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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
 GEORGE   TAIT,

           A DEAF MUTE,

Who first  gave Instructions to the Deaf and
               Dumb in the

     CITY OF  HALIFAX.
Also an Extract from an American Paper on Teachers and
      Modes of Teaching the Deaf and Dumb.
ELEVENTH  ZEIDITIOZtST.
            HALIFAX, N. S.:
Printed by James Bowes <fe Sons, 125 Hollis Street.
                 1890. 
DONALDSON HOSPITAL FOR THE  DEAF  AND DUMB AND OTHERS.
EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND. 
     AUTOBIOGRAPHY

                   OF

  GEORGE    TAIT,

           A DEAF MUTE,

Who first gave Instructions  to the Deaf and
               Dumb in the

     CITY OF  HALIFAX.
Also an Extract from an American Paper on Teachers and
      Modes of Teaching the Deaf and Dumb.


     ELEVE1TTH EDITION.


              HALIFAX, N. S.:
  Printed by James Bowes & Sons, 125 Hollis Street.
                   1890. 
         vjZ.
        I oo


PREFACE.
     WHEN first I commenced to write this  little book 1 did so
     without the slightest intention  of  selling it; I wrote it
merely for my own amusement and the pleasure of giving it
to some of my friends who had desired me to do so.  But when
times became so hard, T was thrown completely out of employ-
ment and finding it impossible to procure work, I very unwill-
ingly made up my mind to sell rn}T book instead of giving it
away as I had intended doing.   I had no idea, however, that I
would have been favoured with such success, but owing to the
kind patronage of both strangers and friends, I have been en-
abled to sell a large number.
    In this, my eleventh edition, I have made a few slight altera-
tions, by inserting a few incidents of my life  omitted in  the
former editions, and adding  a brief account of my travels since
commencing to  sell the book.   I have also procured a  few
references, and as some doubt the validity  of my statement
concerning  ray  first starting  the Deaf and  Dumb School in
Halifax, I have obtained a passage from an  old paper in con-
.nection with that fact printed upon  the event of the school
first being started.*
    And here allow me to tender my most sincere thanks to all
those  who  have so  kindly and  benevolently assisted me by
purchasing my book.
                                           George  Tait.
   *Good  Again.—Mr.  Tait, the deaf mute young carpenter, who
has been mainly instrumental in getting up the  Deaf and Dumb
School, Argyle  Street,  informs  us  that he collected  from  the
benevolent in this City, during ten days, the handsome sum of £40,
to aid him  in the good cause.
              —Halifax. (X. S.) Chronicle, September 18th, 18oij. 
utobi
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Pbv   o'
vjfeorae
   I, George Tait, in accordance  with the wishes  of some of my
friends, proceed to write a brief history of my past life ; and my
sincere desire is to make the book sufficiently interesting to awaken
within the bosoms of any who may read it, an interest in the child
of silence.
   To begin my history where my life began, I shall invite my reader
to travel in imagination far across the broad Atlantic, to the heathery
hills of "Auld  Scotland," "where the kilted lads are born," and
visit the haunts of my early childhood.
   I was born in Caithness Shire, Scotland, in the year 1828.  My
father was a farmer, and consequently a thatched cottage and broad
green fields form the associations of my earliest rememberauce.  As
there were no fences inclosing my father's farm, it was necessary that
the cows and sheep should be herded, and as I was the  eldest son
and at that time the only one old enough to perform such a task, I
was  installed as herdsman; a position which I, however, looked
upon with no very favourable eye.  Ah !  I can well remember the
horror with which I looked upon  those long wearisome hours of
dreary watching and herding.  How I used to long for the sun to go
down, which was the welcome signal for me to return home with my
charge.   Had I been able  to read and thus amuse  myself and be-
guile those uncommonly long hours, herding cattle might not have
grown such  an inglorious occupation in my estimation.   However
as it was, I had to amuse  myself by  imagining  things  in  my own
untaught uncultivated mind  without  the aid of books  whereon to
meditate.  For instance, I used to think the moon was a hugh cheese,
and as it  decreased in size, I supposed without doubt that some
invisible person  was  cutting pieces of this imaginary cheese,  and
slowly devouring it; while the  Northern  Lights I supposed to be
creatures dancing in the heavens.  Indeed the heavenly  hosts used
to furnish a source of unfailing amusement for me, for I  was never
tired  of gazing  at.the myriads of twinkling sparkling stars, the
great blazing sun, and the pale majestic moon.   But it must not for
one moment be supposed that it was in my wicked nature to quietly
and uncomplainingly do my duty.   No, on the contrary, I used to
be continually devising all manner of plans to get elear of it.  My
favorite one  was to run off to my grandfather's a distance of about
two miles.  And my grandfather, who was very  fond of me,  was
always ready with a smile of welcome.  I  loved him dearly, and he
and I were strongly attached. 
4
   But while speaking of my grandfather, I must not forget to men-
tion my grandmother, and how she used to try to teach mo to read,
and tohonor the Sabbath day.   Ah ! how well I remember the large
old-fashioned Bible she used to love so much to read, and  how she
used to endeavor to teach me to love it too.  I used to look with
reverence upon that book, not because  I knew its inestimable value,
but because she placed such store by it.   I remember too that the
word " God" was printed in large capital letters.   She would show
me this, and with deep devotion glowing in her faded eyes,  point
upwards—thus I was at first led to understand that God was one far
above this earth, a being whom we are  to regard with reverence and
awe, and then  the look  of despair  that would come into  her eyes
when she saw how utterly useless it was for her to try to teach me
to read, I can well recollect, although at  that time I do not think
the thought troubled me much, for 1 could not see any particular
use in  my learning to read.  I  had  also a vague idea that I was the
only deaf and dumb person  in the world.  I sigh when I remember
those days of blissful ignorance when I knew nothing of this hard,
cruel world.   But although I cared so  much for grandfather, it did
not prevent me from often being very mischievous and thoughtless
at his expense.   And by way of illustrating how wicked are the
thoughts and  feelings of even  the most ignorant  of the depraved
and  fallen race of Adam, I will relate one or two of the schemes
which my mind suggested, as excellent means whereby to torment
my grandfather, and thereby create amusement for my own benefit.
   One day he was working in  his barn, and supposing that I was in
the field he carelessly threw his pea-jacket aside and went on with
his work, but I was in the barn, and not as he supposed in the field,
and  at the sight of the jacket  came the thought " what  a jolly
chance for a lark."   I always  wore a  short kilt, and I thought it
would be splendid to have a pair of pants,  so I took the jacket and
forcing my legs into the sleeves of it  prepared to have some fun,
but alas! to  my grief at that moment my  grandfather  caught  a
glimpse of me just as I was preparing to leave the barn and started
to take the jacket from me, but I had no intention of standing still
and quietly letting him deprive me of  all the pleasure  which I had
determined to have.  No, I would  make one  last bold effort for the
sake of the said lark, so as quick as thought  I set off at as great  a
speed as possible, considering  I had my legs  through the sleeves of
a jacket.  My grandfather  engaged in hot pursuit after me,  and I
venture to say there never was a more laughable sight.  He caught
me, however, and  took my new fashioned pants from me, but not
before we had a most delightful and invigorating run, in which run
I was rather surprised to see my grandfather engage with the utmost
suppleness, and seem to lose for the time all the stiffness of old age.
   My grandfather was also a  most notorious snuff-user.   Now this
black stuff always  reminded me of soot,  and supposing soot to be 
just as good (indeed I have not yet had cause to alter my opinion,)
I one day  took a little box and filled it from the chimney.  My
grandfather seeing me with  it, and  supposing  it to be some of his
beloved snuff,  took the box from  me with a sharp reproof for being
so mischievous, and  (without the slightest attempt on my  part  to
prevent him) emptied the contents of it into his own box, while  I,
all the time this was taking place, could hardly restrain my intense
amusement, and I went off laughing to myself when I thought  of
how my good  grandfather would look when he should discover his
mistake.  But it must not be supposed that I made my venerable
old grandfather the  subject of all my wicked  pranks, for  I was a
nuisance to those around me in general.
   Thus I lived on, sometimes staying  at my grandfather's, at other
times returning home and staying there awhile, until I reached the
age of twelve years,  when my father left the country with its green
fields and pleasant shady  lanes, and  moved into the crowded smoky
city of  Wick, where he kept a grocery store.    Not long after we
went there the minister  of the church which we attended called
upon us, and  seeing that I  was deaf told  my parents of an institu-
tion established  for the education of  the deaf and dumb.   They
were much  gratified on receiving this piece of  intelligence,  as  they
had never before heard of such an  institution,  but had  hitherto
looked upon me with a sort of  despair, supposing that there was no
means  whereby  I might  gain an  education;  and it was at  once
settled  that I should  go  to  school.  My  mother was soon busily
engaged in supplying every comfort that her mind could suggest  to
make me comfortable while at school.
   Soon all was ready and I was to start on my new career, little
thinking that  this was to be a turning  point in  my life, that thence-
forth the current of my  existence should run in entirely  another
direction, and would no longer flow on as it had hitherto  done,  in
quiet and undisturbed tranquility.
   Upon starting for school I was placed under the care of  a gentle-
man whose name  I do  not remember,  and  conveyed safely  to
Edinburgh, (about 200 miles  from my  home)  where the school
stood—tall and imposing.    It was well built of gray sandstone and
situated near the Donaldson Charity  Institution, a  splendid edifice
of white sandsone and  capable  of  accommodating  about  500  per-
sons, erected by a rich bachelor, named Donaldson
   When I reached the school I was kindly received by the Principal
a man who despite his 78  years, was still hearty and cheerful.  His
name was Mr. Kinneburg, and  he was at  one  time, I  believe a
minister of the church of England.
    He  was a very tall stout gentleman with a certain air of import-
ance about him which at once deeply impressed  my  young mind.
He  wore a very long-tailed black coat, knee breeches and  gaiters,
some large old-fashioned gold seals  suspended  on  a black ribbon 
G
dangled from his vest, and  two or three gold rings glittered on his
fingers.   Another thing I also noticed was that  one of his little
fingers was missing.  I afterwards learned that this was due to some
of his own mischief, and it seemed strange to me that  this strict.
important looking  gentleman should ever have  been  a mischievous
