This institution was the first to receive consideration, when the Legislature of 1842-43 laid a "tax of two mills on each one hundred dollars' worth of property in the State for the purpose of supporting a deaf and dumb asylum." The first form of this support was an appropriation of $200 to one James McLean, who was conducting a small school in Parke County. Then William Willard attracted by the tax levy, established a school in Indianapolis in 1844, and at the beginning of its second session this school was taken over by Indiana. Between 1844 and 1849 the attendance increased from 16 to 99. Tuition and board were furnished free to deaf-mutes of Indiana between the ages of ten and thirty years, the education including the teaching of a trade. The large building for the school east of the city, which served for more than fifty years, was first occupied October 2, 1850. The original cost was $30,000, but it was subsequently added to.