It was in 1810, however, and in the city of New York that the real beginning of deaf-mute education in the United States was marked. This was when John Stanford, a minister, found several deaf children in the city almshouse and attempted to teach them. Though his efforts continued but a short time, it was these from which resulted the establishment a few years later of a school in the city, the New York Institution.[168]
In Virginia shortly afterwards a second school was started, which in itself is to be set down as an important stage in the course of the early attempts to create schools for the deaf in America. In 1812 there came to the United States John Braidwood, a member of the family which was in control of the institution at Edinburgh, Scotland, in the hope of establishing a school. He began plans for one at Baltimore, but before it had gotten under headway, he was called to Virginia to undertake the instruction of the deaf children of William Bolling, of Goochland County. This private school continued, with seemingly satisfactory results in the progress of the pupils, for two and a half years. In 1815 it was moved to Cobbs, Chesterfield County,[169] to be open to the public. The school now promised well, and there were already several pupils. However, Braidwood was looking about for other opportunities, and had been in touch with several parties in regard to the employment of his services.[170] In 1816 he went to New York, where he proposed to start a school, and collected a few pupils, only to return to Virginia again after a few months. In 1817 he began operations anew, this time at a private classical school at Manchester under John Kilpatrick, a minister. In less than a year this too was abandoned by Braidwood, who soon after met his death. Kilpatrick attempted to continue the school only a year or two longer, possibly even taking a few pupils with him when he moved to Cumberland County in 1819; and so was brought to an end the checkered career of this early school for the deaf in Virginia.[171]
Such were the beginnings of the instruction of the deaf in America. With the exception of these undertakings, barely touching the surface in the number of children reached, the only means of education possible in the land was in sending children to a school in Europe, which was done in the case of a few wealthy parents. For the great mass of the deaf, isolated and scattered though they were at the time, there was no instruction to be had.
But this period was now nearly passed. Attention in more than one quarter was being directed to the deaf and the possibilities of their education; and in the breasts of not a few men a feeling was astir that instruction was somehow to be brought to them.[172] The seed was already sown, and by the time the school in Virginia was broken up, others were beginning to arise elsewhere. When the work was finally to be taken up, it was to be upon a solid foundation which should last with the lastingness of education.
Beginning of the First Schools
The seat of the first permanent school to be established in the United States for the education of the deaf was Hartford, Connecticut; and the name of the one man with which the beginning work will forever be coupled is that of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. America, however, was not to commence the work of itself: the spirit and the method had to be brought from Europe.
Early in the nineteenth century there lived at Hartford a young deaf girl, Alice Cogswell by name, the daughter of a physician, and in her a group of men had become interested. An investigation of the number of the deaf had been made in 1812 by a body of clergymen, when 84 were found, and it was estimated that there were 400 in New England, and 2,000 in the United States; and the question of a school had been considered.[173] In 1815 the friends of Alice Cogswell decided to organize a society for the purpose of providing means to instruct some of these, and to secure an instructor. To take up this work, attention was directed to Gallaudet, then a young theological student. He was fixed upon as the man to go to Europe and acquaint himself with the methods there employed. Gallaudet responded at once to the appeal made to him, and proceeded to prepare himself forthwith.