little  urchin  like  ni}'self,  although,  his appearance  was such as
would undoubtedly excite  the  hearty  laughter of  any  school-boy
of the present da}-.  After I had  finished  gazing at  him, I  took a
survey of the school-room  and its occupants, when to 1113' delight I
saw a large number of boys and girls, some of whom  were near my
own age and  size, and some too, 1113- quick eye readily detected were
like myself, brimful of mischief.
   I was perfectly  charmed : never before had I seen  such a collec-
tion of boys and girls ranging from the tender  age  of 5 and 6, to
manhood and womanhood.
   But despite  the disparity of age, size, and  temperament,  they
were all  alike in  one respect—like  rc^self  not one  could  hear a
sound, either pleasant or harsh—not one could utter a word of either
love or hatred—a sad state dear reader you will say,  but not so sad
as you may imagine.  While the deaf mute is deprived of two great
senses, double power seems to have  been  given to the  remaining.
The " eye " is quick and sharp, the " feelings " acute and sensitive
to a degree, at times almost painful,  and although he cannot easily
converse with those around him,  a deaf man can almost read the
thoughts of others in the various expressions of the face with that eye
              " An eye that seems to hear
               E'en by observing, and that gathers more
               From flickering lights and  shadows of a face,
               Than duller minds can gain from spoken words."
   But I am  wandering from my subject,  to return  to  the school-
room  and its  occupants, there were about 85 scholars attending at
that time and besides the  Principal there  were four male and two
female teachers employed.
   In a  short time I was duly established in the class for which my
intellectual attainments qualified me,  and soon becoming acquainted
with the rest of the scholars, I was as  happy as the  day was lono-.
On going to school I could only make known my thoughts by signs,
but I  quickly learned to talk with my fingers, thus being enabled to
talk more freehy and with much less difficulty.
   So things  went  on in the usual routine of school life.   Sometimes
I would become tired of learning my lessons  and try to get clear of
them, but I  soon learned  that there was no  mercy shown  to lazy
boys  in that  well-regulated  school, so  I resorted to another plan,
that of feigning to be ill, but I was immediately sent to bed and a
most shocking dose of salts was brought to me and I was forced to
drink it.   Ugh ! I  have hated the sight of salts ever  since, and you
may be sure that I did not pretend to be sick again. 
/
   One of my most intimate acquaintances while at school was a
fellow named Crowe.  He had an immense hooked nose, and I used
to be continually teasing him by telling him that he  had a nose like
a crow's bill.   Many were the pranks I used to play upon him, all
of which he generally received with the utmost good nature.
   The matron of the school often bribed  us scholars into doing
little chores for her.  One day she offered Crowe and me some bread
and cheese (which by the way is very acceptable to a hungry school
boy) if we would do her a favor.   I forget now what the nature  of
it was, at  any rate we performed  it.  Crowe not being near, the
bread and cheese  was given to me  to  divide between  us, but just
then a wicked thought  possessed  me.  I felt that  I would dearly
love to see how Crowe would look if I were to eat his share as well
as my own, so in  a short time all the bread and cheese had disap-
peared,  and  I went to  inform Crowe of what I had done.  My
expectations  were more than realized  by seeing  him get into a
towering rage, which was a very unusual thing for easy-going, good
natured Crowe to do.  But this is only a very mild  specimen of the
scores of wicked  plans which I was continually forming to amuse
myself at the expense of someone else.   Indeed, I have often since
wondered that Crowe and I were such good friends when I was such
a torment to  him,  and I can attribute it to nothing  else except his
excessive good nature.   He was human, however, and would often
get exceedingly angry at me, but we would soon be as good friends
as ever, and  forget all about our  previous quarrels and disagree-
ments.  One day he was absent at dinner hour,  and his dinner was
set aside for  him  when he should return,   Again the evil spirit  of
mischief took possession of me, and I coolhy and  deliberately ate
every morsel of poor Crowe's dinner, and then waited impatiently for
the fun which I expected to have when he returned.  He came, and
anyone can imagine his feelings when with his good appetite he dis-
covered that his dinner had been eaten by someone else, and who was
that some one else, was very easy for him to divine.  He swallowed
his rage, however, and left me very much disappointed at seeing him
apparently so very little concerned about the loss of a good dinner,
but he knew  me well enough at this time to know how it delighted
me to see anyone get into a passion, and by  mastering his own
feelings he had all  the  fun  on his own side  by  witnessing my
disappointment.
   In the summer time we bo}'s used to have to go  about two miles
out to Edinburgh to bathe.   One day three or four of us elder boys
raised a collection among ourselves and bought a bottle of whisky.
This we drank between us,  and as may be supposed it made us  all
reeling drunk.
   In this disgraceful condition  we turned to go  back to  school,
but on our way we met the  Principal.  He saw at once how matters
stood, and I can  remember the look of mortification  and  disgust 
s,
that came into his face as he passed by without noticing or appear-
ing to know us at  all, but  when he  had walked a short distance
past he turned and followed us back to the school  where we  each
got a hearty thrashing enough to  destroy all the  effect  that the
whisky may have had on us, and we were despatched to bed without
our supper.   We carried ourselves straighter and more orderly after
this scrape.
   On the premises of the  school  was a workshop where three
different trades were taught—carpentry, tailoring and  shoe-making ;
of those three trades every boy had  his choice of the one he pre-
ferred, and at which he worked after school  hours.   I learned
carpentry, at which I  have worked ever  since.   We often used to
take the chance when we were in the workshop, away from the eyes of
our teachers, to steal out  into  the  street,  which, however,  was
forbidden under pain of a good thrashing.
   But when boys see a chance for  some good fun they generally do
not think much of the consequences.  So one day we all went out
and were  enjoying ourselves amazingly,  when we were caught and
told we were wanted in the schoolroom.  There was not a boy there
who did not tremble in his shoes as the thought of the punishment
terrible to contemplate, and awful to endure, rose uppermost in his
mind.  All of the boys, excepting myself, went in at  once,  while I
coward-like, hid in a small shed near by, hoping to escape my share
of the punishment, but when the rest of the boys were assembled in
the schoolroom, the question of "where is Tait?" was  asked, no
doubt in no very gentle tone ; but as I was not forthcoming it  was
considered best that I should be looked after, so Crowe was sent in
quest of  me and in his search he came into the very  shed where I
was concealed, and after looking all around went out  again without
having noticed me.  I remained in the shed until dark  and then
stole  into the  house  and up  to bed (without anyone  seeing or
molesting me) where I slept  soundly and sweetly until  morning,
when to my  surprise and relief the matter  seemed to be entirety
forgotten by the teacher if not by my companions,  whose minds, I
have no doubt, it would have  eased could they have given  me a
good  thrashing themselves,  since I  had escaped the one given them.
But my happy school days were drawing to a close, for after four
years of study I returned  home in vacation, and refused to go back
to school  again, as my father very  much wished me  to do, for he
knew better than I how deficient my education was.
   Often since have I  wished that I had complied with his wishes
and returned to school; and I know that there are many others who,
neglecting their education in their youth, have lived  to  regret the
day,  when instead of  storing their  minds with useful knowledge  to
fit themselves for goin^ out into the world in after life, have  sadly
frittered  away the  precious hours of their schooldays, and finally
have left school with an education barely sufficient for them to write 
9
 their own names.   Such an education should be contemptible in the
 eyes of every boy who has it within the limits of his power to obtain
 a better.   But I was not wise enough then to see the importance of
 a good education, in one word I did not know enough to know I
 knew nothing.   But liry spirit a  naturalby wild and  roaming one,
 chafed  under the restraint of a school room, and I longed for the
 time to come when my school da3Ts should be numbered with the
 things of the past, and I should be able to become a  sailor and roam
 over lands and  seas of which I had bo  often studied, and which I
 longed with my whole soul to see.   And the lonely condition of my
 home since my mother's death (she had died when I was at school)
 increased the intensity of my longing for a sailor's life, and having
 gained my father's reluctant consent, I started off with my  mind full
 of what I had heard of countries far across the sea.
    America was to me a bright vision of silver and gold, and mjr
 heart was set upon reaching its shores, for I imagined that  if I were
 once to reach its shores my fortune would be made.   On leaving
 home I proceeded at once to  Aberdeen,  where I hired  on  board  of
 a fine brig belonging  to that place.  We  sailed to several ports in
 Scotland, England and  Ireland ; and even the hasty glimpses which
 I got of those places during our short visits delighted me, and 3'et
 more firmly fixed my resolve to travel the world over. I worked
 all the time  with a will, for I was in ray element and was happy ;
 my mind was so filled with  the wonders I was to see  and the  vast
 fortune I was to  make, that  I scarcely  knew how my limbs often
 ached from the unaccustomed  toil.   Our brig was in London at the
 time of the great Exhibition of 1851.  This  I visited, and there I
 saw works  of art  and skill from all parts of the world.   There I
 met with people of almost ever3r tongue and nation,  from the hard3r
 Scotchmau to the polite and fashionable Frenchman.   After a short
 sta3r in London, during  which  time I had  visited almost ever3T place
 of interest in the cityT,  we set sail for Calais, and  while  our  brig
 remained there,  I  and others  belonging to the ship went by rail to
 Paris.  While in  Paris  I found ample amusement  to beguile the
 hours of daylight  roaming  over the  ga3~, fashionable and  splendid
 city  with its fine' buildings and tastefully laid out grounds.   Indeed
 I think that Paris  is one of the finest cities that I have ever visited
 everything  has such a bright, sparkling appearance, nothing looks
 old or dingy.   One da3* during our visit, one of the  mates and I
 visited the Deaf and Dumb Institution in  the city.  I was surprised
 to see such a number of pupils.  They were, however, all  French,
 and speaking the French language we could not understand them ;
 but the President, a  pleasant, interesting sort  of gentleman, who
could converse fluently in both English and French, entertained us
for some time  by showing us through the school and explaining to
us their rules and mode of teaching, after  which  we had some
refreshments  given us, when we went  away well  pleased with  our 
