The Founding of the Louisiana School for the Deaf

Before 1838, wealthy families provided tutors for their deaf children or paid tuitions for the children to attend a school for the deaf outside Louisiana.

The 1838 Louisiana legislature passed an act on January 16, 1938 to provide state supported education of deaf children in Louisiana. As a result of this act, eleven children from Louisiana were enrolled at the Kentucky School for the Deaf.

In 1852, a member of the General Assembly, Mr. Francis Dubose Richardson, introduced a bill. The purpose of the bill was to provide $25,000 and empowered a Board of Administrators to oversee the establishment of the “Louisiana Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and the Blind.” The bill was passed on March 1852 and approved by the Governor. The seven board members were authorized to buy land, make contracts, or do whatever was necessary to begin the school.

The first school was the formerly Baton Rouge College (located where the Mayflower campus is). The board recruited James S. Brown from the Indiana Asylum of the Deaf and Dumb as superintendent. On December 8, 1852, the eleven Louisiana students and Mr. Brown arrived in Baton Rouge.

Notable achievements during the years 1852 – 1860 were completion of the state Administration Building which was acclaimed as one of the most elaborate and elegant buildings for that era, the hiring of a woman teacher, and including vocational training as part of the students’ program.

The new Administration Building was completed in 1858 and stood for ninety-nine years, Money was appropriated for the purchase of a printing press and fonts, thus printing as a vocational skill began. A carpenter on campus was enlisted to teach carpentry skills.

In 1860, the school had sixty students. By 1862, there were seventy-two students. As the war drew closer to Baton Rouge, the only ones at the school were the orphans. Early in 1862, gunboats were sighted on the Mississippi as they made their way to Vicksburg where General Grant and his army were fighting. The school was an easy target. It is said that a cannon ball shot through the wide ball and landed at the rear of the school. The front facade was shot at many times before Principal Martin and Matron Mary Dufrocq could run the half-mile to the riverbank and beg the commander of the fleet to save the school. The soldiers were ordered to stop shooting and ordered to convert the school into a hospital to care for the federal soldiers that became ill in the swamps near Vicksburg.

In January 1863, the federal troop again seized Baton Rouge and the school, using the building for hospital purposes again. Schooling continued. The soldiers ruined the printing equipment. But one advantage – General Augur permitted full rations to the school. From 1863 – 1867, the children had enough food and fuel.

On October 15, 1869, a fire destroyed the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy at Pineville. After the fire, Governor Warmoth asked the board and Administrators and Superintendent J.A. McWhorter for the use of half of the school building for the Seminary.

Major John Patton, professor of Greek at Louisiana State University, was appointed superintendent. Among his first tasks, was to arrange for the deaf students to be removed to another location. The old Heroman Building on Church and Florida Streets (opposite the former State-Times and Morning Advocate building) became the third location of the school.

In 1884, there were only fifty-six students and Dr. John Jastremski was appointed superintendent. Dr. Jastremski assumed superintendence in 1885. He immediately appointed Edith S. Rambo who was trained at the Clarke School for the Deaf as the first oral teacher. The Deaf Mute Pelican, the forerunner of The Pelican, began publication in 1859. In 1892, the print shop and sewing department were enlarging. Carpentry, cabinet making, and glazing were taught. In 1892, another articulation teacher was hired and a shoe shop installed.

The 1898 act separated the two schools, set up two boards, and specified that the children receive a good education, instruction in hygiene and physical culture (physical education), and industrial training. Basketball was bought for the girls and the boys played football.

Superintendent S.T. Walker lobbied for changing “The Louisiana Institute for the Deaf and Dumb.” On July 8, 1908, a bill changing the name to the Louisiana School for the Deaf became law.

The goal has been to prepare the students for full, useful and happy lives in the surroundings they find themselves after finishing school.

SOURCE: One Hundred Years of Education Progress