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The new educational method which brings the school to the student has been used Successfully by some of our severely disabled readers. It is the School-to-Home telephone equipment developed by Executone, Inc., and furnished by the Bell Telephone System and independent companies nationally. The student at home is provided with an electronic intercommunication unit similar to those used in offices but specially engineered for use with telephone lines. He speaks through the home unit by pressing the "talk-bar." His voice carries over private telephone lines and is received by the unit in the classroom. He hears the discussions in the classroom between his teacher and the other students. He "attends" school. Unlike correspondence courses, telephone work counts toward residence requirements. For some, trying it in high school has been the "bridge" which led to attending college.

Eager students report the cost less than transportation. Depending upon the established rates in the area and the distance involved, the monthly rental charges for the service provided by the telephone companies average between $13 and $25 per month. Most State Education Departments accept this method and more than 38 states reimburse for part or all of the cost. The Veterans Administration has financed telephone studies for some.

Leader of the crusade for education by telephone is Mr. J. A. Richards, educational director of Executone, Inc. He is chairman of the "Education for the Handicapped by Telephone Committee" which is located at 415 Lexington Avenue, New York 17, N.Y. One of the main objectives of the committee is to work with handicapped students in persuading schools and colleges to enroll severely disabled students. Write to Mr. Richards for personal assistance and information on technique, costs and financing, and suggestions for overcoming initial professorial skepticism.

USED TELEPHONE THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL, NOW ATTENDS COLLEGE, USING IRON LUNG AT NIGHT AND A PORTABLE LUNG DURING THE DAY

by Thomas E. Meath, Jr.

Just after starting fifth grade, I contracted polio. In the hospital some effort was made to continue my education. Then, returning home, I received home instructions along with a telephone intercom at the local high school. All through high school I had a home teacher for one subject, while I took my other subjects over the telephone. This system worked well especially since there were no students living in my area to carry test papers, etc., between the school and myself. Thus, the home teacher was my liaison. I had a great deal of help from the thoughtful considerate teachers, and faculty members as well as fellow students. With their help, I completed high school in four years instead of three and graduated in the top 5% of a class of 660.

Before college, I went out rarely. For the most part, my parents transported me. Friends, Resources Unlimited -- an organization for the handicapped -- and boys hired by ads have also taken me out. Now I get out five days a week.

Since September, 1960, I have been attending Fairfield University, Conn., in person. My ability to adjust to life in college now is, I am quite sure, a direct result of using the telephone in high school and adapting myself gradually to the hectic outside world. Actually when I started using the telephone, it was one of the biggest challenges of my life to push the switch and break into the class. I became used to it, however. Looking back now, I am very glad it happened. The experience forced me to compete and accept my disadvantages.

My day starts around 6:15 A.M. when a woman, whom we have hired, comes in to prepare me for the day. I leave the house at 8 A.M. in a V.W. bus with a student driver. In school, I ask various people to help me with notes, going from class to class, lunch, etc. After lunch I use my pneumobelt until 1 P.M. and return home about 1:45 P.M. I rest and do homework until 6:30 P.M. Then I go into the lung, eat dinner, either read or watch TV, and finally retire about 10 P.M.

My left leg has an unusable little motion. I use a mouth piece stick for reading and typing. Typing is very slow. So I rarely type, if at all. An electric page turner takes the place of a reading rack when I am in the lung.

I plan to major in Psychology, with the hope that I will become self-supporting after I get the required education.

FIRST INTERCOM STUDENT AT COLUMBIA U.

by Philip Smith, Jr.

I started using the telephone when I was 17 and still in high school. I was apprehensive at first due to my comparative isolation for three years; I feared that it would mean a stricter and more demanding schedule than the much more informal and relaxed tutorial method which I had been using.

In retrospect the telephone hookup appears clearly as a revolution in my life. For the first time since I got polio I was able to talk regularly with people my own age. I went to some parties, which I enjoyed. I woke up. My interest and ambition were awakened.

Now I am in my fifth year at Columbia University. I was their first student by intercom and used it for three years. Now I attend in a wheelchair. I use a chestpiece at night only. I hope to graduate in June, 1962 as a Mathematics major and go on to do graduate work and to teach on the college level.

FULL TIME RESPO ON ROAD TO FINANCIAL INDENENDENCE

by Bob Rubin

Three years after polio I started "attending" Long Beach State College in California by telephone. In August, 1959, we moved to Denver, Colorado. We made arrangements to attend Denver University by phone. The 'talk-bar' is adapted so that I can operate it with my head. I have a transcriber-dictaphone, also operated by my head, which enables me to take notes as I hear the lectures over the speaker. All written work is dictated. I have a good reading board; I use a mouthstick for turning pages.

