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Memoirs of John Quincy Adams

Creator: John Quincy Adams (author)
Date: February 1828
Publisher: J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia
Source: Available at selected libraries

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"Hark! a glad voice the lonely desert cheers."

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He told me the only word in the line he should spell to them by letters on the fingers was lonely. The eldest pupil wrote the line, Hark! a glad voice the lonely desolation cheers. The youngest boy wrote it, Hark! a glad voice a lonely desert cheers. One of them was asked to write the names of several distinguished men of ancient and modern times, and of the four quarters of the globe; which he did. The spectators were requested to name any one of them for a brief biography. I named Plato; and the pupil immediately wrote down a short account of his life, death, and writings. One of them wrote down an abstract of a conversation he had yesterday had -sic- with Mr. Gallaudet on the subject of Rousseau of Geneva. The boy, at the request of a lady, told a story of a clergyman mocked and mimicked, while preaching, by his monkey perched on the canopy over his head, to the inextinguishable laughter of his auditory. There was a boy from Alexandria, about fifteen, entirely untaught, with whom Mr. Weld held some conversation, mutually intelligible between him and the boy. He says there is a great resemblance between the gestures of all the uninstructed deaf and dumb. He says also that throughout the country the proportion of deaf and dumb to the whole population is about one to two thousand persons -- about six thousand in the United States.

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This exercise lasted about three hours, and when I came home I found Mr. Clay, Governor Barbour, and Mr. Southard had been here and were gone -- Governor Barbour after waiting some time. Mr. Wirt came afterwards, and I had a very long conversation with him about the Cherokee Constitution and the Indian titles to lands. He seems not to have considered thoroughly the nature of the Indian title, and to suppose that it is a permanent possession of the soil, like that of the white people.

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17th. Heard at the Capitol Mr. Gallaudet from Romans xv. 21: "But as it is written. To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see: and they that have not heard shall understand." It is a part of the chapter in which St. Paul declares himself peculiarly the apostle of the Gentiles; and Mr. Gallaudet, in the application of his discourse, considered the deaf and dumb as Gentiles of our own age and country. The sermon, written in unambitious style, was fervent in manner and cogent in reasoning. The forlorn and pitiable condition of the deaf and dumb without instruction, and the world of thought, of knowledge, and of enjoyment created for them by teaching, were contrasted without elaborate study for effect, but by reference to his own experience in the progress of educating them. He dwelt especially, and with power, upon the blessing imparted to them in the ideas of a Supreme Creator, of their own immortality, and of the hopes and promises of the gospel. The hall was well filled, but not crowded, and the sermon was listened to with deep attention. Mr. Gallaudet is the first founder of the schools for deaf and dumb in this country, and may, without imputation of arrogance, compare his own condition and Services to his fellow-mortals with those of the apostle of the Gentiles.

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