ry pupil according to his needs, bright or dull, quick to
learn or slow. A pupil in a day school, if not neglected to some
extent, may be required to do work for which he is quite unfitted, being
either beyond it or incapable of it. The backward child will here be the
worst sufferer, for if there are but few classes, he can get little of
the special attention he needs; and his progress cannot be the same as
when in a class of like pupils and under an appropriate and patient
teacher.

Again, the attention that is given in an institution with a considerable
number of pupils to the learning of a trade--accounting in strong
measure for success in after life--means much more to a deaf child than
it could to any other. In an institution there will usually be found
larger equipment, fuller apparatus and more varied lines than in any but
a very large day school; and in its trade department habits of industry
will be formed, talents developed, a knowledge of mechanism and the use
of tools implanted, an ardor enkindled for the mastership of a trade,
and an appreciation of the part to be played in the great world of
industrial activity, besides the incentive of being in a great workshop
with other workers--all in far greater measure and more effectively than
would be possible anywhere else, save in a great trade school, in which
there could not be expected to be taken the special care and provision
necessitated by the want of hearing of the pupils.

Finally, it may be said that we have no evidence, as respects
institutions for the deaf, to show that they have in any way undermined
the character or mission of the home, or that their results have been
other than desirable in a well-ordered state. Hence we are told, in a
word, that no matter how strong and valid are the theoretical objections
to an institution, yet so far as the practical issues are concerned, in
the preparation of the deaf for the world, and in what really counts for
their development and progress, the institution, for many at least,
occupies a position of demonstrated usefulness, recognition of which
cannot rightly be withheld.[303]

EVENING DAY SCHOOLS FOR ADULTS

Thus far in this chapter we have discussed day schools in relation to
children, that is, pupils in the usual sense. But there is another form
of day schools to which attention is to be directed. This is in the
creation of evening day schools for the use of adults only, the field
open to which is as