10
visit,  but  I was disgusted when I afterwards learned  that the de-
licious pie of which  we partook was  prepared from  the  flesh  of
frogs.  1 did not think the  refined  Frenchman capable of eating
that  which a Scotchman would  shudder  to  think of.   I was also
much amused  at the  extreme politeness  \fhich characterizes  the
manners of the French people, contrasting strongly with the abrupt
burly Scotchman.
   Leaving Paris we returned to Liverpool,  England,  where I left
the brig, and after spending all my money—the fact that my pockets
were empty  suddenty dawned upon me—and it was quite evident
that  I must gain more  employment,  or  I should, without doubt,
starve, for there I stood utterby  alone and friendless in that great
bustling crowded city, and 1 could not turn  now to  my  father for
help  as I used to do in former  times  of need,  but I must henceforth
depend entirety on my own exertions for support; and 1 confess that
the thought came to me with  something  like a shock, and in  one
short hour I seemed to change from  the gay, thoughtless boy, into
the sober calculating man ; and summoning  all my courage to niv
aid,  I started  to look for another  ship,  for I could think of none
other then a sailor's  life.  After looking  around for some time, I
to my unbounded delight, found a ship preparing to sail  for America.
   I now felt sure that my wildest dreams were about to be  realized.
But when I went down into the cabin, where the captain sat reading
and smoking, and proceeded to write to him  on m3T slate, m3' heart
sank within me when he told me that he was not allowed,  under a
heav\* penalty,  to take a person infirmed in an3- wa3" out of England,
without first having proper authority for so doing ; but when he saw
how anxious I was to go to America,  he  seemed to take a deeper
interest in the seemingly forlorn and friendless boy, so. after a little
deliberation, he decided to take me  on board as assistant carpenter.
He then  dressed me in a suit of blue, blackend m3' face with soot
to make me look like the grim3* sailors, and sent  me  on deck with
them, and when the Customs Officers came on board to examine the
sailors, I was not noticed at  all; for with my blue  suit and sooty
face, I looked very much like  the rest of  the crew, and soon to my
delight they left, and we set  sail, and  before long I had lost sight
of the land of  my nativity, was rapidly being borne  to the object
of my day-dreams—the foundation  of 1113* most glorious  air-castles.
After a long and pleasant voyage, during which time  1 did not ex-
perience one spasm of that disagreable sensation called sea-sickness,
we came in sight of the West Indies, and then in a few days arrived
safely in Jamaica.  I found the  heat there intense, to  one not used
to it almost unbearable.
   On our arrival, we were again examined,  and again I  was passed
over  without my deafness being noticed.   While in  Jamaica we
were engaged in discharging our cargo, and in taking in a fresh one
for the English markets.   The wharf was always filled  with  the 
11
 swarthy natives.  I made enquiries for a young and very handsome
 native who had  attended the Edinburgh Institution, but could learn
 nothing of him,  further than that it was supposed that he had been
 taken as a slave.
    As soon as our cargo had been discharged, and a fresh one taken
 in, we again set sail; this time carrying several passengers.  Among
 the number was a young Englishman, about 1x13'  own  age.   We
 became acquainted, and spent many pleasant hours together talking
 of the  fortunes  which we  expected  to  make, for he,- like myself,
 was a fortune hunter.   We soon arrived at New York ; from thence
 we sailed to  Boston, and  from Boston to Maine,  where I left m3T
 gallant  brig,  and that noble, generous captain.  We were very
 sorry to part, but he gave me some good advice,  and told me to
 cheer up and perhaps  we would meet  again, if  not in this  world
 perhaps in  the  next; but I have never seen that  wortlry captain
 since.
    While in Maine  I  wrorked in a shipyard.  One evening, after
 having  tea, I  left 1133' boarding house to visit a friend  who  lived at *
 some distance;  when I left m3T friends  to return it was rather late,
 and the night  was pitchy dark, and had I  not been well acquainted
 with the streets, I have no doubt that I should have been lost until,
 daylight at an3*  rate. But shortty after I  had set out on  my way
 back to my boarding  house, a driver  came up  behind  me.  The
 intense darkness prevented either of us from noticing each other,
 and not being able to hear the sound of the carriage,  I was not in
 the least conscious of  an3Tone being on the street except myself,
 when I  was suddenly knocked prostrate upon the  ground, the horse
 and carriage passing over me.
   I know not  how long I lay thus, for  I had  been  stunned from a
 blow which I  received on the head,  and the driver  of  the  carriage
 was either unconscions of the fact or else he had not enough human-
 ity left  in him to pay an3T attention to me  after he had run over and
 stunned me, at  an3T rate.   When consciousness returned,  I found
 myself  still lying  where I had so rudely been thrown, I knew  not
 how long before.
    With returning consciousness came  a  sense of  terrible pain in
 the region of  my left wrist, but it was  evident that I ought not to
 lie there for fear some one  else might be unscrupulous enough to
 play a similar  trick upon me ; so I  slowty dragged  myself  along to
 the nearest house and, entering, explained my disagreeable situation.
 The occupants of  the house were extremety kind,  binding up  1113'
 wrist, which was discovered to be broken,  and doing all that day in
 their power for  my relief;  the}' then assisted me to  my  boarding
house, where I at once procured a doctor, and had  m3r wrist property
attended to, but it was four months before  I was able to work
again, and even  then there was a disagreeable grating  sensation in
my wrist when I handled my tools while working. 
12          «
   While writing of  this accident, I am  reminded of a similar  one
which happened to me after I  came to Halifax.   I was just turning
the corner of Granville and Blower Streets, when I was suddenly
thrown  down by a horse coming in the  opposite direction, and no
doubt would have been injured more severely than  before,  but for
the little  slate  which I always  carry in  my pocket; it was in  the
breast pocket of my  coat, almost over  my heart.  The horse set his
hoof fairly upon  it and smashed it to atoms.  But  fortunately the
Halifax driver  was  more  humane than the  one  in  Maine,  and he
immediately came to my assistance, but  I received no  injuries
beyond a bad fright and a slight bruise upon  my knee.
   These slight injuries which might, however, have proved serious
or even  fatal, have been useful lessons to me in teaching me  to be
extremely careful when crossing streets at night,  as  indeed  all deaf
persons should be.
   When  I returned to my work in the shipyard, I  was  engaged in
building a  large ship which was to sail for California.   The owners
wished me to go  on  board  as  carpenter,  and I would  have done so
with pleasure,  but just at that  time I learned through  one of  my
fellow-workmanthan an uncle of mine was living  in Nova Scotia, so
I declined going to California, and proceeded at once to write to my
uncle.   In due time I received an  answer,  asking  me to come to
Halifax at once.  I started, going from  Maine to St. John, N. B.,
in a sleigh; I went from St. John in a steamboat, as far as the ice
would allow the boat to go ; and then walked on the  ice to Anna-
polis, and from Annapolis  to Halifax I went in a sleigh.  When  I
drove up to my uncle's door I  could hardly suppress a smile at his
surprise when  he saw that I  was deaf and  dumb, for he had  not
known it before.
   My uncle, who wras a  house carpenter, and carried on an exten-
sive business, which employed a large number of workmen, employed
me as one of the number.
   I found the City of Halifax very small  and quiet as compared
with the large and populous cities, Edinburgh,  Glasgow,  Liverpool,
and other cities which I had visited.  I  was also surprised to see
how strictly the Sabbath day was observed, and how quiet and free
from all broils and disturbances the streets were on that  sacred day.
But although Halifax is inferior to those  large cities in size, popula-
tion, &c, it has a harbor superior to any they can boast of.
   Shortly after I came to  Halifax I met with a gentleman at my
boarding house  who  had a deaf and dumb child about twelve years
of age.   As she had  never received any  instruction, he  begged me
to teach her, and as  he did not live in the  city, he said he would
send her to live  with an  aunt residing in the city,   I was pleased
to undertake her education, and when she  was  sent to Halifax  I
commenced without  delay to instruct  her during my leisure hours.
This girl, Mary Ann Fletcher, was the first deaf and dumb person 
13
who ever received instruction in the City of Halifax.   This was in
the year 1856.  But the generous  heart of that little child would
not allow her to rest satisfied with  being taught herself alone, but
she was continually urging me to gather together the other children
in the city afflicted like herself, and teach them too.   She manifest-
ed such concern for those who were like herself,  but who had never
been taught  to read or write, that  I  caught  the  infection,  and
determined to do that which was within my limited power towards
starting a school in Halifax for the education of the deaf and dumb.
But how to commence I scarcely knew.  It was quite  evident that
I had no time to devote to such a project,  for I  could not afford to
throw up my present employment, as I would surely have to do
were I to do  justice  to the work which I contemplated.  After  a
good deal of thought about the matter, I decided that my best plan
would be to get a teacher, and by assisting him during my leisure
hours,  I thought that we might after a time get  along very well.
   My plans  seemed to be favored, for one day as I was walking
along the street I noticed a man and  woman talking  with  their
fingers ; it was evident that one of them  was  deaf and  dumb,  and
as they appeared to be in  a  starving condition, I approached  and
commenced to talk with them.  The poor fellow seemed pleased to
find some one who could talk to him,  and  immediately  commenced
to tell me a most pitiful story of want  and  woe.   I learned that the
woman who was with him  was his wife, and that they had one child.
He told me too that he had left Scotland with the intention of going
to his brother, who lived in the United States, but that he had been
landed in Halifax.   Friendless and almost penniless, he found it
impossible to  get sufficient employment to maintain himself.  I went
with him to his lodgings, which consisted of one room scantily fur-
nished, or not furnished at all, for the only thing in the shape of
furniture that I could see was a miserable bed and a few dishes.  He
told me that his name was Gray.  I knew the name, for I had heard
of him before I had left Scotland.   He had received his  education
at the Edinburgh  institution,  and  the  thought occurred to me that
if I could collect the scholars, this man might teach them, as he had
nothing else to  do.   I proposed my plans to him.  He sympathized
with them in  every respect,  and promised to teach as well as he
could any who  might wish to learn.  Then after supplying him with
some of the necessaries of which  he stood so much in need, I left
him and commenced at once to look for scholars and  collect some-
thing for the  school from any whose sympathies might be enlisted
