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Deaf Hartford 81 The female pupils, out of school hours, are occupied in various feminine employments, under the charge of the matron. Gathered into the same fold, and cheered by her kind patronage, sits the deaf, dumb, and blind girl, often busy with her needle, for whose guidance her exceedingly acute sense of feeling suffices, and in whose dexterous use seems the chief solace of her lot of silence, and of rayless night. There are at present in this Institution one hundred and sixty-four pupils, and since its commencement, in 1817, between seven and eight hundred have shared the benefits of its shelter and instruction. Abundant proof has been rendered by them, that, when quickened by the impulse of education, their misfortune does not exclude them from participating in the active pursuits and satisfactions of life. By recurring to their history, after their separation from the Asylum, we find among them, farmers and mechanics, artists and seamen, teachers of deaf mutes in various and distant institutions, and what might at first view seem incompatible with their situation, a merchant’s clerk, the editor of a newspaper, a post-master, and county-recorder in one of our far Western States, and a clerk in the Treasury Department at Washington. More than one hundred of the pupils from this Asylum have entered into the matrimonial relation; and some, within the range of our own intimacy, might be adduced as bright examples of both conjugal and parental duty. One of its most interesting members, who entered at its first organization , and remained during the full course of seven years, was a daughter of the late Dr. Mason F. Cogswell, who was early called to follow her lamented father to the tomb. Her genius, her entire loveliness of disposition, and the happiness of her joyous childhood, caused the following reply to be made to a question originally proposed at the Institution for the deaf and dumb in Paris [. . .]. “To Fanny” (n.d.) This undated poem to an unidentified “Fanny” was never published: a photocopy of the manuscript, in Sigourney’s hand, is held by the Gallaudet Archives (Eastman, box 5, folder 10). There is no location given for the manuscript. Sigourney Main Pgs 1-162.indd 81 4/4/2013 12:35:31 PM 82 Part 2 The first stanza of this short poem provides the typical sentimentalist view that “affections” created ideas—“fount[s] of thought”—in the deaf girl’s mind. The second, and final, stanza suggests that Fanny is dying, though we probably should not take that literally, since sentimentalists always bore in mind that we all face death. Here, Sigourney returns to her well-worn notion of the joy that a deaf person will experience when the first thing she hears, after death, is the song of the heavenly hosts. • To Fanny The silent lip is thine, The ear divorc’d from sound, Yet many a tuneful fount of thought Is in thy nature found, Deep melodies are there, By sweet affections wove, And angels teach thee in thy dreams Their dialect of love. So , - pure in heart pass on, Seeking thy Saviour’s clime, But who the rapturous joy can paint, The extasy, sublime, When on thy soul shall burst Where skies unclouded shine The glorious song thou first shall hear The speech thou first shall join. L. H. Sigourney “Opinions of the Uneducated Deaf and Dumb” (1827) The ideas in this poem, and in the 1835 story “The Mute Boy” (see p. 111), are taken from an anonymous essay that was printed in the Sigourney Main Pgs 1-162.indd 82 4/4/2013 12:35:31 PM ...

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