IV. NEW YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.

THE New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb is the second American Institution of its kind in point of date. The American Asylum at Hartford preceded it about a year; and of perhaps two hundred schools for this class of learners in Europe, not more than about twenty-five now existing can claim an earlier origin.

There were two different attempts made in New York to instruct the unfortunate deaf and dumb, several years before the present Institution was founded. The Rev. John Stanford, a man whose memory is still cherished as a bright example of piety and of zealous labor in behalf of the unfortunate, finding in the alms-house, of which he was chaplain, several children whose ears were closed to the ordinary means of religious teaching, made an effort to impart some instruction to these heathen in a Christian land. He provided them with slates, and taught them to write the names of some familiar objects; but, for any further progress, peculiar processes of instruction were necessary, of which he had no knowledge; and his other duties did not permit such close study and attention as would have been requisite to invent them. He consequently found himself compelled to wait a more favorable period for the realization of his wishes. He was subsequently one of the founders of the Institution, and for several years a member of its Board of Directors.

The success of European teachers of the deaf and dumb was then very little known in America. Even in those countries where the art had been practiced longest, the deaf-mutes who were educated were but rare exceptions to the general lot; and in the popular estimation, the instruction of the deaf and dumb was still unintelligible and mysterious in its processes, and miraculous in its results, which, indeed, were often magnified beyond the limits of probability or truth. Still it was generally known to men of scientific research, that science and benevolence had triumphed over the difficulty held insuperable by the wisest of the ancients-that of enlightening the darkened mind of the deaf-mute; and with the names of De l'Epée and Sicard,— of Braidwood and Watson, there had probably come over the Atlantic some rumors of the different systems adopted by the French and English teachers respectively. "An Essay on Teaching the Deaf or Surd, and consequently Dumb, to Speak," appeared in the Transac

tions of the American Philosophical Society, as early as 1793; and some twenty years before that time, deaf-mute children of wealthy families had been sent from America to Great Britain to be educated. One of these was from New York, the son of a gentleman named Green; who, as early as 1780, placed the boy under the care of Thomas Braidwood, whose school near Edinburgh attracted so much attention in its day; Dr. Samuel Johnson being one of those who have left us very favorable notices of it. A letter written by Mr. Green, (who was probably the author of the curious old book on deaf-mute instruction, entitled Vox Oculis Subjecta,) giving an enthusiastic account of his son's progress, was preserved in a medical journal, and had long afterward an influence on the foundation of the New York Institution. At the same time, as for several years before, three deaf-mutes of the name of Bolling, belonging to the Virginia family of that name that claims descent from Pocahontas, were also under the care of Braidwood, and are said to have been remarkably well educated.

In the beginning of 1812, John Braidwood, a grandson of Thomas Braidwood, came to America, with the design of setting up a school for deaf-mutes on a magnificent scale. Col. William Bolling, a brother of the three deaf-mutes just mentioned, having himself children afflicted with the same privation, (no uncommon instance of the collateral transmission of deaf-dumbness in families,) invited young Braidwood to his house, and furnished him with funds to set on foot an establishment for the board and instruction of deaf-mutes, proposed to be located in Baltimore. Possessed of talents and skill as a teacher, Braidwood was totally deficient in steadiness and moral principle. He squandered in dissipation and debauchery the funds entrusted to him; was three times relieved by Col. Bolling; once served for a few months as a private teacher in that gentleman's family; was twice enabled by him to set up a private school in Virginia, in each case beginning well, and relapsing into dissipation in a few months; and finally died a victim to the bottle. In the course of these melancholy eccentricities, he found his way to New York, and collected a few deaf-mutes to form a school in that city, which, however, was soon broken up, like those in Virginia, by his own misconduct. This undertaking in New York attracted the attention, among others, of Dr. Samuel Akerly, afterward one of the earliest and most efficient friends of the New York Institution, of which he was for ten years, at once physician, secretary, and superintendent; and also the compiler of an early volume of Elementary Exercises for the Deaf and Dumb, not without merit in its day, though long since laid aside.

*

* Published in 1821. Dr. Akerly was also, at a later date, one of the founders of the New York Institution for the Blind, and its first President. He died in July, 1846.

