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90 Edwin (Edmund) Booth Booth’s Reminiscences of Gallaudet OUR VENERABLE contributor, Mr. Edwin Booth, one of the earliest pupils of the American Asylum, which he entered in 1828, is publishing in the Deaf-Mute Hawk-Eye a series of interesting “Reminiscences of Half a Century.” The first paper is appropriately devoted to Dr. T. H. Gallaudet, the Founder of Deaf-Mute Instruction in America. We make a few extracts showing how Dr. Gallaudet impressed an intelligent pupil: “Mr. Gallaudet, at the time I entered the Institution and during his entire immediate connection with the Institution, was a teacher, and had a class—the first or highest class—under him. He was never of vigorous constitution, and the labor of years was wearing him down. He desired to be released from the duty of the school-room, and to have general supervision and the work of correspondence only. To this there was objection on the part of two or three of the eight teachers who could not see ahead of their own slow-pacing days. He was not born to command but to persuade, and yet to be always in the right. Finally, Mr. Gallaudet sent in his resignation, recommending Lewis Weld, principal of the Philadelphia School, as his successor. In the contract made with Mr. Weld, one of the provisions was ‘He shall not be required to teach a class.’ This very appropriate rule has been in force since that day. “Mr. Gallaudet entered on the duties of the novel profession poor, and, after thirteen years, left it poor. Money-making was to him no passion. Genuine and kindly benevolence, active mentality in the perceptive and reflective sense, sincere friendship, and a love of humor where humor was not inappropriate, these were his leading characteristics . He was an evenly balanced man in the qualities for society and the home circle. What he lacked was the will power. There was nothing passionate or imperious in him. A wrong excited his sorrow, but not his anger. The pupils all understood him thoroughly, and loved, respected, and obeyed him without hesitation. I have several times regretted that all the pictures and photographs of Mr. Gallaudet show only his aspect in society, especially in society where ladies were present. In the school-room, chapel, at his home, and when walking the streets, in thought or conversation, his aspect was not always the pleasant smile as shown in the photographs. It was usually easy gravity or thorough earnestness. Now and then, but rarely, I have seen his face deeply saddened, and felt an unexpressed sympathy for him as it led me to think over the problem of life. “In conducting morning and evening service in the chapel, Mr. Gallaudet was always clear, gentle, earnest, and wasting no time, the time allowed being only fifteen minutes. “Booth’s Reminiscences of Gallaudet” is from American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 26, no. 3 (July 1881). Booth’s Reminiscences of Gallaudet 91 But when his turn came for Sunday service he was unlike all the other teachers. I know of only one Hartford teacher who, on such occasions, in later years, approached him in manner on the chapel platform, and that was David E. Bartlett, who died a year or two ago. Mr. Gallaudet was by nature inclined to the dramatic in representing and depicting the grand and sublime in nature. Occasionally he would take a text on the starry heavens, and, in the language of signs, describe and illustrate their illimitable depths, and draw therefrom ideas of the vastness and the almighty presence and power of God. He seemed to delight in revelling in these unspeakable glories, and expressed the impossibility of man’s grasping or comprehending them. No other teacher could do it so well, and no other teacher, except Mr. Bartlett in subsequent years, ever ventured to try. It requires a born actor, and one given to contemplating things above those of this mundane sphere. “On one occasion he was standing at the front door of the Asylum, I standing near, and some boys playing below. I had observed a peculiarity in the shape and appearance of the clouds above the southern horizon. Glancing at him two or three times I noticed he also was watching them, a thoughtful, wondering, and somewhat admiring expression on his face. Soon he called my attention and, pointing to the clouds, made the signs ‘voluminous, craggy, magnificent,’ dropped his hands and continued to gaze for a few...

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