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In a school for the deaf and dumb, if it is ever to have any accession to its numbers, it is absolutely indispensable to have more than one well-qualified instructor; for pupils who have just entered cannot possibly be introduced into a class which has been some time under a course of instruction. If pupils were admitted at all times, perpetual confusion and embarrassment must ensue. Once a year seems to be, on the whole, the most suitable period; and since four or five years are absolutely necessary to give the deaf and dumb even a tolerably correct command of language; in a school of such a kind, especially a public one, intended for the general good, there must be, at least, four or five classes, and as many instructors.

Besides it would be unwise to suspend the fate of such an establishment on the precarious life or health of an individual. Temporary indisposition may occur. The occupation is an exceedingly laborious one, demanding a great deal of patience and perseverance. Several instructors together keep alive each other's interest; aid each other in difficulty; make new discoveries, or invent new modes of instruction; and thus give life and vigour to an Institution, which, it is to be feared, under a solitary individual, (even if no other obstacles existed,) would soon languish, from the fact, that human nature is so constituted, as to make loneliness in any difficult pursuit soon to produce irksomeness and irresolution.

To conduct an establishment for the deaf and dumb with success, the pupils should be assembled together. To have them board in private families would exceedingly impair, if not quite destroy, the efforts made for their improvement and government. Now, they can as well be assembled in considerable numbers, as in small; for there would be no difficulty in providing for them, if suitable accommodations and instructors were furnished.

To have schools for the deaf and dumb in each town, or county, or even state, would be attended with an expense which would be so great as to result, at last, in the entire abandonment of them to their native and hopeless ignorance. Without such an expense instructors could not be found, and trained, and supported for such a purpose.

It might seem, indeed, at first sight, to justify the establishment of such a school in any section of the country, that one hundred deaf and dumb persons were found within it. But these one hundred have been accumulating for fifty or sixty years. Many of them are too young, and some too old, to be instructed. Other causes, too, will prevent many from attending the school. But, even supposing that the one hundred were all assembled, and, in the course of a few years, educated; it is obvious, that, afterwards, provision would have to be made only for the annual increase of the deaf and dumb. It is for this only that permanent institutions need to be established; just as our common schools are necessary, not for the whole population, but only for the rising generation.

It is the rising generation of the deaf and dumb, for which permanent institutions are needed, and a considerable extent of territory must be included, to furnish a sufficient number of pupils, to justify the time, labour, and expense necessary to the getting even one such establishment into successful operation. For it will be found, that the annual cases of deafness and dumbness, whether at birth, or from any subsequent cause, bear a very small ratio to the whole number of deaf and dumb persons within any district of country. What individuals of intelligence and skill in such a pursuit, would devote themselves to it, without a prospect of the school with which they are connected, becoming both permanent and flourishing. To become so, it seems to be capable almost of demonstration, that it must derive its pupils from a considerable extent of territory.

It was with such views, that the Directors of the Institution have so conducted its affairs, as to prepare it to become adequate to the wants of at least all this northern section of our country. It has been but a few years in operation, and has had, like all other infant establishments, to contend with many difficulties. Yet it has all along furnished the means of education and support, at a rate considerably less than what it has cost to provide them, and has reduced the charges as low as the state of its funds would permit. It has, as peculiar exigencies required, dispensed charitable aid to several of the pupils, among whom by far the greater proportion belonged to other states than that in which the Institution is located. Its expenditures have always exceeded the income derived from the pupils by an amount of from three to four thousand dollars annually, and this, without taking into consideration the large sums expended in the buildings and grounds, now occupied and used by the Asylum. Thus it has aimed to be in fact, not yet in name, a charitable Institution. There is now a fair prospect of its soon being able to furnish the means of instruction to the deaf and dumb, at the lowest possible rate, and also to extend charitable aid to the indigent.