Report of Royal Commission on the Blind,
Deaf and Dumb, etc., 1889, iii., p. 456ff.

[279] In certain of these states, however, as Idaho, Indiana, Maine,
Minnesota, Montana, and West Virginia, the boards of charities or
central boards have only more or less financial concern, the statutes
usually referring to some such connection with the several state
institutions, though not always mentioning them by name. In one or two
states, as Rhode Island, there is connection with a board of purchases
and supplies. In Minnesota there is also a board of visitors for state
institutions, exerting rather a moral supervision.

[280] The duties of such boards may be indicated from the following
extract in a letter to the writer from the Secretary of the Wisconsin
Board: The board "appoints the chief officers, purchases all the
supplies for the institutions, formulates the provisions under which the
institutions are managed, and has almost unlimited power with reference
to the institutions". The boards thus have practically complete control
of the public institutions of the state, and in some cases state
universities have come within their direction. The boards have come
especially into favor in states of the West and Middle West. In their
favor it is claimed that they secure economy, accuracy, better
discipline and more equitable appropriations, introduce business
methods, relieve the heads of schools from financial problems, visit
other states, and keep in touch with the people. See University of
Nebraska Studies, Oct., 1905. The evolution of state control is also
here traced. See also Bulletin of Ohio Board of Charities, Dec., 1908,
xiv., 6.

[281] In Iowa the school for the blind is under the board of education.

[282] In nearly all the states the schools were placed at first in the
hands of special boards of trustees, with connection with no other
bodies, and it was only later that any change was brought about. In some
states there have been various experiments in the organization of
governing boards and in the number of members they were to contain.
Several schools at their beginning have been put under the direction of
a state educational institution, as the university in Utah, and the
normal school in Oklahoma. In a few states the schools have been placed
under certain state officers, as in New Mexico and Oregon. In Washington
the first board of trustees of the school consisted of a physician, a
lawyer and a practical educa