HV 
 GhTBs 
 
 yC-NRLF 
 
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DISCOURSE 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 THE LIFE, CHARACTER AND SERVICES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 RET. THOMAS H. 6ALLAUDET, LL. D., 
 
 i 
 
 1>EHVKKE1) iiKi<«»liK 
 
 THE CITIZENS OF HARTFORD, 
 
 JANUARY 7tli, 18 5 2. 
 
 BY HENRY BARNARD 
 
 HARTFORD : 
 
 i PUBLISHED BY BROCKETT & HUTCHINSON. 
 
 18 5 2. 
 
DISCOURSE 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF 
 
 THE LIFE, CHARACTER AND SERVICES, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 REV. THOMAS H. GALLAUDET, LL D., 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 THE CITIZENS OF HARTFORD, 
 
 JANUARY 7th, 1852. 
 
 BY HENRY BARNARD 
 
 HARTFORD : 
 
 PUBLISHED BY BROCKETT & HUTCHINSON. 
 1852. 
 

 Hartford, Jan. 9th, 1852. 
 Dear Sir ; 
 
 The undersigned having Ustened with much gratification to your truly- 
 interesting and eloquent eulogy, of the 7th inst, on the life and services of 
 our esteemed fellow-citizen, the late Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, of this 
 city, solicit a copy of the same for publication, a general desire having been 
 manifested to see it in print. Understanding that you omitted, in ^the de- 
 livery, a portion of the address prepared for that occasion, it Is the desire 
 of the committee, should you consent to comply with their request, that you 
 will furnish them with the entire production, for the jiress, together with such 
 other matter in connection therewith, as you may wish to publish with it. 
 With sentiments of great respect. 
 
 Very truly, yours, &c., 
 
 THO. H. SEYMOUR. 
 B. HUDSON. 
 JAMES H. WELLS. 
 PHILLIP RIPLEY. 
 JOHN S. BUTLER. 
 Hon. HENRY BARNARD, 
 
 SUPERINTKNDENT OF CoMlMOX ScHOOLS. 
 
 243 
 
TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY 
 
 BY THE CITIZENS OF HARTFORD, 
 
 Rev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, LL. D., died on the 10th of Sep- 
 tember, 1851, and was buried on the 12th of the same month, after impressive 
 religious services in the South Congregational Church, which was crowds 
 with mourning friends, the officers and members of the public institutions 
 with which the deceased was connected in life, and with citizens gener- 
 ally. The loss which society and the cause of religion had thus sustained was 
 duly coimaiemorated and improved in several churches of the cit}- on the 
 Sabbaths immediately following. But it was still a very general wish that 
 exercises of a more public character should be had, in which the citizens of 
 Hartford generally might participate. 
 
 In pursuance of a call signed by thirty of the principal citizens of Hartford, 
 a preliminary meeting was held in the Lecture Room of the Center Church, 
 on^the evening of the 20th of October, 1851, in reference to the adoption of 
 measures for some public tribute of respect to his memorj'. 
 
 The meeting was called to order by Governor Seymour, and organized by 
 the appointment of Hon. Thomas Day, Chairman, and Luzerne Rae, Sec_ 
 retary. 
 
 A series of resolutions was presented by the Rev. William W. Turner, 
 which, after brief remarks by the mover, the Hon. Seth Terrj', the Rev. Dr- 
 Bushnell, and other gentlemen, were unanimously adopted. 
 
 JVIiereast, It having pleased Alraifrhty God to remove by death the Rev. 
 Thomas H. Gallaudet, LL. D., a resident of Hartford for half a century, 
 universally known and not less universally beloved and honored, both as a 
 private citizen and public benefactor; 
 
 Resolved, That, in the view of this meeting, the occasion is one which de- 
 1 
 
2 TJiomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 mands a more public and particular recognition, than properly belongs to the 
 demise of an ordinary citizen. 
 
 Resolved, That the whole character of the eminent and excellent man whose 
 death we mourn, commanding, as it did, our reverence and admiration while 
 he lived among us, will be long remembered now that he is dead, as a hapjiy 
 union of various and often disunited qualities; of Christian faith arul philan- 
 thropic works; of liberality without laxity; of firmness without bigotry ; of 
 sympathy with the vicious and the criminal in their sufferings, without undue 
 tenderness toward vice and crime ; and as furnishing in its whole development, 
 a beavitiful proof of the possibility of meeting the most rigorous demands of 
 conscience and of God, and of securing, at the same time, the love and respect 
 of all elasses and conditions of men. 
 
 Resolved, That, by the death of Dr. Gallaudet, society has lost one of its 
 brightest ornaments ; the cause of education a most able and faithful advocate ; 
 religion, a shining example of daily devotion to its principles; the young, a 
 kind and judicious counselor; and the unfortunate of every class, a self-denying 
 and never wearying friend. 
 
 Resolved, That ihe noblest monuments of the deceased are already erected ; 
 and that his name will never be forgotten, so long as the two benevolent institu- 
 tions, one of which received its existence from the labor of his early manhood, 
 while the other enjoyed the devoted services of his later years, remain to crown 
 the beautiful hills in the neighborhood of our city. 
 
 Resolved, That a committee of five be appointed by this meeting, to devise 
 such measures as may seem expedient, in further tribute to the memory of Dr. 
 Gallaudet; and to make all the arrangements necessary to carry these meas- 
 ures into effect. 
 
 It was voted that the resolutions adopted by the meeting should be printed 
 in the public papers, and that a copy of the same should be presented by 
 the Secretary to the family of Mr.. Gallaudet. 
 
 In accordance with the last of these resolutions, a conmiittee of arrange- 
 ments was appointed, consisting of the following gentlemen : — B. Hudson, 
 Esq., His Excellency, Thomas H. Seymour, James H. Wells, Esq., Phillip 
 Ripley, Esq., Dr. John S. Butler. 
 
 In pursuance of the action of this committee, the following Public Services 
 were held in the South Congregational Church on Wednesday evening. 
 January 7th, 1852. 
 
 CHANT. 
 
 Blessed are the dead, who die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith 
 the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow 
 them. 
 
 Our days are as a shadow, and there is none abiding; we are but of yes- 
 terday, there is but a step between us and death. 
 
 Man's days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 
 
 He appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. 
 
 "Watch, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. 
 
 Be ye also ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man comcth. 
 
 It is the Lord : let him do what seemeth him good. 
 
 The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, and blessed be the name of 
 the Lord. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM SCRIPTTJEE. 
 
 BY REV. WALTER CLARKE. 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallandet. 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 BY MRS. LYDIA HUNTLEY SIGOURNKT. 
 
 We mourn his loss, — who meekly walked 
 
 In the Redeemer's way. 
 And toiled the unfolding mind to shield 
 
 From Error's darkening sway; 
 
 Who strove through Nature's prisoning shades 
 
 The hermit-heart to reach, 
 And with philosophy divine 
 
 To give the silent, speech ; 
 
 Who 'mid the cells of dire disease 
 
 In prayerful patience wrought, 
 And stricken and bewildered souls 
 
 To a Great Healer brought. 
 
 Around his grave let pilgrims throng, 
 
 And tears bedew his urn : 
 'Tis meet that for the friend of all. 
 
 The hearts of all should mourn. 
 
 Yet meet it is our Gob to praise 
 
 For his example here. 
 And for his glorious rest, — above 
 
 The trial and the tear. 
 
 PRAYEE. 
 
 BY REV. WALTER CLARKE, 
 
 HYMN. 
 
 BY LUZERNE RAE. 
 
 He dies : the earth becomes more dark 
 
 When such as he ascend to heaven. 
 For where Death strikes a ' shining mark,' 
 
 Through bleeding hearts his shaft is driven. 
 Alike the sounds of mourning come 
 
 From humble hut and Ibfty hall. 
 Wherever misery finds a home ; 
 
 And all lament the friend of all. 
 
 He dies : and still around his grave. 
 
 The silent sons of sorrow bend. 
 With tears for him thry could not save. 
 
 Their guide — their father — and their friend ; 
 And minds in ruin ask for him, 
 
 With wondering woe that he is gone; 
 And cheeks are pale and eyes are dim. 
 
 Among the outcast and forlorn. 
 
4 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 He lives : for virtue cannot die ; 
 
 The man departs, his deeds remain; 
 They wipe the tear, they check the sigh, 
 
 They hush the sob of mortal pain. 
 Love lasts forever : age on age 
 
 The holy flame renews its glow, 
 While man's brief years of pilgrimage. 
 
 End in the dust of death below. 
 
 He lives : his memory is the light 
 
 To which our eyes with reverence turn : 
 To love the true — to choose the right — 
 
 Are lessons from his life we learn. 
 Give us, O God ! thy guiding hand. 
 
 And teach us by thy word, that we 
 Like him may labor in the land, 
 
 And follow him to heaven and Thee. 
 
 EULOGY. 
 
 BY HENRY BARNARD. 
 
 DIE6E. 
 
 Paraphrase of COLLINS' " How sleep the brave !" 
 
 BY REV. THOMAS H. GALLAUDET, LL. D. 
 
 How sleep the good ! who sink to rest. 
 With their Redeemer's favor blest : 
 When dawns the day, by seers of old, 
 Li sacred prophecy foretold. 
 They then shall burst their humble sod. 
 And rise to meet their Saviour — God. 
 
 To seats of bliss by angel-tongue. 
 With rapture is their welcome sung, 
 And at their tomb when evening gray 
 Hallows the hour of closing day. 
 Shall Faith and Hope awhile repair. 
 To dwell with weeping Friendship there. 
 
 The early and spontaneous movement of many graduates of the American 
 Asylum, and of deaf mutes in other parts of the country towards the ereetion 
 of a monument in the grounds of the Asylum, commemorative of their grati- 
 tude and affection towards this great benefactor of tliat class, may supersede 
 the action of the committee in that direction. 
 
EULOaY. 
 
 In the autumn of 1807, in the family of Dr. Mason Fitch 
 Cogswell, the beloved physician of our city at the date refer- 
 red to, there was an interesting child, over whose innocent 
 beauty, and joyous temper, and opening faculties, two sum- 
 mers had shed their fragrance, their brightness and their 
 music. The heart of little Alice Cogswell, — for her name 
 has become historic, — seemed the gushing fountain of glad 
 and gladdening emotions, which fell from her lips in the un- 
 written melody of childhood's first imperfect words. Her 
 curious ear was quick to catch the lowest tones of a mother's 
 or a sister's voice, and assimilate into her spirit's growth the 
 many sounds with which exulting nature makes every nook 
 of her wide domain vocal. There was about her whole ap- 
 pearance and movements that indescribable purity and joy 
 which suggested to the poet the thought " that Heaven lies 
 about us in our infancy," or that more consoling declaration 
 of Him who took little children in his arms and blessed them, 
 " that of such is the kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 Interesting as this child was, she became in the providence 
 of God, in consequence of an attack of spotted fever, when 
 two years and three months old, an object of still wider 
 and deeper interest to her family, to this community, and to 
 the world. 
 
 The child recovered from its severe illness, but it was soon 
 painfully evident that the sense of hearing was obliterated, 
 and that to her ear this universe of sound, from the mighty 
 compass of the many-stringed harp of nature, to the varied 
 tones of the human voice, was as silent as a desert ; and as is 
 not usual in such cases, the loss of articulation soon followed 
 the loss of hearing. 
 
6 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 There is no need of words to realize to you, even if you 
 have not been brought into the experience, or the presence of 
 such calamity, — the mother's anguish or the father's anxiety, 
 when the gladsomeness of this child's heart no longer found 
 expression in prattling converse, and its blank look proclaimed 
 that the voice of maternal affection fell unheeded on its ear. 
 The yearnings of its young spirit for love, or for its little 
 wants, could only find expression in inarticulate breathings, 
 or uncouth explosions of sound. 
 
 As Alice grew in years, it was painfully evident, that as 
 compared with children of the same age, having perfect 
 senses, she did not grow in knowledge. The shades of a 
 prison-house seemed to close round her mind, although 
 placed in the midst of cultivated society, teachers, schools, 
 books, and 
 
 The boundless store 
 Of charms which nature to her votary yields; 
 The warbling woodland ; the resounding shore ; 
 The pomp of groves and garniture of fields ; 
 All that the genial ray of morning gilds. 
 And all that echoes to the song of even ; 
 All that the mountains' sheltering bosom shields. 
 And all the dread magnificence of Heaven. 
 
 Her spirit, gifted with the warmest affections, and the 
 power of an endless life, and of indefinite progression, seemed 
 destined to sit in the loneliness of perpetual solitude, — cut 
 off from all intercourse, through teachers and books, with the 
 great and good on earth, from the majestic contemplation of 
 its own immortal existence, the sublime conception of an 
 Infinite and Supreme Intelligence, and from all communion 
 with the spirits of the just made perfect. 
 
 By agencies and in ways, to which I shalf briefly advert, 
 modes of reaching, and educating that mind were discovered 
 and applied, — that imprisoned spirit was wooed forth into 
 the light of a gladsome existence, — the warmth of that loving 
 heart was cherished so as to add not only to the cheerfulness 
 of her parental home, and when she passed from girlhood into 
 young womanhood, she was not only clothed with the attrac- 
 tions of personal beauty and accomplished manners, but 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 7 
 
 displayed the higher attractions of a cultivated mind and a 
 purified spirit — star-illumed, like the depths of the midnight 
 Heavens above us, with bright thoughts and holy aspirations. 
 Among the teachers who were instrumental in commencing 
 and working this change, the name of Lydia Huntley must 
 not be forgotten, to whom also many of the most accom- 
 plished women of our city owe the early culture of their 
 minds and moral tastes, and who under this and another 
 name, by weaving her own happy inspirations into the bridal 
 wreath and the mourning chaplet of her friends, has associa- 
 ted herself inseparably with the household memories of our 
 city and our land. 
 
 How touching and beautiful are the lines in which this 
 gifted lady has imagined her favorite pupil, from a higher 
 and purer region, addressing the cherished objects of kindred 
 affection on earth. 
 
 Joy ! I am mute no miore, 
 My sad and silent years 
 With all their loveliness are o'er. 
 Sweet sisters dry your tears ; 
 Listen at hush of eve, — listen at dawn of day, 
 List at the hour of prayer, — can ye not hear my lay ? 
 Untaught, unchecked, it came. 
 As light from chaos beamed. 
 Praising his everlasting name. 
 
 Whose blood from Calvary streamed, 
 And still it swells that highest strain, the song of the redeemed. 
 
 Sisters ! there's rpusic here ; 
 
 From countless harps it flows, 
 Throughout this bright celestial sphere, 
 
 Nor pause nor discord knows. 
 The seal is melted from mine ear, 
 
 By love divine. 
 And what through life I pined to hear, 
 
 Is mine, is mine, — 
 The warbling of an ever tuneful choir. 
 And the full, deep response of David's sacred lyre. 
 Did kind earth hide from me. 
 Her broken harmony, 
 That thus the melodies of Heaven might roll 
 And whelm in deeper tides of bliss my wrapt, my wondering soul ! 
 