in our cause.   Friends seemed to spring up on every side, and in a
very short time I had made a collection amounting to $160, with
which we furnished a room on Argyle Street. The school opened with
two scholars.   This small number gradually increased, and in course
of time there was quite a room full.  Thus that little room with its
few scholars formed the nucleus or beginning of the fine Institution
of to-day. 
14
   The late Andrew McKinlay. Esq..  proved  himself to be a most
valuable friend.   Assisting and advising us in many ways he became
Secretary  and Treasurer, for besides what was left of the 8160 after
furnishing the schoolroom there was always money on hand given on
by some kind friend in aid of the school.   When  the number of
pupils had so  increased as to render the room which we had occupied
till  now incapable of  accommodating them  all, the  friends  and
direc tors of the school  procured a large room  and sent to Scotland
for a teacher, as Mr. Gray was not capable of supplying the place-
of a first-class teacher.
   Before  long the present  Institution was purchased and repaired
and enlarged in different wa3rs.
   There  are now a large  number of  pupils attending  the school,
many of them going home every 3'ear during vacation.   The37 come
from all parts of Nova  Scotia, Cape Breton, New  Brunswick, and
Prince Edward Island.   The school is a great blessing,  for without
it the deaf child would  remain in  utter mental dullness and ignor-
ance.
   After a time I  began to get tired of boarding, and determined to
go to sea again ; and as there were relations of mine living in Aus-
tralia, I had concluded  to go there, when  b3r mere chance I became
acquanted with a young \ady with whom I at once fell in  love, and
instead of embarking on the  deep blue  Alantic, I embarked  on
the sea of matrimony, and finally settled down in the quiet  humdrum
of married life, without having accomplished one hundredth part of
what I had intended to  do, viz., to travel the  world over.  Ah ! I
had l~y this time discovered that the world was a larger place than I
had at first supposed it  to be.  My wife could  both hear and speak,
yet at the  same time could converse with  her fingers with as much
ease and quickness as with her lips.  After I had been married for
about 13 years, and a swarm of children  had  gathered  around m3r
knee, I  became  desirous  of again visiting 1113'  native land, so I
procured a passage on  board the " City of Halifax." The passage
was a pleasant one ; no storms were encountered,  and everything
went smoothly (after the horrors of the first night  were over).  I
had gone to  bed  and  was  sleeping soundly,  lulled by the  gentle
rolling of  the ship,  when I was  suddenly awakened by  some one
feeling over my head.   I sprang up in  bed and met the  bloodshot
eyes of  a  drunken sailor who had staggered into  m3r  room.  He
held in his hand an  open knife which he raised above his head in a
threatening attitude.  I grasped his arm but not in time  to avoid
altogether  the descent of  the knife,  which  struck 1113'  shoulder,
cutting through ni3' clothes and slightly injuring the flesh.  How-
ever, by dint  of a good deal of coaxing, I succeeded in  gettino- him
out of the  roonx,  and then I fastened  the door.  The  rest of the
voyage was accomplished in peace, and I once more stood on Scot-
tish soil.
   I  proceeded  at once to my father's store  and entered__" But 
15
was that old man with the bent form and snowy hair, my father ?"
I had not thought of seeing any change in him.  He did not know
me, however,  and the joy that  would naturally shine in a father's
eyes when  he recogizes a long absent chiid  was not seen in his.
He looked upon me as he would look  upon an utter stranger.   Yet
how could  it  be expected that  he should see  in the bearded  man
before him,  any resemblance  to the slight youth of 16, who had left
his home more  than twenty years before.   I then  made  myself
known to him.   He was greatly rejoiced to see me, and, after a
hearty greeting, he took me into the house.  It looked quite natural
and home-like, for although  I  had been absent so iong I  had  not
forgotten what my old home looked like.   It was but little changed ;
all the change seemed to have  taken  place in the occupants them-
selves.
   The brothers and sisters whom I left at home children, were now
grown to manhood  and womanhood.   I also found brothers and
sisters whom  I had never seen  before, for my father had  married
again during  my absence.   I spent a very happj' time during  the
summer  visiting my friends  and relations.   I also hunted  up some
of my old schoolmates and had a chat with thern.   To one of them
whom  I  visited, I did not tell my name, I merely said that I was an
old school  fellow, and we were  spending a most delightful  time
together, talking of old times and the many scrapes  and adventures
of our schooldays, when he asked me  if I  knew what  had become of
that black curly headed fellow named " Tait." who used to be such a
mischievous rascal.   I could  not help laughing at his surprise, when
T told  him that that person was now  before him.   Shortly after my
arrival my father became suddenly very ill.  He had been out taking
a walk, and when he got home, was scarcely able to  reach his own
room which he never left again, but died  after a  few days suffering.
And it was with a  thankful  heart that I  had been  permitted to see
myT dear father once more, that I sorrowfully followed his  remains
to their  last resting place, the  last tribute of respect which  we can
pay the  dearest earthly friend.
    When the summer began to wane, and the autumn leaves were
falling,  I prepared  to  return home.   The voyage back was not so
pleasant as the one out had been, we encountered several storms.
One very heavy one,—the water lashed the ship and the day became
dark as night.  In  the fury of the storm I was washed overboard
and narrowly escaped being  drowned.   We  also passed a  huge ice-
berg on  our way, when the warm genial air of the early autumn was
suddenly changed to cold dullness of  winter.
    My family were not in Halifax when I arrived, and I proceeded at
once to the country where they  were spending the summer.   I came
in upon  them just as they were having a delicious feast of corn.   The
corn was forgotten and I was immediately surrounded by a laughing
dancing  group of children  glad to see " Father " at home once more,
and I  felt that although I had not gained the immense fortune I had 
1G
once dreamed of, I had a far greater blessing  than am amount ot
                                                    * 1    *    i ■
money could  buy, viz. : a happy, loving family.   Shortly atter this
we left Halifax  and moved to Dartmouth, where 1  built a house, in
which I still  live.
   I was  lately  engaged  as  a pattern-maker in the Skate  Factory,
which is an extensive manufactory where a large number of men are
employed.    It  is there  "Forbes'  Patent Acme  Club Skates'" are
manufactured.   These skates are known all over the world.
    Since writing the foregoing, I have been deprived of employment,
 owing to the very depressed state  of business, and have, as I have
 stated in my preface, been  unwillingly forced to sell this little book
 as  a means of support.  Since I have  commenced selling  it [ have
 travelled over  the greater  part of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward
 Island,  and have visited New  Brunswick, Quebec,  Montreal and
 Boston.   During this summer I  have sold 3,000 copies.  I sold very
 few in Canada; but never  having been there before  I enjoyed  my
 visit very much.   There are some fine buildings indeed in Montreal
 and Quebec; a great many  of the inhabitants are French.   I was
 glad  to  find  St.  John being so  rapidly  built up after the  late
 disastrous fire.
    With my visit to Yarmouth I was particularly pleased, and I like
 the people exceedingly.   Fredericton, N. B., I think a very pleasant
 city, with its broad level streets lined with green trees.   By the way,
 I think the  people of Halifax might take pattern by the said city, so
 far as clean streets are concerned at any rate.  I was quite surprised
 on  arriving  at Charlottetown, P. E. I., to find it such a large town ,
 the people of the place are I think enterprising and industrious, and
 the town bids fair to be a large  and  thriving one.  Besides those
 places  already mentioned, I visited many others of smaller size and
 less note, such as Woodstock, Shediac, Amherst, Chatham,  New-
castle,  and  others.   In Pictou,  I  met with  a  great  many  Scotch
people, all of whom readily purchased my book.
    I met with similar success in Truro, Digby, Kentville, Annapolis,
Lunenburg, and many other places which I visited during a tour of
 five months.
    In Halifax and Dartmouth I  have sold a large  number.    I have
also within the past few days sold quite a number to the members of
the House of Assembly.   And with this hurried account I shall close
my book for the present, and perhaps  after returning  from another
tour which I intended shortly to make,  I will give my readers a fuller
and more satisfactory account.
   Now dear reader, my story is ended up to the present (1879) and
if  I have  succeeded in eliciting your  sympathy in  favor of the
"Children of Silence," it will not be altogether a failure. 
17
EXTRACT from  an  American  Report,  stating the  early
    History of the different Deaf and Dumb Schools on the
    Continent of Europe.   Also a short History of the early
    American Deaf and Dumb Teachers.
   In the year 1776 there existed but three schools for the deaf and
dumb in the world, and they numbered, in the  aggregate, less than
forty pupils.   One was the establishment of the  celebrated Abbe
Charles Michel de L'Epee, situated on the heights of Montmatre, in
the outskirts of Paris, and supported  through  the practice of  the
most careful economy, by the income of  his own moderate patrimo^^.
He is properly regarded as the father of the French system of deaf
mute education.  The  fundamental  idea that led  to the method he
adopted, was,  according to his  own statement,  " There  is no more
natural and necessary connection between  abstract ideas and  the
articulate sounds which strike the  ear than there is between  the
same ideas and the written characters that address themselves to the
eye."  This principle, generally  regarded at the time as a solecism in
philosophy, led him to  enquire as to the best means of  conveying a
knowledge of  the significance and use of written language to  the
mind of a congenital deaf  mute.  After much  observation and re-
flection, he came to the conclusion that  the most obvious instrument
for effecting his purpose was the natural pantomime which grew  out
of the modes of thought of one born deaf, enlarged  in its scope, and
methodized  in its arrangement.  Commencing his labors in  the
instruction of the deaf and dumb about the year 1775, with two
young girls  whose pitiable condition touched his  heart, he taught
successive classes till his death, in the  year  1789, at the age of  77.
Two years after this, the school which  he founded was  adopted by
the  national government  of  France, and has continued under  its
care and surveilance  ever since.
   Another of those schools was in Germany, under the  charge of a
self-made man named Samuel Heincke,  who, in 1754, while station-
ed as private soldier at Dresden, had employed some of his leisure
time in developing the mind of  an indigent deaf and dumb boy, an
experiment interrupted by the seven years war.    Supporting him-
self, after the  close of  this conflict, at  the University of Jena,  by
his skill in music, he repaired, on his graduation,  to the village of
