Note 510 — Chapter XVI

In a legal sense, nearly all educational institutions can be called charitable, especially if they are private affairs, and gifts for such purposes are held in the law as for charitable purposes. See 4 Wheaton, 518; 2 How. (U. S.), 227; 14 How., 277; 44 Mo., 570; 25 O. St., 229. Not many cases have arisen in regard to the status of institutions for the deaf. In 1900 the Columbia Institution was held in the opinion of the Attorney-General to be under the department of charities, but Congress the next year declared it to be educational. See Annals, xlvi., 1901, p. 345. In Colorado an opinion was rendered that the school was educational alone, and not subject to the civil service rules, and this was later ratified in the constitution and by the legislature. Some of the courts have been inclined to view the institutions as charitable. In Nebraska the school for the deaf was at first considered an asylum and in the same class with almshouses, rather than educational. 6 Neb., 286. See also 43 Neb., 184. In New York the provision of the law allowing the State Board of Charities to inspect the Institution for the Blind was attacked, and it was held that, though the institution was partly educational and was visited by the department of education, yet the word charity was to be taken in its usual meaning, and if the institution as a private body educated, clothed and maintained indigent pupils, it was charitable. 154 New York, 14 (1897).