 But the individual whose blessed privilege it was to plant 
 the standard of intelligence in the almost inaccessible fast- 
 
8 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 nesses of Alice Cogswell's mind, — to establish for her lines 
 and avenues of communication between the inner and 
 the outer world, — to give her the means and methods of 
 self-culture, — and if not literally to unloose the tongue, or 
 unseal the ear, to unfold to her spirit the harmonies, and 
 clothe it with the singing robes of Heaven, — ^was Thomas 
 Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 But his labors in the cause of deaf-mute instruction were 
 not confined to this individual case. Through the agency 
 and cooperation of many others, it was his higher distinction 
 to have founded an institution, and by its success, to have 
 led the way to the establishment of already thirteen other in- 
 stitutions, by which thousands of this unfortunate class have 
 already been rescued from the doom of ignorance and isola- 
 tion from their kind ; and tens of thousands more, instead of 
 remaining ignorant, lonely, and helpless, will yet be introduced 
 to the boundless stores of human and divine knowledge, to 
 the delights of social intercourse, to a participation in the 
 privileges of American citizenship, to such practical skill in 
 useful mechanical and commercial business, and even the 
 higher walks of literature, science and the fine arts, as will ena- 
 ble them to gain an honorable livelihood, by their own personal 
 exertions, and in fine, to all the duties and privileges of edu- 
 cated Christian men and women, capable not only of indi- 
 vidual usefulness and well-being, but of adding, each, some- 
 thing to the stock of human happiness, and of subtracting 
 something from the sum of human misery. 
 
 But he was not only the successful teacher in a new and 
 most difficult department of human culture, he was a wise 
 educator in the largest acceptation of that word, the early 
 and constant friend of the teacher in every grade of school, 
 the guide and counselor of the young, the untiring laborer in 
 every work of philanthropy — the Christian gentleman, and 
 the preeminently good man. And this truly great and good 
 man was our own townsman, and neighbor and friend. 
 Here was the field of his useful and benevolent labors, — here 
 stands, and will stand the institution which he founded, and 
 with which his name will be associated forever. Here in our 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 9 
 
 daily walks, are the men and women whom his labors have 
 blessed, — here are the children and youth, the sons and 
 daughters of silence, and but for him, of sorrow, who have 
 come here to this " house of mercy," which he founded, to 
 this pool of Bethesda, whose waters will possess the virtue 
 of healing so long as its guardians labor in his spirit, — here 
 the beauty of his daily life fell like a blessing on the dusty 
 turmoil of our busy and selfish pursuits. 
 
 From this field of his benevolent labor, — from these public 
 charities, in whose service he spent so large a part of his 
 life, — from his family, where he had gathered up his heart's 
 best affections of an earthly sort, — from his daily round of 
 neighborly and benevolent offices, it has pleased God to re- 
 move him by death. And although the funeral obsequies 
 have long since been performed, and the winds of winter, 
 which ever reminded him of the claims of the poor, are now 
 sighing their requiem over his last resting-place, to which 
 we followed him in the first month of autumn — we, his 
 fellow-citizens, neighbors and friends, have come together, 
 to devote a brief space to the contemplation of his life, 
 character and services. Our commemoration of such a 
 man cannot come too late, or be renewed too often, if we 
 go back to our various pursuits, with our faith in good- 
 ness made strong, and our aims and efforts for the welfare of 
 our fellow-men purified and strengthened. But whatever we 
 may do, or omit to do, for his broadly beneficent life and 
 sublime Christian virtues, the world will add one other name 
 to its small roll of truly good men who have founded institu- 
 tions of beneficence, and lifted from a bowed race the burden 
 of a terrible calamity ; — 
 
 One other name with power endowed, 
 To cheer and guide men onward as they pass, — 
 
 One other image on the heart bestowed. 
 To dwell there beautiful in holiness. 
 
 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was born in the city of 
 Philadelphia, on the 10th of December, 1787. His father, 
 Peter W. Gallaudet, was descended frpm that branch of a 
 Huguenot family, which fled from France on the revocation 
 
10 Tliomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 of the Edict of Nantz, and settled afterward near New Rochelle 
 in New York, on the borders of Connecticut. His mother, Jane 
 Hopkins, was the daughter of Captain Thomas Hopkins, — a 
 descendant of one of the first settlers of Hartford, whose 
 name is recorded on the historical monument in the old 
 burial ground in the rear of the Center Church. The family- 
 removed to Hartford in 1800, where the son continued ever 
 after to reside. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet completed his preparation at the Hartford 
 Grammar School for the sophomore class of Yale College, 
 which he entered in the autumn of 1802, in the fifteenth year 
 of his age, — an age, as he often remarked, too young, to ena- 
 ble a student to reap the full advantage of a collegiate course 
 of study and discipline. Although quite young, — the young- 
 est member of his class, and by temperament and habit 
 inclined to be cheerful and even mirthful, he was ever studi- 
 ous, with a reputation for sound scholarship, second to no 
 other in his class, distinguished for the talent and attain- 
 ments of its members, — strictly observant of the laws of the 
 institution, and graduated before he was eighteen years old. 
 During his connection with college, he was remarkable for 
 the accuracy of his recitations in every department of study, 
 and was particularly eminent in mathematics, and for profi- 
 ciency in English composition. To his early attention to 
 mathematics we may attribute much of that discipline which 
 enabled him to summon his mental vigor and resources at 
 will, and to his early and constant practice of English com- 
 position, that facility and felicity of expression which char- 
 acterized his conversation and more elaborate discourses. 
 
 Soon after leaving college he entered upon the study of 
 law, in the office of Hon. Chauncey Goodrich — reciting his 
 Blackstone, during Mr. Goodrich's absence in attendance at 
 court, to the Hon. Thomas S. Williams, late chief justice of 
 the State. Here, as in every thing he undertook, he was 
 punctual, and methodical, his recitations were remarkable 
 for their accuracy, and he gave every assurance of his be- 
 coming in time a thorough and successful lawyer. The state 
 of his health, which was never robust, compelled him at the 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 11 
 
 close of the first year, to suspend his legal studies, which he 
 never resumed. The interval, before he entered on his duties 
 as tutor in Yale College, in 1808, was devoted to an exten- 
 sive course of reading in English literature, and the practice 
 of English composition. His experience as tutor enabled him 
 to review and extend his collegiate studies, and introduced 
 him to the subject of education as a science, and to its prac- 
 tical duties as an art. No one could appreciate more highly 
 than he did the value of even a brief experience in teaching, 
 as a school of mental and moral discipline, and as the most 
 direct way to test the accuracy of attainments already made. 
 
 About this time, his health requiring a more active life, he 
 undertook a business commission for a large house in New 
 York, the prosecution of which took him over the Alleghanies, 
 into the States of Ohio and Kentucky, — and on his return, 
 with the intention of pursuing a mercantile life, he entered 
 as clerk a counting-room in the city of New York. But 
 neither law or commerce seemed to open the field, in which 
 he could labor with his whole heart and mind, although he 
 often referred to his early acquaintance with their elementary 
 principles and forms of business and practice, as a valuable 
 part of his own education. Neither did he regard his colle- 
 giate education as at all an inappropriate preparation for a 
 life of active mercantile business. He never entertained for 
 himself or his childri^n, the absurd and mischievous notion, 
 which is too prevalent in society, that a man having a colle- 
 giate or liberal education, must necessarily preach, — or prac- 
 tice law, — or hold a political office, or trade, or speculate on a 
 large scale, — to be respectable. He regarded the thorough 
 training of the mind, and large acquaintance with books and 
 men, as a fit preparation for any business or pursuit. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet made a public profession of his religious 
 faith, and became a member of the First Congregational 
 Church of Hartford, under the ministry of Rev. Dr. Strong. 
 In the fall of 1811, he commenced the study of theology at 
 Andover, which he prosecuted with his usual diligence and 
 success, amid all the interruptions and drawbacks of delicate 
 health. He was licensed to preach in 1814, and received im- 
 
12 Tlwmas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
 
 mediately an invitation to assume the pastoral relations with 
 a church in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and from several 
 parishes in Connecticut, — but although admirably adapted 
 for such a life, his Master had work for him in other, and 
 no less important fields of Christian duty. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet was now twenty-seven years old. His 
 life thus far was a course of diligent and thorough preparation 
 for a life of eminent usefulness in any department of literary 
 or professional labor. His mind was disciplined and enriched 
 by an assiduous improvement of all the advantages of one 
 of the best colleges in our country. He had assured himself 
 of his own knowledge, by his success as a practical teacher. 
 He had devoted much time to the attentive study of English 
 literature, and to the practice of English composition. He 
 had a knowledge of the elementary principles of law, and of 
 legal forms, by an attendance on legal proceedings in court, 
 and in the office of a successful practitioner. He had gone 
 through a thorough course of theological study, and had 
 already officiated with great acceptance as a preacher in a 
 temporary supply of the pulpit in several places. He had 
 seen much of the world, and the transactions of business, in 
 travel, and in the practical duties of the store and the count- 
 ing-room. He was universally respected for his correct life, 
 as well as thorough scholarship, and beloved for his benevo- 
 lent feelings, social qualities, and courteous manners. He 
 was ready for his mission. That mission was the long neg- 
 lected field of deaf-mute instruction, to which his attention 
 had already been turned from his interest in little Alice Cogs- 
 well, whose father's residence was in the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of his own home, and who was also the companion 
 of his own younger brothers and sisters. It was during an 
 interview in his father's garden, where Alice was playing with 
 other children, that Mr. Gallaudet, then a student at Ando- 
 ver, succeeded in arresting her attention by his use of signs, 
 the natural language of the deaf and dumb, and in giving 
 her a first lesson in written language, by teaching her that 
 the word hat represented the thing-y hat, which he held in his 
 hand. Following up this first step, in such methods as his 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 13 
 
 own ingenuity could suggest, and what such lights as he 
 could gather from a publication of the Abbe Sicard, which 
 Dr. Cogswell had procured from Paris, Mr. Gallaudet from 
 time to time succeeded in imparting to her a knowledge of 
 many simple words and sentences which were much en- 
 larged by members of her own family, and especially by her 
 first teacher, Miss Lydia Huntley. This success encouraged 
 her father in the hope, that instead of sending his child, 
 made more dear to him by her privations, away from home, 
 to Edinburgh, or London, for instruction in the schools of 
 Rev. R. Kinniburgh, or Dr. Watson, a school might be opened 
 in Hartford. 
 
 Dr. Cogswell had already ascertained, by a circular ad- 
 dressed to the Congregational clergymen of Connecticut, 
 that there were at least eighty deaf mutes in the State, many 
 of whom were young enough to attend a school, and his 
 Christian benevolence prompted the aspiration and belief 
 that it was not the ' will of our Father who is in Heaven 
 that one of these little ones should perish.' With these data 
 and aims before him, and with such information as he could 
 gather as to the progress and results of deaf-mute instruction 
 in Europe, he addressed himself to the Christian benevolence 
 and kind feelings of his neighbors and friends, for their co- 
 operation. A meeting was accordingly held at his house on 
 the 13th of April, 1815, composed (as appears from a journal 
 kept by Mr. Gallaudet) of Mason F. Cogswell, M. D., 
 Ward Woodbridge, Esq., Daniel Wadsworth, Esq., Henry 
 Hudson, Esq., Hon. Nathaniel Terry, John Caldwell, Esq., 
 Daniel Buck, Esq., Joseph Battel, Esq., (of Norfolk,) the Rev. 
 Nathan Strong, D. D., and Rev. Thomas Gallaudet. The 
 meeting was opened with the invocation of the Divine bless- 
 ing on their undertaking, by Rev. Dr. Strong, and after a full 
 discussion of the practicability of sending some suitable per- 
 son to Europe, to acquire the art of instructing the deaf-^and 
 dumb. Dr. Cogswell and IVIr. Woodbridge were appointed a 
 committee to obtain subscriptions for the purpose, and ascer- 
 tain the name of a suitable person who would consent to go. 
 Mr. Woodbridge was then in the prime of life, and in the 
 
14 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 front rank of the mercantile interest of Hartford. By his per- 
 sonal solicitation, and the example of his own liberal sub- 
 scription, he succeeded in the course of one day in obtaining 
 the pledge of a sufficient sum to meet the expense of the en- 
 terprise, and it is safe to say that no other business transac- 
 tion of his life is now associated with such a train of pleasant 
 recollections. He and Daniel Buck, Esq., are now the only 
 survivors of that first voluntary association, in whose prayers, 
 pecuniary contributions and personal exertions, the American 
 Asylum had its origin. Foremost on the list of subscribers 
 in amount, stands the name of Daniel Wadsworth, who gave 
 to this community, through a long life, a beautiful example 
 of the true uses of wealth, by its judicious expenditure under 
 his own personal inspection, for the promotion of Christian, 
 benevolent, patriotic, and literary purposes. 
 
 To Mr. Gallaudet, the eyes of all interested in the object 
 were instinctively turned, as the one person, qualified beyond 
 all others, by his manners, talents, attainments, and Chris- 
 tian spirit, to engage in this mission. After much prayerful 
 consideration of the subject, and not till he had failed to en- 
 list the agency of others in this pioneer work of benevolence, 
 on the 20th of April, 1815, he informed Dr. Cogswell and 
 Mr. Woodbridge " that he would visit Europe for the sake of 
 qualifying himself to become a teacher of the deaf and dumb 
 in this country." On the 20th of May following, he sailed 
 for New York, in the prosecution of his benevolent object. 
 
 Before leaving America, Mr. Gallaudet penned the fol- 
 lowing address to the benevolent of our own country, in be- 
 half of the object of his mission. 
 
 " Amid all the calamities which have of late darkened the 
 world, it is matter of no small consolation to the benevolent 
 mind, to witness the various efforts which are making for 
 meliorating the condition of man. Nor will the hope that 
 rests*on divine revelation be deceived, that these efforts, under 
 the blessing of God, will eventually terminate in the univer- 
 sal diffusion of peace and happiness through the earth. Be- 
 nevolence directed to its proper object will not be lost. The 
 seed may be long hid in the earth, but a future harvest will 
 
TJiomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 15 
 
 crown honest labor with success. This is sufficient to en- 
 courage those eftbrts for doing good, which in their present 
 prosecution may be attended with considerable embarrass- 
 ment, and for the successful result of which, the charity 
 which engages in them must be liberal enough to embrace 
 in its view generations yet unborn. 
 
 " Still it is more grateful to witness the effect of our benefi- 
 cence, to see the smile which w^e ourselves have lighted upon 
 the cheek of sorrow, and to hear the sound of cheerfulness 
 which our own charity has raised from the tongue of suffering. 
 And where the object of relief is not only present, but owes 
 its misfortune to some natural calamity or inevitable dispen- 
 sation of Providence ; where the impediments and difficulties 
 under which it labors can be removed, and refined intellect- 
 ual and moral excellence can be shed upon its character, as it 
 were by the touch of our beneficence, then it becomes a de- 
 lightful duty to imitate the example of him who went about 
 doing good. To such a duty it is the object of this paper to 
 direct the attention of the benevolent. 
 
 " We have among us a class of our fellow beings, the deaf 
 and dumb, who are deprived by a wise Providence of many 
 resources of improvement and happiness with which the rest 
 of mankind are favored. Their numbers, their condition, and 
 the practicability of affording them relief, address loud claims 
 to every feeling heart. A simple statement of facts will, it is 
 hoped, be sufficient to excite the attention of the benevolent 
 to this interesting subject. 
 
 " At a session of the General Association of the Congrega- 
 tional clergymen of Connecticut, held in Sharon, June, 1812, 
 it was reported by a committee appointed some time before 
 for the purpose, that within the limits of the several associa- 
 tions of the State, there were eighty-four deaf and dumb per- 
 sons. A copy of this report is in the possession of Doctor 
 Mason F. Cogswell, of Hartford. Now no reason can be 
 given why the whole population of New England should not 
 contain a proportionate number of the deaf and dumb. 
 Taking the Connecticut as the standard, New England con- 
 tains more than four hundred persons in this unhappy situa- 
 
16 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 tion, and the United States upwards of tivo thousand. If 
 this be any thing like the true number of those who in New 
 England are shut out at present from almost all the sources 
 of intellectual and moral improvement, what a subject of in- 
 terest does it present to the benevolent heart. 
 