Thus it happened that there were in New York, men of science, benevolence, and social influence, who had become interested in the subject of deaf-mute instruction at a time when there was as yet no established school for this afflicted class of our fellow men in America. The soil seems to have been made ready for the seed, and the seed was sown by a letter received in the latter part of the year 1816, from Mr. Gard, a distinguished deaf-mute from Bordeaux,—who, moved, it is presumed, by reports of the flattering reception given to his personal friend and worthy compeer, Laurent Clerc, (then lately arrived in America,) offered himself also, possessed as well as Clerc of many years experience, as pupil and teacher, in one of the best schools for deaf-mutes then existing, to cross the Atlantic for the benefit of the long neglected deaf and dumb of the New World. It is a matter of regret that, from circumstances not now fully known, the services of Mr. Gard were not secured.* The seed sown by his letter, however, took root. Dr. Samuel L. Mitchell,t a man eminent in his day for learning, philanthropy, and social influence, took up the subject; and in conjunction with the two gentlemen already named, and other benevolent citizens of New York, organized a society, at the head of whose list of officers stood the illustrious name of De Witt Clinton, and obtained from the Legislature an act of incorporation, bearing date April 15, 1817, which, by an interesting coincidence, was the same day that the Asylum at Hartford was opened.

The school was not opened till more than a year after the act of incorporation was obtained; a delay ascribed partly to the want of teachers, and partly to an opinion that had become prevalent, that the Asylum at Hartford, just opened with the great advantage of well qualified and experienced teachers, would suffice for all the deaf and dumb of the United States who were likely to become candidates for the novel benefits of education. This idea, preposterous as it now appears, was then, in the total absence of statistics, very natural, and led to one of the earliest recorded attempts to ascertain the number of deaf-mutes in any considerable population. There were found,

This distinguished pupil of the Abbé St. Sernin, esteemed by those qualified to judge, as being in solid, if not in shining qualities, superior to Massieu, the renowned pupil of Sicard, was for many years an able teacher in the Deaf and Dumb Institution of Bordeaux. He died about the year 1838.

↑ Dr. Mitchell, (several years a Member of Congress,) was from 1819 to 1829, the President of the Institution. He died in 1831.

Among these founders and early friends of the Institution, very few of whom now survive, the following merit especial mention: John Slidell, Esq., Gen. Jonas Mapes, Silvanus Miller, Peter Sharpe. and especially James Milnor, D. D., Vice President of the Institution from 1820 to 1829, and President from 1829 to his death in 1845. Of other later benefactors of the Institution, who have gone to their final reward, we owe especial mention to the names of Robert C. Cornell, John R. Willis, William L. Stone, and Robert D. Weeks

though the census was not complete, sixty-six deaf-mutes actually residing in the city of New York, which then contained about 110,000 inhabitants,-a proportion far surpassing expectation, but not varying greatly from the average of many enumerations since made in Europe and America. Most of these unfortunate deaf-mutes belonged to families in very moderate and even indigent circumstances; and as private charity was the main reliance in prospect for assisting them to obtain an education, legislative provision to that end being then a thing unprecedented, and hardly counted on,-it was manifestly impracticable to send any considerable number of them to a boarding school at a distance. The most obvious means of securing the instruction of the large number of deaf-mute children in the city, was to open a day school, which they could attend at the expense of tuition only, and receive instruction in the same classes with such pupils from a distance as should be able to pay their board, or for paying whose board means could be provided by private or public benevolence. On this plan, of which the only recommendation was economy, while the disadvantages were many, the school was actually kept for the first eleven years.

Application was made to some of those schools in Great Britain, which were then endeavoring to maintain a monopoly of the method and processes of Braidwood, for a teacher already qualified to teach articulation, as well as other branches of knowledge; but failed, as in the case of Mr. Gallaudet, who applied to the same schools in person for instruction in their methods, on account of the onerous terms demanded. Finally, in the spring of 1818, the Rev. Abraham O. Stansbury, who had been during its first year of operation, the "Superintendent," (i. e. steward,) of the Asylum at Hartford, and had thus acquired some skill in the colloquial language of the deaf and dumb, was appointed the first teacher of the New York Institution, and the school was opened with a class of four pupils, May 12, 1818. The means for its support were at first subscriptions and donations, with payments from such parents as were able. The city of New York soon assumed the patronage of ten day scholars residing in the city; and when the success of the school became sufficiently decisive, and the number of applicants from the interior of the State painfully numerous, the Legislature of New York made provision for indigent boarding pupils, restricted at first, but increased from time to time. The first grants from the State were donations of money merely; but in 1821, permanent and specific provision was made for thirty-two State pupils, whose term of instruction was, according to the very moderate notions of that day, limited to three years each.