best methods, and, as we have reason to believe, with the happiest results that the case admits, in all the ordinary branches of knowledge of a good English education; the constant and vigilant care of morals by precept and example; the opportunity to be enjoyed no where else in the State, of public religious worship, conducted in their own language of signs; careful instruction in some profitable handicraft; the gratuitous services of the best medical skill. Such are the advantages freely offered to the deaf-mute youth of our State, at no other expense to the parent of moderate means than a small annual bill for clothing, and a single journey to the Institution at the close of the vacation; and in the case of those who are unable to furnish clothing, this item is defrayed by the counties. When we compare the inestimable value to a deaf-mute of the privileges of education we offer, with the trifling expense and exertion on the part of the parent necessary to secure those privileges, it seems incredible that any parents or guardians can be found so dead to natural affection, or so blind to the best interests of their unfortunate children, as to refuse or neglect the priceless boon offered them. But sad experience compels us to say that such cases too often occur. When we have obtained grants from the Legislature for the education of the deaf and dumb, while we find many parents who embrace the opportunity with joy and thankfulness, there are others whom we have to seek out and appeal to personally before they can be induced to send their children to school; and in some cases all our efforts prove in vain to overcome this strange indifference or selfishness. In other cases again, the pupil has hardly mastered the first difficulties in his education, and begun to advance with some ease in the acquisition of language, before we find ourselves involved in a continued struggle with his relatives to prevent his being taken from us only half educated. And there have been too many instances, some of them very recent, in which at the close of the vacation we have looked in vain for the return of promising pupils to whom one or more years of instruction were yet due.

We complain of this as an injustice to the Institution, and an injury to the cause of the deaf and dumb, inasmuch as these deaf

mutes, thus imperfectly educated through the fault of their own natural guardians, may, and often do, pass in remote parts of the State as fair examples of what can be done for the deaf and dumb ; and thus parents are discouraged from sending their children to our care, by the idea that the benefit is little more than might be attained by judicious care at home. But we complain of it much more as a heavy wrong to those who are the immediate sufferers from this ill-judged interference of parents. It is, indeed, possible to conceive cases in which circumstances may make the step proper with regard to the interests of the pupil, but such cases are very rare; and in those of which we now speak, there has been no other discoverable motive for thus throwing away the best part of the pupil's term, than a selfish desire to have the company and assistance of a son, a daughter, or dependent relative on the farm or in the household.

In a government like ours, there is, perhaps, no remedy for this evil that can be applied by legislative enactments. Our only hope is, through the influence of men of intelligence and humanity throughout the State, each of whom, we trust, will, so far as his influence goes, exert himself to create a correct public sentiment on this subject; and to set forth, in a clear light, to the parents and guardians of deaf-mutes among his acquaintances, the extent of the injury to the best interests of their children, caused by prematurely withdrawing them from school. We are willing to believe that the evil proceeds mainly from want of consideration, or from mistaken ideas of what constitutes a sufficient education for the deaf and dumb.

When a deaf-mute, who has passed two or three years at school, returns home to spend a vacation, the contrast between his actual and former condition is so great and striking, that it requires but a little family partiality to make his friends believe that his improvement is much greater than it is in fact. He writes not merely legibly, but rapidly, neatly and with correct orthography; he seems to understand what he reads; he can write short and simple letters, and hold some sort of conversation in writing on familiar subjects; he has become au fait to the usages of society; with his more familiar associates, conversing in a

broken dialect of words and signs, he displays considerable general information; he has acquired correct ideas on the more important points of our religious belief. The deaf-mute and his friends, alike delighted with his evident improvement, and flattered by the attention he receives, are apt to believe that he is sufficiently well instructed, not merely to excite the interest and gratify the curiosity of visitors, but to make his own way in the struggles of busy life, and to occupy pleasantly with books those hours of loneliness to which his misfortune will so often consign him. Conscience being quieted by this illusion, selfishness carries the day; and the golden opportunity of a higher improvement is suffered to pass by forever.

But the deaf-mute and his friends soon find that his know-ledge of our language is more apparent than real. In attempting to converse by writing, he finds himself continually making mistakes, not merely mortifying, but often involving serious loss of time or money. Reading, which a year or two more of instruction might have made his great solace and most unfailing source of enjoyment, is now an irksome task. His affections will often be deeply wounded by mere misapprehensions, which a little more skill in language would have enabled his friends to clear up. In the absence of these higher sources of enjoyment, which a higher degree of improvement would have put within his reach, the temptations to sensuality and vice are greatly increased. If he has experienced religious impressions, enlightenment to his doubts, consolation to his afflictions, confirmation to his faith, can be received, if at all, only through the signs of some christian friend who has been able to devote the time and pains necessary to become familiar with his dialect. Heavy must be the responsibility of those mistaken friends who thus diminish his chances for usefulness and happiness, and too often cut him off from further progress in religious hope and feeling. Knowing, as we do, that the whole term allowed is, in many cases, insufficient to accomplish for our pupils all we wish to do for them, we are thus earnest to impress on the consciences of parents and guardians, what we know so well, that any unnecessary shortening of the pupil's term of instruction is a grave and

serious wrong as regards the highest interests of the pupil, his well being in this world and the next.

Gratifying as has been the progress of the Institution from year to year, great as is the amount of good it has done, and is still doing, the evils, which have just been considered, show that the task of the friends of the deaf and dumb is not finished. When not only there shall be legislative provision sufficient for the education of all, but a pervading public sentiment that will regard the keeping of a deaf-mute child from the offered means of instruction, in the light of a wilful murder of an immortal soul, and any unnecessary shortening of his term, as only a little less reprehensible, then there will remain no dark cloud resting on the future of these our unfortunate fellow men; and our anxiety and our labors need have no other object than how best to fulfil our own part of the task, in using all the means placed at our disposal to promote the most rapid and durable improvement, and the greatest good of the interesting youth committed to our care. By order of the Board of Directors,

HARVEY P. PEET, President.
DUMB,

New-York, January 6th, 1851.

LIST OF PUPILS

In the New-York Institution for the instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. December 31, 1850.