 " At present there is not a single institution of the deaf and 
 dumb in New England. The benefits of such institutions will 
 readily present themselves to the reflecting mind. To say 
 nothing of the inexpressible consolation which would be 
 afforded to parents and friends by establishing schools for the 
 deaf and dumb ; nor of the increase of enjoyment and use- 
 fulness in this life, which would thus be given to our fellow- 
 men, the one single consideration of their having immortal 
 souls, which may, by learning the glad news of salvation, 
 become interested in that Saviour who died for all men, is 
 sufficient to invest this subject with an importance, which it 
 is thought, nothing but the want of information has hitherto 
 denied it. Indeed it is a matter of some wonder that New 
 England, so attentive to the interests of her rising generation, 
 so conspicuously preeminent among the nations of the earth, 
 for what her civil institutions have done with regard to the 
 education of youth, should so long have neglected her deaf 
 and dumb children. In this respect she is far behind most 
 of the countries in Europe. In London, Edinburgh, Paris, 
 and other towns on the continent, there have been for many 
 years, schools for the education of the deaf and dumb. And 
 the art of instructing them has been carried to such a degree 
 of perfection, that they are taught almost all that is useful 
 and ornamental in life. 
 
 " However much it may surprise those who are unacquainted 
 with the subject, it is a fact capable of the most satisfactory 
 proof, that the deaf and dumb in Europe have been taught, 
 not only to read and write, and understand written language 
 with exact accuracy and precision, but in some cases to un- 
 derstand spoken language, and to speak themselves audibly 
 and intelligibly. Now if the deaf and dumb in our country 
 can, by a proper course of instruction, be fitted for useful and 
 respectable employment in life, — if they can have their minds 
 
.Thomas Hopkins Galldudet. 17 
 
 open to such intellectual and moral improvement as will ren- 
 der them comfortable and happy on this side of the grave, — 
 above all, if they can be made acquainted with the revelation 
 of God's mercy through Jesus Christ, who can hesitate to 
 promote an object which is pregnant with so much good, and 
 which addresses itself to the most enlarged views of Chris- 
 tian benevolence? 
 
 " In pursuance of this object, should it meet w^ith sufficient 
 encouragement, it will become necessary for the intended in- 
 structor to visit Europe for the sake of acquiring this art of 
 instructing the deaf and dumb, which has there been carried 
 to a great degree of perfection. For this pursuit, like most 
 others, depends upon the wisdom of experience for its suc- 
 cessful prosecution. This paper solicits the aid of those who 
 are inclined to assist the promotion of the proposed object. 
 The honor of our country, the cause of humanity, the inter- 
 ests of religion, plead in its behalf. It is hoped claims so 
 powerful will not be resisted." 
 
 These claims were not unheeded, — the number of subscri- 
 bers and the amount of subscriptions were enlarged, — an act 
 of incorporation under the style of the " Connecticut Asylum 
 for the education of deaf and dumb persons," was obtained 
 in May, 1816, which was changed to that of the " American 
 Asylum" in 1819, on the occasion of a grant of a township of 
 public land, by the Congress of the United States, in that 
 year, mainly through the active exertions of Hon. Nathaniel 
 Terry, and Hon. Thomas S. Williams, representatives of this 
 State, seconded indeed by other members from our own and 
 other States, and especially by the then Speaker of the House, 
 Hon. Henry Clay, of Kentucky. 
 
 In the mean time, Mr. Gallaudet was pursuing the objects 
 of his mission in Europe. Encountering unexpected delays 
 in obtaining admission as a pupil into the London Asylum,, 
 then under the care of Joseph Watson, LL. D., he had made 
 arrangements to spend a year in the institution at Edinburgh^ 
 which was also likely to be thwarted, — ^when he oppor- 
 tunely gained an introduction to the Abb6 Sicard, who was 
 at that time on a visit to London, for the purpose of giving 
 2 
 
18 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 a course of lectures explanatory of his method of teaching 
 the deaf and dumb, accompanied by Massieu and Clerc, — his 
 favorite pupils and assistants. By this benevolent man, one 
 of the greatest benefactors of the deaf mute, Mr. Gallaudet 
 was cordially received, and invited to visit Paris, where every 
 facility would be extended to him without fee, or hindrance 
 of any kind. As illustrating the spirit in which Mr. Gal- 
 laudet pursued his work, the following extract from an entry 
 made in his journal, at the time of his greatest discourage- 
 ments in London, and the day before he heard of the Abb^ 
 Sicard's presence in London, is given, 
 
 " Our projects are often thwarted by Providence on account 
 of our sins, Alas ! if mine have contributed to the produc- 
 tion of these difficulties, which have thus far attended the 
 undertaking in which I have engaged, most deeply would I 
 lament the injury which I have thus done the poor deaf and 
 dumb. Can I make them any recompense ? With God's 
 blessing, it shall be in devoting myself more faithfully to 
 their relief. I long to be surrounded with them in my native 
 land, to be their instructory-^lheir guide, their friend, their 
 father. How much is yet to be done before this can be ac- 
 complished! To Almighty God, as the giver of all good 
 through Jesus Christ, I commend myself and my undertaking. 
 He is able to do all things for me, and if success finally crown 
 my efforts, to Him be all the glory." 
 
 The period of Mr, Gallaudet's stay in Paris was abridged 
 i)y an event which is thus recorded in his journal. 
 
 " Monday, May 20th, In a conversation which I had with 
 Clerc this day, he proposed going to America with me as an 
 assistant, if the Abbe Sicard would give his consent." 
 
 This suggestion was acted upon without delay. The 
 Abba's cordial consent was obtained, although he felt it to 
 be a great sacrifice; — and in July, Mr. Gallaudet had the 
 happiness of embarking for America, with Mr. Laurent Clerc, 
 a highly educated deaf mute, one of the ablest pupils of 
 Sicard, and best teachers of the Paris Institution, — an event 
 of scarcely less importance to the immediate success of the 
 Americar\|Asylum, than Mr. Gallaudet's own consent to 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 19 
 
 visit Europe in its behalf. How many there are present to- 
 night who can testify to the gratitude to God and his friend, 
 with which Mr. Gallaudet ever recurred to that conversa- 
 tion in Paris, and to Mr. Clerc's consent to leave his home 
 and his country to devote himself among strangers to the 
 instruction of those who were afflicted like himself. 
 
 How touchingly did he refer to that event in his address at 
 the ever memorable gathering of the deaf and dumb in this 
 city, thirty-four years afterward — " What should I have ac- 
 complished, if the same kind Providence had not enabled me 
 to bring back from France, his native land, one whom we 
 still rejoice to see among us, himself a deaf mute, intelligent 
 and accomplished, trained under the distinguished Sicard, at 
 that time teaching the highest class in the Paris Institution — 
 to be my coadjutor here at home ; to excite a still deeper in- 
 terest in the object to which he came to devote his talents 
 and efforts ; to assist in collecting those funds which were 
 absolutely essential for the very commencement of the opera- 
 tions of the Asylum ; to be my first, and for a time, only fel- 
 low-laborer in the course of instruction, and then to render 
 necessary and most efficient aid in preparing for their work 
 the additional teachers who were needed." 
 
 Although he came to a land of strangers, he now finds 
 himself, as the years pass lightly over him, near his children 
 and grand children, amid a circle of appreciating friends, and 
 a generation of grateful pupils, who will ever shower bless- 
 ings on him for his many sacrifices and labors in their behalf. 
 Gently may the hand of time continue to fall on his genial 
 temperament and kind affections, and long may it be be- 
 fore one of his surviving associates shall be called on to 
 pay a passing tribute like that in which we are now engaged, 
 to his services and his worth. 
 
 The eight months immediately following their arrival 
 (August 9, 1816) in this country, were mainly spent in soli- 
 citing pecuniary aid for the Asylum, and in making known 
 its objects to the benevolent, and to all who were directly in- 
 terested from having sons or daughters afflicted with the 
 privation of the senses of hearing and speaking. With this 
 
20 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 end in view, the cities of New Haven, Salem, New York, 
 Albany, Philadelphia, and Burlington, were visited, and lib- 
 eral subscriptions obtained. The following heading of one 
 of the subscription papers, drawn up by Mr. Gallaudet, sets 
 forth the views of the institution. 
 
 " A new and interesting charity presents its claims to the 
 benevolent. Its object is to open the sources of intellectual 
 and religious improvement to a very unfortunate class of our 
 countrymen, the deaf and dumb. Its views have nothing of 
 a local kind. Its constitution invites to the direction of its 
 concerns, individuals of any of the States. It has chosen fon 
 the place of its establishment a central spot in a healthy and 
 economical part of our country, and nothing now is wanting 
 but public patronage to raise it to that degree . of permanent 
 and extensive usefulness which the importance of the object 
 to which it is devoted demands. 
 
 " Very considerable funds will be necessary for the support 
 and education of the children of the indigent. It is pecu- 
 liarly over these unfortunates who are without resources of 
 their own, and who cannot be maintained and instructed by 
 their immediate relations and friends, that the proposed asy- 
 lum wishes to cast the mantle of its protection. 
 
 " It seeks to restore them to society with habits of practical 
 usefulness, with capacities of intellectual enjoyment, and 
 above all, in the possession of the hope of immortality through 
 Jesus Christ. It expects soon to commence under very 
 favorable auspices. Its principal instructor has visited insti- 
 tutions of a similar kind in London, Edinburgh and Paris. 
 His assistant, who is himself deaf and dumb, is one of the 
 most distinguished pupils of the celebrated Abb^ Sicard, and 
 has been for eight years an instructor in the Royal Institution 
 for this unfortunate class of persons in Paris. 
 
 " In Europe, experience has taught the necessity of giving 
 to such establishments considerable magnitude and resources. 
 It is in such alone that this singular department of educa- 
 tion can be carried to its greatest degree of excellence, that 
 the pupils can be supported and instructed at the least ex- 
 pense, that they can feel that excitement which is found to 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet 21 
 
 be the result of assembling them together in considerable 
 numbers, and that instructors can be trained for other institu- 
 tions when they are found necessary. Such establishments 
 now flourish in almost every European state. 
 
 " Princes are • their patrons, and public munificence has 
 raised them to eminent and extensive usefulness. The first 
 and infant institution of this kind in America, now pleads in 
 the name of those whom it seeks to relieve. Its object it 
 fondly trusts will unite the wishes and secure the aid of all 
 who feel for the honor of their country, for the cause of 
 humanity, and for the diffusion among all minds of that reli- 
 gion whose founder exhibited not only the most endearing 
 trait of his character, but one of the most striking proofs of his 
 Messiahship, in opening the ears of the deaf and in causing 
 the tongue of the dumb to sing for joy." 
 
 After two years of preparation, spent in organizing an 
 association based on the principle of permanency, raising 
 funds, training and procuring teachers, and making its objects 
 known through the press, personal interviews, and public ad- 
 dresses, the Asylum was opened, with a class of seven 
 pupils, on Wednesday, the 15th of April, 1817, in the south 
 part of the building now occupied by the City Hotel. On 
 the Sunday evening following — April 20th — just two years 
 after he had signified his assent to devote himself to this en- 
 terprise, Mr. Gallaudet delivered a discourse, in the Center 
 Congregational Church before a crowded audience, and in 
 the presence of his interesting group of seven pupils, from the 
 words of Isaiah — " Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened) 
 and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man 
 leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing ; for in the 
 wilderness waters shall break out, and streams in the 
 desert" — in which he sets forth the advantages likely to arise 
 from the establishment of the Asylum, and the motives which 
 should inspire those who are interested in its welfare with 
 renewed zeal and the hopes of ultimate success. On rising 
 from a fresh perusal of this admirable discourse, written in 
 such pure, polished, and idiomatic English, and breathing so 
 much of the spirit of Him, by whose miraculous agency the 
 
22 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet 
 
 ears of the deaf were opened, and the tongue of the dumb 
 loosened ; and contrasting that group of seven pupils, ignorant, 
 isolated and unhappy, and the moral desert in which the deaf 
 mute then dwelt, with the thousands of the same class who 
 have since been instructed, and the thousand homes which 
 have since been cheered and blessed, and all the good, direct 
 and indirect, to the cause of Christian philanthropy which 
 has flowed out of these small beginnings — ^we seem almost to 
 stand at the well-spring of that river of life, seen in the vision 
 of the prophet, which, flowing out from beneath the sanctu- 
 ary, and on the right hand of the altar, into the wilder- 
 ness, a little rill that could be stepped over, widened and 
 deepened in its progress, till it became a mighty stream, — 
 a stream which could not be passed, imparting life wherever 
 it came, and nourishing all along its banks, trees, whose 
 fruit was for meat, and whose leaves for medicine. 
 
 From time to time, in the course of every year, before the 
 legislatures of the several New England States, in the halls 
 of Congress, in all of the large cities of the Northern and 
 Middle States, Mr. Gallaudet, accompanied and assisted 
 by Mr. Clerc, and not unfrequently, by a class of pupils, — 
 continued to present, and advocate the claims of the deaf 
 mute on the benevolent regards of individuals and public 
 bodies. The way was thus prepared for that liberality which 
 has since marked the legislation of the country, by which the 
 education of the deaf and dumb has become part of the pub- 
 lic policy of all the older, and most of the new States. 
 
 As illustrating the spirit of the man, — and especially the 
 spirit of trust in God, — the looking to his grace for help in 
 all his undertakings, the following extracts are taken from a 
 journal in which, during his early connection with the Asy- 
 lum, he was accustomed to enter from time to time his 
 progress and private aspirations. 
 
 " Sunday, January 25, 1818. I am now surrounded with 
 thirty-one pupils. Mr. Clerc has been ten days absent on a 
 visit to Washington. During the time which has elapsed 
 since the opening of the Asylum, I have had to encounter 
 great trials. Now I am quite exhausted in health and 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 23 
 
 strength. Oh ! that God would appear for me, and make 
 haste to help me. If I know my own heart, I long but for 
 one kind of happiness, that of zealous and cheerful activity in 
 doing good. I have of late began to ponder a good deal on 
 the difficulty of my continuing to be the principal of such an 
 establishment as this, with which I am now connected, will 
 probably be. Most gladly would I hail as my superior here 
 and as the head of this Asylum, some one of acknowledged 
 piety and talents, and of more force of character than myself. 
 Alas ! how is my energy gone ! How I shrink from difficul- 
 ties! — Oh! Almighty God! in thy wise providence thou hast 
 placed me in my present situation. Thou seest my heart. 
 Thou knowest my desire is to be devoted to thy service, and 
 to be made the instrument of training up the deaf and dumb 
 for heaven. Oh ! turn not a deaf ear to my regrets. Oh ! 
 raise me from this bodily and intellectual and religious leth- 
 argy, which has now so long prostrated all the energies and 
 deadened the affections of my soul ; — Oh ! show me clearly 
 the path of duty, and teach me more submission to thy holy 
 will, more self denial and humility — more penitence and per- 
 severance ; — Oh ! grant me some indication of thy favor and 
 thy love. Oh ! touch the heart of my dear friend Clerc with 
 godly soiTOW for sin, and with an unfeigned reliance on 
 Jesus Christ. Oh ! lead my dear pupils to the same Saviour- 
 Oh! God forsake me not. Cast me not away from thy 
 presence. Take not thy holy spirit from me." 
 
