1908.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT - No. 27. 25 can furnish the Director with real help. They have just responded splendidly, both as organizations and as individuals, to a request to send in personal data which the office has already entered upon special record cards. We are gratified to be able to state that periodicals conducted in the interests of the blind have lately appeared in our country, all of them filling a want which has long been urgent. These are The Outlook for the Blind, a quarterly printed in common type, The Matilda Ziegler Magazine, The Christian Record, monthlies in embossed type, and The Milwaukee Weekly Times, also in embossed type. At the close of the school year in June six teachers and the matron of the main building at South Boston voluntarily left our employ. All of these had given us years of faithful and efficient service, Mrs. Carlton, the matron, fourteen such years. The Perkins Institution has been fortunate in having good matrons. We presented last year, as we have said, the urgent need which the Perkins Institution has to undergo radical reconstruction in the suburbs, and we called attention to our need of money for this purpose. We then supposed that during the year we might seek financial assistance from the state, as was done the previous year. But the times forbade such a request. However, we have acquired some little funds for the rebuilding. Upon our presenting the needs of the institution to the usual donors to its kindergarten department we induced these friends of the blind to make their contributions without restriction. $5950.50 have come in, and a few large donors have removed restrictions 26 INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND. [Oct. from sums given in other years and not already consumed in running expenses. Thus have been added $9500. The late George F. Parkman has bequeathed to the Perkins Institution an amount stated to be $50,000, and the recently ascertained residue from the J. Putnam Bradlee estate has added to the funds of the institution $143,000 in cash, together with some stocks and bonds, and an equal sum to its kindergarten. Other bequests and donations of the kind are urgently needed before we can be free to begin the actual preparations for rebuilding. We cannot doubt that our friends who learn of our needs will speedily come to our aid in the way indicated, for as the Perkins Institution has been a source of pride to our community in the past so must it continue to be always. The appeal which was sent out along with the report to all annual contributors to the kindergarten and to members of the Ladies' Auxiliary Society is here given. PERKINS INSTITUTION AND MASSACHUSETTS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND. SOUTH BOSTON, 1908. The great work of Dr. Howe in the education of the blind has been nobly supplemented by the establishment of the kindergarten for younger children upon a liberal basis by Mr. Anagnos. So great was the zeal of Mr. Anagnos, ably seconded by the help of the Ladies' Auxiliary, that the gifts and legacies to the Perkins Institution secured by them have of late years been mostly restricted to the use of the kinder 1908.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT - No. 27. 27 garten. By the receipt of a large legacy last autumn the kindergarten is now endowed for all needs of the near future. The upper school at South Boston, on the contrary, is greatly in need of funds. It is barely able to make both ends meet. It is overcrowded, without room for playgrounds, inconvenient for administration, incapable of adaptation to the standard of modern schools for the blind, hampered by a high building with many stairs and not fire-proof. Dr. Howe contemplated its removal to the country and actually inspected various sites with that object in view. It is the unanimous opinion of the Trustees that it must be moved to better quarters as soon as possible. Economy and efficiency of management will ultimately necessitate the bringing together of both departments. Any such change of the kindergarten, when found necessary, can be made with funds now in hand. Under these circumstances the Trustees, deeply grateful for your past aid to the kindergarten, feel that they have no right to ask for further gifts at the present time to that department; but the very children who have enjoyed modern advantages there, pass, while still of tender years, to the higher school at South Boston, where there is now need as urgent as that which stirred Mr. Anagnos twenty-one years ago to devote his untiring energies to the little children. We earnestly appeal to you, therefore, to continue your assistance to these children after their promotion by sending your gift, and urging others to do the same, to the corporation without restrictions of any sort, so that it may be applied where there is the greatest need and where it will do the most good. The expenses of the proposed development will be large and we shall be very grateful for donations large or small. 28 INSTITUTION FOR THE BLIND. [Oct. This appeal is made after consultation with the Ladies' Visiting Committee to the kindergarten and with their hearty approval. For the Trustees, EDWARD E. ALLEN, Secretary. For the Ladies' Visiting Committee to the Kindergarten, Mrs. JOHN CHIPMAN GRAY, President. I trust that this appeal will meet with a prompt and generous response from the friends of the blind and the lovers of humanity. JULIA WARD HOWE. The number of blind persons registered in the several departments of the institution on the first of October, 1908, was 327, a gain of ten over the corresponding date of the previous year, representing the admission of 47 and the discharge of 37 in the course of the year. This enrolment includes 86 boys and 89 girls in the South Boston school and 62 little boys and 57 little girls in the Jamaica Plain departments. Besides the pupils there are 13 teachers, officers or other employees and 20 adult workers in the shop under our management. The general health has been good. Three pupils have died: one of blood poisoning, following erysipelas, one of cerebro-spinal meningitis, both at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and one of cerebral hemorrhage at the institution. 1908.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT - No. 27. 29 DEATH OF MEMBERS OF THE CORPORATION. Mrs. ELLEN SEARS, widow of Gen. John F. Anderson; Miss MARY E. CHEEVER; CHARLES H. DALTON; CHARLES PERKINS GARDINER, who was also a trustee of the institution; EDWARD JACKSON; ANDREW NICKERSON; JOHN S. PALMER of Providence; GEORGE F. PARK MAN; QUINCY A. SHAW; HENRY SIGOURNEY; Miss ELIZABETH DEXTER SOHIER; Mrs. EMILY S., widow of Mahlon D. Spaulding; RICHARD SULLIVAN; EUGENE VAN R. THAYER; RICHARD HARDING WELD; ANDREW C. WHEELWRIGHT; and Miss MARY WHITEHEAD. All of which is respectfully submitted by FRANCIS HENRY APPLETON, WILLIAM ENDICOTT, PAUL REVERE FROTHINGHAM, N. P. HALLOWELL, JAMES ARNOLD LOWELL, MARIAN CABOT PUTNAM, GEORGE H. RICHARDS, WILLIAM L. RICHARDSON, RICHARD M. SALTONSTALL, S. LOTHROP THORNDIKE, Trustees. |