I have found this setup very adequate and would recommend it as a device far above tutoring. The cost is surprisingly nominal. In my case, it is $13 a month. That is less than it would cost for gasoline to drive to school.

I am now in my senior year and will graduate June, 1962. My field of interest is in psychology, with emphasis on Counseling and Guidance. I plan to get a master's degree.

People sometimes get the idea this (going to college) is a therapeutic thing to keep your mind busy. I think it will lead to financial independence.

CAREER IN GERIATRICS COUNSELING

by Audrey Johnson

Using the telephone system, I graduated from high school in 1958, at the top spot in a class of over 600. I received a number of scholarship offers and enrolled at Kalamazoo College in Michigan.

My folks hire a girl to be a companion and help me dress, etc., so that I can live on campus. I have a classmate in each class who takes notes for me by my providing carbon paper and paper and thus get a carbon copy of their notes. I take my exams orally; I have a special lab assistant who is paid by the hour to dissect, etc. for me. I use a dictaphone and hire a typist for long papers. I can hardly manage more than a page of typing on my electric typewriter. I just lack energy. Even then, being spastic -- because of cerebral palsy -- I hit many wrong letters.

I hope to do graduate work and to do counseling in a hospital or home, perhaps a geriatrics home.

LEARNED ACCOUNTING THROUGH THE "MAGIC BOX"

by Edmund P. Barry

As the result of spinal bifida, I have been a paraplegic since birth. I was tutored at home until my senior year of high school. Then I was introduced to the "magic box" which took me through four years at St. Thomas College in Minnesota by telephone. I was awarded a degree with honors in June,1959 in Accounting and I am now engaged in the practice of accounting with my father.

THE VETERANS ADMINISTRATION FINANCED the telephone studies of Robert I. Mitchell of Long Island, N.Y. Last June he received his degree magma curs laude from C. W. Post College. 44-year old Bob is married and has two children. He got polio in Newfoundland in 1953 while he was in the Air Corps. Now he has only the use of his hands. He operates an insurance business from his hone and plans to get a M.A.

THE SKEPTICISM OF HIS LOCAL COLLEGES did not deter Jerry Lee McClain. Stricken by muscular dystrophy when he was five, he was tutored at home, taken to a special school, and started the Executone method in high school. He graduated with honors and received several scholarships, which he could not accept because the two local colleges in Indianapolis felt the intercom system could not be set up for college work. Newspaper stories of his high school successes reached officials of Indiana Central College and changed their decision about accepting Jerry as a telephone student. He plans to complete his college work in three years, to enroll in the Indiana U. Law School, and eventually do research for a law firm.

GRADUATED FROM JOHN MARSHALL LAW SCHOOL in Chicago last June, Edward Fiori, Jr. plans to practice law with his father. Ed has been a paraplegic since he was 12, when a blood clot developed in his spinal cord. He has not attended school in 14 years, but in that time he graduated from high school, DePaul University, and law school -- using the telephone.

SOME "GO" TO COLLEGE IN IRON LUNGS. . . .

Ann Platte of Houston, Texas, "attends" daily classes at the University of St. Thomas by telephone from her iron lung. Her mother sits by her and turns the pages, operates the speaker button, and takes her dictation.

From his hospital, Charles Parry of Shreveport, Louisiana, used the telephone hookup to Centenary College. Each day a different student went to the hospital to "listen in."

Martha Mason topped them all when she took her lung to campus. She and her mother and the lung moved into a men's dormitory at Gardner-Webb College, North Carolina. A telephone hookup was made between her room and the classrooms. "That," Martha said, "was lots of fun." She also achieved a 97 average.

LL.B. BY CORRESPONDENCE, TELEPHONE AND ATTENDANCE

by Floyd "Mike" McBurney, Jr.

I utilized three methods of obtaining an education: correspondence, telephone and attendance. The telephone system worked out well as a transition from my correspondence to my residence work.

I was a Sociology graduate, Phi Beta Kappa, from the University of Wisconsin. I am again using the telephone hookup to "attend" the Law School there, since its construction is decidedly unfriendly to wheelchairs. After graduation I plan to practice law with my father.

My vital statistics: 6'4"; 185 lbs.; 22 years old; broke neck (C-5) six years ago, just before senior year in high school; less charitable friends allege dive off pier also adversely affected brain.