SCHOOL FOR DEAF

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23587, 14 March 1942, Page 8

SCHOOL FOR DEAF

* QUESTION OF REOPENING

CHOICE OF NEW SITE URGED

The urgent need to continue the work of the Scnool for the Deaf and to reassemble the children, about 140 ini number, enrolled in the school, though preferably not at Sumner, was stressed yesterday by Dr. T. A, Mac Gibbon, advisory doctor to the League for the Hard of Hearing, when he criticised the action of the central committee of the Emergency Precautions Services in opposing the reassembling of the pupils. Dr. Mac Gibbon said that he and many who took an interest in the work being done for the totally deaf children of the Dominion were agreed that Sumner was not a suitable place for the school to be established even in normal times, but especially in time of war; he said that there was a private school, attended by few pupils and not serving any very useful purpose in the community, that might well be taken over by the Government in this time of emergency to be converted into a school for the deaf and to be retained permanently as such a school. This school, he said, was not far away and was in an ideal situation. "Normal children taken away from school in time of war will lose a certain amount of time from their education, which they can quickly make up later,” Dr, Mac Gibbon said. “They are also able to pick up an appreciable amount of useful knowledge from their parents and people round about them. But the totally deaf child taken away from his training and his similarly handicapped companions receives no help from bis parents and the people round him, because they are not trained in lip-reading, loses much of the good efject of his training, and rapidly develops anti-social traits.” Dr. Mac Gibbon said that he had approached Emergency Precautions Services officials and had given them the reasons for his strong opposition to the idea of keeping the children away from school. He said also that he had held a telephone conversation yesterday with Dr. C. E. Beeby, Director of Education. “He assured me,” he said, "that he agreed with my reasons for the continuation of the school, and that it was the intention of the Government to reopen the school somewhere.” E.P.S, Committee's Views “We have already sent a letter to the Minister for Education covering our telegram and explaining that we oppose the reassembling of the School for the Deaf at Sumner, but that we do not oppose the reassembling of the School for the Deaf somewhere else.” said Mr W. Machin, chairman of the organising executive of the Emergency Precautions Services, when he commented on the criticism made by Dr. T. A. Mac Gibbon. "We are. in fact, most anxious that the school should be reassembled somewhere else." he continued, “but it is not our business to tell the Government what locality should be chosen.”