Eppendorf, near Hamburg,  and engaged in  teaching  a school  for
hearing youth.    Here he  found another  deaf mute, who at once
became  to him an object of absorbing interest.  Other deaf mutes
soon found thefr way to his benevolent ministrations, and relinquish-
hiff his hearing pupils, he devoted his whole time to their intruction. 
18
Such was his success that it attracted the notice of the enlightened
Prince Frederick Augustus,  the elector of Saxony,  who in 1/*^
invited him to Leipsic with his  nine  pupils and established him at
the head of the first institution ever supported at the public expense.
In this to him most acceptable  position he remained twelve years,
laboring with a zeal so disproportioned to his strength that his career
was prematurely terminated by death in 1790, when he  had reached
the age of  sixty-one.  As  the  recognized father of the German
system,  however, he still  lives in the persons of  his  followers,  and
the institution of which  he was  director will two  years hence, cele
brate its own centennial anniversary.
   The principle which guided him was the opposite  of that which
had been  adopted by De L'Epee.  " The written  word," he  wrote,
" is only the  representation of articulate sound.   It addresses itself
to the  eye, and  can never be imprinted on the soul or become  the
medium of  thought.   This is the sole prerogative  of the  voice.
Without an acquaintance with spoken  language, a deaf mute child
can never  become more than a writing  machine,  or have anything
beyond  a  succession  of  images passing through  his  mind."   He
accordingly devoted himself to the cultivation of vocal speech  on  the
part of the deaf, regarding it as the  point of  departure  in all  his
efforts in their behalf.
   The sohool remaining to be mentioned in this connection is that of
the Braidwoods, father and son, established near  Edinburgh, Scotland,
at a country place, which, from the fact  of its being occupied for  the
instruction of the deaf and dumb, came  to  be called Dumbiedikes, a
name immortalized by Sir Walter Scott  in his Heart of  Midlothian.
Of this school, Dr. Samuel Johnstone, in  his Journey to the Hebrides,
thus remarks : " There is one subject of philosophical curiosity to be    A
found in Edinburgh which no other city  has to show, a college of  the
deaf and dumb.   The number of pupils is about twelve.  They  are
taught by Mr. Thomas Braidwood,  and  their improvement is won-
derful ; they not only speak, write and understand  what is written,
but it is an expression scarcely figurative to say they hear with  the
eye.  *  *   *  It was pleasing to see one of the  most desperate of
human calamities capable of so  much help.  Whatever enlarges
hope will  exalt courage.  After seeing  the deaf  taught arithmetic,
who would be afraid to cultivate the' Hebrides ?"
   Thomas Braidwood, according to that rare old work " Vox oculis
Subjecta," London, 1783, began the instruction of the deaf and dumb
with one pupil, the son of an eminent merchant of Leith, and about
1770, associated  his  son  John  with himself in the conduct  of an
academy for the benefit of this class of learners.  The author Francis
Green, sent his son Charles to this establishment in February  1780
and in May 1781, and September 1782,  spent several weeks in visit-
ing it.   The evidence furnished  by his testimony,  and that of many
others, goes to establish the fact that these two men, whatever  may 
19
be thought of their theory and practice, were endowed with a tact,
ingenuity and zeal that  brought them  as much  success  as could
possibly be realized from the methods they pursued.
   The academy was, in 1783, removed  to Hackney, near London,
where the elder Braidwood died in 1806; but the school was main-
tained by his widow and grandchildren till 1816, when it ceased to
exist as a separate establishment.
   Thomas Braidwood's views  of the importance of teaching vocal-
ization to the deaf may be inferred from his  declaration " articulate
or spoken language hath so great and essential a tendency to confirm
and  enlarge  ideas above  the power of written  language, that it is
almost impossible  for deaf persons, without the use  of speech, to be
perfect in their ideas.   He, however,  as we infer from the practice
of his nephew, Joseph Watson, LL.D., who was appointed first prin-
cipal of the London asylum  in 1792,  made  use of  signs  of action,
including signs  purely natural and  others more or less  arbitrary
grafted on them, and also of the two hand  manual  alphabet.   He
also believed in the graduation of difficulties  and taking up one at a
time.   In this sense he  may be said  to have  marked out a course
intermediate between those of  Heinicke and  De L'Epee, equivalent,
in some  respects to a  combination of the two, though it is evident
that he did not derive any suggestion from either.   He differed from
both these eminent men, however, in putting a commercial value
upon his art.  The prices he charged for instruction  were very high,
and  though a very few poor  children were allowed to  derive benefit
from his labors, his special ministrations were given to the children
of the rich.    Both he and his family refused to impart a knowledge
of their processes except for a large pecuniary consideration.   Still
through his nephew, Dr. Watson, already mentioned, through his
grandson, Thomas Braidwood,  and through Mr. Robert Kinniburg,
his pupil, who became severally masters of incorporated institutions
at London, Birmingham and Edinburgh, as well as the teachers they
have trained, his  methods have become perpetuated, with  more or
less strictness to this day,  so that he may, with propriety,  be called
the immediate father of the English system.
   It is not to be inferred, however, from what has  been said, that
the three schools mentioned  as furnishing the starting point for the
great  development of the work which  has  been made during the
century we are considering, are entitled to any commendation fur-
ther,  than that of doing for  numbers  what had been done equally
well before for individuals, nor that all three of these founders were
either the inventors or discoverers of the peculiar  methods  which
they adopted.  To De L'Eppe,  indeed must be awarded the merit of
true originality—the originality of common sense, it  is true—in that
he simply recognized in his  philosophy  what now seems to  be an
axiom and in his practice that  which his pupils  naturally suggested
to him in all  their efforts to express their ideas, but still unique and 
20
note worthy, in that it was a departure from all the received notions
of his clay.   Even he, however, owed  to a  Spanish teacher who
appeared nearly one hundred and  fifty  years before his time, the
single-handed manual alphabet, which, however, has been identilied
with the name of De L'Epee, because we find it in  general use only
among his followers.
   Heinicke, on the contrary, had the merit.of only making  skilful
adaptations  of the  plan of John Conrad Amman, a physician in
Holland, who wrote a  book: entitled Surdas Loquens (Amsterdam,
1692.)  A copy of this work fell into his hands, when he undertook
the instruction of his first pupil, and gave direction to his subsequent
views and methods.  Amman placed an extravagant estimate upon
the efficacy of speech, attributing to it a mysterious power altogether
beyond what is consistent with the teaching of philosophy.  He was
the first practical teacher of the deaf and dumb in Holland, though
he was able to pursue this work only in the intervals of professional
leisure, and with a view,  it would  seem, rather  to  establish his
theories and interest others in his benevolent scheme than to found a
school of his own.    After his death  no one was found  to continue
the work in his native  land, and more than a century elapsed before
any effort was made to revive it.
   Braidwood, in like manner, was indebted to John Wallis, LL. D.,
professor of  mathematics in the University of  Oxford a man  of pro-
found erudition, and of extraordinary philosophical  acumen,  who is
acknowledged by common consent to have been the earliest teacher
of the deaf and dumb in Great Britain.  To him their case presented
itself in the light of a most interesting problem.   In 1653 he pub-
lished  a Latin work on English grammar to which was  prefixed a
treatise on the formation of all articulate sounds.  This he designed
for the use  of foreigners studying  the English  language, and the
application of his theory to  the instruction of the  deaf   and dumb
probably never occurred to him till the year 1661,  when he became
interested in a youth named Daniel  Whaley, son of the mayor of
Northampton, who  became deaf at the age of five years, but had lost
all knowledge of spoken language.   Him he taught to read, to write
and to speak in a way greatly to  gratify the  Royal Society before
which he exhibited  his pupil at a meeting held May 21, 1662, and
also his Majesty King  Charles  I.,  at Whitehall,  together with  His
Highness Prince Rupert and divers others of the  nobility, who were
so much  interested that they sent for Dr. Wallis, and required him
to exhibit the attainments of his pupil on several different occasions.
He also educated Alexander Pophara, "a young gentleman of very
good family and fair estate, who from his birth did want his hearing."
These seemed to have  been  the only cases which he instructed in
articulation, though he continued to teach the deaf and dumb for
some fifty years, never undertaking more than one or two at a time.
He published very full accounts of his processes in  the philosophical 
21
transactions of the Royal Society (1670-1691) and also in the fifth
and sixth editions of  his grammar.   He used as one of his instru-
ments of communication, a double-handed manual alphabet,  which
seems to have been the original of the alphabet now used  in  Great
Britain, an engraving of which first appears  in Daniel DeFoe's his-
tory of the Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell, a deaf  mute,
of whom he says that  he was educated by a clergyman who had
become familiar  with Dr. Wallis's  writings, and had  enjoyed the
advantage of personal intercourse with him.   The work  which  was
published in 1720, contains a chapter devoted to an explanation of
the manner in which this was accomplished, which, says the author,
"is mostly taken out of the ingenious Dr. Wallis : and lying  hid in
that book which is rarely enquired  after,  and  too scarcely known,
died in a manner with that great man."
   Contemporary with Wallis,  and enjoying  his friendship,  was
George Delgarno,  master of  the  grammar  school at Oxford,  who
wrote a book of great learning, entitled Didascolocyphus, or the deaf
and dumb man's  tutor, published in 1660, a work held in  respect by
teachers and often consulted by  them  even at  this day.   Dalgarno
discarded articulation as unessential in the instruction of the deaf
and dumb.   He was the inventor of an alphabet in which the  con-
sonants were considered as located  between  the articulation of one
hand, with the vowels at the tips of the fingers, and which  were to
be touched by the thumb and  index fingers of the other.   It is con-
jectured not without reason, that Delgarno  and Wallis  were of
mutual assistance to each  other in developing the theory of deaf mute
instruction,  which,  with  the former,  was  simply an  intellectual
recreation,  while the latter gave  it practical effect.   Previous to
Delgarno and Wallis, the earliest writer on the subject in England
was Dr.  John Bulwer, who, in 1644, published, " Chiralogia, or the
natural language of the hand," and  in  1648, '* Philocophus, or the
deaf and dumb man's friend," both of  which are interesting specula-
tions.   But  anterior to the earliest writer in England,  and long
