Ceremony held to honor Thomas Gallaudet and Laurent Clerc

1. The alumni had proposed this event in order to honor Gallaudet and
2. The weather today was stormy, and “much of the interest of the procession was lost to the spectators.”
3. The gifts to Gallaudet and Clerc: “pieces of plate” that consisted of a large silver pitcher and a large silver salver.

• On one side of the pitcher, there was a scene representing Gallaudet’s journey to France in 1817, with images of Gallaudet, Clerc, and ships and waves “illustrating the passage across the ocean.”
• This side also include an image of the American School for the Deaf.
• On the other side of the pitcher, there was a scene from a classroom in the school, with teachers, students, and “apparatus.”
• On the front of the pitcher (i.e., between the images on the two sides), there was a portrait of Abbe Sicard, which was “said to be a correct likeness.”
• On the neck of the pitcher were the coats of arms of the states of New England
• On the handle there were “representations of mute cupids” and hands signing the letter “A.”
• The pitchers and salvers were then each engraved with separate tributes to Gallaudet and Clerc.

1. The meeting began with a procession that went somewhere away from the main building of the school, but it is unclear where the procession went and, consequently, where the presentation of the gifts was made.
2. The Courant described the alums as coming “from abroad,” which here likely meant from outside of Connecticut.
3. The article described the translator of Fisher Ames Spafford’s address as “Thomas Gallaudet of New York,” which would have been Thomas Gallaudet Jr.

1. The alumni proposed to honor Gallaudet and Clerc “more than a year” ago, so some time in 1849 – or the idea originated with Thomas Brown.
2. The alumni selected Thomas Brown as the “President of the day,” and he organized support for the event – or Brown gathered support for the ceremony through correspondence with alumni.
3. A Committee on Arrangements was established.

1. From Brown’s address:

• “How interesting to us all is the occasion, as one for the renewal of former friendships, and the expression of grateful acknowledgements to our best friends and benefactors. Let us ever remember them, and love the great and good institution with the sincere love of children.”

2. From Spafford’s address:

• “I feel a delicacy in expressing my ideas before so many to whom I am unknown, upon such an interesting topic. … It is like passing a splendid gateway, decorated to the extent of modern taste … You open the gate and advance, and find, behind this splendor, only a miserable cottage. In like manner, I feel as if I, in comparison with my important subject, might be considered by the miserable cottage behind the splendid gateway.”
• “Their glorious example has been followed, and now, for the education of our fellow sufferers, there are twelve or thirteen similar places of instruction, all arising from this Institution.”
• “Our ignorance was like chaos, without light and hope. But, through the blessing of God, light has shone through this chaos and reduced it to order.”
• “The wishes which we then expressed are now carried out, in the offering before us, and the perfume of friendship which they convey to our old instructors, will be as fragrant as the offering of the spices in Persian temples to the Sun.”
• “Those who succeed us as pupils will be told of the debt of gratitude they owe to the founders of the American Asylum. Our shop, moored by this chain of remembered gratitude, will float safely hereafter, and never be wrecked on the rocks of pride and envy.”

3. About Spafford’s delivery of a portion of his remarks:

• “It is impossible to represent by words, the effect of the pantomime that the orator now employed to show to his spectators the uncouth and awkward positions in which the human body was represented in the first rude attempts at statuary.”

4. From Loring’s address prior to presenting the gift to Gallaudet:

• “Thirty-five years ago, there was no school for the education of the deaf and dumb in this country. They had, for a long time, been neglected, as their case was considered hopeless.”
• “An interesting child, the daughter of a much-esteemed physician in this city, was deprived of her hearing by severe sickness. In consequence of this misfortune, she was the object of the parents’ constant tenderness and solicitude.  They used every means they could contrive to teach her the simplest rudiments of written language, and, in the attempt, they partially succeeded.”
• “Moved by compassion for the deaf mutes in general, and sustained by several benevolent persons, you embarked for Europe, and, after encountering many difficulties, you accomplished the object of your mission in France.”
• “It is fortunate, and it was also by a kind dispensation of Divine Providence, that you adopted the best method of instruction for the deaf and dumb. By this method we have been instructed in the principles of language, morality and religion, and this education has qualified us to be useful members of society.”