 Again, a few years later, the following entry was made. 
 
 " As connected with the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, 
 I do hope to feel anxious to discharge my duties in the fear 
 of God. I invoke his grace to qualify me, and I renewedly 
 consecrate myself, soul, spirit and body, to the service of 
 Jesus Christ. I beseech God to guard me against all concern, 
 (1st.) About my own temporal concerns. Oh ! may I be led to 
 take no thought in this respect for the morrow, but to leave 
 God to furnish me with what temporal comforts he may see 
 best for me, and not ever form my plans for pecuniary emol- 
 ument; (2ndly.) Against all undue anxiety respecting the 
 management of the Asylum by its directors. Oh ! may I have 
 
24 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 a meek, quiet, uncomplaining spirit with regard to all that they 
 may do, however unwise it may seem to be according to my 
 poor, weak, fallible judgment. May I strive each day to do 
 all the good I can to the souls of my dear pupils, and calmly 
 resign every thing which lies out of my own immediate 
 sphere of duty into the hand of him who will overrule all 
 things, however adverse they may seem, for his own glory : 
 (3dly.) Against all uncharitable feelings against any who are 
 associated with me in the internal management of the Asy- 
 lum. May I rather be careful to examine my own heart and 
 conduct, and consider how far shall I fail of doing my duty 
 conscientiously and zealously. (4thly.) Against any regard to 
 public opinion, while I have the approbation of my own con- 
 science. (5thly.) Against the corruption of my own heart, and 
 my daily besetting sins. Oh I for grace to gain an entire 
 victory over them, and to be conformed in all things to the 
 blessed example of Jesus Christ. Oh God ! I implore the aid 
 of thy divine spirit to assist me in all these respects, and to 
 thy name shall be all the glory, through Jesus Christ. Amen 
 and Amen." 
 
 It will not be necessary to follow any further in detail 
 Mr. Gallaudet's labors in connection with the American 
 Asylum and for the benefit of the deaf and dumb. These 
 labors were eminently judicious and successful ; and although 
 in an undertaking of such magnitude there are many agencies 
 and many laborers, and all those who work at the foundation, 
 or even beyond that, who gather slowly the material and 
 the laborers, — and those who work on the top stone, or the 
 ornaments, — perform a necessary and an honorable part, 
 and all deserve to be remembered with gratitude, still, it is 
 instinctively and universally felt that the directing mind in 
 this great enterprise, — in its inception, its gradual maturing, 
 and ultimate organization, — is that of Thomas Hopkins 
 Gallaudet. Of this we are sure, that he worked incessantly 
 and wisely, and out to the full circumference of his duty and 
 ability. His labors and anxieties, necessarily attendant on 
 such an undertaking, — the striking out of new plans and 
 methods, the reconcilement of differing views in different 
 
Tliomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 25 
 
 departments of authority and instruction, until the best work- 
 ing plan was in successful operation, were too much for a 
 temperament naturally so excitable as his, and for a constitu- 
 tion never robust. He accordingly felt it necessary to resign 
 his place as Principal of the American Asylum in 1830, 
 although he never ceased to take an active interest as director 
 in its affairs, and was always consulted up to his last illness 
 with filial confidence and affection, by the instructors and 
 directors of the institution. 
 
 Before passing into other fields of his useful life, it would 
 be doing injustice to the deaf and dumb, and especially, to 
 those who have enjoyed the privileges of the American Asy- 
 lum, not to add, that they have ever shown a filial respect and 
 affection towards Mr. Gallaudet, while living, and are now 
 engaged in raising the necessary funds to erect in the grounds 
 of the institution, some permanent memorial of their grati- 
 tude. The world has seldom witnessed a more novel and 
 affecting spectacle, than was exhibited in the Center Con- 
 gregational Church in Hartford, on the 26th of September 
 1850, where a large number of the graduates of the institu- 
 tion assembled to testify, by the presentation of silver plate, 
 their affectionate respect to their first teachers, Messrs. Gal- 
 laudet and Clerc, as the chief immediate instruments of 
 their own elevation in the scale of intelligence, usefulness, and 
 happiness, and the primary agents in procuring all the prac- 
 tical blessings which education has given, and is still be- 
 stowing on the whole class of deaf mutes in this country. 
 Including the present pupils of the Asylum, there were over 
 four hundred of this unfortunate class present, as large, and 
 probably the largest assemblage of the kind ever seen in the 
 world, — ^with intelligent joy beaming from all their faces, and 
 gratitude displayed in their animated and expressive lan- 
 guage of signs. What a striking contrast to the little group 
 of seven pupils, ignorant, lonely, and disconsolate, who gath- 
 ered in the same place a little more than thirty-four years 
 before ! Surely, peace and benevolence have their victories no 
 less than war. Of a truth, ' the wilderness and solitary place 
 have been made glad by the breaking out of living waters. 
 
26 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 and the desert rejoiceth and blossoms as the rose, — the ran- 
 somed of the Lord have returned with songs and everlasting 
 joy upon their head.' 
 
 The repose from constant occupation in the instruction 
 and oversight of the affairs of the Asylum, which his resigna- 
 tion afforded him, was devoted by Mr. Gallaudet to the 
 prosecution of literary pursuits, as congenial to his tastes and 
 early habits, and as a means of supporting his family. He 
 was distinguished while in college for his facility and felicity 
 in English composition, and the volume of Discourses, 
 preached by him in the chapel of the Oratoire, while studying 
 in Paris, and published in 1817, in which the purity at once 
 of his literary taste and Christian character are displayed would 
 alone entitle him to a prominent place among the worthies of 
 the American pulpit. In 1831, he published the Child's Book 
 on the Soul, which exhibits his remarkable tact in bringing 
 the most abstract subject within the grasp of the feeblest 
 and youngest mind. This little volume has gone through a 
 large number of editions in this country and in England, and 
 has been translated into the French, Spanish, German and 
 Italian languages. This publication was followed by several 
 others of the same character, and which were widely read. 
 His Mother's Primer has lightened the task of infantile 
 instruction in many homes and many schools, and his Defin- 
 ing Dictionary, and Practical Spelling-Book, composed in 
 connection with Rev. Horace Hooker, rigidly and persever- 
 ingly followed, are invaluable guides to teacher and pupil 
 to a practical knowledge of the meaning and use of our 
 language in composition and conversation. At the urgent 
 request of the American Tract Society, he commenced in 
 1833, the publication of a series of volumes under the general 
 title of Scripture Biography, which was incomplete at the 
 time of his death, — but which as far as published are to be 
 found in most of the Sunday School and Juvenile Libraries 
 of our country. In 1835 he published the first part of a 
 work, with the title of the Every-Day Christian, in which he 
 endeavoFS to delineate certain traits of Christian character, 
 and to lead his readers to the consideration of certain every- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 27 
 
 day duties, which are in danger of being overlooked amid the 
 occupations and pursuits of this world. In this volume he 
 unfolds at some length his own ideal of a Christian life as 
 exhibited in the family state, and in the faithful and consci- 
 entious performance of a class of duties, which, although 
 unseen, are essential parts of the vast moral machinery which 
 the Almighty Hand is wielding for the accomplishment of 
 the designs of Infinite Wisdom and Goodness. The plan of 
 the work was probably suggested by a movement on the 
 part of many of our public-spirited and benevolent citizens in 
 the winter of 1834-35, to promote the cause of moral reform 
 among the youth of our city. The prosecution of the objectj 
 to Mr. Gallaudet's mind, was accompanied with too much 
 denunciation of amusements, innocent in themselves, and 
 objectionable only when pursued too far and under circum- 
 stances calculated to lead to excessive indulgence, and to 
 vicious associations and associates. His mode of keeping 
 young people out of places of idle and corrupting resort, as 
 set forth in a public address at that time, and more elabo- 
 rately in this little volume, is to make home pleasant and 
 attractive, — to cultivate the taste and the habits of reading, 
 of fireside amusements and social intercourse, — and to make 
 home attractive not only to the children of the family, but to 
 clerks and apprentices, who may be in the employment or 
 under the guardianship of the head of the family. 
 
 Valuable as these publications are, both in the matter and 
 manner of their execution, and popular as many of them 
 have been and still are, they are only the indications of what 
 he might have accomplished in this department of author- 
 ship, if he had enjoyed firmer health and more leisure for 
 meditation and study. 
 
 I presume it is safe to say, that IVIr. Gallaudet never rose in 
 the morning without having in his mind or on his hands some 
 extra duty of philanthrophy to perform, — something beyond 
 what attached to him from his official or regular engage- 
 ments. His assistance was asked w henever an appeal was 
 to be made to the public, in behalf of a benevolent or /eligious 
 object, which required the exercise of a cultivated intellect, 
 
28 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 the impulses of a benevolent heart, and the personal influence 
 of a character confessedly above all political and sectarian 
 principles. 
 
 Not a stranger visited our city, any way interested in 
 public charities, or educational institutions or movements, 
 who did not bring letters of introduction or seek an inter- 
 view with him, — and no man among us was so ready to 
 discharge the rights of hospitality and courteous attentions 
 to strangers. 
 
 There is scarcely an institution or movement among us, 
 devoted to the promotion of education, or the relief of suffer- 
 ing humanity, which did not enjoy the benefit of his wise 
 counsel, or receive his active cooperation. In these and other 
 ways his time and thoughts were so completely occupied, or 
 distracted, that he enjoyed but little leisure for profound med- 
 itation, or the original investigation of any subject, and much 
 less for that elaboration, which even the happiest efforts of 
 genius require to ensure a lasting reputation. 
 
 Although through his whole life a practical educator and 
 teacher, it was during this period that he distinguished him- 
 self as the friend, and efficient promoter by pen and voice, 
 of educational improvement. On all movements in behalf 
 of general education in institutions and methods, he formed 
 his own opinions with his usual caution, and maintained 
 them with courtesy and firmness. While he acknowledged 
 the fact of mutual instruction in the family and in life, which 
 lies at the foundation of Bell's and Lancaster's systems of 
 monitorial instruction, as an educational principle of univer- 
 sal application in schools, and always advocated and prac- 
 ticed the employment of older children in the family, and of 
 the older and more advanced pupils in the school, in the work 
 of instructing and governing the younger and least advanced, 
 he never countenanced for a moment the idea which swept 
 over our country from 1820 to 1830, that monitors, young 
 and inexperienced in instruction and life, could ever supply 
 the place, in schools, of professionally trained teachers of ma- 
 ture age^ thorough mental discipline, and high moral char- 
 acter. 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 29 
 
 Although he always advocated, and applied in his own 
 family and family school, the principles of infant education, 
 commencing with the child while in the arms of the mother 
 and the lap of the father, he kept aloof from the efforts which 
 were so generally put forth in our larger cities, from 1826 to 
 1832, for the establishment of infant schools, as then under- 
 stood and conducted. He sympathized deeply in the move- 
 ment for the establishment of manual labor schools from 
 1832 to 1838, and was the constant advocate of more 
 thorough physical education in institutions of every grade, 
 from the family to the professional school. Although not 
 strictly the first to present to the people of Connecticut aud 
 of New England, the necessity of providing special institu- 
 tions for the professional training of young men and young 
 women for the office of teaching, his Letters of a Father, 
 published in the Connecticut Observer in 1825, and after- 
 ward circulated in a pamphlet, were among the earliest and 
 most effective publications on the subject. 
 
 He was among the most earnest to call attention, in conver- 
 sation, through the press, and in educational meetings, to the 
 whole subject of female education, and especially to the more 
 extensive employment of females as teachers. His hopes 
 for the regeneration of society, and especially for the infusion 
 of a more refined culture in manners and morals into the fam- 
 ily, and especially into common schools, rested on the influ- 
 ence of pious and educated women as mothers and teachers. 
 He was early interested in the establishment of the Hartford 
 Female Seminary, and delivered an address in 1827 in its 
 behalf, which was pubfished. He was connected with the 
 general supervision of the Seminary, and with its instruction 
 as lecturer on composition and moral philosophy, in 1833. 
 
 Although, in the absence of such common schools as could 
 meet his views of the wants of his own children, especially in 
 all that regards moral and religious culture, and personal hab- 
 its and manners, he for years established a small family 
 school for the education of his own children, and the chil- 
 dren of his immediate friends, he was ever the advocate of 
 the most liberal appropriation, and of the most complete or- 
 
30 Tliomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 ganization, instruction and discipline of public or common 
 schools, — and he did much, by pen and voice, to advocate 
 their improvement. As has already been stated, so early as 
 1825, he fixed for the first time the attention of educators, 
 and to some extent of the public, on the source of all radical 
 and extensive improvement of them and all schools, in the 
 professional training of teachers. In 1827 he was an active 
 member of the Society for the Improvement of Common 
 Schools, of which Hon. Roger Minot Sherman was Presi- 
 dent, and the Rev. Horace Hooker and the Rev. Thomas 
 Robbins, D. D., the real laborers, — one of the first, if not the 
 first society of the kind in this country. He was a member 
 of the committee of arrangements in the teachers' con- 
 vention held in Hartford, in October, 1830, of which Noah 
 "Webster, LL. D., was President. The discussions in that 
 convention, of such topics as the influence of the school fund 
 as the main reliance of the people for the support of common 
 schools, in which Dr. Humphrey, then President of Amherst 
 College, a native of this State, and a teacher for many years 
 in our district schools, took an active part ; — the proper con- 
 struction of school-houses, on which subject Dr. William A. 
 Alcott read a paper, which was afterward published as a 
 prize essay by the American Institute of Instruction, and 
 circulated all over the country ; — the qualifications of teach- 
 ers, which was ably presented in a lecture by Rev. Gustavus 
 Davis, — had a powerful influence on the cause of educational 
 improvement throughovit New England. In 1833 he wrote 
 a little tract, entitled Public Schools Public Blessings, which 
 was published by the New York Public School Society for 
 general circulation in the city of New York, at a time when 
 an effort was made, which proved successful, to enlarge the 
 operations of that society. 
 
 In 1838, he was the person, and the only person, had in 
 view, to fill the office of Secretary of the Board of Commis- 
 sioners of Common Schools in Connecticut, when the bill 
 was drafted for a pubHc act " to provide for the better super- 
 vision of common schools " in Connecticut. The post was 
 urged on his acceptance, with the offer and guaranty by indi- 
 
Tliomas Hopkins GaUaudet. 31 
 
 viduals of an addition of one-third to the salary paid by the 
 State. He declined, mainly from his unwillingness to absent 
 himself as much from his family as the plan of operations 
 contemplated, — and also "because of the apathy as to the 
 importance of this cause, which he had many reasons to 
 know weighed not only on the public mind generally, but on 
 the minds and hearts of good men, and even Christians, who 
 take an active and liberal part in other moral and religious 
 movements. To break up this apathy, requires more of 
 youthful strength and enthusiasm than can be found in an 
 invalid and a man of fifty years of age." In a conversation 
 held w^ith the individual who afterward entered on this field 
 of labor, through his earnest solicitations, Mr. Gallaudet 
 anticipated the difficulties which that enterprise afterward 
 encountered, and which he feared would " probably not en- 
 tirely defeat, but must inevitably postpone its success. But 
 never mind, the cause is worth laboring and suffering for, 
 and enter on your work with a manly trust that the people 
 will yet see its transcendent importance to them and their 
 children to the latest posterity, and that God will bless an 
 enterprise fraught with so much of good to every plan of 
 local benevolence." The measures of that Board, and of 
 their Secretary, were determined on after consultation with 
 him, — and in all the preliminary operations, those measures 
 had his personal cooperation. In company with the Secre- 
 tary, he visited every county in the State in 1838, and ad- 
 dressed conventions of teachers, school officers and parents. 
 He took part in the course of instruction of the first normal 
 clg^ss, or teachers' institute, held in this country, in 1839, 
 and again in a similar institute in 1840. He appeared be- 
 fore the Joint Committee of Education in the General As- 
 sembly, on several occasions when appropriations for a nor- 
 mal school were asked for. He was one of the lecturers in 
 the teachers' convention held in Hartford in 1846, — and 
 had the gratification of welcoming to the State Normal 
 School at New Britain, in 1850, the first class of pupil teach- 
 ers, and of taking part in their instruction. He was to have 
 delivered a public address before one of the literary societies in 
 
32 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 that institution, called, in gratitude for his early and constant 
 advocacy of normal schools, after his name, at the first an- 
 niversary of the State Normal School in September, 1851. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet was a contributor at different times to the 
 Annals of Education, while under the charge of William C. 
 Woodbridge, and to th*e Connecticut Common School Jour- 
 nal from 1838 to 1842. In 1839 he edited an American edi- 
 tion of " Principles of Teaching, by Henry Dunn, Secretary 
 of the British and Foreign School Society, London," under 
 the title of Schoolmaster's Manual — a truly valuable work, 
 which has gone through many editions in England. 
 
