[nagdu] History of Seeing Eye's fee

[Angie Matney]

Hi everyone,

The fee at Seeing Eye has been the same since 1934. It fluctuated a bit during the first five years of the school's history. This excerpt from Love in the Lead discusses the fee, the reason for it, and the reason it was decreased to $150.

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          Certain fundamentals had already been established.  Happily, The Seeing Eye did not include the condescending phrase, "for the blind," in its title.  It had been consciously
conceived, not as a charity, but as a service to provide guide dogs to deserving blind people at cost.  The development of the school's financial policy involved trial and error.  From the first, students of means were expected to pay for their dogs.  
Others were asked to contribute what they could to the revolving fund from the increased earnings their dogs made possible.  In the early years the estimated cost of a dog fluctuated between $170 and $375.  Since most blind people at that time 
would have found even the lower figure beyond their means, the school
encouraged the granting of scholarships by individuals, clubs or groups.  The final selection of applicants was reserved to the school, but donors could nominate candidates of their choosing, and at first they were permitted to know who had 
received their scholarships.  Unfortunately, one service club was so delighted with its generosity that it continually reminded both the
recipient and the community at large who had paid for his Seeing Eye dog.  He was expected to repay the club, not only with his gratitude, but with the donation of his services as a pianist at the club's meetings.  He felt his situation was humiliating, 
and to prevent any recurrence with future graduates, the school kept the identity of all scholarship recipients in strict confidence.             As the school's financial resources increased, the practical need for student payments diminished, but The 
Seeing Eye continued to ask its students to assume some financial
obligation for their dogs.  Morris did not want students "to look upon our work as something due them, accepted in the same spirit as favors received from other blind organizations.  In 1933, a new contract requiring the students to pay $300 for a dog
specified that the actual cost was "at least twice the price quoted."  In 1934, the amount to be paid was reduced to $150.  Ibby Hutchinson put it, "No individual or organization can
relieve the student of this obligation, for if he is unwilling to accept it, he is apt to be unsuccessful with a Seeing Eye dog."  Willi Ebeling had an historical perspective.  "Blind people have for centuries been prime objects of charity.  They have many 
of them become used to the idea that people give things to them, and they have therefore relaxed their own efforts to do things for themselves.  When a student undertakes to repay $150 for his dog, more often than not he is for the first time 
recognizing his capacity to do something for himself."  This was a revolutionary concept among workers for the blind in that day, and it took time for the dog people and the blind people to agree that it was good for blind students to be challenged.  It 
represented a sharp break with tradition.