5. From Gallaudet’s address:

• “She has gone – the beloved Alice – my earliest pupil, who first drew may attention to the deaf and dumb, and enkindled my sympathy for them. We will ever cherish her memory, and that of her father, one of your best and long-tried friends.  We will never forget that to them, under the divine guidance and blessing, we owe the origin of those ample provisions which have been made for your benefit.”
• “The same Providence cast my happy lot in this community, near to this father and daughter, herself a playmate of my younger brothers and sisters, which led to my acquaintance with her, and then to my attempting her instruction. This I did, from time to time, as best I could, inexperienced inde3ed, but with no little enthusiasm and zealous perseverance.”
• “See in these successive links of his Providence, how God works out the chain of his beneficent movements. Let us be grateful if He condescends to sue our humble and feeble instrumentality in these movements, --- if he makes any of us ever so small a link in this his chain of love.”
• “yet, a few of these your earliest friends are spared to greet you this day, and to honor this occasion with their presence. I know how much you thank them for all that they have done for you.  What a pleasure to see them, and what a pleasure to them, in their declining years, to witness in your prosperity, and that of so many others who have been educated here, the blessing of God upon their cares and efforts in this cause of benevolence.”

6. From Clerc’s address:

• “If we, your teachers, have done you any good as you are pleased to say we have done, we are satisfied and ask nothing more; but you have chosen to present most valuable and valued gifts, both to Mr. Gallaudet and myself, in memory of our having been the first to teach the Deaf and Dumb in America, and as a testimony of your gratitude for the instruction you have received.”
• “Without communication with other men, and consequently without any means of learning from them any thing purely intellectual, never would you have been what you are now; nor would the existence of God, the spirituality of your souls, the certainty of another life, have been made known to you.”
• “Strangers in mind and in heart to all the doctrines, to all the mysteries, to all the precepts of the gospel, you would have passed your whole lives in a kind of excommunication like that of the reprobate, shutting your eyes upon the continual miracles of divine mercy, and opening them only on justice.”
• “How many of your fellow pupils have died since you departed, I cannot say exactly; I hope, nevertheless, the number is not great.”
• “As far as I have been able to ascertain, upwards of one hundred have married, the greatest part among themselves, and the remainder have wives or husbands who can hear and speak. Thanks be to God, with a few exceptions, they all are blessed with children enjoying all their faculties, which will be a great consolation to them in their old age.  The fact that a few of them have deaf and dumb children like themselves, must not be wondered at; we are not more privileged than other men; for we also are condemned to undergo some of the chastisements which divine Providence sees fit to inflict on us poor sinners.”

1. Lewis Weld was the current principal of the school. S. Williams, the president of the school’s board of directors, was not in attendance, which Weld said “we all must regret” in his opening remarks.
2. Joel Hawes was the senior pastor at Center Congregational Church.
3. Thomas Brown was an alumnus and a former instructor at the school. He currently lived in New Hampshire.
4. George Loring was a former teacher at the school who currently lived in Boston.
5. Job Turner was an alumnus of the American School for the Deaf and was currently teaching at the Virginia School for the Deaf.
6. “Alice” and “Dr. Cogswell” were Alice Cogswell and her father, Mason Cogswell. Alice lost her hearing at a young age, and Mason helped to found the American School for the Deaf in part to ensure an education for Alice.  Thomas Gallaudet had been their neighbor.

1. From Weld’s introductory remarks:

• “We are also highly gratified with the filial regard they evince towards the Asylum, their alma mater, and we rejoice in the renewed evidence they now exhibit of the exalted benefits of education to the deaf and dumb.

2. From Spafford’s remarks:

• “Thirty-three years ago, the deaf mutes in this country were in the darkness of the grossest ignorance. They knew not god.  The knew nothing of the maker of heaven and of earth.  They knew nothing of the mission of Jesus Christ into the world to pardon sin.  They knew not that, after this life, God would reward the virtuous and punish the vicious.  The knew no distinction between right and wrong.  The were all in ignorance and poverty, with no means of conveying their ideas to others, waiting for instruction, as the sick for a physician to heal them.”
• “But their time of relief had come. In this city, a celebrated physician, Dr. Cogswell, had an interesting daughter, who had been deprived of her hearing. --- Though her father and her friends looked upon her with pity, yet her deprivation of hearing has proved to have been a blessing to the world.  Had she not been left by God sitting in darkness and ignorance, the successful efforts that have since been made for our instruction might never have been attempted.”

3. From Gallaudet’s address:

• “For God saw fit to visit her, at a tender age, with your common privation. And on whom else, so intelligent and lovely, could his mysterious, yet benign Providence have sent this privation, to produce, as it did, so deeply and extensively, the interest needed to be felt in her and her fellow-sufferers, in order to lead to prompt and effectual action in their behalf.”

Unattributed.  “Great meeting of deaf mutes,” Hartford Daily Courant, September 28, 1850, page 2.