 He took an active interest in the lyceum movement, from 
 1826 to 1840, — and particularly in the Goodrich Association, 
 in 1831, under whose auspices the first course of popular lec- 
 tures was delivered in this city, — and in the proceedings of 
 the American Lyceum, at its annual meeting in Hartford, in 
 1838, out of which originated the Hartford Young Men's In- 
 stitute in the same year. In fine, he sympathized with, and 
 participated, so far as his health and other engagements 
 would allow, in every movement which aimed to elevate, pu- 
 rify and bless society through a wide-spread system of popu- 
 lar education. Universal intelligence, he has somewhere 
 said, under the influence of sound moral and religious prin- 
 ciple, and difiiised, in connection with other modes of doing 
 it, through the extensive medium of common schools, so as 
 to embrace the whole rising generation, is to constitute, with 
 the blessing of God, the security, the ornament, and the hap- 
 piness of the social state, and to render it (what we ought 
 ever to regard as its principal value) the propitious auxiliary 
 to our preparation for a higher and nobler condition of being 
 beyond the grave. 
 
 In 1837, the county of Hartford, through the exertions 
 mainly of Alfred Smith Esq., erected a prison, on a plan 
 which admitted of a classification of the prisoners, of their 
 entire separation at night, of their employment in labor un- 
 der constant supervision by day, and of their receiving ap- 
 propriate moral and religious instruction. Mr. Gallaudet 
 sympathized warmly with this movement, and in the ab- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 33 
 
 sence of any means at the disposal of the county commis- 
 sioners to employ the services of a chaplain and religious 
 teacher, volunteered to discharge these duties without pay. 
 He continued to perform religious service every Sabbath 
 morning for eight years, and to visit the prison from time to 
 time during each week, whenever he had reason to suppose 
 his presence and prayers were particularly desired. In such 
 labors of love to the criminal and neglected, unseen of men, 
 and not known, I presume, to twenty individuals in Hartford, 
 the genuine philanthropy and Christian spirit of this good 
 man found its pleasantest field of exercise. 
 
 On the 6th of June, 1838, Mr. Gallaudet became con- 
 nected with the Connecticut Retreat for the Insane, as Chap- 
 lain, the duties of which office he continued to discharge 
 with exemplary fidelity and happy results, up to the day of 
 his last illness. Although the directors of this institution 
 were the first to make an appointment of this character, not 
 only for the purpose of daily family worship, and relig- 
 ious worship on the Sabbath for its officers and inmates, but 
 as part of the system of moral treatment of insanity, — still 
 the earliest movement in this direction was made by the 
 trustees and superintendent of the State Lunatic Hospital 
 at Worcester, Mass., in 1835. In their report for that year, 
 both the trustees and superintendent invite the attention of 
 the legislature to the establishment of a chapel, and the in- 
 troduction of religious exercises, especially on the Sabbath. 
 In 1836, Dr. Woodward again refers to the subject. " A 
 lew of our inmates at present go to the churches in the vil- 
 lage, and are always gratified by such an indulgence ; others 
 spend the day in reading at home ; but with a large propor- 
 tion of them the day passes heavily along, and is spent in 
 idle listlessness or imtation. With the insane I would as 
 far as possible inculcate all the habits of rational life. I 
 wish them to attend religious worship on the Sabbath, for 
 the same reason that other men do, for instruction in religion 
 and virtue. In matters of religion and morality, I would 
 deal with the insane as with the rational mind, approve of 
 no deception, encourage no delusions, foster no self-compla- 
 3 
 
34 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 cent impressions of character, dignity, and power : I would 
 improve every opportunity, when the mind is calm and the 
 feelings kind, to impress on them that they are men, to ex- 
 cite in their minds rational contemplations, encourage cor- 
 rect habits, awaken self-respect, and prompt to active duty. 
 In aid of this I wish them to attend religious worship, to 
 listen to instruction from the volume of truth, and to receive 
 encouragement to calm and quiet tempers, from its promises 
 of reward to virtuous and upright conduct. Few individuals 
 are so completely insane as to be beyond the reach of moral 
 instruction, and perhaps I may add, of moral responsibilities." 
 With these views a chapel was opened, and religious wor- 
 ship was commenced by regular meetings on the Sabbath, 
 on which all the officers and household of the Hospital were 
 requested to attend. 
 
 To carry out his plans to perfection in this important de- 
 partment of the moral treatment of insanity, and especially 
 in its early stages, Dr. Woodward felt the necessity of hav- 
 ing the cooperation of a clergyman of cheerful and yet fer- 
 vent piety, of large acquaintance with men, and of great 
 versatility in modes of reaching the human •mind and heart, 
 and above all, of that Christlike spirit, 'w^hich, touched with 
 a sense of human infirmity,' should not expend itself in' 
 passive pity, but in wholesome and practical action for its 
 relief. These qualities and qualifications he knew belonged 
 in a preeminent degree to Mr. Gallaudet, and to him the 
 chaplaincy in the institution at Worcester was tendered. 
 He so far encouraged the application as to visit Worcester, 
 and conduct the religious exercises of the institution for 
 several Sabbaths. He returned to Hartford with a strong 
 conviction that in ministering to the spiritual wants of the 
 insane, and in aiding in their restoration to mental sound- 
 ness, there was a new field of benevolent activity opened, 
 into which he would enter if such should be the indications 
 of Providence. It was difficult for me, who had been made 
 acquainted with this movement, to see why a man so much 
 and deservedly respected and beloved in this community, 
 who was doing so much good, not only by his direct labors 
 
Tliomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 35 
 
 in every good cause, but by the daily beauty of his life, need 
 go to Worcester to labor for the insane, when we had an 
 institution for this unfortunate class among ourselves, of 
 which we at least ought to be proud, as in reality the pioneer 
 institution of this country in the improved methods of treat- 
 ing insanity, which had already furnished the superintend- 
 ents of three other institutions, and from which Dr, Wood- 
 ward had adopted those methods of treating insanity, which 
 have made the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester known 
 throughout the world. 
 
 Believing with Dr. Woodward, that he was eminent- 
 ly qualified for the place, and that such an office could be 
 most advantageously created in our own institution, and 
 that its directors when the subject was fairly presented, 
 •would introduce the same, I addressed myself to several of 
 our public-spirited and benevolent individuals, and in less 
 than twenty-four hours received sufficient encouragement to 
 say to Mr. Gallaudet, and to some of the directors, that in 
 case he should be appointed chaplain, at least one-half of 
 such salary as should be agreed on, would be paid by indi- 
 viduals in Hartford. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet was appointed ; and he entered on his new 
 and interesting field of labor with his usual caution and 
 thoroughness. No man could study his duties with a more 
 prayerful and earnest spirit, — no one could improve more 
 faithfully every opportunity to become intimately acquainted 
 wi^h the peculiarities of the mental and moral condition of 
 each of the numerous inmates of the Retreat, — no one 
 could aim to act in more perfect accordance with the coun- 
 sels and directions of the superintending physician, — no one 
 could select with more cautious deliberation the truths of 
 religion which could be advantageously adapted to those who 
 are laboring under mental or moral delusions, or more wisely 
 present the motives which could aid in leading back such to 
 a self-controlling and healthful condition of mind, or admin- 
 ister the consolation that would reach their real or supposed 
 trials. The experience of each successive year furnished ac- 
 cumulating evidence of the usefulness of his labors, and the 
 
36 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
 
 efficacy of kind moral treatment and a wise religious influ- 
 ence in the melioration and care of the insane. How beauti- 
 fully did both his manner and success illustrate the wisdom 
 of that law of kindness, which Dr. Todd impressed on the 
 organization of this Retreat as the all-pervading and plastic 
 power of its moral discipline I 
 
 O I how vividly did his mode of conversing with the in- 
 sane, bring back the image and language of that gifted 
 man, — the first physician and founder of the Retreat; — how 
 beautifully did the labors of both realize the language in 
 which Whittier describes the true mode of dealing with the 
 insane, 
 
 Gentle as angels' ministry, 
 
 The guiding hand of love should bo. 
 
 Which seeks again those chords to bind 
 Which human woe hath rent apart, — 
 
 To heal again the wounded mind, 
 And bind anew the broken heart. 
 The hand which tunes to harmony 
 The cunning harp whose strings are riven. 
 Must move as light and quietly 
 As that meek breath of summer heaven 
 Which woke of old its melody ; — 
 And kindness to the dim of soul, 
 Whilst aught of rude and stern control 
 The clouded heart can deeply feel. 
 Is welcome as the odors fanned 
 From some unseen and flowering land. 
 Around the weary seaman's keel ! 
 
 The details of the duties and labors of chaplain, as per- 
 formed by Mr, Gallaudet, are thus set forth in one of 
 his annual reports to the directors, " Most of these duties 
 are of a very regular and uniform kind. I attend prayers on 
 week days in the chapel, and conduct the religious exercises 
 there on the Sabbath. I keep up a constant daily intercourse 
 with the patients in their respective halls, endeavoring to be- 
 come familiar with their individual characters and peculiari- 
 ties, and to do them good in the way of religious counsel, 
 pleasant conversation, and other kind offices. I visit them 
 in their rooms, especially when they are sick, and when cir- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 37 
 
 cumstances render it desirable, pray with them, as I do, also, 
 with the attendants and nurses when laboring under indis- 
 position. 
 
 " I attend the weekly reading and sewing parties of the 
 female patients, the customary celebration of the anniversary 
 of American Independence, and other occasions of entertain- 
 ment and interest which bring many of the inmates of the 
 institution together, performing at such times, such services 
 as are in my power. Occasionally, I go with a party of the 
 patients to visit the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb. 
 
 " In the course of the year, I render not a few attentions to 
 the friends of the patients from abroad, who are spending 
 some time in the city ; receive visits from the patients and 
 the friends of the patients, at my own house ; convey mes- 
 sages from those of them who live in Hartford to the Re- 
 treat, and from the Retreat to them ; and frequently call upon 
 them at their own residences with information to be com- 
 municated to them from the physician. 
 
 " Some correspondence devolves upon me, growing out of 
 the relation which I sustain to the Retreat, and my friend- 
 ship or acquaintance with those who have relatives or friends 
 under its care. I am in the constant habit of learning what 
 it is needful for me to know, in the discharge of my official 
 duties, with regard to the condition of each patient, both 
 when admitted and afterwards, from the physician ; while I 
 endeavor, in all that I do, to act in accordance with his views 
 lind wishes, I will only add that, as one means of greater 
 usefulness, part of my reading is devoted to such works on 
 insanity and reports of other institutions, as I think will be of 
 practical benefit to me. 
 
 " From year to year, the impression deepens upon my 
 mind, that there is much yet to learn with regard to the 
 physical, intellectual and moral condition of the insane, and 
 much yet to do in ascertaining and applying all the available 
 means of alleviation, of comfort, and of cure. Here is yet a 
 wide, and, to a great extent, unexplored field, in which expe- 
 rience, ingenuity and Christian benevolence may find ample 
 scope for exercise. I am sure, I can say so, from what I ob- 
 
38 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 serve in my own appropriate department, with regard to the 
 mental and religious condition of the insane, presenting, as it 
 does, phenomena of the most singular, various, and compli- 
 cated kinds. Striking and multifarious peculiarities, in these 
 respects, exist among the sane. It would be strange indeed 
 if they were not found to be as many, and as great, among 
 the insane. 
 
 " Each case, therefore, needs to be deliberately and pa- 
 tiently studied by itself, and time must be taken for doing 
 this, that the moral and religious means employed for relief 
 and restoration may be wisely chosen and applied. Hence, 
 in order that the chaplain may be a judicious and successful 
 auxiliary of the physician at the head of an institution for the 
 insane, it is indispensable that he should have frequent and 
 familiar intercourse with its inmates. He thus becomes the 
 better qualified, not only to conduct the customary religious 
 exercises, and to prepare the discourses which he delivers, 
 in a way suited to the condition, and adapted to the ben- 
 efit of the patients, but also to appreciate the counsels and 
 directions of the physician in his daily interviews with them, 
 and to make these interviews pleasant and profitable. 
 
 " It is by such intercourse, too, that the chaplain gains the 
 confidence and friendly regard of the patients. This opens 
 their minds and hearts to his inspection, and procures for him 
 a moral influence over them which would be very limited 
 and imperfect without this intercourse. It need not, and I 
 think I can say from my own experience, it does not detract 
 from that deference and respect which are due to his sacred 
 office. On the contrary, if this intercourse is wisely con- 
 ducted, it leads them to esteem the chaplain as their pastor 
 and friend, one who knows them personally, and sympathizes 
 with them individually, and thus to take a deeper interest in 
 his public ministrations, and to be the more profited by them. 
 
 " I have dwelt a little on this topic from the desire that I 
 have to impress its importance upon those who are interested 
 in the insane, or who are interested with the management of 
 institutions for their benefit. For if my labors in the Retreat 
 have been, in any degree, acceptable and useful to its in- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 39 
 
 mates, or entitled to any approbation from its directors, this 
 has arisen preeminently from the opportunities which I have 
 enjoyed of daily and familiar intercourse with the pupils." 
 
 No one familiar with the internal management and con- 
 cerns of an institution of this character, and with the phe- 
 nomena of this disease, can hesitate for a moment to recog- 
 nize the great benefit of these labors and of religious influence, 
 wisely exerted, to the insane. Many of the patients (we use 
 substantially the language of his reports,) are in a state of 
 convalescence, and are fast recovering their original sound- 
 ness of mind; and among these and the other patients are 
 a few who well know, by long experience, how to use and 
 prize such privileges. Others are laboring under kinds and 
 degreesof insanity which leave the mind rational with regard 
 to a variety of subjects, religion often being one of them. 
 Some are only periodically affected, and entirely sane during 
 the intervals. Some have perverted moral feelings, obliqui- 
 ties of disposition and temper, while the intellect is capable, 
 in a greater or less degree, of appreciating truth. Of the 
 rest, there are those, indeed, whose minds are so enfeebled or 
 beclouded by their malady, that they may not have any dis- 
 tinct conceptions of religious truth conveyed to them. Yet 
 even these retain some childlike susceptibilities of religious 
 feeling, not wholly inaccessible to the salutary impressions 
 which the outward forms alone of divine worship are adapted 
 to produce. Former associations and habits are not yet ob- 
 literated. They often give distinct and pleasant indications 
 that the things of religion are among the few objects which 
 still afford them some gratification ; and small as may be the 
 degree of enjoyment and benefit which they thus experience, 
 Christian sympathy delights to provide this solace for them, 
 careful, in the spirit of the Saviour, not to break the bruised 
 reed, nor quench the smoking- flax. 
 
