SECTION VI.

HINTS

RESPECTING

THE SUPPORT AND EDUCATION

OF THE

DEAF AND DUMB CHILDREN

OF THE POOR.

IN contemplating Man, endowed with rational powers, capable of the highest mental cultivation, and of acquiring the fublimest sentiments of Nature and Nature's GoD, we are led to acquiefce in the dignified exprefsion of the Hebrew legiflator,

"In the Image of GOD created he him*,

* Pfalm viii. 5.

and

"

and thus the pride, if not the humility of man might be excited, if pride could refult from gratuitous obligations, due to the Author of every blessing. Humility, however, muft be exercised in viewing a fellow creature reduced to the level of the brute creation, from a deficiency in the organs of intellectual perception; for the deaf must be dumb, and the latent powers of reafon remain for ever dormant, without the application of a medium of exciting them to action. What a contrast does man exhibit! But on him, who poffeffes the perfection of every organ of sense, greater is the moral obligation to raise his brother from an almost inanimate, to an animated rational rank, and thereby humbly to imitate the Author of his existence, and of his faculties! Sentiments like thefe gave rife to an inftitution, whofe directors claim the patronage of the community in their public address.Among these, my refpected friend, the Rev. HENRY C. MASON, M. A. (whofe Silhouette I have the pleasure to annex) has, by example and precept, greatly contributed to the eftablishment of this benevolent plan.

PLAN,

IT must be allowed, that Charity cannot poffibly lend her assistance to objects more worthy of notice than the DEAF and DUMB Children of the Poor. The Lame and the Blind meet the eye of observation; but these pafs unnoticed, because their calamity is unknown. In many families thefe evils are hereditary; with fome the organs of Hearing have been rendered totally defective by difeafe, and the lofs of Speech follows of course.

Surely the benevolent mind must pity thofe diftreffed parents, who have not only to struggle with the attacks of poverty, and whose pittance is scanty, though attended with the hardest industry, but who have constantly before their eyes the objects of their tenderest regard; Deaf to every useful leffon, either of industry or religion; and Dumb to relate the

VOL. II.

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tale