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Education Of The Deaf And Dumb

Creator: n/a
Date: April 1834
Publication: North American Review
Source: Available at selected libraries

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The want of printed lessons is the disadvantage under which, at present, American institutions chiefly labor. To remedy this deficiency, along with that of a systematic series of designs, is the point, toward which the labors of instructors should, for the time, be principally directed. Cannot a congress of teachers be established? Cannot an union of effort be attempted? Cannot a division of labor be determined, which shall cause its advantages to be felt by the deaf and dumb now existing? We have, hitherto, had too little concert. We have been employed rather in creating, than in perfecting institutions. We have been struggling, as we still are, against pecuniary embarrassments. We have been laboring that the patronage of the Federal Government, already extended to two seminaries, might foster also our undertakings. We have toiled, not so much for celebrity, as for existence. Confident in the belief, that the claims of the deaf and dumb would ultimately be acknowledged in their fullest extent, we have sought to establish points, around which the public charity might rally, and pour out, upon its objects, its blessings in their most efficacious form. For the Northern United States, these points are determined. For the Southern, they remain to be designated. Virginia owes it to her character, and to the numerous deaf and dumb persons within her limits, speedily to create one. (14) Another, or it may be two, will be requisite for the South-western states. Regarding the promptitude of our countrymen to meet the calls of justice or of charity, in whatever form presented, we cannot doubt that the wants of the deaf and dumb will soon be supplied; and that the public beneficence, already extended to a portion, will, before the lapse of many years, be accorded to the whole.


(14) By an act of the Legislature of Virginia, passed during the session of 1832-3, a charter was granted for an Institution to be situated at Staunton, a position nearly central in the State. This place was selected in compliance with the conditions of a very liberal donation, said to have been made by one of its inhabitants for the purposes contemplated by the law. It is not known that any measures have yet been taken to carry the provisions of the act into effect.

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