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In 1860 there were 2,077 deaf mutes in New York. The number of pupils at the Institution for Deaf Mutes was 348; in 1865, 450. Average attendance in 1860, 300; (43) in 1865, 406. One in six of the deaf mutes was under instruction. In five years in New York there was an increase of 106 in the average attendance of the pupils; while at Hartford there was a decrease of 12.

One in seven and a half of the deaf mutes from Massachusetts attended the school at Hartford in 1865. In the city of Cambridge, the same year, one fourth of the inhabitants were between the ages of five and fifteen, and one in five attended the public schools.

From these statistics it appears that, while the number of deaf mutes in New England and the number of pupils at the New York Institution are increasing, the number in the school at Hartford is decreasing; that, while New York provides for the education of one in six of the deaf population, New England provides for only one in nine; and that Massachusetts provides for the education of one in five of her entire population in the public schools. No class needs instruction so much as the deaf mutes, or so fully repays the cost to the State; yet Massachusetts makes provision for the education of not more than one half.

The school at Hartford is already full: only a few more pupils can be conveniently accommodated without an increase of buildings. If these are erected, it will cause a further encroachment upon the productive property of the Asylum, and, the reduced income being divided among a greater number of pupils, it will leave a smaller sum for each one, and so increase the sum which must be paid by the States for each pupil. The expense to the State must therefore be greater for the future than in the past, should our deaf mutes still be sent to Hartford.

THE ARTICULATING SCHOOL OF MISS ROGERS.

In October, 1864, Miss Harriet B. Rogers, sister of one of the teachers of Laura Bridgman and Oliver Caswell, had placed under her charge Fanny Gushing, a little deaf mute, whom she was to teach the manual alphabet and articulation. Miss Rogers soon found that, if she was to teach articulation successfully, it must be by itself. It was an experiment, and Miss Rogers was unwilling to take the responsibility without the approbation of the child's friends. She consulted Fanny's parents, who agreed that the manual alphabet should be given up, and reading from the lips substituted. In a few months she became so interested in her work, and so convinced of its ultimate success, that, at the suggestion of Dr. Howe and other friends of the deaf mutes, she opened an articulating school for deaf mutes at Chelmsford.

The articulation of most of the pupils is very imperfect, and almost as unintelligible to strangers as the sign language; perhaps to some signs seem preferable to the indistinct utterances of these pupils. But few children, even with the ear to guide them, learn to talk plainly until they are four or five years old, and these little ones should have at least an equal chance. That articulation and reading from the lips can be acquired by deaf mutes, so as to be made a medium of intelligible communication with those around them, has been in individual cases unquestionably proved, and we see no reason why the same method should not be generally successful. That the lessons in articulation have not thus far retarded the progress of these children in other branches, we can show by a comparison with older children who have been under instruction at Hartford for the same length of time, and with this advantage, that what the Chelmsford pupils know, they know in words.

With the exception of two pupils, these children could communicate only by the few natural signs common to all deaf mutes when they entered the school. Sometimes natural signs are used at first to teach them the meaning of words, and when no longer needed are thrown aside.

No new signs are being acquired by the pupils, and in their recitations and at table conversation is carried on by articulation and reading from the lips. When by themselves they sometimes accompany their words by. signs, but words 'are constantly gaining the ascendency. Their thoughts, as far as can be ascertained, are in words, and their teacher has several times heard them talk in their sleep.

At Hartford, the class that entered on September 15, 1866, when five months at school, had acquired one hundred and fifty nouns, forty adjectives, and twenty verbs; the pupils could count to thirty, and write single words and a few simple sentences, but could not write their ages on the blackboard.

At Chelmsford, W. S. Langdon, seven years and a half old, (44) lost his hearing at five and a half years of age. After spending six months at school he could read from the lips, write, spell, and explain the meaning of two hundred and eighty words, and about one hundred and fifty sentences formed from these words, and count to one hundred backward and forward. In seven and a half months he could spell over four hundred words, and form sentences from them; he added small numbers, and wrote home every week.