Trouble Is Everywhere

There's a thing going around right now where certain government have decided to move to a charity-based model on public services such as libraries, schools, hospitals, and services for vulnerable populations such as disabled people.

Funny this should come up right now when I've been examining the impact of funding-related decisions such as this on educational facilities for students with disabilities in the late 19th Century. You know, when a lot of Victorians got together and went "This whole funding of public services such as libraries, schools, hospitals, and services for vulnerable populations such as disabled people needs to stop being charity based and come out of taxes."

Funding based on charity appeals is not just bad for Institutions, and it is not just bad for the people served by these Institutions. It also has long-term problems for society.

So, let's talk about my area of expertise: residential-based schooling for children with disabilities.

When the Asylum for the Blind needed to struggle constantly for money, a large part of their activities were based on, in essence, begging for money to support the school. They were constantly having to turn down applicants because they didn't have the funding to take on any more students. They couldn't effectively budget because charitable fundraising is always a crap-shoot that could end up with far too little money to feed the children in their care. They were very limited in what new programs they could introduce, had limited success in retaining teaching staff, and were unable to send their staff to other Institutions to learn how to teach blind students.
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I was checking a date on Wikipedia and discovered that - shocking! - there is wrong information on Wikipedia about the foundation of the CNIB. And then I realised that in all my reading I hadn't actually seen anything official about the relationship between Halifax and the foundation of the CNIB. And then I realised I really want to write a paper on the foundation of the CNIB. (I mean, seriously - the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online has a good bio of Fraser but somehow fails to mention that he basically pulled a lot of strings on the CNIB, as the initial Board of 13 members had 7 alumni from the Halifax Asylum for the Blind. The letters... Oh, internets, the letters I have to and from Fraser are just goldmines that apparently no one else has looked at since they were sorted, and that is both a crime and a golden opportunity for me!)

Of course, I really want to do it because Wikipedia is RONG RONG RONG and I want to fix it, and I can't do that with unpublished sources at the Nova Scotia Archives. I must, obviously, write and publish something. The sooner the better.

(As I said on twitter earlier - right thing to do! wrong reasons to do it! Ah well, whatever gets words on pages, right?)

I still also need to get my sweet self out to Fredericton, NB, because the official description of the Deaf fonds out there is not terrible illuminating and merely hints at more Dire Things having gone on when The Principal Formerly Known As Principal 2 (Woodbridge) left the Halifax Institution and went there to start a school.

In 1883 the Institution was destroyed by fire, but the next year a new structure was built on the old site, which, in turn, fell victim to the flames in 1897. For the next five years, the school was located in Old Government House. A commission, headed by Jeremiah H. Barry, was established in 1902 to investigate the finances and administrative practices of the school. The commission reported that Principal Woodbridge had mixed his own finances with those of the school and that the Institution's debts were nearly double its assets. In addition, students testified before the commission that they had been physically and emotionally abused by teachers and administrators. In December 1902 Principal A. F. Woodbridge resigned his post, and soon after government officials closed the school's doors.

For example, this somehow fails to mention that the fire was allegedly set by either Woodbridge or one of the rival schools in New Brunswick (there was a thing), and also fails to mention someone in the New Brunswick Legislature fiercely defending Woodbridge from allegations so heinous as to not be mentionable in the Legislature, while assuring everyone that the girl in question was probably lying and anyway she left. Nothing suspicious there at all.

Anyway, the latest draft of my SSHRC has been sent off to Dr. T & Dr. B., so hopefully they will work their editing magic it on it. (Or, even better, it will not need editing magic! But that is unlikely.)