The life and labors of the Rev. T.H. Gallaudet ...

Front matter

'X

THE

LIFE AND LABORS

Preface

In preparing this volume for the press, the Editor has been permitted to avail himself of all the materials within reach, whether in manuscript or in print. He claims nothing beyond having, in the humble task of compiler, exercised his best judgment in the selection and arrangement of the matter furnished to his hand. What the friends and the public, to whom the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet was so extensivelyknown, want, is a true portrait of the man as he was : a faithful sketch of his life and labors ; of his eminent services in the cause of education, especially in the new department of deaf mute instruction, which he inaugurated and carried to higher perfection in his own school than it had attained, even in the Parisian Asylum to which he was indebted for his own education in the language of signs.

Such a sketch could not be given without a free latitude of selection, as well from his occasional discourses and rich contributions to the educational press, as from his extensive private correspondence. To have withheld the best occasional and professional productions of his prolific pen, because so many of

VI PREFACE.

them were already in print, would have been doing great injustice to the subject of this Memoir. Most of what has been arrested was floating down upon the stream of fugitive contributions, and the Editor is quite sure that the readers of the present volume will rather thank than blame him for this free use of quotations and gleanings.

The Editor has elsewhere expressed his special indebtedness to Mr. Barnard's eloquent Tribute ; and in making selections from what has been published in one form or another, he has been mainly indebted to the matter bound up in the same volume. Most of the other obligations will be found duly acknowledged ; and if there have been any omissions, it is hoped they will be excused by whomsoever they may concern. The Editor has had no ambition to make himself prominent in this memorial of his friend and class-mate. His endeavor has been to hold up one of the distinguished and most active philanthropists of his time, as an example worthy of imitation, by the whole class of educated young men as they come upon the stage. Would that each, like Thomas H. Gallaudet, could be persuaded to ask, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? " and have grace and ability to "serve God and his generation" with equal fidelity and success.

Pittsfield, Mass., Sept. 1, 1857.

Chapter II

Educational Books — American Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge — Letters — The Bible in Colleges — A Plea for Science— Mr. Gallaudet a Poet — Poems— Letters to his Family, . 2S0 fart fljirfr.

CHAPTER I.

Insane Hospital at "Worcester — Correspondence — Retreat for the Insane, Hartford — Mr. Gallaudet Engaged as Chaplain — Extracts from his Diary — His own Account of his Labors — Presentation of Plate to Messrs. Gallaudet and Clerc, 839

CHAPTER II.

His Health Falls— His Death— Public Exercises, 887

Chapter III

" Gallaudet Monument Association " — Description of the Monument— Its Inauguration—Mr. Gallaudet's Character and Genius — Commemorative Discourse, by Hon. H. Barnard— Testimony of Rev. H. Hooker— Dr. Peet— "The Christian Examiner "—Dr. Butler— Dr. E. K. Hunt, . . 394

Introduction

"When a good man dies, his family suffers an irre* parable loss. And if he hath been a good Samaritan in his day ; if he hath stretched out his hands to the needy ; if he hath given to the poor ; if he hath visited the widows and the fatherless in their afflictions, you will find them among the sincerest mourners at his funeral. Still greater is the loss, when a burning and shining light in the Church is extinguished, or when a man, who in any other public capacity has "served God and his generation" with eminent devotedness, ability, and usefulness, ceases from his earthly labor, and enters into rest.

But how much greater would the loss be, if none of the good which such men do lived after them. How wise and beneficent are those providential sequences, which conspire to fulfill the promise, that "the righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance." How

many have been cheered on their toilsome pilgrimage, 1* W

10 INTRODUCTION.

by following the faith and patience of those who inherit the promises ! and how much richer the superadded legacy, when those who have been eminent public benefactors, leave behind them the fruits of their studies and acquisitions in printed books or unpublished manuscripts I When they are gone they should be embalmed in fitting memorials of "what manner of men they were," by handing down the ripest fruits of their "labors" to "the generations following."

What an irreparable loss it would have been to the Church and the world, if such men as Bunyan, and Baxter, and Howe, and Leighton, and Howard, and Wilberforce, and Edwards, and Chalmers, and Dwight, had been taken final leave of at the grave's mouth, and none of their writings had come down to us. Much as they accomplished in their lifetime, some of them at least, perhaps all, have done, are doing, and will do vastly more good by what they have left behind for our instruction and encouragement, than it was possible for them to accomplish by their personal labors.

