Our next visit, still under Mr. Dennison's escort, was to the Capitol or State House, a very fine building of white limestone. The façade is more than 300 feet long, and the height nearly 160 feet to the top of the dome. This however has not yet been completed. The architecture is Grecian. Here, as at Washington, are Halls for the Senate and House of Representatives, in equally good taste and somewhat similarly arranged. Mr. Dennison, who had once been a member of the Senate, was repudiating the accounts so commonly given of the behaviour of the senators, when Mr. Niel came in, and over-hearing what he was saying, begged to remark that when they "went to work" they usually divested themselves of their coats without substituting any senatorial garment in its place; and putting his legs on the desk before the chair, he declared that such was the usual posture in which they listened to the oratory of the place.[8]
We afterwards went through the apartments appropriated to the Treasurer and Auditor of the State, the two chief officers of the Government, which are very capacious and well fitted up—and we were specially introduced to both these functionaries; Mr. Neil, who is somewhat of a wag, was rather jocose with them, and high as their position here is, they very cordially retaliated on him. We next went to those appropriated to the Governor of the State, General Chase, in order that we might be introduced to him, but he was out, which we regretted. He is a candidate to succeed Mr. Buchanan as President. The remainder of the building was occupied by numerous committee-rooms, by the courts of law, the judges' apartments, a law library, and a beautiful room intended for a general library, but in which the collection of books at present is very small. On the whole the building and its contents are very creditable to this, the largest and wealthiest of the States in the West, considering that forty years ago the country here was a wild forest region where no tree had been cut down.
25th October.—We have seen Columbus well, and it has much to attract attention. On Saturday we went from the Capitol to the Lunatic Asylum, but excepting in its being more pleasingly arranged than the one at Utica, there was nothing very striking in its appearance. The galleries in which the patients were walking were prettily decorated with flowers cut out in paper, giving it a very gay appearance; and when the patients become desponding, they have a dance in the great hall, to revive them. The matron who went round with us said that the men and women conduct themselves on these occasions with perfect propriety. The men and women are otherwise so entirely separated in this Asylum that papa went round to the men's wards with the doctor, while I was taken round by the matron to those appropriated to the women. We thought it a pleasant, cheerful-looking place, considering the melancholy object to which it is devoted.
The next sight we saw was, the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb: being Saturday, we could not see the mode of tuition, but we have gone through it this morning, and yesterday we attended the afternoon service there, so that in our three visits we have been able to form a pretty good idea of the system carried out. They have an alphabet by which they can spell words, which they do by using one hand only. They speak thus with considerable rapidity, but this method is confined almost entirely to express proper names and words of uncommon use, as the whole conversation is carried on in general by signs, and it was most beautiful to see the graceful manner in which the matron spoke to them. As this system of signs does not represent words, but things and ideas, it has the great advantage of being universally understood when taught, and as the same system is adopted in several countries of Europe, in Norway and Sweden for example, a Norwegian and American child can converse easily together without either knowing a syllable of the other's language. It seems quite as rapid as talking.
We were present at the afternoon sermon, which lasted about half an hour, the subject being that of Simeon in the Temple, and except to express Simeon's name, there was no use at all made of the fingers. Dr. Stone, the principal, had preached in the morning on the subject of Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, and when we went, the children were being examined on the subject of this lecture. We saw a number of questions asked, but in this case the words were spelled in order that Dr. Stone, who was teaching them, might be satisfied that they understood the full meaning of the question in its grammatical sense, as well as its general signification, and the answers were all written down on large black boards. They wrote with prodigious rapidity in large distinct writing—and the answers, which were all different and showed they were not got up by rote, were in most cases very good. This was being done by the eldest class, and some of the elder boys and girls seemed full of intelligence. We saw minutely only what was going on in this and in the youngest class, which was no less remarkable, considering that some of the children had not been more than two or three months in the Asylum, and when they came there had no idea of either reading or writing.
When I say the youngest class, it is not with reference to the age of the pupils, but to the recent period of their admission, for some of them were as old in years as in the first class, while others were very young; one of them, a very pretty little Jewish girl with sparkling intelligent eyes, was indeed a mere child. We had on Sunday seen this little girl being taught her lesson, which consisted of the simple words, "I must be kind," and it was very pretty to see the way in which the notion of kindness was conveyed by signs. This morning she was writing this on the slate, and she afterwards wrote in a very neat handwriting a number of short words—cat, dog, horse, &c.—which were dictated to her by signs which were of so simple a nature that we could understand many of them; a goat, for example, was represented by the fingers being stuck on each side of the head as horns, and then by the man drawing his hand down from his chin to indicate the beard. They thus became acquainted by signs with almost every object in the first instance, and are led on by degrees to complex ideas of every kind. Dr. Stone says that the use of signs is known in England, but he believes is never practised to any extent, and certainly not in giving religious instruction. No attempt is made here, as in England, to teach them to articulate, as he considered the attempt to do this to be a great mistake, it being a painful effort to the child, which never leads to any good practical result. In some cases where deafness has been accidentally brought on after children have learned to speak, it is then as far as possible kept up; but even then the effort, as we saw, was very painful.
Our next visit was to the Blind Institution, but here there was nothing very remarkable, though owing to the children not being in school we saw the Institution very imperfectly. Raised characters are used here, as I believe everywhere else; one little girl who was called up read and pronounced very well; we also heard some of them sing and play for a considerable time. The bulk of the children, or rather young people, for they keep them here till they are one or two and twenty, were walking about the gardens invariably in pairs, which seems an excellent preservative against accidents: this they do of their own accord.
We next went to the Idiot Asylum, but the children being, as usual on Saturday, out of doors, we merely took a general look at the place, and returned there this morning to see the system pursued for them more in detail. Dr. Patterson, the superintendent, is a man of wonderful energy; and two young women and a matron, the two young teachers especially, must be exemplary characters, for they appear to devote themselves to their work with an energy and kindness which is perfectly marvellous, considering the apparently hopeless task they are engaged in. However, when taken young, from six to seven years of age, the capabilities of these poor children for improvement seem in general great, unless the infirmity is occasioned by epileptic fits, when the cure is considered almost hopeless. We were entertained by a story told by Dr. Patterson of a boy brought to him by the Mayor of C., who told him it was a bad case, but that he would be satisfied if he could fit him to be a missionary. Dr. P. replied that he could not answer for that, but that he could at all events fit him to be Mayor of C.
The great means resorted to for improvement is constant occupation, changed every quarter of an hour through out the day. By this means their physical power at night is nearly exhausted, and they invariably sleep well; where no greater improvement is arrived at, they can in all cases gain cleanly habits, and get entirely rid of that repulsive appearance which an idiot left to himself is almost sure at last to acquire. Active exercises are what they resort to in the first instance; they have a large school-room fitted up with ladders and gymnastic apparatus of all kinds. We saw little boys, who shortly before were scarcely able to stand alone, climbing places which made me tremble for their safety, but it was curious to observe with what caution they did it.
When we entered the room the youngest class were all standing round a piano, at which one of the teachers was playing, whilst she and the other teacher were leading them on in singing a cheerful song, and it was really quite touching to hear and see them; they sang very fairly, not worse than children usually do at that age. After a quarter of an hour of this they went through their Calisthenic exercises, marching in perfect time, clapping their hands, and going through different gestures with great accuracy, and these poor children a very few months ago had hardly any control over their actions.