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COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB DORMITORY FOR FEMALES.

This ceremony was made the occasion for an appropriate change in the management. The institution then definitely ceased to be in any sense an asylum, and became in theory as well as in fact an educational establishment. The office of superintendent was merged into that of president; and, at his own request, Mr. Kendall retired from the presidency of the corporation and of the board of directors, and was succeeded by Dr. Gallaudet.

On laying down the office of president, Mr. Kendall addressed his "young and esteemed friend," Dr. Gallaudet, in phrases that belong to the history of the institution:

In accordance with my own wishes, and the unanimous decision of the members of the association at their recent meeting, I now relinquish to you the presidency of this institution. It is an honor richly due to you for the services you have rendered to the institution, not only within its walls, but in Baltimore, in Annapolis,' in Congress, and in the country. To you more than to any other man is it indebted for its rapid progress, and for the high position it now holds in the estimation of the community. It is, therefore, fitting that you should be clothed with all appropriate authority needful to maintain discipline within the institution, and all practicable means of influence to protect its interests without. The members of the association have, in the history of the past, abundant grounds of confidence that under your prudent and skillful management it will not only realize their highest hopes, but secure to yourself a degree of gratitude and affection in the hearts of this class of unfortunates, and a reputation for disinterested usefulness not inferior to those acquired by your honored father. And most happy shall I be if permitted to live to see this institution, under your judicious management, become one of the brightest jewels in the coronet of the Republic, once more, by the mercy of God, united, peaceful, and free.

Thirteen students presented themselves in the autumn of 1864 for membership in the college. The organization of the collegiate department was the most advanced step that had ever been taken in the history of deaf-mute education; and, as was to be expected, there were those who doubted that persons wholly or even partially deprived of speech and hearing could engage profitably in learning the subjects of a college course. However strong these doubts may have been at the outset, the success of the college during the third of a century that it has been established has entirely dispelled them.

Of the graduates of the college, 57 have become teachers, 4 have entered the ministry, 3 have become editors and publishers of newspapers and 3 others have engaged in newspaper work, and 15 have entered the civil service of the Government. One of the latter number resigned his position to practice patent law in Cincinnati and Chicago, and was afterwards admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States. One became the official botanist of a State and a contributor to the publications of the Agricultural Department; one did valuable microscopic work for the Coast and Geodetic Survey, and one became an engraver for that Survey; of three who became draftsmen in architects' offices, one is in successful practice as an

1 In 1860 the legislature of Maryland provided for the education of pupils in the Columbia Institution.

architect on his own account, which is also true of another, who completed his preparation by a course of study in Europe; one has been repeatedly elected recorder of deeds in a Southern city, and two others are recorders' clerks in the West; one was elected and still sits as a city councilman; another has been elected city treasurer and is at present cashier of a national bank; one has become eminent as a practical chemist and assayer; two are members of the faculty of the college, and two others are rendering valuable service as instructors therein; some have gone into mercantile and other offices, some have undertaken business on their own account, while not a few have chosen agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in which the advantages of thorough mental training will give them a superiority over those not so well educated. Of those alluded to as having engaged in teaching, one has been the principal of a flourishing institution in Pennsylvania; one is now in his second year as principal of the Ohio institution; one has been at the head of a day school in Cincinnati, and later of the Colorado institution; a third has had charge of the Oregon institution; a fourth is at the head of a day school in St. Louis; three others have respectively founded and are now at the head of schools in New Mexico, North Dakota, and Evansville, Ind.; and others have done pioneer work in establishing schools in Florida and in Utah.'

III.

During the early years of the college, before the appropriations by Congress were sufficient to provide for the necessary aid to students of slender means, private aid was forthcoming, and free scholarships were maintained for a time by Mr. Kendall, W. W. Corcoran, George W. Riggs, Benjamin B. French, Jay Cooke & Co., Charles Knap, of Washington, D. C.; Thomas Smith and Edson Fessenden, of Hartford, Conn.; William Sprague, of Providence, R. I.; George Merriam, of Springfield, Mass., and J. P. Williston, of Northampton, Mass. Mr. Edward Owen, of Washington, D. C., also helped the college materially by a gift of apparatus.2

By the act of February 23, 1865, the Secretary of the Interior was authorized to cause all indigent blind children who were then and who might thereafter become entitled to instruction in the Columbia Institution to be instructed in some institution for the education of the blind in Maryland or some other State, at a cost not greater for each pupil than is or may be for the time being paid by such State, and to cause the same to be paid for out of the Treasury of the United States. In this way the Columbia Institution was left to its natural development as a school for deaf-mutes. The cost of such instruction did not reach $3,000 in any year previous to 1876, and now the number of beneficiaries is between 20 and 25, and the annual expense per pupil

1 Catalogue for 1892.

President Gallaudet's historical sketch of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, printed in 1893.

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