And though but few of these "greater lights" shine upon the ages as they roll, not a few large-hearted philanthropists and public benefactors depart from the stage every year, whose lives and labors are a sort of public legacy, which it would be wrong to withhold from those who survive them.

Moreover, in reading the lives of those men who

INTRODUCTION. 11

have been most eminently useful in their times, we can hardly fail of being struck with the great diversity of their talents, positions, and educational training, fitting them for the work which they had to do. And yet, how few readers of their works and memoirs give themselves the trouble to inquire, whence and for what high ends these remarkable diversities of talent and preferences were bestowed.

To say that God never intended in any age or country to make all men alike, to bestow the same aptitude and endowments upon all who he intends shall serve him and bless the world in their generations, would be quite idle. Nobody believes that he did. It would be a palpable impeachment of his wisdom and benevolence. Without such diversities as everywhere exist, the complicated machinery of human society must stop at once. It would be deranged, disorganized, broken up. There must be a "diversity of gifts," to fit men for the spheres which they are to fill, for the service they are to perform ; and these gifts are marvelously diversified. Probably no two men were ever exactly alike fitted for the same work, or ever will be ; how much less can the most gifted excel in everything that is honorable and useful in their day ! This general proposition needs no enlargement. And there is another equally true, which is too often blinked out of sight.

It is thia, When a man comes up into life, possessing

12 INTRODUCTION.

just the talents which are wanted for some new benevolent enterprise, it is not an accidental aptitude which is needed, just then, to insure its success. It is not, that where so many are born every year, it might be expected, as a matter of course, that exactly the right talents for every service would be found among the number. No. "As every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from above;" so, in the bestowment of these gifts, the spirit of God " divideth to every man severally as he will."

It is a common remark, that great and eminently useful men are made by the exigency of the times in which they live ; and, in a limited sense, it is undoubtedly true. They are brought into notice by the pressure of circumstances, by the onward progress of society, and by the demand for talents of a high order, to inaugurate and successfully prosecute great enterprises. So far the leaders, around whom ordinary men rally, are made by the times. But who made the times 1 In other words, who, in the progress of human affairs, so orders events that just such qualifications and services as are wanted, are at hand to" meet the demand; and who endows the prominent agents with talents, without which the most urgent necessities of the times would accomplish nothing? They develop faculties which, under other circumstances, might never have been brought out. That is all they can do. God, in governing this world, raises up such instruments as

INTRODUCTION. 13

he wants, and endows them with just such talents as are best suited to his purpose.

Thus it was that he raised up Moses, and Joshua, and David, and Paul. The ages in which they lived, and which they so illustriously adorned, did not qualify them for their high enterprises, but merely brought them out. Thus it was that he raised up Martin Luther, and endowed him with those extraordinary gifts which placed him in the forefront of the Protestant Eeformation. So George Washington was given to his country, in the time of her greatest peril. So of John Knox, and all the eminent Eeformers of their times. He who can never be at a loss for instruments, endowed them richly and variously with talents for the work which they had to do.

When we come down from these shining heights, nearer to the common level, we are apt to forget, that in like manner, God brings forward and endows whom he will, with the needful abilities to take the lead in every new benevolent enterprise; in every stage of advancement for the spread of the Gospel, and the amelioration of such physical and mental calamities as make life a burden to the deaf and dumb, to the blind and to the insane.

Biographical memorials of such men as have distinguished themselves by taking the lead in these and kindred alleviations, will always be read with interest, even by those who scarcely think at all of Him who

14 INTKODUCTION.

gifted them with their noble faculties, and breathed into them the inspiration which bore them on through every discouragement and obstacle; and how much deeper is the interest, when the moving cause, the "loving kindness and tender mercies of our God," are kept continually in view. Doubtless some published memoirs might well have been dispensed with ; but men are endowed with such an infinite variety of gifts ; their lives and labors are so exceedingly modified by providential circumstances ; that very interesting traits of character are often brought out in memoirs which do honor to human nature; and which serve as examples to stimulate others to noble aspirations, but which would otherwise have been lost to the Church and the world. Without claiming the highest rank for the subject of this memoir, we are persuaded, that not only his numerous friends in all parts of the land, but many others, will be glad to see a more extended notice of his life and labors, than has yet been published.

Part First. Embracing The Period Op His Early Life

AND HIS LABORS IN THE CAUSE OF

DEAF MUTE EDUCATION.

