On the first of February, 1850, the Asylum was opened for the reception of pupils in a rented building, and the first pupil came on February 6. Others followed until on the 18th of April there were twelve-eleven deaf mutes and one blind. The second session began in September with an enrollment of twenty-one pupils, seventeen deaf mutes and four blind.

In 1867 the legislature changed the name of the institution to "The Michigan Institution for educating the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind."

In 1879 the legislature established a school for the blind at Lansing and the Michigan School for the Deaf at Flint became the institution for educating the deaf and dumb only.

Buildings and Equipment. The Michigan School for the Deaf owns 388 acres of land. About thirty acres are used for the buildings, campus, lawns, playgrounds, and ornamental spaces. The remainder is under cultivation. The farm is used for the double purpose of supplying the school with all sorts of farm products and for teaching agriculture to the boys who are taking that course. The school farm grows most of the food stuff used, all the meat, milk and vegetables.

The four main buildings which were built in 1857 were completely destroyed by fire on May 22, 1912. Since then a new administration building has been erected at a cost of $175,000. It is used as a dormitory for all pupils and contains the offices and the hospital. The other important buildings are Turner Hall (an industrial building), Honor Cottage (a small dormitory), Brown Hall (the school building), the farm cottages and barns.

The children have fine playgrounds and all kinds of excellent play apparatus. They have swings, teeters, slides, trapezes, giant stride-in fact, everything to play with.

The school has a fine athletic field with an oval one-fifth mile cinder track with football and baseball field inside. One side of the oval is extended into a straightaway 220 yards long. Few schools of any rank have better athletic facilities or more beautiful grounds.

The Institution has its own power plant, its own electric light plant, its own water plant, its own ice plant. The children have access to a library of 6000 volumes.

Life at the School for the Deaf. In a public school, a child who cannot hear well loses his interest, becomes inattentive, and often gets credit for being stupid when he is not stupid. The children in the School for the Deaf at Flint are just as bright as any other set of children and they are just like any other equal number of children that might be congregated anywhere, except that they cannot hear. There are some that are very bright and quick-some of them not so bright. Some are good and others are full of mischief. Some are diligent and some are lazy. Some need to be corrected and others do not. They are hearty, happy, healthy, wholesome boys and girls. A child who is crippled cannot be admitted. A child who is feeble-minded cannot be admitted. They make about the same progress and have the same studies and do the same things in about the same way, that children do in the public schools. They are taught to speak, to carry on a conversation, to read the lips, to read books, to write. They learn arithmetic, grammar, history, and geography, and in addition every boy has to learn a trade and every girl has to learn to keep house. After an age that will average fourteen, the boys spend half the school time in the shops learning a trade and the girls spend half their time in learning to keep house.

A boy may learn to be a carpenter, printer, shoemaker, tailor, baker or farmer, as he or his parents may choose. Every girl must learn to cook and sew and wash and darn and patch and do all the things that are necessary for a housewife to do. Every boy when he graduates has a trade at which he can earn his living and every girl has learned to keep house. A great deal of attention is paid to the teaching of agriculture to the boys. Particular stress is laid on the arts of market gardening and general farming. The other trades are also practically and efficiently taught.

It is hard for hearing people to understand how difficult it is for deaf children to learn to speak. Every hearing child learns to speak in his infancy by imitating the speech of those who are around him. If a hearing child lived on a desert island with no human society, he would not know how to speak. He would have no language. Every deaf child is in the same situation. He has never heard his name. At first, he does not know his own name, or that he has a name. It takes a great deal of pains, patience, and skill to teach the deaf child to talk. He has to be shown by the use of a mirror, and by imitating the teacher, just how every elementary sound is made, and because he cannot hear himself, he does not know when it is correct. After long training, and a great deal of patience and skill, he learns the elementary sounds, then learns to combine them into words, then the meaning of the word. Deaf children ten or twelve years old are not so far advanced in books as hearing children of the same age. In some ways a deaf child in Michigan has an advantage over a hearing child, because a deaf child learns a trade in school. The hearing child has no such opportunity. The Governor of our state said not long age something to the effect that a child in Michigan to have the best chance for an education must be defective in some of his senses.

The children all live in the school. During the year of 1914-15 there were 337 of them between the ages of seven and twenty in school. The purpose of the school is to take care of these children, to see that they are kept clean and clothed, healthy and safe, so that they are contented and that they make considerable progress in education. These children are very happy. Their cares and sorrows are very few. Much is done for them. They have fine quarters, good food, medical attention, etc. In fact, they are looked after in every way. The children sleep in nice little white single beds, which are always kept scrupulously clean. Every child, boy or girl, after he gets old enough, has to make up and care for his own bed. There are from fifteen to eighteen of these little beds in each one of the sunny, well-ventilated rooms. In each of the little girls' rooms, a hearing person sleeps. The building in which they sleep is absolutely fireproof so far as a building can be made. It is built of steel, brick and concrete. It is very substantial and very well arranged.

These children have plenty of plain, well-cooked nourishing food. They have meat and dessert once a day; they drink a great deal of milk. About one hundred gallons of rich Ayrshire milk is produced from the herd daily and the children drink it all.

Michigan is a generous state. All these things are done for the deaf children without any cost to the parents. The state pays for everything. People often think that the deaf are unhappy and morose. The contrary is true. There is no set of children in Michigan that have more fun, that play more heartily and that are happier than the deaf children.

The school has all sorts of athletic teams. It always has an excellent football team. They generally win because they get into the play much more quickly than hearing boys can. Each signal is made by signs. Both boys and girls play basket ball and they have baseball teams and volley ball teams