The Colville examiner. [volume] (Colville, Wash.) 1907-1948, 1916-08-05

A state school to be known as the
Washington School for Defective
Youth was established on Feb. 8,
1886, its purpose being to educate
the deaf, blind and feeble minded
youth of the state of Washington.
The location of the school was fixed
at Vancouver, in Clarke county. The
school was made free to all resident
youth in the state of Washington who
were too deaf, blind or feeble minded
to be taught by ordinary methods in
other public schools; provided, how
ever, that they were free from vicious
habits and from loathsome or contagi-
Gus diseases.
The school was placed under the
management of board of trustees,
consisting of five persons, to be nom
mated by the governor, and the ap-
pointments to be such that the board
should always contain at least one
practical educator, one physician and
one lawyer. The trustees were en-
powered to select a director of the
school, who should be an expert edu-
Gator of defective youth, a hearing
man of sound learning and morals,
not under thirty nor over seventy
years of age, and practically ac-
quainted with the school manage
ment and class instruction of the
deaf, blind and feeble-minded.
If the parent, guardian or next
friend of any defective youth residing
in the state, is, by reason of poverty,
unable to pay the cost of transporting
such youth to and from the school,
then on satisfactory proof of such in
ability being presented to the county
commissioners in the county where
such youth resides, they shall issue to
the parent or guardian a certificate
ordering the county to pay the ex-
pense of such transportation.
A law was passed in 1890 requir-
ing the clerks of all school districts
in the state to report to the school
superintendents of their counties the
names of all deaf youth residing
within their respective districts who
are between the ages of six and twen-
ty-one years. The county school SUI
perintendent shall then report to the
county commissioners the names of
all such youth on the first day of
July of each year and shall transmit
a duplicate copy to the superintend-
ent of the state school,
The sum of 100000 was appro-
priated by the legislature to sustain
the school, but no provisions for the
purchase of ground or the erection of
suitable buildings were made. To
meet this emergency several public
spirited members of the Vancouver
Board of Trade collected funds suffi-
cient to purchase 100 acres of land
and to build a small plain building.
The property was afterward exchang-
ed for seventeen acres of land, and in
1887 the present main building was
erected. The school building for the
feeble minded was erected about a
half-mile distant, and what Is now
the School for the Blind was erected
in 1891.
On April 1st, 1901, the School for
Defective Youth came under the con-
troll and jurisdiction of the State
Board of Control, the present Govern
or, Ernest Lister, then being chair
man of that board. In its first re-
port of this institution to the legisla-
ture, the board made a recommends
tion that the feeble-minded children
be removed to another location and
that the deaf children be located in
one building and the blind children
be moved to the building vacat-
ed by the feeble-minded. All
of this recommendation has since
been carried out, although not
adopted at that time, and the
governor can look back with satisfac-
tion and feel that his advice at that
time has been considered sound.
At that time the population of the
blind was so small that it was felt
that the one superintendent over both
the deaf and the blind would be suffi-
cient. There were employed, five
teachers for the deaf, while one
teacher was all that was required for
the blind. The feeble-minded were
transferred to Medical Lake in May,
1906, and at the same time the blind
children were transferred to the
building vacated by them, and the
deaf remained in the location which
they at the present time occupy.
On January 1st, 1906, Thomas P.
Clarke was appointed as superintend-
ent of the School for the Deaf and the
Blind, and he still remains as super
intendent of the School for the Deaf
The Board of Control in 1909 rec
ommended that the deaf and the
blind be placed under separate heads,
and this was done, in way, yet the
law of segregation was not passed un-