Part First. Chaptee I

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet was born in the City of Philadelphia, on the 10th of December, 1787. He could trace back his lineage to an honorable Protestant source, next to that of martyrdom. His great-grandfather, Peter Elihu Gallaudet, was a minister of the Eeformed Church, in the city of Rochelle, France, whence so many barely escaped the baptism of blood by fleeing to America, on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in the reign of Louis XIV. He came to this country somewhat earlier, and settled in or near the town of New Rochelle, in the then infant colony of New York. He had a son, Thomas Gallaudet, who was the paternal grandfather of Thomas II., the subject of our present memorial. His father was Peter W. Gallaudet, and his mother, Jane Hopkins, was the daughter of Captain Thomas Hopkins, a descendant of one of the first settlers of Hartford, Connecticut. The family removed from Philadelphia to Hartford, when Thomas was quite young, where he grew up a sprightly and promising boy. His correct deportment, his amiable temper, his sparkling eye, and his studious habits, gave early promise of the high distinction which awaited him in classical attainments, and in the improvement of those native talents which prepared him for such eminent usefulness in after life. The following "Reverie," found among his papers, and which is here inserted, throws light upon his boyhood, and the excursive tendencies of his ever active mind. It does not appear at what period it was written, but the close of it reveals to us the elements, at least, of those speculations upon the language of signs, compared with that of speech, ripening into the maturity which so much distinguishes and recommends his lucid statements and arguments in this memoir.

-A REVERIE.

" I believe there are few persons who have not experienced that exquisite mental luxury which is derived from the calm contemplations of a walk in the woods of Autumn, or the midnight musings of a winter's fireside. At such times, if no tumultuous passions agitate the breast, the imagination wanders delightfully through the immeasurable fields of its own empire, and rejoices in its arbitrary dominion, transitory as it may be, over mere shadows and phantasms. How far the indulgence of such a state of mind is conducive to the happiness of the individual who cherishes it, is a question of perhaps not very easy solution, and one which I dare not venture to discuss, lest I should possibly betray my own weakness; for I have to acknowledge that no small portion of my life has been spent in reverie. 1 can remember, when I was a boy, that I used to steal away from my companions, and find out a lonely spot in the fields or woods where we were sporting, and seating myself under the shade of some venerable tree, and drawing a thousand strange figures in the sand before me, and ever and anon whistling a simple air of the nursery, give up my youthful fancy to any dreams of future happiness or greatness which it might choose to form. And as I grew older, I used to delight to dwell upon what might be, and to conjure up such scenes of prosperity for myself and friends and all mankind, as would more than realize, could they have an existence, the warmest expectations of the most enthusiastic philanthropist. Perhaps such flights of fancy may have opened the way to the important discoveries which have now and then burst upon the view of some happy genius, and astonished mankind both with their novelty and value. At any rate, I hope my serious readers will not decry such musings as wholly useless, and at least indulge one lonely being in these, who is free to confess that they have formed some of the happiest moments of his life.

" The other evening I fell into one of these reveries. The embers of my fire gradually sunk away in the ashes, the clock had struck I know not how many successive hours without my noticing them, and the first thing which broke my delightful dream was the crowing of the matin cock. I was thinking of the various causes, physical, intellectual, and moral, which had contributed to break the golden chain which once bound together the whole family of man. The Tower of Babel rose conspicuous to my view, and it appeared to me that the confusion of tongues, which ensued upon that audacious attempt, had been a prime agent in producing all the discord and animosity which have so long made our unhappy world the theater of tumult and blood. Language is the medium of communication, not only between individuals, but nations; and there is no more effectual barrier between different persons and communities, than a difference of speech. It is a kind of Chinese wall, which shuts up within its own inclosure all useful discoveries in the sciences and arts. It is like the old Egyptian secret of preserving the dead, and embalms in immortal youth all the habits, customs, and manners of a people. It is the optic glass through which we discern the human mind ; and sometimes it disfigures and distorts all that is true and honest and candid, so as to beget the grossest conceptions of the views and intentions of others. It is the embassy which one nation sends to another ; and if its diplomatic communications be misconstrued, it becomes the fruitful source of contests and bloodshed. It is Hie pioneer which -precedes all missionary efforts, and often it has rugged paths to clear and tremendous obstacles to remove, before the way can be made straight for the triumphal march of Christianity through the regions of superstition and sin.

" Before the millennium arrives, will one language prevail and swallow up the rest, or will mankind agree to form a universal language ? Would not such a project be pregnant with incalculable advantages? How shall it be accomplished ? What shall this universal language be ? Is there already one, provided by Nature herself, easy of acquisition, universal in its application, and which demands neither types nor paper ? Has such a language yet eluded the research of the profoundest philosophers, and is it left for some happy genius yet to find it? As is often the case, just when the mind is ready to light upon some most wonderful discovery, the capricious fancy disdains the dull process of beating out truth upon the anvil of experiment — and my reverie ended."