 In estimating the value of these religious exercises there 
 are many things to be taken into account, in addition to their 
 spiritual benefit to the patients, as means of grace that they 
 ought to enjoy in common with their fellow-men around 
 them, — and which things in their aggregate influence, have a 
 
40 TJwmas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 much greater efficiency than many, not familiar with them, 
 would suppose. Such are the following: the necessary prep- 
 arations to be made for attending the religious exercises in 
 a becoming manner, and which fill up a portion of time 
 agreeably and profitably; the regular return of the stated 
 hour for doing this, and the pleasant anticipations connected 
 with it; the change of scene from the apartments and halls 
 to a commodious, cheerful and tasteful chapel, there to unite 
 in the worship of God ; the social feelings induced and grat- 
 ified ; the waking up of formerly cherished associations and 
 habits ; the soothing, consoling, and elevating influence of 
 sacred music ; the listening intelligently to the interesting 
 truths of the word of God, and uniting with the heart in 
 rendering him that homage which is his first due, as is, be- 
 yond doubt, the case with not a few of the patients ; the suc- 
 cessful exercise of self-control, so strikingly and continually 
 exhibited by those who need to exercise it ; the having their 
 own place of worship, and their own minister whom they 
 regard as the peculiar pastor of the little flock to which they 
 belong; the habits of punctuality, order and decorum they 
 acquire, and relish, in going to and returning from the accus- 
 tomed place of their devotions, — the two sexes having their 
 separate avenues for entering and withdrawing, connected 
 with the male and female sides of the institution, and their 
 appropriate, distinct seats while assembled together; the 
 feeling that, in all this, they are treated like other folks, and 
 act as other folks do, and the subsequent satisfaction, a part 
 of our common nature, which many of them experience in 
 the reflection that they have performed an important duty. 
 
 The Sabbath, it may be added, would be, to many of the 
 inmates of the Retreat a monotonous and tedious day, if it 
 were not enlivened and cheered by their coming together for 
 religious worship. This has often been noticed, and also 
 that they manifest a strong and even restless desire to have 
 the usual religious exercises return, when, as will sometimes 
 happen from peculiar circumstances, they have been tempo- 
 rarily suspended. 
 
 Of a truth, he has well said, " such labors have their encour- 
 
Thomas Hopkins GallaudeU 41 
 
 agement and reward. They have made me familiar with 
 hundreds of individuals, whose afflicted condition, while 
 shutting them out from the usual occupation, privileges and 
 enjoyments of the intelligent and busy world around them, 
 has not in most instances, rendered their minds impervious to 
 the influence of moral and religious truth, nor their hearts 
 inapproachable by the kind offices of Christian sympathy 
 and love. 
 
 " How many torpid sensibilities have I seen awakened to 
 respond to the impressions of the fair, the beautiful, and the 
 good ; how many consciences aroused to a sense of the right 
 and the wrong, so as to produce the power of self-control and 
 of proper conduct; how many slumbering domestic and 
 social affections kindled up into their former activity ; how 
 many religious despondencies, sometimes deepening into 
 despair, changed into the serenity of Christian hope ; how 
 many suicidal designs forever abandoned, because life had 
 become a pleasure instead of a burden too heavy to be borne ; 
 how many prayers revived on the altars of private and public 
 devotion ; how many kindly charities of the soul breathing 
 forth, once more, in deeds of self-denying beneficence." 
 
 In this necessarily hurried and imperfect review of Mr. 
 Gallaudet's life and services, I have dwelt at some length 
 on his labors at the Retreat and in behalf of the insane, not 
 only because such labors have been more out of the way of 
 f)ublic observation, and because they can never appear in a 
 form to be recognized by public gratitude, — ^but because the 
 physical, intellectual and moral condition of the insane, and 
 the whole subject of insanity, — its nature, causes, and availa- 
 ble means of prevention, alleviation and cure, are even now 
 imperfectly understood. Not the least valuable service ren- 
 dered to the cause of humanity by the Retreat in its man- 
 agement of the insane, and by Mr. Gallaudet, as its chap- 
 lain, and by his conversations with the patients and their rel- 
 atives and friends, will be found in the light which has thus 
 been shed, on this interesting field, through the community. 
 Thirty years ago, when this institution was established, in- 
 sanity was regarded in some mysterious and special sense, 
 
 W 
 
42 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 as a direct visitation of Heaven, which it was almost an act 
 of impiety to trace to physical causes, and as affixing a re- 
 proachful stigma upon the character of the unfortunate suf- 
 ferer. But the investigations which have been made, here and 
 elsewhere, into the causes of that perversion or impairment 
 of the mental faculties, or moral affections, either entire or 
 partial, which constitutes insanity, have shown beyond all 
 doubt, that it is a physical disease, as much as a fever, or 
 the gout, — that it springs from natural causes, induced by a 
 violation, near or remote, knowingly or ignorantly, of some 
 of the organic laws on which mental functions depend, — 
 that these causes, if not always within the control of the in- 
 dividual, may be, in a large majority of instances, hastened 
 or retarded in their effects, and what is of far more practical 
 importance, can be known and counteracted entirely. 
 
 A recent inquiry into the causes of more than twenty-two 
 thousand cases of insanity, in American institutions, demon- 
 strates that while there are more than one hundred and sev- 
 enty avenues through which this formidable disease makes 
 its attacks on the domains of the soul, a large proportion of 
 these avenues can be closed entirely, by early preventive 
 measures ; and that unless this is done, and done soon, with 
 an energy and on a scale commensurate with the magnitude 
 of the calamity, the ravages of the disease will go on increas- 
 ing in a fearful ratio in this country. Most of the causes of 
 insanity which operate in other countries, are found working 
 here with increased energy, with the developments and re- 
 sults of our peculiar civilization. The very freedom of 
 thought, religion, business, and locomotion, which constitute 
 the glory of our social and political condition, are attended 
 with excessive mental action, with uncertain employment, 
 hazardous speculations, frequent failures and disappoint- 
 ments, abounding means and provocations for sensual indul- 
 gences, multiplied dangers of accidents and injury, a restless- 
 ness in social life, and painful struggles for showy and fash- 
 ionable styles of living and the distinction and emoluments 
 of office. Unless this increase of mental activity, and conse- 
 quent increase of cerebral action, is accompanied by a cor- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 43 
 
 responding knowledge of its inevitable consequences, and a 
 corresponding increase of discretion to guide, and of prudence 
 to restrain, — then will insanity go on increasing among us, 
 shaking down the pillars of reason, and not only multiplying 
 retreats and hospitals, but filling our homes with desolation 
 and woe, and consuming all the treasures of joy and hope. 
 
 In this connection, it may be well to remark that Mr. Gal- 
 laudet's experience and observations among the insane, 
 were not lost upon him as an educator, but furnished him 
 with facts and illustrations, by which in his practical lectures 
 to teachers, or conversation with parents and others interest- 
 ed in the cause of education, he shed light upon questions of 
 deep and general interest connected with the philosophy of 
 mind, and the reciprocal influence which the mind and body 
 have upon each other, — the elements of moral science, — ^the 
 education and training of children and youth, both in fami- 
 lies and schools, — the preservation of health and reason, and 
 the precautionary measures to be pursued to guard against 
 the ills of the flesh and the spirit, and thus enabling every 
 individual to prevent more than the most successful institu- 
 tion can ever mitigate or remove. To him the Retreat was 
 not only the field of Christian benevolence, but a school of 
 practical wisdom as an educator. In a letter addressed to 
 me in 1844, he quoted a paragraph of one of Dr. Woodward's 
 reports, as expressing clearly and forcibly his own conviction, 
 that a defective and faulty education through the period of 
 infancy and youth is the most prolific cause of insanity, and 
 that we must look to a well directed system of education, 
 having for its object physical improvement, no less than moral 
 and mental culture, as the best security against the attacks 
 of this most formidable disease. With this conviction, in all 
 his later educational addresses he dwelt on the importance of 
 paying attention to the physical condition and improvement 
 of schools, to ventilation, to all the arrangements of the yard, 
 to exercise, to frequent intervals of relaxation from study 
 spent in the fresh air, and in athletic sports, to the propor- 
 tionate development of all the faculties, and in all cases, to 
 the avoidance of undue stimulants to study, especially with 
 young children and with females. 
 
44 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 Iq 1835-6 Mr. Gallaudet was induced by an association 
 of which Mr. Richard Bigelow and Henry Hudson, Esq., 
 of Hartford, were the active members, to visit the western 
 States in reference to a plan of religious education for that 
 section of the country, which in cooperation with local and 
 individual efforts, and in aid of existing schools, contem- 
 plated a supply of well qualified teachers and the establish- 
 ment in each State of at least one model institution of 
 Christian education. The financial disasters which swept 
 over the country soon after, crippled the means of several of 
 the active promoters of the plan, and it was postponed, 
 never to be renewed under the same auspices. At a later 
 period, a somewhat similar enterprise was undertaken by 
 Miss Catherine E. Beecher, to which Mr. Gallaudet ever 
 gave his counsel and aid, in preparing ihe class of teachers 
 who have for the last four years assembled in Hartford for a 
 course of preparatory instruction, before going west. 
 
 Among the religious and benevolent enterprises in which 
 he was particularly interested, may be mentioned the Amer- 
 ican Tract Society, of the Connecticut branch of which he 
 was for many years president ; the cause of universal Peace, 
 which he aimed to promote by disseminating information 
 among all men of the anti- Christian tendency of the war 
 spirit, and by cultivating in every way the doctrines and 
 graces of Christianity, commencing always with the individ- 
 ual, and spreading out through the family and the neighbor- 
 hood, till they embraced the State and the world ; and the 
 civilization and Christianization of Africa by means of colo- 
 nies of free, intelligent and religious blacks from this coun- 
 try. To the American Colonization Society and its affiliated 
 societies he was in the habit of looking as the great instru- 
 mentality under Providence for elevating the condition of 
 the African race in its own home, and wherever the cupidity 
 of other races may have forcibly transplanted it. No man 
 could be more kind and considerate in his attentions and 
 efforts to improve the condition of this class of our popular 
 tion at home, and especially in providing them with th 
 means of intellectual and religious improvement. 
 
TJiomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 45 
 
 After living a life of practical usefulness, such as it is the 
 privilege of but few good men to live, and yet such as every 
 wise man at the time of his death, if he could live his life 
 over again, would aspire to live, Mr. Gallaudet died as 
 every good man would desire to die. Overtaken by sickness 
 in the discharge of his duties at the Retreat, he retired to his 
 own home and his chamber on the night of the 20th of July, 
 to go no more out, until borne by others to his last resting- 
 place. His disease proved to be an aggravated form of dys- 
 entery, and so prolonged and so severe was the attack, that 
 his constitution, never robust, and his strength, which was 
 never vigorous, and which for the last twenty years had 
 been husbanded only with extreme care, sank beneath it ; and 
 after forty-six wearisome days and nights, during most of 
 which his mind was remarkably clear and active, and his 
 faith undimmed, he died on the 10th of September, 1851, 
 leaving to his widow and eight children, and this sorrowing 
 community, the inestimable legacy of his life and character, 
 and the consoling lesson of his death. In the bosom of his 
 family, — watched over by the gentle eye of affection, — minis- 
 tered to by children who would keep him yet a little longer 
 from the sky, — the last offices of the sick-room sought by 
 neighbors and friends, who would thus requite his kindness 
 to them, and mark their appreciation of his worth, — without 
 one gathering mist or shade on his hope of a blessed here- 
 after, secured (to use his own language) not by merits of his 
 (twn, but by the redeeming grace of God, — he passed through 
 his last tedious sickness, feeling the arm of his Saviour be- 
 neath him ; and when his hour came, his spirit passed away 
 so gently, that the precise moment was unmarked, — 
 
 They thought him dying when he slept, — 
 And sleeping when he died. 
 
 His soul to Him who gave it rose, 
 " God led him to his long repose. 
 
 His glorious rest. 
 And though that Christian's sun has set, 
 Its light shall linger round us yet, 
 
 Bright, radiant, blest. 
 
46 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 In forming any just estimate or analysis of Mr. Gallau- 
 det's character, we must assign the first and prominent place 
 to his religious views and habits. In his love to God and 
 love to man, are we to find the hilling of his power, as a 
 practical philanthropist. In the language of one who knew 
 him intimately for the last twenty years of his life : " Reli- 
 gion was so interwoven into the whole character of Mr. 
 Gallaudet, that we can rightly estimate it only in connec- 
 tion with the entire web. Some men, and good men too, as 
 we must regard them, appear not the same in their religious 
 aspect as in business, or in social scenes, — but it may be 
 truly and emphatically said of him, that his religious life 
 was his whole life. In the expressive title of one of his own 
 volumes, he was an every-day Christian. There was nothing 
 fitful in his piety : it was of the same evenness and symmetry 
 which marked the other parts of his character. It was not a 
 succession of oases around springs in a desert, linked to- 
 gether by long tracts of sandy waste, — but fed by principle, it 
 found its resemblance in the verdure which borders on an 
 ever-running brook. 
 
 " His religion was beneficence where good was to be done 
 or kindness shown. It was honesty, exact and scrupulous, 
 where business was to be transacted between him and his fel- 
 low-men. It was conscientiousness, where the rights of others 
 were involved in his plans or his acts. It was self-denial, 
 where the wants of the poor and the unfortunate required 
 not only an outlay of time, but solicitations sometimes pain- 
 ful to make, in gaining the .cooperation of others. It was 
 courtesy, where it was often difficult to reconcile the claims 
 of an extensive acquaintance with the discharge of pressing, 
 indispensable engagements. It was humility, towards God, 
 shewing itself in a deep sense of unworthiness. It was 
 penitence, when human weakness yielded to temptation, — 
 penitence sincere, abiding, and fruitful, in meet works. It 
 was cordial trust in the atonement of a Divine Redeemer, — 
 not leading to carelessness, but exciting prayerful efforts to 
 transfer the grace of that Redeemer's character to his own. 
 It was hope, — not now of noonday glare, and now of mid- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 47 
 
 night gloom, but hope ever uniform and stedfast, though 
 sometimes bedimmed with a passing cloud. It was joy, not 
 buoyant, like that of the new-born soul, or triumphant like 
 that of the martyr. No one acquainted with his mental 
 characteristics, his habitual moderation, — his almost excessive 
 caution, — his keen insight into character, — his close scrutiny 
 of his feelings, would look in his bosom for joys like these 
 But to joy such as flows from beneficent acts, — such as the' 
 peace of God imparts to the contrite spirit, — such as a hope 
 of casting off human weakness, and mingling through grace 
 among the sanctified in Christ Jesus in a higher life, inspires, 
 to such joy he was no stranger. 
 
