Library Collections: Document: Full Text

An unfortunate impression has prevailed that the institution is provided with abundant funds for carrying on its work. Such is not the case. Since the grant made by Congress in 1819, gifts and bequests have been very few and scanty. By far the largest was that of the late Morris Mattson, M.D., of New York, who became interested in the school through his deaf-mute sister's connection with it, and made it his residuary legatee. To the disadvantage of the institution in its present needs, his example has not been followed.

STANDARD FOR TEACHERS.

The first Principal of this school, the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, was a man of liberal education, broad culture, and rare tact and pantomimic skill. Realizing the difficulties of deaf-mute education and the requirements for success in it, he called about him, as assistant teachers, men of similar qualifications and fit, to be his co-laborers, in working out by correction, revision, and expansion of the French system a new, American system of instruction. Thanks to the wise conservatism of its managers, the standard of qualifications for a teacher of deaf-mutes at the outset of the work in this country has been steadily maintained here, and to it may be attributed in no small degree the prestige which this school has ever enjoyed. Twenty-nine graduates of Yale College, besides graduates of other colleges, have been enrolled in its corps of instructors. For a long time this school served as a normal school for the training of teachers to take charge of the new schools springing up. Every new teacher entering upon the work of instruction here, as well as those from other schools resorting to it to acquire the system of instruction took a regular course of lessons in the sign language from Mr. Clerc, the living embodiment of the French system, and each paid him fifty dollars therefor. The high standard set for the country at the beginning, and the endeavor to live up to it, have secured results in the education of deaf-mutes which have caused American schools for the deaf to be universally acknowledged to be the best of their kind in the world.

MANUAL TRAINING.

Mental discipline and acquirements are but a part of the good to be derived from the school course. Manual training, now beginning to be considered an essential part of school training for all children, is doubly so for deaf-mutes. For their future welfare it is not only necessary that they should form habits of industry, but that every boy should learn how to care for and use tools, and acquire at least the rudiments of a trade, that he may be able to compete successfully with those favored with hearing.

Very early in the history of this school this need was recognized, and a plan was adopted of making manual training a requisite part of the education of its pupils. Instruction in this new department was begun in 1822, and in the following year two large and convenient workshops were erected. From that day to this, manual training has been a part of the instruction of every able-bodied boy -- rich and poor alike -- passing through his school course here. Habits of industry are invaluable, and they should be acquired at the formative period of life. It is of much less importance what one learns to do, than that one should learn to do promptly and well whatever one undertakes. With industrious habits, a trained eye, a skilled hand, and cultivated judgment, one may acquire a new trade with comparative ease, but where all these are wanting, to start on any new line of work is a difficult task.

Boys receive instruction in cabinet-making and shoemaking. Until 1892, there was a tailor's shop also. Most of the girls learn to sew and to do some of the lighter parts of house work.

In the cabinet-shop the boys learn how to use wood-working tools, and when they have finished their school course, they find it comparatively easy to secure employment in carpenter shops, in furniture establishments, or in any other occupation in which that class of tools is used. Those who return to farm life find the knowledge which they have obtained in this branch of instruction valuable in saving the cost of repairs and in the manufacture of many needed and useful articles. The cabinet-shop is supplied with power for the turning-lathe and heavy sawing, but the rest of the work here, as all of that in the shoe-shop, is performed by hand, as the object is not to turn off a large amount of work, but to teach boys the use and proper care of tools.

Shoe-making has proved a useful trade for many boys, as it requires very little capital. One can start in the trade almost anywhere, and very seldom does a good cobbler fail to find sufficient work to make a comfortable living.

Drawing is carefully taught in order to cultivate the hand and the eye, and as a preparation for understanding working plans in the mechanical arts, and as laying the foundation for designing and other art work with those who show special talent in those lines.