before the earliest teacher, was Pedro Ponce De Leon, a monk of the
order of the Benedictines in the  Convent of Ona,  Spain, where he
died in 1684.  The success of his labours was vouched for by at least
three  contemporary  writers,  one  of  whom, Ambrose  Moralez, a
Spanish historian, speaks of him as one of the most remarkable men
of his age.   He  is supposed to have commenced his labors in the
year 1550.   Some thirty  or thirty-five years after his death, all trace
of his labors seems to have disappeard except in  the casual mention
to which allusion has been made, and scarcely anything would now
be known of him but for  an account of his  labors he left in an act
for a foundation  for a chapel executed in  1558, and long afterwards
discovered among the  archives of  the convent.   At  this  period
appeared Juan Pablo Bonet, who wrote the first book  in regard to
the  method of instructing the deaf and dumb  ever published, an 
0 9
analysis of which, from the pen of the late Dr. H. P.  Peet was con-
tributed to the American  Annals of July 1851, and  he  elsewhere
says of its author, that, " with this exception (the employment  of
pictures), he seems to have successfully  employed all the methods
now used in this branch of instruction.   In reading his book we are
reminded that an art, in its  first elements, is often more nearly con-
formed to sound  philosophy than it becomes in the hands of  subse-
quent innovators.  *   *  *  The  parent or friend of a deaf  mute
who should  wish to begin at home the  education of  a child cannot
do better than to follow the method  laid down by Bonet—explaining
the names of visible objects by pointing to them ; verbs, by perform-
ing the actions  they  represent;  other ideas  of  explanations and
scenes in pantomime, and the general construction of simple sentences,
questions, answers and narratives,  by continual usage, by  means
of the manual alphabet and. writing."  The  success which attended
Bonet's labors was, as may be  supposed,  very considerable,  though
he never had more than one or two  pupils at a time.  It should be
added that the manual  alphabet which he employed  and probably
invented, is the same precisely, in about  two-thirds of its letters,  as
that adopted by  the Abbe De L'Eppe, and in none of  the remaining
letters except the D and R, is  there any essential difference.   An-
other teacher contemporary with Bonet, was Ramirez  Emmanual
De Carion, who  survived  his co-laborer about thirty  years.   After
his death no further effort was  made to instruct the deaf and  dumb
in  Spain, until  the year  1796, when it was  revived  by Alea,  a
disciple De  L'Eppe, who opened a school for deaf mutes at Madrid,
and though Spain has  a population  of  over  12,000,000, of whom
12,000 are deaf  mutes,  there are at this day but two  institutions in
her borders; and it is a  remarkable  fact that of the 238 institutions
now existing in the different countries of the world, with the  single
exception of the Paris  National Institution,  which is the same  on
another foundation, with the private school of De L'Eppe, there is
not one that has not been founded since 1776.
    In Great Britain and Ireland there  are twenty-three, which, in
their  methods, may be regarded as belonging to the school of Braid-
wood, though they generally reject  articulation as an incumbrance.
    The institution in London was founded by the Rev. John Town-
send, a minister of the  Congregational order in London, and on the
14th of November, 1792,  was opened  with four pupils.   Mr. Town-
send began to take subscriptions on the 1st of June 1792, and  by
the aid of others, whom he enlisted in the  enterprise succeeded in
securing for it  a generous support.  In the year  1808, 1809 and
1810, he travelled thousands of miles, preaching in  different places,
and collecting £6,000 as a  permanent fund for  the society.   This
fund  was afterwards increased until, in 1844, it amounted to  £140-
000, or 8700,000, and  is  much larger probably at the present time!
The pupils  are selected  for admission by a vote  of the Governors 
23
 who are unlimited in number, being composed of those who pay one
 guinea per annum, with the privilege of an additional vote for every
 additional guinea subscribed,  many of its most liberal supporters
 being personages of the highest rank.  The first teacher selected
 was Joseph Watson, a  nephew  of  Braidwood, who had dedicated
 himself to the education of the deaf and dumb.    In the year 1809
 he published a treatise on his art, which secured for him the degree
 of LL. D. from the  University of Glasgow.   He died in  1836, and
 has since been succeeded, as Principal,  by his son,  and subsequently
 by his  grandson.    Among  the distinguished  teachers in Great
 Britain,  in  addition to  those  already mentioned, the names of the
 late Duncan Anderson, of Glasgow, and Charles Baker, of Doncaster,
 deserve  special mention, while that of David  Buxton  the present
 head of the school in-Liverpool, is especially prominent among living
 instructors.   The  school  of De L'Epee is now  represented in  the
 continent of Europe by fifty institutions in France, fifteen in Italy,
 two in Spain and one in Portugal, all of which adopt his methods to,
 a  greater or less degree.   His  immediate and most distinguished
 successor at Paris was the Abbe  Sicard, and among the most distin-
 guished  professors  have been Bebian,  Morel, Berthier and Vaisse.
 M. Vaisse  was  the only  practical instructor at  the  head  of  the
 institution  after the time  of Sicard, the other individuals intrusted
 with its management having been  selected for  political  reasons, a
 circumstance which  has greatly limited the  usefulness of the institu-
 tion, as the teachers were  practically left without a directing head.
 The French,  Italian, Spanish, and  Portugese schools  have been
 supported by their respective governments.
   The school  of Heinicke  is represented by thirty institutions  in
 Germany,  fifty  in  Austria, ten  in  Belgium, and  Holland, five  in
 Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and  three in Russia,  although a
 number of the institutions,  especially those  in Holland, Sweden and
 Norway, have  adopted what may  properly be called the combined
 method, which consists in  using signs  as an  instrument  of instruc-
 tion in language  and articulation as a  means of expression.  One
 characteristic  of  all the schools is  that they reject the  manual
 alphabet, though  there is an increasing disposition  even in the most
 pronounced  articulating schools, to use gestures, which are the most
 necessary, as they find there is  a  large  and  increasing number  of
 their pupils who  can derive no benefit from  the efforts made to teach
 them to  speak and  read on their lips.  The total number under
 instruction in the 195 institutions of Great Britain and Europe has
 been estimatad at from  5,000  to  6,000,  a  contrast, indeed,  to the
 forty that were  under  instruction at  the  beginning  of  the period
 whose  progress  we  are considering.   The characteristics of  the
 French teachers are an unbounded enthusiasm and a close analysis of
language and ideas.   Those of the Italian  are great particularly in
instructing  their  pupils  in  religious and ecclesiastical history,  and 
24
tenets, and also a  remarkable development in the arts of designs.
architecture, sculpture, drawing, painting and engraving,  many of
the pupils showing remarkable proficiency in these respects.   All of
the teachers being  members of religious orders,  their services are
rendered gratuitously.  The Abbe Pendola  is the most remarkable
man among them.   The German teachers are remarkable for their
devoted faithfulness, their extensive reading,  and their philosophic
research, and hold a most respectable position among the learned
men of their country, a remark which may be applied with equal
truth to the teachers in Holland.  Among  the latter the  brothers
Guyot and Canton Hirsch are men notable both within and without
their profession.
   It is  on the continent of  America,  however,  and within the
borders of the United States, that the art has reached its fullest
development.   The first deaf mute of whom we have an}' record in
this country was the son  of Francis Green, Esq., then of Boston,
afterwards of New York,  of whom it has already been said that he
placed his son at the Braidwood Academy.  In the early days after
the revolutionary  war, he wrote a number of contributions  to the
newspapers of Massachusetts signed, '-Philocophus," but from the
fact that there was no prominent man who had any personal interest
in the matter,  the seed which he sowed did not bear immediate fruit.
It reserved under Providence to another father, twenty years later,
to give the impetus needed to a work,  the importance and benevol-
ence of which  all acknowledged when they became familiar with the
deplorable condition of the uneducated deaf mute, and thus receive
positive proof that he is capable of such development as to  make an
intelligent, self-dependent, well informed member of the community,
capable of expressing his ideas in written and sometimes in spoken
language, and of comprehending the  written communications  of
others.   The daughter of Dr. Mason F.  Cogswell, an eminent phy-
sician in  Hartford, Conn., had the misfortune to  suffer total loss of
hearing as the result of a disease then known as  spotted fever, but
of late years greatly dreaded under the name  of  cerebro  spinal
meningitis.  Parental love tried every expedient  for alleviating the
condition of the child, but was settling down into the sad belief that
in  the holiest and  tenderest  relations  of the  soul,  there .must
ever be a wide  chasm, isolating the child.   It chanced,  however,
one day, that  Thomas  Hopkins Gallaudet, son of a neighbor and
friend, a young clergyman, who had recently carried off the highest
honors at the Andover Theological Seminary, as  he had previously
done at Yale College, chanced, in passing, to see little Alice Coo-swell
playing in the garden and  attracted by her bright and winnino- ways.
endeavored to establish some communication with  her. Before he had
left the garden he had actually succeeded in teaching her the word
hat.  From this he proceeded, in subsequent  visits, to teach her to
write the names of other objects, and  even little sentences.  As 
25
hope  animated the mind of the father, he began to make  inquiries
as to what had been done for the deaf and dumb abroad, and, as his
information on the subject increased, he ascertained that there were
a number of deaf mutes in the State of Connecticut, who like his
daughter, were entirely without education.   Through  his efforts,  a
few gentlemen assembled at Hartford and decided that it was ex-
pedient to send some one abroad to learn the process of instruction
there employed, and undertake the education of the deaf and dumb
in this  country.  Their choice naturally fell upon  Mr. Gallaudet,
who on the 25th of May, 1815, embarked for Europe, and proceed-
ing to  London,  at  once  made  application  to  Dr.  Watson,  of
the London institution, for permission to attend the exercises of his
school and make  himself familiar with the process  employed.  He
found, however, that the rules of the institution were  such that this
could not be permitted, except upon terms with which Mr. Gallaudet
found it impossible to comply.   He then went to Edinburgh, and
sought  from the Rev. Robert Kinniburgh, principal of the institution
there, the privileges which he had been denied in London.  Here he
found the same  influences  at work to  frustrate  his  efforts.  Mr.
Kinniburgh had,  like Dr. Watson received his own license  to teach
only on condition that he would not impart a knowledge of  the art