 " He had a deep reverence for the sacred scriptures and ex- 
 alted views of their influence in controlling and purifying the 
 human mind. As an instrument of government in the fam- 
 ily, and in society, no one held them in higher estimation. 
 His religious sentiments were those commonly denominated 
 Evangelical. He loved to regard the truths of the gospel in 
 their simplicity, and though as capable as most amongst us 
 of metaphysical speculations, in which he would sometimes 
 indulge in conversation with his intimate friends, — he fell 
 back on the Bible in its obvious meaning for the support of 
 his hope and his quickening in the religious life. Though a 
 firm believer in the necessity of supernatural aid to train man 
 for heaven, he ever urged the serious, regular, prayerful ob- 
 servance of divine institutions and means of moral improve- 
 ment. On the moulding power of these he relied for forming 
 the Christian character rather than on any measures of mere 
 human devising. 
 
 " Both from principle and native temperament, he was char- 
 itable in his estimate of the opinions of others, — but when 
 the occasion demanded, he was ready courteously and firmly 
 to defend his own. The respect with which he was regarded 
 by the religious of every name, shews that this striking trait 
 of his character was duly appreciated. 
 
 " To an unusual extent, he associated this world, its 
 scenes, its occupations, its influences, with a future exist- 
 ence, — regarding the habits, both intellectual and moral, 
 
48 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 which we form on earth, as entering with us into that state. 
 ' Non omnis moriar^ all of me will not die, was an unfailing 
 quickener of his zeal in preparing to perform in another life 
 an agency of benevolence, pure, ceaseless, self-satisfying, 
 eternal. And who can doubt that in some part of God's 
 wide empire, his happy spirit is now ministering to 'them 
 who shall be heirs of salvation,' or planning schemes of 
 beneficence, which earth's intellect cannot conceive, or earth's 
 resources execute." 
 
 Such is the religious character of Mr. Gallaudet, as d^awn 
 by one, (Rev. Horace Hooker,) who knew him intimately for 
 a period of twenty years, in his mature manhood, and as testi- 
 fied to by others who knew him as intimately at the same 
 and other periods of his life. Out of whatever theological 
 dogmas as roots, this character may have grown, all will wit- 
 ness that it bore the peaceable fruits of righteousness. Amid 
 the jarring and sometimes belligerent forces of creeds and 
 denominations, it was refreshing to find one character in our 
 midst, who had a charity large enough to act in any good 
 work with others of difi'ering views, and that too without 
 sacrificing the convictions of his own conscience, and at the 
 same time securing the respect of all classes and conditions 
 of men. In the language of Jonathan Edwards, as applied 
 by a distinguished divine of our own city, who differed from 
 him in some points of church doctrine and organization, (Rev. 
 Dr. Turnbull,) " The soul of such a Christian in the midst 
 of other Christians, appeared like such a little white flower 
 as we see in the spring of the year, low and humble in the 
 ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of 
 the sun's glory ; rejoicing as ever in a calm rapture, diffusing 
 around a sweet fragrancy, standing peacefully and lovingly 
 in the midst of other flowers round about ; all in like manner 
 opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun." 
 
 What a beautiful and truthful commentary and illustration 
 was his own daily life, of his religious views as set forth in 
 his pulpit discourses, and more elaborately in his Every- 
 Day Christian ! All of us, who have had occasion to con- 
 sult or converse with him in the street, in the office, in the 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 49 
 
 committee-room, in his own house, must have had occasion 
 to notice the equable condition of his mind and heart, — the 
 faithfulness of his memory, — the clearness of his concep- 
 tions, — ^the ability to call into exercise his mental vigor and 
 resources, together with the calm and self-possessed state of 
 his affections, going forth in easy and happy expressions of 
 good will to others. How naturally, how habitually did he 
 improve every occasion of social intercourse, or even a casual 
 meeting, by rational, instructive, and, at proper moments, 
 serious conversation, without casting one shade of gloom 
 over such seasons; and, in his own home, how gracefully 
 were the courtesies of society and the attachments of friend- 
 ship made subservient to the highest purposes of this life, 
 and of that which is to come. His life was a living sermon, 
 that was read and appreciated by all men. 
 
 As a teacher, his success was uniform and preeminent in 
 a widely diversified field of experience. In his college classes, 
 among the deaf mutes, in the Hartford Female Seminary, at 
 the head of his own family school, and as a teacher of 
 teachers, he was distinguished by the same characteristics, 
 and by the same success, viz : the moral influence of his own 
 personal character and actions, — the thorough preparation he 
 brought to every recitation and every duty, — his own clear 
 conception of every principle and every fact which he wished 
 to convey to the minds of others, — his power of arresting and 
 retaining the attention of his pupils, even among the very 
 young, and particularly among the dull and those w^hose 
 minds were undisciplined, — the simplicity and vividness of 
 his illustrations, and the clearness and logical sequence of 
 his statements, — his power and range of expression, both in 
 pantomime and in spoken language, — and the rigid accu- 
 racy which he ever exacted from his pupils in every exercise. 
 In his own peculiar department, in that with which his 
 reputation as a teacher is inseparably connected, he was dis- 
 tinguished for his mastery of pantomime, the natural lan- 
 guage of the deaf and dumb, which he has also the merit of 
 having simplified and extended, — for the facility and felicity 
 with which he explained to them the difficulties and use of 
 4 
 
50 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
 
 written language, and for his powers in unfolding the sub- 
 lime as well as the simple doctrines of morality and religion, — 
 the ideas of justice, goodness, responsibility, spiritual exist- 
 ence, immortality and God. To Mr. Gallaudet is univer- 
 sally conceded the no ordinary merit, of being the first to es- 
 tablish for his pupils in the American Asylum the daily and 
 Sabbath devotional exercises by signs, thus securing to them 
 the privilege of social worship, and adding to the restraints 
 on bad conduct and to the motives of a correct life. In all that 
 relates to religious culture, our American institutions are 
 confessedly in advance of European institutions, and this is 
 mainly to be attributed to the methods and example intro- 
 duced by Mr. Gallaudet into the American Asylum. 
 
 The greatest service rendered by him as an educator and 
 teacher, — his highest claim to the gratitude of all who are 
 laboring to advance the cause of education in any grade or 
 class of schools, is to be found in his practical acknowledg- 
 ment and able advocacy of the great fundamental truth, of 
 the necessity of special training, even for minds of the high- 
 est order, as a prerequisite of success in the art of teaching. 
 In view of this truth, he traversed the ocean to make himself 
 practically acquainted with the principles and art of instruct- 
 ing the deaf and dumb ; — to this end, he became a normal 
 pupil under the great normal teacher Sicard, in the great 
 normal school of deaf-mute instruction in Paris. And still 
 distrusting his own attainments, he thought himself pecul- 
 iarly fortunate in bringing back with him to this country a 
 teacher of still larger experience than himself, and of an al- 
 ready acquired reputation, and thus making the American 
 Asylum the first normal school of deaf-mute instruction on 
 this continent. And beyond this, he was ever the earnest 
 advocate for training, under able master workmen in the busi- 
 ness of education, all who aspired to teach the young in any 
 grade of schools. How confirmatory of the wisdom of his 
 views is the success the American Asylum. If he, and such 
 as he, can do so much to improve and confirm the health, to 
 develop the different faculties of the mind, to communicate 
 knowledge, to subdue and control the passions and propen- 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 51 
 
 sities, and to awaken and train the higher sentiments and 
 holier affections of our common nature, in children laboring 
 under such extraordinary natural deprivations and obstacles 
 as the deaf and dumb, by means of skill, experience, appara- 
 tus and perseverance, — surely much, very much more, can be 
 accomplished by the same skill, experience, apparatus and 
 perseverance, with children having all their senses, and under 
 more favorable and favoring circumstances and influences. 
 But do we find such teachers in one out of a thousand, or one 
 of ten thousand, in our common schools, where the mass of 
 our children are educated? Does not society, which sees 
 the necessity of tact, skill, experience, and singleness of aim 
 and life, in teachers of the deaf mute and blind, and employs 
 persons having these qualities and qualifications at a com- 
 pensatory price, tolerate a degree of unfitness, both in char- 
 acter and preparation, in the teachers of the people, which 
 would not be tolerated in any department of labor that min- 
 isters to its material interests and enjoyments ? 
 
 As an author, — and especially of text-books, and books 
 for children and youth, — while he has done enough to give 
 him a distinct and permanent place in the annals of Ameri- 
 can literature, he has exhibited such large and wide views 
 of education, such an accurate knowledge of the order and 
 degree and methods of development, to which each faculty 
 should be subjected, such accuracy in defining words and 
 stating principles, and such facility in unfolding the most ab- 
 struse and complex problems and propositions, that it is a 
 matter of deep regret, that he did not devote himself to the 
 preparation of a series of text-books for instruction in the 
 English language. I know of no living teacher or educator 
 who can do the work so well. His volume of Sermons, 
 published in 1817, his Every-Day Christian, his Child's 
 Book on the Soul, and his incomplete serial work. Scripture 
 Biography," are beautiful specimens of correct and polished 
 composition, as well as of accurate thought and Christian 
 feeling. 
 
 As a public speaker, in the pulpit or the lecturer's desk' 
 soon after he entered the ministry and during his early con- 
 
52 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. f 
 
 nection with the Asylum, he was eminently popular. As a 
 sermonizer he had but few equals. His subject was distinctly 
 set forth, the topics logically arranged, his language polished, 
 his imagination chaste, his manner earnest, and his voice 
 persuasive. The hearer was borne along by a constantly 
 swelling tide, rather than swept away by a sudden billow. 
 In later life, at least on ordinary occasions, his power as a 
 preacher was weakened by his habit of simplifying his 
 thoughts, and extending his illustrations for the deaf and 
 dumb and for children. But these last qualities made his 
 preaching at the E/ctreat and the prison particularly profita- 
 ble and acceptable, delivered as it was with a clearness and 
 sincerity of manner and tone, which won at once the hearts 
 of the sorrowing and the outcast. 
 
 To appreciate the character and value of his services as 
 chaplain, both in the county jail and the Retreat, he should 
 have been seen and heard ; and especially at the Retreat, not 
 only in his regular religious teaching on the Sabbath and in 
 evening worship, but in his daily visitation among the dim 
 and erratic in soul, and his intercourse with their friends and 
 relatives, who were sorrowing over the wreck of domestic joys 
 and hopes. How simple and wise were his instructions, — 
 how surely did his kindness open the closed doors of their 
 affections, — how like the dew distilled his words of consola- 
 tion, — how like the notes of David's harp on the unquiet 
 spirit of Saul, fell the tones of his voice over those whose 
 thoughts, it seemed but a moment before, could not rest or 
 be comforted! 
 
 His conversational powers were remarkable, and he never 
 failed to interest all who came into his society. To a com- 
 mand of language, at once simple and felicitous, he added a 
 stock of personal reminiscences drawn from a large acquaint- 
 ance with the best society in this country and in Europe, — a 
 quick sense of the beautiful in nature, art, literature and mor- 
 als, — a liveliness of manner, — a ready use of all that he had 
 read or seen, and a real desire to make others happy, which 
 made his conversation always entertaining and instructive. 
 He was, beside, a good listener, — always deferential to old 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 53 
 
 and young, and could have patience even with the dull and 
 rude. With children he was eminently successful, winning 
 their confidence by his kind and benevolent manner, and 
 gaining their attention by the simplicity and pertinency of 
 his remarks. He seemed in society as in the world, to make 
 it a matter of principle " to remember the forgotten," and 
 thus to draw the old and retiring into the circle of the regards 
 and attention of others. 
 
 Although below the ordinary height, and singularly modest 
 and unassuming, yet with his erect carriage, and dignified 
 although not formal manners, always respectful and even 
 courteous to others, without challenging any special attention 
 to himself or his office, he succeeded in inspiring a reverence 
 softened by love, which mere personal presence, age or office 
 could not command. 
 
 He never spoke ill of any man, and could not listen with- 
 out exhibiting his impatience, to such speaking in others, and 
 never wiftiout suggesting a charitable construction of mo- 
 tives, or the extenuating circumstances of ignorance, or the 
 force of temptation. His sympathy and charity for the err- 
 ing, whether in conduct or opinion, were peculiar. Those 
 who had never felt the power of temptation, or never culti- 
 vated the grace of charity, " which beareth all things, believ- 
 eth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things," might 
 deem this a weakness, but to me it seemed akin to the kind- 
 n^s of Him, who was touched with a feeling of human in- 
 firmity, and whose mission it was to call sinners to repent- 
 ance. 
 
 He was methodical in the transaction of business to an 
 extent rarely found in men of literary habits. This was 
 partly the result of his home training, and partly of his ex- 
 perience in the counting-room and commercial affairs. It 
 was a favorite theory of his, that every boy before entering 
 college or a profession, should have at least one winter's 
 experience in a store, and one summer's training on a farm. 
 He was punctual in all his engagements. He thought it 
 was neither just or Christian to make appointments, and 
 then break them on any plea of convenience, or forgetfulness. 
 
54 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 He was economical, — not for the sake of hoarding, but from 
 necessity and a sense of justice. " Owe no man anything," 
 was a precept of perpetual obligation with him. 
 
 He was cautious to an extent, which in the opinion of 
 some of his best friends, abridged his usefulness. This may 
 be so, — and I have thought so at times, when I felt the need 
 of his active cooperation in enterprises in which I was par- 
 ticularly interested. But I have had many occasions to 
 admire his wise, forecasting prudence, in keeping aloof from 
 schemes, which although plausible, he could foresee must 
 fail. This caution may have abridged his activity, but it 
 prolonged the day of his usefulness. His path is strewn 
 with as few fragments of enterprises wrecked, as that of 
 any other person, whose mind was always projecting plans 
 of social improvement. 
 
 His benevolence was of that practical, universal and pre- 
 ventive sort, — that it can be followed by every body, every 
 day, in something ; and if followed by every body,%.nd begun 
 early, and persevered in, would change the whole aspect of 
 society in a single generation. It began with the individ- 
 ual, each man and woman and child, by making the in- 
 dividual better. It worked outward through the family 
 state, by precept and example, and above all by the formation 
 of habits, in every child, before that child had become 
 hardened into the guilty man and woman. It operated on 
 every evil by remedies specifically adapted to meet its pecu- 
 liarities. It promoted each good by agencies trained for that 
 special work. It looked to God for his blessing, but its 
 faith in God's blessing was made sure by its own diligent 
 works. 
 
 Mr. Gallaudet was emphatically the friend of the poor 
 and the distressed. He did not muse in solitude on human 
 misery, but sought out its victims and did something for 
 their relief. There was a womanly tenderness in his nature, 
 which was touched by the voice of sorrow, whether it came 
 from the hovel of the poor, or the mansion of the rich. His 
 benevolence was displayed not simply in bestowing alms, 
 although his own contributions were neither few or small 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 55 
 
 according to his means, — not simply as the judicious almoner 
 of the bounty of others, although no man among us was 
 more ready to solicit pecuniary subscriptions and contribu- 
 tions, (not always the most agreeable or acceptable business 
 in the range of benevolent action,) or give the necessary time 
 to the judicious application of the means thus raised, — not 
 simply by prayers earnest and appropriate, in the home of 
 mourning, — ^but by the mode and the spirit in which he dis- 
 charged these several duties. He did not aim always or 
 mainly to secure the pecuniary contributions of the rich, but 
 what is of far higher value both to the rich and poor, to enlist 
 their personal attention to the condition of the suffering 
 members of society. His wish always was to localize and 
 individualize benevolence so that every man should feel that 
 he has a direct personal interest in some spot and individual 
 of the great field of suffering humanity. He knew from his 
 own heart, that we love that which we strive to benefit, and 
 he was therefore anxious that every man should be found doing 
 ^ood to something, or somebody, who stood in need of such 
 personal help. His own life was a practical illustration both 
 of the wisdom and beauty of his doctrine. He took a real 
 pleasure in seeking out and relieving human suffering, and 
 no one could more literally act out his religion, — if to do so, 
 was to visit the widow and fatherless in their affliction. 
 
