can to get the children in, and all the
deaf if they will may receive an education. The cause lies further back:
most often in the ignorance or short-sightedness of the parent.

For it all there is but one remedy--the enactment of a strong compulsory
education law and its uncompromising enforcement. No matter how
strenuous and diligent may be the efforts to reach the children,[538] it
is only when such a law is on the statute books that the state's really
effective weapon is at hand to secure attendance.[539]

However urgent are the needs of compulsory education laws for children
generally, there are special reasons for them with the deaf. The deaf
stand in particular need of an education, and without it their condition
is peculiarly helpless and pitiable. Compelling reason is also found in
the fact that, besides the ordinary schooling, industrial training is
likewise afforded to the deaf, which is hardly possible elsewhere, and
which may mean no little towards success in after life. Even though it
sometimes seems hard to take a deaf child from his home, and separate
him from his parents for a number of months at a time, especially if the
child is in his tender years, the greater necessity of the law is but
indicated if such children are to be kept from growing up in ignorance.
The hardship in separation is rather apparent only and is temporary,
while the gains are not to be measured.

Not only should the deaf child be required to attend school, but for
reasons equally strong it should be seen that he remains at school a
sufficient number of years, and a sufficient length of time each year.
It is a difficult matter as it is to secure full attendance, but too
often also the temptation is at hand for pupils to leave early to take
up work on their own account, or because the school routine seems
irksome; and too often is a pupil called away to help on the farm or in
the shop by what is sometimes hardly less than the greed of the parent,
or by what is sometimes miscalled his poverty. The state should allow
nothing at all to stand in the way of the child's best interests.

PRESENT EXTENT OF COMPULSORY EDUCATION LAWS

How important are compulsory education laws for the deaf is being
generally seen, and the demand has become practically unanimous for
their enactment, the feeling not being confined to educators of the deaf
but shared in by others interested in them.[540] Such laws have begun to
find their way upon the st