Gaillard in Deaf America: A Portrait of the Deaf Community 1917

APPENDIX Speech by M. Edwin A. Hodgson

H APPENDIX Speech by M. Edwin A. Hodgson Benefits of Education to the Deaf We celebrate today one hundred years of educational opportunity for the deaf. We render homage to the great, the good, the benevolent Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, to whose wisdom and philanthropy our emancipation from the thralldom of ignorance is due. Antecedent to that memorable morning of April 15, 1817, when the first school for the deaf in the New World was opened, thousands had lived and died in mental darkness. The native intelligence existed, but there were no systematic attempts to cultivate and develop it. The imprisoned soul yearned in vain for inspiration from the people, the books, the culture that cried out to it on every hand. For knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did n’er unroll; 170 Stark helplessness repressed their noble rage, And from the genial current of the soul. We have been told, year after year, on the recurrence of Gallaudet ’s birth—the tenth of December—the story of his life. His ancestry can be traced back to Joshua Gallaudet, who lived in the little village of Mauze, near La Rochelle, in France, at the time of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685. Joshua Gallaudet was married to Margaret Prioleauy, the granddaughter of Elizée Prioleau , a distinguished Huguenot minister. To Joshua and Margaret Gallaudet was born a son, Peter Elisha, a physician, who fled, shortly after the Revocation, to New Rochelle, N.Y. He married , and had a son, Thomas, who was born in 1724. Thomas married Catherine Edgar, and their second son, Peter Wallace, married Jane Hopkins of Hartford, Conn. She was a descendant of John Hopkins, one of the Puritan settlers of Hartford. On December 10, 1787, a son was born to Peter Wallace and Jane Gallaudet, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the one we are assembled here today to honor. The parents of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet moved to Philadelphia when he was thirteen years of age. In the autumn of 1802, Gallaudet entered Yale College, qualifying for the sophomore class. In a class of forty-two, he was one of six who graduated with the honor of an oration. He later took a course at Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1814. I am warned that other speakers will discourse on Gallaudet’s life in a more exhaustive vein, so this brief statement is merely to show that, by heredity, environment, and the trend of his education , Gallaudet was favorably influenced and fittingly prepared for the noble part he played in the philanthropies and charities which distinguished his career. You are all familiar with Gallaudet’s journey across the Atlantic in search of information concerning the methods of instructing the deaf that had been pursued in England, Scotland, and France. How he was rebuffed and refused assistance in Great SPEECH BY E. A. HODGSON 171 Britain, and eventually aided by the Abbé Sicard, who had succeeded de l’Épée in France. And, finally, his return to America in August, 1816, bringing not only a knowledge of the French system of educating the deaf, but also a brilliant exponent of that system in the person of Laurent Clerc. Gallaudet and Clerc traveled from city to city, giving expositions , which brought money and friends to the cause of the education of the deaf. In fact, Gallaudet demonstrated to the people what we are still trying to show them today—that the deaf and dumb can be educated up to a very high degree of proficiency , and become active, earnest, honest, and capable citizens of the state. And so the first school for the deaf in America was born of benevolence. It was dependent upon charity. Its founder was confronted with public skepticism and private indifference, and the road to success seemed both difficult and doubtful. But the strength of will, the nobility of purpose, the unwavering faith of Gallaudet in the righteousness of the cause he espoused, conquered all opposition and ultimate victory was won. God’s sunlight shone upon the deaf and dumb. There were seven pupils in the first class that assembled at Hartford, when the education of the deaf was begun, on April 15, 1817. They were Alice Cogswell, George Loring, Wilson Whiton, Abigail Dillingham, Otis Waters, John Brewster, and Nancy Orr. Three of them became teachers (George Loring, Wilson Whiton, and Abigail Dillingham). John Brewster, who entered at...