 Although no man could place a higher value on religion, 
 as the personal concern of every son and daughter of Adam, 
 and as the source of inward comfort and strength, particu- 
 larly to the poor and distressed, — he knew full well that reli- 
 gion did not stand alone in the human mind, and was not 
 the only concern of human nature here below. He felt and 
 acknowledged its connection with the entire life, — with intel- 
 lectual cultivation, with manners and personal habits, with 
 household arrangements and management, and with the 
 substance and form of parental duty. Hence his labors in 
 behalf of the poor covered a much larger ground than the 
 immediate relief of physical wants, or the utterance of a 
 prayer, or words of spiritual consolation. He labored to im- 
 press on the rich and the poor, as householders and tenants, 
 
56 Tliomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 the Christian duty, the necessity of making the homes of the 
 poor more healthy, comfortable and attractive. He saw the 
 difficulty, if not the impossibility of cultivating the Christian 
 virtues and graces, amid the filth and discomfort of cellars 
 and garrets, and even of such dwellings as the destitute gen- 
 erally occupy. He saw also the necessity of time and mental 
 vigor, if the poor and the laborer are to profit by sermons, 
 and tracts, and lectures. After ten, twelve, or fifteen hours, 
 confinement to hard labor there is neither elasticity of mind 
 or body to entertain serious thought or severe reading. 
 Both body and mind need rest, or at least recreation, and 
 unless a taste for innocent amusements has been created, 
 and easy access to such amusements can be had, the laborer 
 must go to his pillow, — or to the, excitements of the shop or 
 of congenial company. Hence, Mr. Gallaudet's aims were 
 to secure for all laborers, old and young, — in the factory and 
 in the field, — in the shop, and in the kitchen, time^ — time to 
 attend to their spiritual and their intellectual improvement ; — 
 in the second place, a taste for something pure and intellec- 
 tual, — and in the third place, the means of gratifying these 
 tastes. 
 
 In all his plans of benevolent and Christian action, for 
 society or for individuals, he never lost sight of the paramount 
 claims of home and the family state as the preparator}'^ 
 school, in which the good citizen is to be trained up for the 
 service of the state, and the devoted Christian for the service 
 of his Master. The making of a little more money, or the 
 participation of social enjoyments, were with him no excuse 
 for neglecting an engagement with his own children ; — nay, 
 when the calls of the public, or the voice of religion itself, 
 would seem to urge to the performance of higher and more 
 important duties, his doctrine was that conscience should 
 weigh these claims, looking to the word of God for instruc- 
 tion, and to the throne of his grace, for guidance, against the 
 sacred trust of discharging his duty faithfully in the domestic 
 circle. In the peculiar position of his own family, he felt 
 these ties and claims the more strongly. 
 
 On this, mainly, he rested his final declinature of the urgent 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallavdet. 57 
 
 invitation of the trustees of the New England Institution for 
 the Blind, to place himself at the head of that benevolent 
 movement in 1831, — and in 1838, the as urgent solicitation 
 of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools that he 
 would accept the post of secretary, and the only executive 
 agent in its operations in behalf of education in the State. 
 
 There is one responsibility connected with the situation of 
 the head of a family, — that of the guardianship of clerks and 
 apprentices, — the nature and duties of which he took every 
 fit occasion, in conversation, and in his public addresses, 
 to explain and enforce. Many a young man, leaving his 
 parental roof for the first time, breaking away from a mother's 
 tearful advice and exhortations, and a father's last petition 
 to a kind Providence, to seek his fortune in this city as a 
 clerk or apprentice, amid new companions, new trials, and 
 new temptations, — owes his safety to the kind word fitly 
 spoken, or little attention timely shown of Mr. Gallaudet. 
 And beyond this personal service, how often and how earn- 
 estly has he explained and enforced the claims of such young 
 persons, on the constant watchfulness and care of employ- 
 ers, — as the only individuals that can exercise a parental 
 guardianship over them, and who can by making their own 
 homes attractive to them and their own children, preserve 
 them from the allurements of vice and from habits of dissi- 
 patiq^i. 
 
 I shall not, I trust, intrude on the sacredness of family 
 privacy, or private sorrow, in the few additional words which 
 I shall say of his domestic life. Mr. Gallaudet was married 
 on the 10th of June, 1821, to Miss Sophia Fowler, of Guil- 
 ford, a deaf mute, with whom his acquaintance commenced 
 while she was a member of the first class of pupils instructed 
 by him at the Asylum. Seldom has domestic life been 
 blessed with so sweet an accord of temper, taste, and views 
 of family instruction and discipline, and by such a bright 
 dower of clustering charities, — a triumphant testimony to the 
 deaf mutes, of their inherent capability, properly instructed, 
 to take their appropriate position of influence in the family 
 state. In no one position did the distinguishing features of 
 
58 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 his mind and heart shine out more clearly than in his own 
 home, and in the practical discharge of his domestic and 
 social duties. Here his views, as a wise educator, were 
 illustrated by beginning the work of parental instruction and 
 example in the very arms of the mother, and in the lap of 
 the father, while natural affection tempers authority with 
 love, and filial fear with filial attachment and gratitude. 
 Here he iiimed to form habits, as well as principles of truth, 
 temperance, honesty, justice, virtue, kindness and industry. 
 Here by example and influence, by well-timed instruction and 
 judicious counsels, by a discipline uniform in its demands 
 of strict obedience, yet tempered with parental fondness and 
 familiarity, did he aim to fulfil the obligations which God 
 had imposed on him as the head of a family ; and in this pre- 
 paratory sphere of instruction he had the personal and assid- 
 uous attention of Mrs. Gallaudet. He was much with his 
 family, — joining in their innocent recreations, — contributing 
 to their instruction and improvement, — shedding over them 
 the benign influence of his example, — ruling almost with an 
 unseen authority, — his look mild, yet unwavering, — his voice 
 gentle, yet decided, — his manners familiar, yet command- 
 ing, — and looking to God continually in prayer, and to his 
 written word for guidance and counsel. In his own home, 
 he sought and found repose and refreshment after his occu- 
 pation in his own study or his abounding labors abroad ; and 
 when sickness visited him, or any member of his family, 
 which it did often and severely, they were all so trained as to 
 minister to each other's bodily wants, and as well as to each 
 other's spiritual necessities. 
 
 In bringing this discourse, already too protracted, to a close, 
 I will dwell for a moment on some of the practical lessons, 
 which we should gather from the contemplation of the life 
 of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, and bring home to our 
 business and bosoms. 
 
 The least we can do to prove ourselves worthy of posses- 
 sing his name and example among the moral treasures of our 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 59 
 
 city and State, is to cherish the family, — the objects of his 
 tenderest solicitude and care, which he has left behind him ; 
 and by some fit memorial to hold in fresh and everlasting 
 remembrance, his deeds of beneficence to us and our pos- 
 terity forever. The ashes of such a man, in whose character 
 the sublimest Christian virtues ceased to be abstractions, if 
 his memory is properly cherished, will, like the bones of the 
 prophet, impart life to all who come in contact therewith. 
 The ingenious youth of our city, should be led, by some 
 memorial of our gratitude for his services, to study his life, 
 till its beauty and spirit shall pass into their own souls, and 
 flow out afresh in their own acts of self-denying beneficence. 
 Whatever we may do for the future, we may at least act 
 in the living present, in the spirit, and to some extent in the 
 methods which have wrought such valuable results in his 
 life. It may not be the lot of any of those who hear me, to 
 pursue the same walk of professional labor, — ^it may not be 
 the privilege of any of us to open up new avenues of knowl- 
 edge to those who, in the providence of God, are deprived of 
 all or either of the senses, through which the soul holds in- 
 tercourse with the outer world ; but if we look around in 
 the streets, or neighborhood where we dwell, — if we will open 
 our ears^nd our hearts in our daily walks, we shall not fail 
 to find, as he always found, neglected or misguided children, 
 who are as truly shut out from innocent pleasures, from all 
 the delights and rewards of virtue, as are the deaf from the 
 voice of men, or the blind from the light of day. We need 
 not go out of the limits of our own city, to find children, who 
 have been accustomed from infancy to sights and sounds of 
 open and abandoned profligacy, and trained, by example, to 
 idle, vicious and pilfering habits, and who, if not rescued 
 soon, will be found hanging round places of public resort, 
 polluting the atmosphere by their profane and vulgar speech, 
 alluring to their own bad practices children of the same and 
 other conditions of life, and originating or participating in 
 every street brawl or low-bred riot, until, in their downward 
 career, there is on earth no lower point to reach. Such chil- 
 
60 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 
 
 dren can not be safely gathered, or profitably instructed in 
 our public schools. For them, one or more of that class of 
 educational institutions, known as refuge schools, or schools 
 of industry, should be established. But even this will not 
 reach the source or the extent of the evil. The districts of 
 our city where this class of children are found, are the appro- 
 priate fields of systematized plans of local benevolence, em- 
 bracing friendly intercourse with the parents, an affectionate 
 interest in the children, the gathering of the latter into week- 
 day infant and primary schools, and schools where the use 
 of the needle, and other forms of labor appropriate to the age 
 and sex of the pupils can be given, — the gathering of both 
 old and young into Sabbath Schools and worshiping assem- 
 blies, — the circulation of books of other than a strictly reli- 
 gious character, — the encouragement of cheap, innocent and 
 humanizing games, sports and festivities, — the obtaining of 
 employment for adults who may need it, and procuring situ- 
 ations as apprentices, clerks, &c., for such young persons as 
 may be qualified by age, capacity and character. By indi- 
 vidual efforts and the combined efforts of many, working in 
 these and other ways, from year to year, these moral jungles 
 can be broken up, — these infected regions can be purified, — 
 these waste places of society can be reclaimed, and many 
 abodes of penury, ignorance and vice can be converted by 
 education, economy and industry, into homes of comfort, 
 peace and joy. 
 
 It may not be our privilege, — and if it were, we may not 
 have the admirable tact to succeed as he did, — to re tune the 
 harp of a thousand strings which misfortune, or the violations 
 of natural laws, on the observance of which mental health 
 depends, or the transmitted consequences of such violations 
 on the part of parents, may have shattered, — to bind up the 
 broken heart, — to pour consolation into the torn bosom of 
 the friends and relations of the insane ; but we may, if we 
 will follow his example, help to rear up a generation of 
 youth having sound minds in sound bodies, which will thu? 
 be better prepared to withstand the shock of sickness an^ 
 
Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 61 
 
 misfortune, and even counteract the inherited tendencies to 
 nervous and mental disease. 
 
 We may not be called to go into the prison, to preach spir- 
 itual deliverance to the captive, — to reclaim the wandering 
 lambs of society back to the fold of the family and the 
 church, and to temper the severity of penal justice with the 
 accents of heavenly mercy, — but we may, by our fidelity as 
 teachers, educators and friends of education, set the feet of 
 the young in the way they should go, so that when they are 
 old they shall not depart therefrom, nor be doomed to wear 
 out a weary and guilty life in the felon's cell, or atone for 
 manifold and heinous crimes against society on the ignomin- 
 ious scaffold. In some allotment of the wide domain of edu- 
 cation, — in its large and comprehensive sense, embracing the 
 culture of the w^hole being, and of every human being for two 
 worlds, we can find objects and room enough for any sacri- 
 fice of time, money and labor, we may have to bestow in its 
 behalf. Ever since the Great Teacher condescended to 
 dwell among men, the progress of this cause has been up- 
 ward and onward, and its final trivimph has been longed for 
 and prayed for, and believed in by every lover of his race. 
 And although there is much that is dark and despairing in 
 the past and present condition of society, yet when we study 
 the nature of education, and the necessity and capabilities of 
 improvement all around us, with the sure word of prophecy 
 in our hands, and with the evidence of what has already been 
 accomplished, the future rises bright and glorious before us, 
 and on its forehead is the morning star, the herald of a better 
 day than has yet dawned upon our world. In this sublime 
 possibility, — nay, in the sure word of God, let us in our hours 
 of doubt and despondency, reassure our hope, strengthen our 
 faith, and confirm the unconquerable will. The cause of 
 education can not fail, unless all the laws which have hereto- 
 fore governed the progress of society shall cease to operate, 
 and Christianity shall prove to be a fable, and liberty a dream. 
 May we all hasten on its final triumph, by following the ex- 
 ample of the departed Gallaudet, in doing good according 
 
62 Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. 
 
 to our means and opportunity, — and may each strive at the 
 end of life to deserve his epitaph, "in whose death man- 
 kind lost a friend, and no man got rid of an enemy." 
 
 " How sleep the good ! who sink to rest, 
 
 AVith their Redeemer's favor blest : 
 
 When dawns the day, by seers of old, , 
 
 In sacred prophecy foretold, 
 
 They then shall burst their humble sod. 
 
 And rise to meet their Saviour — God. 
 
 To seats of bliss by angel-tongue. 
 With rapture is their welcome sung, 
 And at their tomb when evening gray 
 Hallows the hour of closing day. 
 Shall Faith and Hope awhile repair. 
 To dwell with weeping Friendship there." 
 
TRIBUTE 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 ^l)omas jl^opkins (!^allant)ct. 
 
 [5 Mr. Barnard's Eulogy on the Life and Character of Rev. 
 § Thomas H, Gallaiulet, LL. D., will be published by Brockett 
 1^ & Hutchinson, Hartford, with an appendix, containing 
 
 i 
 
 k2 I. Alice Cop;s\velI. 
 
 ^ II. Deaf-Mute Instruction and Institutions. • 
 
 III. History of the American Asylum for the Education of Deaf and 
 Dumb Persons. 
 
 IV. Journal of Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet during liis visit to Europe, 
 9 in 1815-16. 
 
 ^ V. Discourse delivered at the Opening of the American Asylum, 
 
 % April 20, 1817. 
 
 ^ .... 
 
 ^ \ r. Discourse at the Dedication ot the American Asylum, May 22, 
 
 p 1821. 
 
 ^ YII. Proceedings on the Presentation of Silver Plate to Messrs. Gallau- ; 
 
 § det and Clerc. 
 
 b 
 
 ko V\l\. Discourse at the Dedication of the Chapel of the Connorticiit K. 
 
 treat for the Insane, January 6, 1846. 
 
 '^ IX. History of Normal Schools, or Seminaries for the Education of' 
 
 P Teachers. 
 
 t^ X. Remarks on Seminaries for Teachers. 
 
 \$ XL List of Publications by Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet. i 
 
 IS The whole will make a volume of about 200 pages, and, i 
 (6 bound in cloth, will be sold for $1.00. Tiie avails of the 
 § edition will be given to Mrs. Gallaudet. J 
 
 § The work will be on sale by Mark H. Newman & Co., ; 
 ^ New York; E. C. & J. Biddle, Philadelphia; and Tieknor ^ 
 "^ & Co., Boston. c 
 
 .QZ2£!gQi^g.lgO-' 9 Q \.o'i^^f)^9}22^Q§4:->QS^M9}22:il^Q}2S!^Q)22m£^D 
 
I or a 
 
 PAMPHLET BINDER 
 
 Syracusi 
 Stocktoi 
 
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 14 DAY USL 
 
 _ ^ DESK FROM WHICH B OR. OWED 
 LOAN DEPT. 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 LIBRARY USE 
 
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 (6889sl0)476B 
 
 General Library 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
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