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In spite of these annoying experiences, the affairs of the new institution moved on in a full current of prosperity.

In the winter of 1818 it was thought best to solicit the aid of Congress and it was proposed that the principal should visit Washington for the purpose of pleading the cause of deaf-mute education at the capital. Mr. Gallaudet felt that the appearance of an educated person of the class for which aid was to be sought would have great effect, and advised, quite unselfishly, that Mr. Clerc go in his place: since they could not both be absent at the same time.

This advice was followed and the influence exerted by Mr. Clerc at Washington was such as to secure the hearty co-operation of many prominent men. A year later an earnest and formal appeal for aid was presented to Congress through the representatives from Connecticut, Hon. Nathaniel Terry, Hon. Thomas S. Williams and Hon. Timothy Pitkin. This movement was warmly supported by many philanthropic members in both branches of Congress, prominent among whom was Hon. Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House. An act was speedily passed appropriating a township of wild land, more than twenty-three thousand acres, from the sale of which an endowment for the institution was ultimately realized amounting to more than three hundred thousand dollars.

Following closely upon this favorable action of Congress came the permanent establishment of the school in buildings and grounds of its own, which were ready for occupancy early in 1821. On the 22d of May in that year dedicatory services were held in the new building, Mr. Gallaudet preaching a sermon from 2 Corinthians v: i: "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

This sermon, and the dedicatory prayer which followed it, are remarkable for the intense spirit of dependence and devotion to God which pervade them, and they illustrate in what rare proportions the highly spiritual and thoroughly practical were blended in the mind of their author.

We see before us, he says, a little group of our fellow-beings, who are called in the mysterious providence of God to endure affliction. This affliction may become comparatively light to them, and as it were, enduring but a moment, could it be made instrumental of working out for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

They are just introduced into an earthly house well calculated for their accommodation, but it becomes both them and all of us, who feel interested in their welfare, to keep constantly in mind, that this goodly edifice, with its various sources of instruction and improvement, is one of the things which, though seen perhaps with grateful satisfaction, is still temporal, the worldly advantages may prove uncertain and must be transitory, and at which, therefore, we ought not to look with any sense of strong and undue attachment, but rather, raise the eye of our faith, and persuade these sufferers to do likewise, to a better home, to that building of God, the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. When I say the worldly advantages of this institution may prove uncertain, do not understand me as wishing to disparage their true importance and value. To do this would be alike unwise and ungrateful. It would be unwise; for godliness hath the promise of this life as well as of that which is to come, and it is only a misguided enthusiasm which can aim to prepare youth for a better world, without, at the same time, training them up to a faithful discharge of all their duties in this. It would be ungrateful; for every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused if it be received with thanksgiving; and we might as well close our eyes to the budding beauties of this season, which the kind Author of nature is now unfolding to our view, as to shut our hearts against that general aspect of convenience, and that prospect of future comfort to the deaf and dumb, which the same Giver of every good and perfect gift deigns to shed over the establishment which we wish this day to dedicate to Him. But the brightest hopes of spring sometimes fall before an untimely frost, and human establishments of the fairest promise have often been so perverted from their original design as to become the nurseries of error, or so conducted in their progress as to promote the views of personal interest, or so decked out with the pomp and circumstance of greatness, as to serve rather for the ornaments with which ambition would love to decorate itself, than as the plain and useful instruments which the hand of unostentatious charity would employ to dispense our simple and substantial benefits to the suffering objects of her care. Believe me, these are the rocks on which this institution may be ship-wrecked. Its very prosperity should serve as the beacon of its danger.

The following is the key-note of the dedicatory prayer:

Almighty and most merciful God, in behalf of those whom thou hast called in thy Providence to direct and govern its concerns, we do now dedicate this whole institution to thee; to thee in all its departments of intellectual, moral and religious instruction; to thee in all its privileges of worship, prayer and praise; to thee in all its domestic regulations, and various means of comfort and usefulness; to thee with all its benefits both spiritual and temporal, beseeching thee to accept the offering and to make it subservient to the promotion of thy glory, to the honor of thy son Jesus Christ, and to the building up of His kingdom in the hearts of all who have been, who now are, or who may be the objects of its care.