depend upon getting support of a
substantial character in the course of time."[230]