Note 272 — Chapter X

In 1910 the census reported 294 deaf persons in institutions for the feeble-minded, or 1.4 per cent of all their inmates. Insane and Feeble-minded in Institutions, 1914, p. 92. It has also been estimated that five per cent of the deaf are feeble-minded. Proceedings of Conference of Charities and Corrections, 1906, p. 254ff. On the subject of the feeble-minded deaf in institutions, Mr. Cyrus E. White, of the Kansas School, sent letters to the heads of 55 schools, receiving replies from 45. No state, it was found, had made special provision for the feeble-minded deaf. It was the general agreement that they should be in institutions for the feeble-minded, one superintendent declaring that "feeble-mindedness is a better classification than deafness". Another superintendent suggested the establishment of such an institution in a central state, to which the different states could send suitable cases. See Annals, lv., 1910, p. 133. A committee of the Pennsylvania Society for the Advancement of the Deaf has found that all of the three feeble-minded institutions in this state are crowded, and that there is no hope for the feeble-minded deaf in them. Proceedings, xxiv., 1910, p. 9. In one institution for the feeble-minded there are said to be twenty deaf feeble-minded. Annals, liv., 1909, p. 444. In the institution for the feeble-minded in Iowa a special class of such inmates was organized in 1912. Ibid., lviii., 1913, p. 107. It is to be remembered in this connection that in many states there are no institutions for the feeble-minded. Educators of the deaf have often been instrumental in securing the creation of such institutions. See Proceedings of Convention of American Instructors, iv., 1857, p. 227. In a few states, as Illinois, Minnesota and Washington, departments for the feeble-minded have been created in schools for the deaf, the feeble-minded being removed later. In Montana a department is still maintained.