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In 1857, a special teacher of articulation was employed by this school -- the first engaged by any school for deaf-mutes in this country -- and from that time to this, with the exception of one break of five years, the school has not been without a special instructor in those branches.

This was the first eclectic school to make use of Bell's System of Visible Speech as an aid in teaching deaf-mutes to speak. Mr. Alexander Graham Bell spent the months of May and June, 1872, in the school in introducing the system and in training teachers to give instruction in it.

Of late years more attention has been given to articulation and lip-reading, and their field has been broadened. This school, while holding fast to all that is good in the past, has settled upon the policy of giving all new pupils a thorough and prolonged test, under special teachers, as to their ability to acquire speech and lip-reading, and of dropping only such as those teachers regard as hopeless cases. With the rest daily instruction in speech and lip-reading is continued through the course. This plan has been adopted in the belief that intelligible speech, even if imperfect, is valuable, and that it should be given to every pupil who can acquire it, even at a partial sacrifice of development in other directions, which will require an addition of one or two years to the time now allowed for the school course in order to make good the loss.

An examination of the school's records in 1889 revealed the following facts: -- Of the pupils received into this school during the previous four years seventy-four per cent. gave sufficient promise of success in acquiring speech and lip-reading to warrant their continued daily instruction in those branches. Of those thus taught forty-seven + per cent. were born deaf; fourteen + per cent. lost hearing under two years of age; twenty-four + per cent. lost hearing between the ages of two and four years; and fourteen + per cent. lost hearing after the age of four years.

The more than twenty-five hundred pupils who have received instruction at the American Asylum have come from twenty-five States, the British Provinces, and the West Indies, viz.
Maine,
New Hampshire,
Vermont,
Massachusetts,
Rhode Island,
Connecticut,
New York,
New Jersey,
Pennsylvania,
Maryland,
District of Columbia,
Virginia,
North Carolina,
South Carolina,
Georgia,
Alabama,
Louisiana,
Texas,
Indiana,
Illinois,
Michigan,
Wisconsin,
Ohio,
British Provinces,
West Indies,
California,
West Virginia.

At the present time (1893) only the six New England States are represented by its pupils.

Likewise the following:

Of the first hundred pupils admitted to the school --
46 were born deaf.
30 became deaf at two years or under.
7 became deaf from three to eight years of age inclusive.
0 became deaf at over eight years of age.
17 unknown at what age deafness occurred.
1 had one deaf parent.
28 came from 23 families in which there were forty other deaf children,
0 was reported as having parents related by blood,
In one family represented there were 6 deaf-mute children,
In one family represented there were two deaf-mute sons and one deaf-mute daughter who were married before this school was established.
In another family there were 4 deaf-mute children.

Of the last hundred pupils admitted --
41 were born deaf.
26 became deaf at two years of age or under.
22 became deaf from three to eight years of age inclusive.
1 became deaf at over eight years of age.
10 unknown at what age deafness occurred.
5 have deaf parents, and in these families there are thirteen other deaf children and two hearing children -- 12 of these deaf children coming from two families.
9 children, having hearing parents unrelated by blood, come from seven families having more than one deaf- mute child -- the whole number of deaf children in these families being16, and the number of hearing children 24.
2 children come from families in which the parents are cousins, and the two families together have six deaf-mute children and fifteen hearing children.

Up to May 1891 five hundred and ninety marriages of former pupils had been reported. From these had sprung eight hundred and eleven children, of whom one hundred and four, or nearly thirteen per cent. were reported congenitally deaf. Nearly one half the marriages were without issue.

The deaf-mutes of America have not failed to testify their love and admiration for their first teachers, Thos. H. Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc, nor to show their appreciation of their labors in their behalf. In September, 1850, they presented each with a costly solid silver service, and to each they have erected, at their own expense, on the grounds of the institution, a permanent memorial at a total cost of more than six thousand dollars.

SUPPORT.

The school is supported partly by the income from its invested funds and partly by State appropriations, and is under the management of a board of directors composed of some of the most prominent business and professional men of Hartford and ex officio, the Governors and Secretaries of the six New England States.