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Home influences are no doubt of great value to the deaf mute, but they generally reach only to the education of the affections. The reports quoted show that in most cases before entering the Asylum no effort has been made to instruct the mind of the child, or to train its mental powers. Indeed, the parent is cautioned not "to attempt the more difficult and abstract terms, lest, from his imperfect acquaintance with the language of signs, he should communicate false ideas, or weary and disgust the mind. (40) There are also many objections to sending a little child to a large asylum, that would not obtain were it sent to a small family school of fifteen or twenty pupils, or to a primary day school in Boston, where there are a sufficient number of children to form such a school. It would seem peculiarly important that the little deaf mute should commence its instruction at as early an age as possible. If the effort is to be made to save the speech early lost, or to teach articulation to the congenital mute, the earlier the child is placed under instruction the better. The organs of speech are more flexible, the powers of observation quicker, the memory more retentive. A child will acquire a foreign language with much less difficulty than an adult. We have seen little children speaking four languages with equal facility.

The importance of these views, and the necessity of early education in preparatory schools, have been deeply felt at Hartford, and in 1854 and 1855 the buildings of the Asylum were enlarged for the purpose (among other things) of organizing a juvenile department, with accommodations for thirty or forty children under ten years of age. The Directors report that such an arrangement will enable them "to receive the children of parents who are able to pay for their support, and who are anxious to have them at school before they reach the age of eight. A longer time than six or eight years is requisite thoroughly to educate deaf mutes, and, if provision was made to extend the time by the State, the objection to receiving any pupils under ten would be removed. We ought to secure to the American Asylum the credit of taking the first step in this direction, and of thus offering the advantages of instruction to such young children as contemplated a thorough and extended course of training." (41) We find but one further reference in their reports to tins department, and presume the plan was abandoned, as the new building is now used for other purposes.

The State of New York in 1863 provided "for the education of deaf-mute children between the ages of six and twelve, whenever the county authorities were satisfied that the parents were in indigent circumstances, and that their health, morals, and comfort were endangered if left at home." Under this law, thirty were at once received into the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. In the last report of the Directors of this Asylum, they say: "These little children, many under seven and eight, were but a few months before barely able to make their physical wants known by uncouth signs, and not always able to do that clearly. After a few months of instruction and social communion with their fellow-pupils, they generally become keen-looking, vivacious, quick in comprehending signs, able to relate with graphic detail in signs each his own experience, and to enjoy with keen zest such relations by others. The promptness and correctness with which some of the younger division of this class, in appearance almost infantile, and only a few months under instruction, answered by writing a number of simple questions, were especially interesting." (42)

Massachusetts provides a good education for her hearing children, between the ages of five and fifteen. Have not the little deaf mutes an equal claim upon her kindness and care? And yet for them no provision is made, until they are eight or ten years old. These little ones are left in solitude and in silence, unable to receive any ideas from others, or express more than their simplest wants.

Between two and three years ago Mr. Packard, a deaf mute, opened a small day school in Boston, and soon had a class of twenty-three little ones too young to enter the Asylum at Hartford. Application for aid was made to the School Committee of Boston, and refused.

NUMBER OF DEAF MUTES.

The very imperfect returns of the census show that throughout the country there is one deaf mute to every 2,275 inhabitants. By the census returns of 1850, there appeared to be 1,403 deaf mutes in New England; and by the corrected returns of 1860 there were reported to be no less than 2,000 deaf mutes. In Massachusetts alone there are probably not less than 730. The number of pupils in Hartford in 1850 was 210; in 1860, 264; in 1865, 267. Average attendance in 1860, 222; in 1865, 212. One in nine of the deaf mutes in New England was under instruction at the Asylum in 1860.