to any  one designing  to establish a separate institution.    On his
return to London, proposals were made to Mr. Gallaudet to  employ a
member of the Braidwood family then visiting America, but  this he
feared would be inexpedient.  While he was thus tossed on a sea of
doubt and anxiety, he had the good fortune to meet, in London, the
Abbe Sicard,  who had  brought with him his two celebrated  pupils,
Massieu and Clerc, for the purpose of demonstrating the value of his
process.  Becoming very much interested in Mr. Gallaudet's  project
he at once invited him  to Paris, and Mr. Gallaudet, satisfied of the
superiority of this system and its results, most heartily accepted the
invitation, under  the feeling that he had been guided by  a  special
Providence overruling  his own plans for the benefit of those whose
welfare he was endeavoring to promote.   We find him accordingly
in Paris, where he remained from March 9 to June 16, 1816.
   The time of his sojourn was very much shortened by his obtain-
ing the  consent of the Abbe  Sicard to Mr. Clerc's accompanying him
to this country, and in  June, 1816, he set sail for America, arriving
in New York on the 9th of August.  In  the  meantime an  act of
incorporation, under the style of the "Connecticut Asylum for deaf
and dumb persons," had been obtained from the Legislature of Con-
necticut.   The eight months succeeding their arrival was spent by
Messrs. Gallaudet and Clerc in visiting different cities in New Eng-
land, New York and Pennsylvania, and in obtaining subscriptions.
On the  15th of April,  1817, the asylum  was opened in a  rented
house in Hartford, with a class of seven pupils.   In  March,  1819,
through the efforts of Hon. Nathaniel  Terry and Hon. Thos. S. 
26
Williams, an act was passed, by both houses of Congress, granting
to the asylum a township of land  consisting of more  thau  2.5,000
acres in the then new State of  Alabama, and in the  same year the
title was changed, by the Act of the Legislature of Connecticut, to
that of the " American Asylum,"  it being thought that one  institu-
tion would meet the necessities of the country.  The lands were
located with  excellent judgment,  and sold  to  great advantage by
Wm. Fly, Esq., who was made  commissioner of  the fund thus
created.   In  the year 1839 this fund amounted to £278,100, includ-
ing  real estate, and  amounts at the present time to $338,9^5.
This has enabled the asylum to contribute more than  one-third to
the cost of maintaining the pupils, thus diminishing the expense to
the Legislatures and individuals availing themselves of the benefit
it confers.  The six New England States and the State of South
Carolina have been the principal patrons.  The State of Connecticut
made it a grant of $5,000 in 1815, and has supported  beneficiaries
in the asylum from the time of its opening until the  present.  In
1825 the Legislatures of the remaining New  England States fol-
lowed its example.  The organization  of the asylum was originally
in two departments—one, that of  a home under a superintendent;
the other, that of a school under a principal.   The title of superin-
tendent was afterwards  changed to that of steward, and still later
to that of family guardian and steward.  The early teachers selected
by Dr. Gallaudet were men of  remarkable ability and  finished edu-
cation, and the example thus set has been followed by all institutions
which have since been established  in this country, under the belief
that a work of such importance and intrinsic difficulty  could thus be
carried on with far greater advantages than with teachers of merely
ordinary qualifications.  The result has been  that what has been
called the American system  has been brought to a degree of perfec-
tion that was not aticipated when the American asylum  was founded.
As,  however, deaf mutes of more than usual intelligence and attain-
ments have been trained in the different institutions, it has been
found advisable to make use of their rare ability to make an impres-
sion upon the  minds  of  their companions in misfortune,  in  the
teaching of  a portion of  the  classes.  Those early teachers also
enjo}'ed  the  rare advantage of obtaining,  through  Mr. Clerc,  a
sj'stem of pantomime, remarkable for its vividness and grace.  Mr.
Gallaudet himself had a veiy remarkable  skill in the use  of this
instrument,  in  expressing  ideas.   He was  the first  to introduce
regular religious exercises into an institution for the deaf and dumb,
on week days and on the Sabbath, if we except the Paris Institution,
where mass is celebrated once a week.  The permanent building of
the asylum was  completed in  1821,  and the service  of dedication
took place on the twenty-second of May of that year.   On the 22nd
of  April, 1830, in consequence  of  failing health, Mr.  Gallaudet
tendered his resignation to the directors, and retired from his office 
27
as principal on  the first of the following November, when he was
succeeded  by  Lewis  Weld,  Esq., one  of his  early  associates and
disciples.   His ability as a writer and thinker received fitting recog-
nition from Trinity College, which, in the year 1882, conferred upon
him the degree of LL.D.  He died on the 10th of September, 1851,
at the age of  sixty-one.   Thousands of deaf mutes in the country
who had been directly or indirectly benefitted by his labors were
inspired  by this event  to enter  at once upon contribution funds
towards the erection of  a monument to his memory,  and the cere-
monies attending its completion took place at the American asylum,
the scene of his labors, on the 6th of September, 1854.  The design
of this memorial stone was by Albert Newsam,  a distinguished deaf
mute  engraver,  but  one  of  the most attractive features was a
sculptured group on the seventh panel,  in which  Dr. Gallaudet is
represented as teaching little  children  the manual alphabet.   The
postures and  expressions of  the  figures are of rare beauty,  and do
great credit to the genius of John Carlin, a distinguished  deaf mute
artist  of  New  York, who  originated  the  conception.   With  its
companion monument, subsequently erected by the  deaf#mutes of
the country of  Laureat Clerc, who  died  at  Hartford,  July 18th,
1866,  it forms a very  beautiful ornament to the grounds of the
asylum.
   Dr. Gallaudet has been called the  De L'Epee  of America, but
while his title is in one  sense appropriate,  both by suggestion that
he did for this  country what  De  L'Epee  did  for  France, Italy,
and Spain, and by reminding us  that he was indebted to that great
man for those fundamental ideas which  characterized the  French
system, still,  as he furnished  to the world a new point of  departure,
from  which has  proceeded a system with peculiarities all  its own,
the historian will be inclined to assign him a separate and independ-
ent place,  as  he presents the  representative names  of Braidwood,
De E'Lpee, Heinicks, Gallaudet.
   Since the  time of Dr. Gallaudet,  forty-nine institutions  have
been  established, all but four of which may be regarded  as owing
their  existence and their methods to his  influence.  Of these,  New
York has seven, Illinois two,  Ohio  two,  Pennsylvania three,  and
every other state in the Union one, with the  exception  of  Maine,
New  Hampshire,  Vermont, Rhode  Island,  New Jersey,  Delaware,
Florida and Nevada.  The first four named send their pupils to
Hartford;  New Jersey sends hers to any institution that  may be
selected  by the  Governor,  but  principally  to  New  York  and
Pennsylvania,  and Delaware to  the District  of  Columbia.  The
number of  pupils actually under instruction on the 1st December,
1875, was  4,440, about half the number under instruction in the
whole world.   Some  six of  these institutions  have high class in
which the  higher  branches of  education are  taught, and there is
connected with the institution in the District of Columbia a college, 
28
which  receives,  as students, graduates of the  other institutions.
This is the only  institution to which appropriations are made by the
general Government, the several  States making provision  for the
education  of  their  own  deaf mute  beneficiaries as  a part of the
common school  system, the institution being responsible,  in most
instances,  to the State Superintendents  of Public Instruction.
Their immediate government is intrusted to boards of trustees or
directors  which select  the  principal or superintendent,   make by-
laws, direct and  cooitrol the expenditures and  exercise a  vigilant
guardianship through frequent visitations.   Heinickc, however,  is
followed in an  institution established in New York  City in 1867,
entitled the " New York institution for the  Improved  Instruction
of Deaf Mutes," its principal  teachers having been  associated with
the distinguished Mr. Deutsch, of the Jewish institution  in  Vienna.
In this connection it may not be out of place to say that  Braidwood
is also represented in the Clark Institution for the Deaf and Dumb
in Northampton,  Mass.,  where the distinctive principals  he advo-
cated seemed to  have  been followed.   This  institution was  also
founded  in 1867,  having been endowed with  a large fund for its
support by the late John  Clarke,  Esq.,  who took a peculiar interest
in the deaf and dumb.
   The  New York institution may be regarded as having been as
independent in  its origin as that of Hartford.  In  1816  William
Lee, Esq., on his return from Bordeaux, France, where he had been
consul, brought  a letter from  Mr. F. Card, the distinguished pupil
of the Abbe St.  Sarnin, the directors of the institution at  that place.
The letter  was  written.in excellent English,  which Mr.  Card  had
studied,  and  was  addressed  to  " Philanthropists of the United
States,"  and contained an offer of  himself as teacher of the deaf and
dumb,  and Mr. Lee  handed  it to Samuel L.  Mitchell,  M. D., a
celebrated physician in this city,  who had  attained a great reputa-
tion as  a man of  learning  and  benevolence.   Dr.   Mitchell's
sympathies were at once aroused,  and he conversed with  Rev. John
Stanford, chaplain of the alms house, who had met a  number  of
deaf mutes in the course of the ministrations, and with  Dr. Samuel
Ackerly, whom  he knew as a man with a heart  open to every call
of benevolence.   These  three gentlemen  called a  meeting  at the
house of Rev. John Stanford, at which  were present, besides them-
selves, Jones  Mapes,  Elisha W. King,  John  B.  Scott,  Silvanus
Miller,  R. Wheaton,  James  Palmer,  Nicholas  Rooms,  and Rev.
Alexander McLeod.  This meeting resulted in another, more public
at Tammany Hall, at which the feasibility of instructing the  deaf
and  dumb was  demonstrated by  evidence which Dr. Mitchell had
oollected, and then arose the more practical question  as to  whether
there were enough deaf mutes  in the  city to justify the establish-
ment of  a school.  The  result was the  first  census  of  deaf mutes
ever made  in  this country,   The Committees  appointed  presented, 
29
at a third meeting, on January 23,  1817,  reports from seven of the
ten wards in this city, giving the names and residences of sixty-six
deaf mutes.  The population of this city  was then  120,000, which
showed a proportion of  one to 1,818,  which does not differ very
much from that which obtains at the present time.
   A list of officers and directors, at the head  of which  was the
name of the Hon.  DeWitt Clinton, was then formed, and a petition
presented to the Legislature for an  act of incorporation.  The high
character of the applicants, and the unexceptional,  though novel
nature of the application, insured  a ready and  favorable  hearing,
and on the  15th of April, 1817,  the New York  Institution for the
Deaf and Dumb acquired a legal existence with the usual corporate
