UMENTS IN OPPOSITION TO THE CONNECTION

Yet over against all the arguments for the connection with the boards of
charities the voice of the educators of the deaf is in unison that the
connection of the schools be completely severed with whatever is of
charitable signification.[516] This feeling cannot all be ascribed to
the prejudice regarding the words employed. In the dissolving of the
charity connection an issue not to be disregarded is the moral effect on
the public. A right conception is to be obtained respecting the
education of the deaf, and while in the schools and in after life they
are entitled to the recognition of the true character of this education
and of their status in the community. If the deaf after they have left
the schools have shown that they are capable of wrestling unaided with
the difficulties of life, and are really not objects of charity at all,
then they should be spared all discriminating associations. Indeed, as
our new view of charity is the making of men capable of standing alone,
and economic units of gain in society, so the deaf should not be
considered as a distinct or dependent class, when by the use of certain
expressions this is done; and we should hold that if their work in the
world has justified them, then no barriers should be raised which their
fellows in society do not have to meet, and that their education should
be offered to them without discrimination or stigma.

The benefits derived from the relation with the board of charities may
be more than offset by the connection with educational agencies, where
the school is recognized as part of the state's educational system. In
respect to the providing of maintenance for the pupils, this can be
regarded as but an incidence, when any other plan would be
impracticable. The main, overshadowing purpose in the work of the
institutions is education, and what are supplied beyond are only to
render this the more effective. But after all this is said, the
opponents of the charity connection insist that the burden of proof is
upon those who advocate the connection. Why, they ask, should the deaf
children of the state who are as capable of being educated as others be
considered objects of the state's charity? Why any more than other
children?

The feeling in the matter may be indicated by two declarations on the
subject, one by the educators of the deaf, and the other by the deaf
themselves. The first is in the form of a resolution adopt