Mr. Gallaudet was fitted for Yale College in the Hartford Grammar School, and entered the sophomore class in the autumn of 1802, in the fifteenth year of his age; quite too young, as he himself used to say, to reap the full advantage of a collegiate education. In this judgment the most experienced teachers in our public seminaries will, I am quite sure, concur. Parents commit a great mistake when they push their sons into college as early as they can. What if they are well fitted to enter at the age of fourteen, or even younger? it is far better, on every account, to keep them out two or three years longer. There is no difficulty in finding profitable studies for them, without anticipating those in the prescribed classical course, which rarely if ever should be done ; for, in a majority of cases, it would tempt the student to wait for the class to overtake him, and thus form a habit of neglect, hard to be overcome, during the whole course.

Do what you can to force your favorite son forward, and make a prodigy of him, nature will take her own time to make a full-grown, healthy man, and will refuse to cooperate with you unless you will patiently wait for her. She never puts any of her children into hothouses to bring them to a precocious, pale maturity, and then to wilt down in the open air. Do what you will, the mind does not gain sufficient strength and maturity to grapple with the higher mathematical and deepei metaphysical branches of a thorough public education till the student approaches his majority. Sixteen is quite young enough to enter the freshman class. Seventeen, in all ordinary cases, is still better. This will bring him out at twenty-one, which is early enough.

It is quite true that some minds ripen earlier than others ; and it is freely conceded that some who graduate very young, rise above many of their seniors in after life, as was the case with Gallaudet. But the exceptions are so few as hardly to affect the general rule. And moreover, if a boy who enters at fourteen and graduates at eighteen, holds a high rank in his class, and afterwards among the educated men of his age, it is not unreasonable to suppose that he might have made his mark still higher had he waited longer for the full development of his powers. If Gallaudet, who was the youngest member of his class, surpassed us all in general scholarship, as I think he did, it is reasonable to infer that he might have distanced us still more had he been two or three years older than he was when our text-books made the heaviest demands upon his ability to master them.

But to return from this digression. More youthful in appearance than even in age ; modest, unobtrusive, and strictly correct in all his habits ; Gallaudet was a universal favorite in his class. "We all loved him, and anticipated much from him, in whatever profession he might choose to enter. In his studies he was remarkably systematic, and was scrupulously punctual in his attendance upon all college exercises. Barely, if ever, had he a mark upon the monitor's bill; and whoever else might boggle over the lesson, Gallaudet was sure to have mastered it. He had a talent and a taste for mathematics, which would have given him very high distinction as a professor in that department, had he chosen to devote his life to it. In English composition he had no superior, and no equal, in his class. Indeed there was no branch, except declamation, in which he did not excel ; and in that he always acquitted himself handsomely, though his voice was not strong, and he was too modest to do himself full justice on the college stage. He graduated in 1805, with the highest honors of his class, and left our Aim Mater, with the confident prediction of those who knew him best, that should his life and health be spared he would become one of her brightest ornaments.

He was not then a professor of religion, and it does not appear that when he left college he had marked out for himself any profession. But it was not in his nature to be idle. He very soon entered the office of Hon. Chauncey Goodrich, one of the most distinguished lawyers in Hartford, Conn., and applied himself with characteristic diligence to the study of Blackstone's Commentaries. Had he chosen the law, which at that time probably offered more attractions to his mind than any other, it cannot be doubted that he would have taken a high rank with the most aspiring of his contemporaries. But the law, honorable and useful as it is, was not to be his profession. His health failed him before the end of the first year ; and at the close of the second year after his graduation he was chosen tutor, and returned to his college, where he discharged the duties of the office with honor to himself and the institution, for about two years. While there, he devoted his leisure to the study of English composition and literature, of which lie was extremely fond, and perfected that pure idiomatic and transparent style for which he was so remarkably distinguished.

Leaving college once more, what should he do next? The state of his health required active services of some kind, and a business commission, which was offered him by a large commercial house in New York, took him over the Alleghany Mountains on an agency, which was at once invigorating to his constitution, and profitable to his employers. This prepared the way for his entering as a clerk, soon after his return, into a respectable counting room, intending, it is presumed, to devote his life to merchandise.