privileges.   By an interesting  coincidence, this was the same  day
that the  asylum  of Hartford was open for the reception of pupils.
On the 22nd of May, 1817, the board of  directors met for the first
time.  The  first act was to appoint  a committee to write to  England
for a teacher, under the  impression that the  system of articulation
introduced by Braidwood would be of more value than the French
system,  which  discarded  it.   No  answer  was  received  until the
summer of 1818, when the terms demanded were found so exorbit-
ant that  it was impossible to accede to them.   On the twenty-fourth
of March, 1818,  the deaf and dumb of New York were collected in
the court room of the city hall, and lent an affecting influence to an
address delivered by Dr.  Mitchell  to an  assemblage of the promi-
nent ladies  and  gentlemen of the city,  on the necessity of  making
provisions for their education.   On the  twentieth of May of the
same year  was found in a room  which  the city authorities  had
kindly set apart in the alms-house,  then situated in the City Hall
Park, a benovelent looking gentleman, of liberal education, named
Mr. Abraham C. Stansbury,  who had been a year in the asylum at
Hartford, in the capacity of superintendent of the administrative
department, and whom,  after waiting in vain to hear  from Europe,
the  directors of the New York Institution had  engaged to take
charge of their new school.  Around him  were grouped four young
deaf mutes  who had been brought to him this morning, and whom
he was in the act of teaching  the  letters of the manual alphabet.
They were  to live at home, and come  to him every  day.  Before
the close of the year 1818, had  been gathered  thirty-three pupils,
and  Miss  Mary Stansbury had been  employed as an additional
teacher.   Twenty-four of these pupils were  day  scholars, and nine
were boarders  who were  accommodated  in  hired  rooms for their
benefit.  Some of these were paying pupils, but the expenses of the
majority were defrayed by charitable contributions  and by the city
of New  York,  which agreed to make  an annual appropriation of
$400.   At the annual meeting of  the members  of the institution,
composed of ladies and  gentlemen, who  had agreed  to pay three
dallars  annually or thirty dollars in one sum,  held  on the third 
30
Tuesday of May in that year, in accordance wiih the terms of the
charter, Dr. Mitchell was elected president, in the place of De^ itt
Clinton,  who having been  elected  Governor,  felt  constrained to
retire.  In the spring of 1819, as the number of pupils had reached
forty-seven,  it  was found impossible to support the institution on
the  limited  resources  they  could  command,  and accordingly  Dr.
Mitchell, as president,  and  Dr.  Ackerly  as secretary of the board
of trustees, accompanied by Mr.  Stansbury and eleven of his pupils,
proceeded to  Albany, and held an exhibition before the Legislature.
The  result of the favorable impression thus created was the passage,
on the  13th  of April,  1819, of  two  acts—one  making  a direct
appropriation of $10,000 from  the  state treasury,  and the other
securing to the institution a moiety of a tax  on lotteries in the  city
of New York, from which, for fourteen years thereafter, a consider-
able  part of its income was derived.
   In the June following, Mr. Horace  Loofborrow was engaged as
an assistant  teacher.  In 1821  a further grant was  obtained from
the  Legislature of  $2,500,  and on  the  16th  of  April,  1822,  was
passed an Act appropriating $150 each per annum  for thirty-two
indigent State pupils,  four  of  whom were  to  be sent from  each
Senate district, and  authorizing the supervisors of  any county in
such district to send to  the institution, at the expense of the county,
any deaf mutes not provided  for by the  preceding  arrangement.   In
this  way, it was thought, no deaf mute would  be left  without in-
struction.  The term of  instruction was, however,  unfortunately
limited  to three years.   In  the meantime important  changes  had
taken place in the  organization  of the institution.  Mr.  Stansbury
departed for  Europe,  in May, 1821,  and Mr.  Horrace  Loof borrow
was made principal,  an office which  he held for  nearly ten years.
The  administrative department  of the institution  was placed in the
hands of Dr.  Samuel  Ackerly as superintendent and physician,  who
occupied this post till  February 1831.   In 1827 an  Act of  the
Legislature  was passed, granting $10,000 to  aid in  the  erection
of buildings  for the permanent  use of the institution, coupled with
three conditions ;   1st—That the directors should  raise an equal
amount; 2nd—That  the  location and  plans should receive the ap-
proval of the Superintendent of Common Schools, and the  expendi-
tures accounted for to the State Comptroller,  and;  3rd—That the
institution should be subject  to the inspection of the Superintendent
of Public Schools, this officer being,  at the same time, authorized to
visit other institutions for the deaf and dumb, and to suggest to the
directors such improvements in  the system of instruction as might
seem to him desirable.
   The directors having  complied with the conditions, the corner-
stone of  the  new building was laid  on  Fiftieth street,  between the
Fourth  and Fifth  avenues, by the Hon.  A.  C.  Flagg,  Secretary of
State and ex-officio Superintendent of Common Schools,  in  presence 
31
of a large assemblage of friends of the institution.  The site selected
was an acre of ground  donated  b}T the city, but some ten acres of
land adjoining were leased from the city for the use of the pupils.
For one who sees it  now, densly built  up with elegant stone struc-
tures, it is  difficult to realize  that this was then a rural  spot sur-
rounded by green fields, woods and pasture lots, and reached only
by country roads.  The building was dedicated to its humane pur-
poses on the 30th of September,  1829.  The address on the occasion
was delivered by Rev. James Milnor, D.D., Rector of St. George's
Church, who  at the election in May had been chosen as the successor
of Dr. Mitchell  in the office  of president.  Though the cost had
exceeded the original  estimate  by $15,000, amounting  in all to
$35,000, the entire amount, except  $10,000 given  by the  State,
was secured by the directors,  who thus far exceeded the condition
imposed upon them by law.
    While these events were transpiring, the Superintendent of Com-
mon Schools visited  the institutions at Hartford and Philadelphia,
and made a careful comparison of their system of instruction  with
that which had been pursued in  New York, and  made  a careful
report of his observations, which indicated his opinion as  to the
course it was desirable for the directors to pursue.   The labors and
anxieties connected  with erecting a suitable building having been
brought to an end, the directors now turned their attentions to mak-
ing improvement in the internal  management, and especially in the
personnel of the corps of instruction.   Under the inspiring guidance
of their new president the}7 inaugurated measures designed to  give
the institution a leading position in this  country  and in  the world.
Dr. Milnor  visited  Europe in  1830, at his  own expense,  and
inspected a large number of institutions.   On his return he brought
with him from the Paris Institution, Prof. Leon Vaisse, an instruc-
tor who held high rank in the  corps of the  Paris Institution, to
which he returned after some years of service in  New York,  and
successively made vice-principal and principal.
    The services of Harvey P.  Peet, A.M., who has been associated
with Dr. Gallaudet in the Hartford Institution as an instructor since
the year 1823,  and had, during  the most of the time, had the charge
of the administrative department of that institution, was soon after
engaged to combine, under one  head,  the hitherto separate offices
of principal and superintendent.
    From this, dates anew era in the history of the institution.   Mr.
Peet,  (afterwards known as Dr. Peet, by virtue of the title of L.L.
D.  conferred  upon him by  the Regents  of the University of the
State  of  New  York,)  entered upon his duties on the first of
February, 1831, and  at once,  with characteristic vigor, began to
introduce  the changes which  his experienced eye  found necessary,
He was a  man of judgment and  indefatigable energy, and he left
nothing unattempted that would rebound to the benefit and  reputa- 
32
 tion of the institution.  He always  kept it before the public  eye,
 both in the city and at the capital.   He  procured teachers who had
 the making of men that would be considered  eminent in any  pro-
 fession,   lie prepared and published a course  of instruction for the
 deaf and dumb which has been adopted in all the institutions in this
 country.  He organized and furthered during  his  life, a system of
 convention of teachers of the deaf and dumb which have continued
 to the present time.   He constantly contributed himself, and urged
 his associates to contribute  articles for various  periodicals, chiefly
 the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb, supported by all the
 institutions in the country, and in every way inspired  enthusiasm in
 his associates as well as his pupils; and }-et, withal, he  was a man
 of quiet  manners  and dignified presence, combining  seemingly
 opposite qualities in such a way as to bring to the institution and to
 cause everything that was needed for their advancement.   Obtain-
 ing the confidence of a board of  directors, composed  of gentlemen
 of much more than usual intelligence, he  secured their co-operation
 and influence in all measures where his special knowledge and ability
 gave  him pre-eminence, and was guided by  them in  all matters
 where their united wisdom and  varied experience were put in exer-
 cise  for the  benefit of  the institution.  The  result  was  that  the
 institution gained a full measure of that public favor that was essen-
 tial to its prosperity.  The period of instruction was  lengthened at
 various times till it finally reached eight years, and additions were
 made to the number of State pupils, till by the Act of 1862,  every
 indigent deaf mute in the State,  between the ages of twelve  and
 twenty-five was entitled to education at  the public expense.  The
 number of pupils was also steadily increased from eighty-five at the
 time of Dr. Peet's accession, to  the unprecedented number of 439 at
 the close of his administration.  The influence which brought it about
 were the wide disseminations of notices of the  institution circulated
 in its annual reports, which reached almost every person of leading
 influence in the several  counties,  and especially county and town
 officers, by the union with the New York institution, in 1836, of the
Central Asylum,  established in 1821, at Canajoharie,  N. Y., by
sending agents through the  State  to seek out the uneducated  deaf
and dumb, and by a tour in which Dr.  Peet  visited every city  and
 many towns of importance in the  State. 
    DOUBLE HAJV'DED  ALPHABET
FOR  THE DEAF MUTE AND  OTHERS.
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^k		F	G	<%"
	i	J	i-a^ K	^
	t\/^t M		O	^
Q		^	^	T
p§	u	M±	W	X
£"		z	GOOD	BAD
 
                                  Halifax, N. S.






TI7E hereby certify that we have known Mr. George Tait,





for a good many years as a man of christian character and





worthy of confidence.





           p. g. McGregor, d. d.




           JUDGE A. JAMES.




           J. S MACLEAN, Esq.




           HON.  McNEIL  PARKER, M.  D.




           REV. ALLAN SIMPSON.




           REV. P. M. MORRISON.
PRICE,  25  OEITTS. 
 
WZ 100 T135a 1890




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