MINNESOTA INSTITUTES FOR DEFECTIVES.

There are also state schools for the deaf, dumb, blind, and the feeble-minded. These institutions are all located at Faribault, in Rice county, and each has a very handsome, commodious, and in every way suitable building, where these unfortunates are instructed in every branch of learning and industry of which they are capable. During the last two years there have been enrolled 275 deaf and dumb children in the school especially devoted to them, where they receive the best education that science and experience can provide. This school has already been instrumental in preparing hundreds of deaf and mute youth to be useful and intelligent citizens of the state, and year by year a few are graduated, well prepared to take their places beside the hearing and speaking youth who leave the public schools. About one-third of the time is devoted to manual training.

The school for the blind is entirely separate from that of the deaf and dumb, and is equipped with all the appliances of a modern special school of this character. It makes a specialty of musical instruction and industrial training, such as broom-making, hammock weaving, bead work and sewing. The course of study embraces a period of seven years, beginning with the kindergarten, and ending with the ordinary studies of English classes in the high schools. The school is free to all blind children in the state between the ages of eight and twenty-six, to whom board, care and tuition are furnished. The average number of pupils at this school for the past few years is between seventy and one hundred.

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