Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1880.djvu/74

72 from deterioration. The board asks for a deficiency appropriation of $37,000.

The detailed statement of the receipts and expenditures of the hospital for the last fiscal year, required by the act of June 4, 1880, is attached to the report of the board.

The number of pupils under instruction during the year was 128. Of these 79 were in the collegiate department, representing twenty-four States and the District of Columbia, and 49 were in the primary department.

The general health of the pupils has been good, and but one death has occurred.

Instruction in articulation has been continued with increasing success.

A diploma and silver medal were received from the Paris Universal Exposition of 1878, in recognition of the remarkable advance made by the collegiate department.

The president of the institution visited Europe during the summer for the purpose of attending an international convention of instructors of the deaf and dumb, held in Milan, Italy, early in September.

The receipts of the institution amounted to $53,522.06, and the expenditures to $52,290.37, of which $29,444.48 were for salaries and wages.

The estimates for next year are for current expenses and repairs $53,500, the same amount as that appropriated for the present year; and $15,242.07 for the completion of the gymnasium, the erection of a barn, cow-houses, etc., and for the improvement and inclosure of the grounds.

Congress at its last session made provision for the care and education of the feeble-minded children belonging to the District of Columbia, the expenses of the same to be defrayed out of the appropriation for the support of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. One applicant has been placed in the Pennsylvania Training School for Feeble-minded Children, at Media, near Philadelphia.

Twenty blind children belonging to the District of Columbia have been under instruction the past year in the Maryland Institution for the Blind, at Baltimore, as beneficiaries of the United States.

The whole number of patients in the hospital during the year was 1,119. The number in the hospital June 30, 1879, was 217; the number admitted during the year was 902; 139 died; 752 were discharged, leaving 228 in the hospital at the close of the last fiscal year. About two-thirds of the patients were colored persons.

Of those who were discharged, 585 are reported cured.

A dispensary has been carried on in connection with the hospital,