nor, D.D., and Robert C. Cornell. On the death of the two last, which occurred within a few months of each other in the spring of 1845, the title of president was, by general consent, and as a just tribute to his eminent worth and services, conferred on Mr. Peet; the first, and we believe the only case in which the principal or superintendent of such an institution is also president of its Board of Directors or Trustees. (The degree of Doctor of Laws, (LL. D.,) was conferred on Mr. Peet, as we have said, by the regents of the university, three or four years later.) This change of title brought no change in the immediate relations of Dr. Peet to the institution. He continued, as he has ever done, to reside in the building, to fulfill the duties both of the head of the institution, and the head of the family; and to give his personal attention and the benefit of his great experience in all cases of difficulty in any department of the establishment.

It was, we think, early in the year, 1844, that the Hon. Horace Mann, returning from a visit of inspection to the educational institutions of Europe, especially of Germany, published his report, in which he took occasion to say that, in his opinion the "Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb in Prussia, Saxony, and Holland, are decidedly superior to any in this country." On examination, it appeared that the distinguished author of this report, who, with all his eminent zeal for the cause of education, and admitted ability, was too apt to jump to conclusions upon insufficient premises, had formed this opinion upon a very superficial examination of the German schools, and no examination at all of our own. Still the specific point of difference on which his opinion was based, that the German teachers teach, or attempt to teach their deaf pupils to speak, while ours had long since formally relinquished that attempt, was prima facie such as to make an impression on the public mind, ever moved by novelties, and prone to believe in the marvelous. Though, therefore, all the evidence we then had went to show that even in the German language, much more favorable to such an attempt than our own, the teaching or articulation to the deaf and dumb seldom yielded any results of real practical value, while it certainly involved a heavy waste of time and labor,-still it seemed proper to ascertain by actual examination whether we were in fact so far behind the German or other European schools, that, if there were valuable lessons to be learned, we might learn them, and if not, that our institutions, might retain in the public estimation the place they had so hardly won. To this end, each of the two oldest and largest American Institutions for the deaf and dumb, sent an agent to Europe. The American Asylum, sent its late esteemed principal, Mr. Weld, and the New York Institution, sent one of its former

election, by a few life members and subscribers, and the gratuitous nature of their services, the Directors of the New York Institution are solely men attracted together by benevolent interest in the cause of the deaf and dumb, and respect for, and sympathy with the character of the president. Hence it is that they have been so ready to appreciate, encourage and aid his labors. In this matter of the erection of the new buildings, especially, it required zeal, foresight, and sanguine trust in the future, to prevent that perfection of plan and proportions so admirable in the new buildings from being sacrificed to a severe, though temporary pecuniary pressure. Of those features that have been more particularly the object of Dr. Peet's personal attention and solicitude, we may specify the arrangements and apparatus for warming and ventilation.

*

From this sketch of Dr. Peet's public life, his character as a christian gentleman, as the head of an institution, as a teacher, as an accomplished master of the language of pantomime, as a leader and energetic laborer in all movements for the benefit of the common cause of deaf-mute education,—and as the author of the best existing series of works in our language, perhaps in any language, on the instruction of the deaf and dumb,-though inadequately set forth, will, we trust, be apparent to the reader. But to his many friends, and to the hundreds of deaf-mutes who, educated under his care, have learned to love and honor him as a father, such a portraiture will appear not only feeble, but very incomplete, as omitting one of Dr. Peet's most prominent traits of character,—his warm benevolence of heart, of which the best illustration is the filial affection with which he is regarded by his pupils, the warm and active interest he has ever taken in their temporal and spiritual welfare, and the aid he has ever been ready to give to any of his former pupils who deserved and stood in need of his assistance. When dismissing his pupils at the end of their course, he is wont to give each a little letter of advice, in which, encouraging them to seek his aid in any future season of trouble, he says, "Come to us, I repeat, with the confidence of children to a father. We shall be ever ready to redress your wrongs, to seek for you employment that shall ensure for you comfort and respectability; and in those afflictions which only time and Providence can relieve, to afford the sympathy and advice that may inspire consolation, patience, and cheerfulness." And the instances are not few in which this pledge has been fulfilled.

*The result of the pecuniary difficulties referred to, has been that the State of New York, has formally assumed the proprietorship of the institution, maintaining it as it is. It has thus become in name, as it long has been de facto, a State Institution.

Comparing the present state of the institution with what it was in 1830, then a small and inferior school, ill provided with teachers, without any good plan of instruction, or acceptable series of lessons; now in the very foremost rank of special educational institutions, furnishing text-books and teachers to other schools, and looked to as a model, both in its system of instruction and the plan of its buildings, by its results and publications elevating the standard of deaf-mute instruction, and spreading abroad an interest that leads to the founding of new institutions, Dr. Peet may well feel that the earnest and unfaltering labor of twenty-six years has not been in vain. He has not, we trust, nearly reached the term of his active usefulness. Though crowned with the glory of grey hairs, judging from his erect form, active step, and unabated powers of attention to the duties of his arduous post, the deaf and dumb of New York, and of the whole Union may, for years to come, benefit by his labors. And when the time shall come for retirement from active labor, he will known that the blessings of hundreds follow him down the vale of years, and that the future of the institution to which his life has been devoted,--with its great trust for the benefit of the deaf and dumb of generations to come, may safely be left in the care of the teachers he has trained up.

NEW YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.

THE New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb is the second American Institution of its kind in point of date. The American Asylum at Hartford preceded it about a year; and of perhaps two hundred schools for this class of learners in Europe, not more than about twenty-five now existing can claim an earlier origin. There were two different attempts made in New York to instruct the unfortunate deaf and dumb, several years before the present Institution was founded. The Rev. John Stanford, a man whose memory is still cherished as a bright example of piety and of zealous labor in behalf of the unfortunate, finding in the alms-house, of which he was chaplain, several children whose ears were closed to the ordinary means of religious teaching, made an effort to impart some instruction to these heathen in a Christian land. He provided them with slates, and taught them to write the names of some familiar objects; but, for any further progress, peculiar processes of instruction were necessary, of which he had no knowledge; and his other duties did not permit such close study and attention as would have been requisite to invent them. He consequently found himself compelled to wait a more favorable period for the realization of his wishes. He was subsequently one of the founders of the Institution, and for several years a member of its Board of Directors.

The success of European teachers of the deaf and dumb was then very little known in America. Even in those countries where the art had been practiced longest, the deaf-mutes who were edu ed were but rare exceptions to the general lot; and in the popular estimation, the instruction of the deaf and dumb was still unintelligible and mysterious in its processes, and miraculous in its results, which, indeed, were often magnified beyond the limits of probability or truth. Still it was generally known to men of scientific research, that science and benevolence had triumphed over the difficulty held insuperable by the wisest of the ancients-that of enlightening the darkened mind of the deaf-mute; and with the names of De l'Epée and Sicard,of Braidwood and Watson, there had probably come over the Atlantic some rumors of the different systems adopted by the French and English teachers respectively. "An Essay on Teaching the Deaf or Surd, and consequently Dumb, to Speak," appeared in the Transac