But this was not the will of Providence. God had more important work for him to do : a work for which he was better qualified, we believe, than any other young man, whose services could have been secured. The great and only deficiency was, he had not yet given his heart to God. And just here it was that the Holy Spirit interposed to supply the deficiency; opened his eyes to his guilty and lost condition, and as he tremblingly hoped, brought him out of darkness, into the light and liberty of the Gospel. He soon after made a public profession of his faith in Christ, and united with the First Congregational Church in Hartford, under the ministry of the Rev. Dr. Nathan Strong.

Whatever his plans for life may have been up to this time, they were now changed. Relinquishing his flattering mercantile prospects, he turned his thoughts to the pulpit, and in the autumn of 1811, entered the Andover Theological Seminary. Availing himself of its distinguished advantages, he passed through the prescribed course of studies, took his diploma at the anniversary in 1814, and, better furnished to fill any pulpit which he might have chosen, than most others, he was licensed and commenced preaching with such acceptance, that many congregations -would gladly have secured his permanent labor.

Here again, his Master unexpectedly interposed. He might preach the Gospel, and did preach, almost regularly, as will appear, till the last year of his life ; but the work of a settled pastor was not the great mission for which God had been preparing him. He was to enter a new and then unexplored field of Christian philanthropy on this side of the ocean, and to devote his life to services, of far wider influence, than any pulpit could command. To prepare the way for this eminently useful mission, God had visited one of the most prominent and worthy families in Hartford, with a sore and lasting affliction. A lovely daughter of remarkable promise, had, when about two years old, been stricken with the spotted fever, which barely spared her life, and entirely deprived her of hearing, so that in all her bloom and sprightliness, she grew up a deaf mute, and of course lost even the sweet lisping, which through the livelong day charmed the family circle, when the intricate avenue of sound was suddenly closed for ever !

But what, it may be asked, had this sore visitation to do with changing the plans of the young preacher, and giving a new direction to his whole future life ? "Much every way." Whatever other purposes of God, who " worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will," may have bean bound up in this afflictive Providence, we cannot for a moment doubt, that it was intended to prepare the way for 2 unstopping the ears of thousands, and pouring the light of knowledge and salvation into their dark minds, and causing their hearts to sing for joy, who but for the eclipse of this lovely star would never have been so blessed.

CHAPTEE II.

No strange thing happened, when Alice Cogswell, the daughter of Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, in the city of Hartford, was deprived of hearing and speech. It was a much more common calamity in the State of Connecticut and throughout the land than had been supposed. There were thousands of deaf mutes in this country, not one of whom had ever received that systematic instruction, which had begun to wake up some of the same unhappy class, as it were to a new existence, in Europe. Probably, not one of their friends at that time, indulged the hope, that the light of education and religion would ever, by any process, dispel the darkness from their minds. And had Alice Cogswell belonged to one of the poor families in Hartford, however worthy, there is no reason to think that her case would have led to such inquiries and measures as resulted in the establishment of the Asylum in Hartford, for the education of deaf mutes, which has since been so thronged with pupils, and which is the parent of all the schools of this class, that have since sprung up in other sections of the United States.

Happily, Dr. Cogswell had heard of the success attending the schools then beginning to attract public attention and hope in Great Britain and France. One of the books of the Abbe" Sicard, the distinguished head of the school in Paris, fell into his hands, and kindled a hope in his anxious bosom, that his own beloved daughter might be educated by the new method of signs, in place of oral instruction. But where ? Should he send her abroad or endeavor to educate her at home ? How could it be done at home, as there was no such school in this country, and not a single individual who understood the system?

His next step was, to institute inquiries with regard to the number of the deaf and dumb in Connecticut ; and it was found to be so much greater than anybody had imagined, that he believed enough might be gathered in New England alone, to form a pretty large school. But it would cost money, and could not be done without substantial cooperation. Happily, there was no difficulty in finding so much encouragement, that an association was formed in Hartford, consisting of names which should be held in grateful remembrance by all the friends of the deaf and dumb in this country, as well as by the thousands who have already shared so richly in the unspeakable blessings of the system of education, which that association inaugurated. But the establishment of a school would require more means than they could spare ; and the next move was to issue a circular, asking for aid in the preliminary steps which must be taken towards the attainment of the object.

So encouraging was the response,' that the association resolved to go forward, relying upon His smiles who delights to prosper all good enterprises. But where could a competent teacher be found ? This was likely to be more difficult than to raise the necessary funds — for no one in this country understood the syatern of symbolic instruction — somebody must be sent abroad to study it, and qualify himself for the task. Who should go? It must be a man of no ordinary capacity, attainments and aptitude, and where was he to be found ?