Library Collections: Document: Full Text

EDWARD BROOKS,
HORACE MANN,
S. C. PHILLIPS
Committee of the Trustees.
Boston, January 15,1833.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 15,1833.

Referred to Messrs. McKAY, of Pittsfield, FOSTER, of Worcester, and OLIVER, of Boston, with such as the Senate may join.

Sent up for concurrence.

ATTEST.
L. S. CUSHING, Clerk.

IN SENATE, January 15,1833.

Read and referred to Messrs. LOUD, and MOTLEY, in concurrence.
CHARLES CALHOUN, Clerk.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives to whom was referred the petition in behalf of the New England Asylum for the Blind, having fully considered that subject, ask leave to

REPORT:

That the Trustees of the said New England Asylum, after the organization of that Institution in the year 1829, pursuant to their Act of Incorporation, finding themselves entirely destitute of funds wherewith to accomplish the objects of their association, applied to certain individuals in this city, from whose liberality they realized about the sum of $2000. In the year 1830, they applied to the Legislature for aid, and by a Resolve of that year the unexpended balance of the annual appropriation for the Institution of the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford, was placed at their disposal. From this source the Trustees have realized on an average upon the three years during which they have received it, the sum of about $1400 a year. These have been the only funds in the possession of the Institution; and it is with these means alone that the Trustees have defrayed all the expenses of the measures hereafter spoken of, and have placed the Institution in its present encouraging condition.

This unexpended balance now constitutes the whole resources of the Institution; and aside from the smallness of the sum, it will be at once perceived that it is liable to be altogether withdrawn to meet the priority of claim, which the Deaf and Dumb may have upon it.

At the time of this grant there was not an Institution for the education of the Blind on this side of the Atlantic; and the Trustees, being fully convinced, that the most effectual mode of subserving the permanent interests of the Asylum, would be to avail themselves of the experience of other Institutions established for a similar purpose, deemed it advisable to despatch a special messenger to the Continent of Europe and the Island of Great Britain, where schools for the instruction of the Blind had, for many years, been in successful operation. They accordingly engaged the services of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who embarked for Europe in September 1831, and having thoroughly examined the principal Institutions upon the other side of the Atlantic, he returned to this country in July 1832. At Paris, he engaged the services of Mr. Trencheri, a blind gentleman, who had been a teacher of Mathematics at the Royal Institution in that city. Dr. Howe also engaged a blind mechanic from the Institution at Edinburgh, who is capable of teaching his blind brethren to manufacture a great variety of articles, requiring mechanical skill and ingenuity, and for the fabrication of which an apprenticeship is necessary even for those who are blessed with the organs of sight.

The Trustees have uniformly expressed, in the strongest terms, their entire satisfaction with the manner in which Dr. Howe had executed the object of his mission. He seems to have made himself master of the general processes of educating the Blind at foreign Institutions, not merely for the sake of transferring those processes here, but rather as furnishing useful hints for further improvements.

Your Committee are further informed, that the Trustees, anxious to demonstrate the feasibility of educating the Blind, resolved to devote all their means to one satisfactory experiment; fully believing, that, if their efforts were crowned with success, an enlightened and Christian community would come forward to aid them in their cause; while, on the other hand, should they fail, the object of the Institution might be abandoned without further expenditure.

Accordingly, having given notice of their intentions, they took the first six blind youth who offered themselves; and as they were all paupers, the Trustees were obliged to board and lodge, as well as educate them at the expense of the Institution.

These Individuals were not selected with reference to their mental or physical capacities. They were of different ages, varying from six to twenty years. They were from the interior, and two of them were accidentally met by Dr. Howe, in the high road, while going in search of another. They were sisters, daughters of a mother who has had four blind children, three of whom are now living.

The education of these children commenced at the Asylum about the first of September, 1832, and your Committee, on visiting the Institution were delighted and astonished at the progress which they had made in the short space of five months.

One little girl, only six years of age, related such chapters and verses in the New Testament as were named to her, and read them with perfect distinctness of articulation and correctness of pronunciation; the letters being raised from the surface of the page, by a peculiar mode of printing, so that she could feel the shape of them with her fingers. These passages were taken at random, and were named to her by some member of the Committee.