cannot. We had a committee relating to this subject, of which they unfortunately made me chairman. We found that we had no right to prepare a series of papers relating to this subject, but could only prepare one paper which should briefly set forth the nature of the work going on, and have a short discussion of its merits.

I hope that we will create an interest throughout the whole country in this matter. In the west we are trying to do this, and hope eventually that the whole country will become alive to its importauce.

The Conference then took a recess till afternoon.

TWELFTH SESSION.

Friday Afternoon, September 28,1883.

A few minutes were given to miscellaneous discussion as follows:

Mr. Scarboro, of North Carolina: I omitted to mention our institution for the deaf, dumb and blind. We have such an institution. It has a board of directors, who elect the superintendent, who has the selection of the teachers. It has two departments, one for the whites and one for the colored. The same rules and regulations apply to both. We teach them such industries as they can pursue. This is true both of the white and colored children.

Dr. M. F. Coomes, of Kentucky: We are all aware that a great many people use opium. This is as pernicious a habit as the use of whisky. Some time ago I undertook to make an investigation of the number of opium-eaters here, and was surprised to find such a large number. We have probably one hundred and seventy-five confirmed opium-eaters. This could all be remedied by proper legislation. Here, in Louisville, all that you have to do to get opium is to register your name.

The speaker proposed a plan of legislation against the improper use of opium.

Mr. Huse, of Illinois: I came here as the representative of the Illinois State Reform School. Our institution is located at Pontiac, about ninety miles from Chicago. We have a farm of two hundred and eighty acres. We had as we supposed very good buildings, until we found ourselves crowded for want of room. Our present number of inmates, who are all boys, is from two hundred and ninety to three hundred. Our boys all come to us by commitment of court, with sentences varying from one to five years. The youngest that can be committed is ten years and the oldest seventeen. We work our boys three h6urs in the forenoon and three in the afternoon. They are in school two hours in the morning and two in the evening. Our discipline is very good. We think we have very fine success with our boys. Ninety per cent, of them come out good respectable men. Concerning the other ten per cent, it is a problem what will become of them. We are very crowded now, having only accommodations sufficient for one hundred and fifty; our state legislature has made us an appropriation and we are now erecting additional buildings at a cost of between thirty and forty thousand dollars. Our system is what is called the family and congregate system.

Mr. Nelson, of Missouri: It strikes me that ten hours a day at mental and physical labor is rather a long time.

Dr. Hoyt: I think there is one subject upon which the speakers upon reformatories have not touched. There are a great many youths who are arrested for the first time, who might be returned to their homes without ever having entered the doors of the reformatory. I think they would be more reformed by the mere fact of arrest, trial and conviction than by passing through the reform school.

Mr. Baxter, of Michigan: Mr. Hoyt's suggestion is carried out largely in our State. No child is permitted to be sent to the reform school, until all the facts and circumstances of his case have been carefully inquired into. Fifty per cent, of them are turned back to their homes. They are put under suspended sentences.

Mr. Fairbank, of Vermont: In our State there has been a recent requirement of this kind. All children are placed on probation. They are not regularly committed to the reform school until we inquire into their previous condition.

The discussion on the education of the deaf and dumb was then continued as follows:

Mr. J. A. Gillespie, of Nebraska: In reference to my experiments in cultivating the dormant hearing of the semi-deaf, in the Nebraska Institute, to which reference was made by Dr. Poet, of New York, in his admirable and exhaustive paper, I would say, that the cultivation of the dormant hearing of the semi-deaf has. been a favorite theory with me for a number of years.

During the last four.years I have experimented considerably with the audiphone. My first class consisted mostly of the older semi-deaf children. I began with simple vowel sounds, made in a loud tone of voice; th3n advanced to words and sentences.

At the end of three months drill, of from half an hour to an hour each day, this class was enabled to recognize a large number of sentences across the rooni.

Two years ago I organized another class consisting of small semi-deaf children, and gave them a similar course of training. The results in this case were even more satisfactory.

These experiments convinced me that the dormant sense of hearing remaining to this class of children could be cultivated, developed and utilized in their education.

With this end in view, I organized a class of young children, a year ago, whose education should be carried on in this way.

My plan was to dispense with the use of signs and the manual alphabet as much as possible, and use strictly oral methods.

All instruction possible to be directed to the hearing with the view to its development.

The class was put in charge of Miss McCowen who faithfully carried out these plans and directions.

The success of the class was all that could be desired. At the end of the term they had command of a vocabulaf y of three hundred words which they could use readily,, and some members had command of even more.

This fall I have two classes in sucessful operation on, this plan.

My opinion is that from twelve per cent, to fifteen per cent, of the whole number of so-called deaf and dumb' could be taught in this way, and a large majority of those graduated as hard of hearing, speaking people, instead of as deaf mutes.

This subject is worthy of the best thought and attention of the profession, and of benevolent and scientific men, and it affords me no little satisfaction to know that it is receiving the same.

Miss Mary Mccowen: I have two of the little children here who were taught in our school and if any of the Conference vy ish to try them I would be glad to have them do so.

Dr. Coomes, of Kentucky: Hearing is essentially a disease of the ear. The nerves that should convey the sound to the brain are not performing their proper functions when a person is deaf. Now those sound waves may be transmitted by the audiphone through the teeth: I would like to call Mr. Gillespie's attention to a little instrument which has lately been brought out with which you can tell to what extent the organs of the ear are impaired. It would be a help in his school to know exactly what condition his children's ears were in.

J. L. Noyes, of Minnesota: Deaf mutes have as much if not more right to an education at public expense as any other children. With an education they become producers, without it, consumers. Minnesota graduates