Court Opinion

ID: 9762038
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:09:04.576757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:29.605170
License: Public Domain

*121Dissenting Opinion by
Mb. Justice Musmanno :
In affirming the decision of the lower Court which awarded the fund under consideration to the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, instead of to the School of the Friends for the Deaf, the Majority Opinion points out that the favored institution is a boarding school. What the Majority regards as an advantage to the children who are to benefit from the largesse of the testator Peter W. Glasé, I deem to be a disadvantage.
It must be kept in mind that Peter Glasé bequeathed the money here involved to the “Home for the Training in Speech of Deaf Children Before They Are of School Age.” He had in mind the education of deaf children of tender age. He knew that a deaf child must begin to receive instruction as soon as its brain comprehends the concept of communication and the reception of thought. Much damage can be done to the faculty of comprehension if instruction is delayed until such time as a consciousness of infirmity begins to gnaw at the child’s spirit and will. Considerable harm can be done to a deaf child when its untutored parents attempt to teach the child by primitive signs and gestures. If the prop to which a sapling is bound is itself crooked, the sapling cannot grow straight. Professional guidance cannot be imparted too soon to deaf children. Miss Emma Garret, eminent teacher of deaf children and the first principal of the Bala School, was of the opinion, as testified to by Dr. Myer, that “education of a deaf child for language development should begin at the time that it was normal for any child to begin language development, namely, at the age of approximately one year — one and one-half — two years.”
The Majority Opinion assumes that the Friends of the Deaf School is not as well equipped to teach deaf children as the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf because it is a day school. But therein lies its virtue. The *122parents take the child to the school and remain with it for three or four hours’ instruction per day and then take it home again. The parent is taught at the same time as the child. The mother or father is told what should and what should not be done. The child thus also continues to receive the love, affection and care which only parents can properly bestow and without which the child suffers a disadvantage that nothing can overcome.
The Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, as excellent and exemplary an institution as it is, does not measure up to what Peter Glasé had in mind when he bequeathed funds to a “Home for the Training in Speech of Deaf Children Before They Are of School Age.” This institution is a boarding school and requires that the child remain within its walls 24 hours a day. Furthermore, up until the present it never accepted children under the age of 4. A two- or three-year old child is too tender in body and spirit to become the inmate of a boarding school. It is too delicate in structure to undergo the routine of collective living which can only bruise, instead of strengthen, the self-reliance which a child, especially a handicapped one, must learn early. Although a child cannot be too young to be educated in the rudiments of transmission and reception. of thought, it must, while still a tot, have the continuing protection of its parents.
The best school for a deaf infant is one which does hot tax its capacity to understand and which allows for a wise and properly balanced intermixture of professional tutelage and parental care. The school of the Friends for the Deaf is ideal in this regard. '
It is not of minor importance also to note that percentage-wise, the intentions of Peter Glasé would be more faithfully respected by awarding the fund to the Friends school where at least 90%- of every dollar *123would be spent on what he intended to provide for, namely, education, that is, teachers, salaries, auditory equipment, hearing aids and concomitant devices used in modern teaching methods. On the contrary, of the amount given to the Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, the greatest percentage of every dollar must be spent on the maintenance of buildings, on heat, light, and repairs and on the purchase of food and clothing.
In conclusion I would say that while I have only respect and admiration for all those who have considered the delicate problems which this case has presented in providing for children around whom tragic fate has erected a towering wall shutting off from them the world symphony of music and voice, I still regret that in distributing the munificence of Peter W. Glasé, the Friends of the Deaf did not receive a share of the funds left for the friends of the deaf.