that State being at the sole expense of its erection: and the cost, upon the completion of the whole, will amount, it is supposed, to about $1,000,000. It is calculated to receive one thousand patients.

Nearly all these asylums are constructed on the most approved plans. Nearly all are beautifully situated, have a light and cheerful aspect, and are surrounded with ample grounds, tastefully laid out in fields and meadows, pleasant gardens, and delightful walks. After visiting many such institutions in Europe, I can truly say that I have seen none more pleasantly situated, or better kept, than the Massachusetts State Asylum, at Worcester, the Retreat at Hartford, in Connecticut, and the Asylum on Blackwell's Island, near New York.

I would particularly call attention to the fact that religious worship is kept up in twenty-seven of these institutions, which number in all thirty-one. Some have regular chaplains attached to them; in others, Divine worship is conducted for the inmates by clergymen or laymen in the neighborhood, who volunteer their services in performing this important and interesting duty. In almost every case it is done by men of evangelical sentiments. Nor is their labor in vain, ample experience having demonstrated that such services, when performed by judicious, calm, and truly spiritual men, exert an influence highly beneficial on the insane. The Gospel, when presented in the spirit of its blessed Author, is admirably fitted to soothe the excitement of the poor lunatic.

"Regular religious teaching," says Dr. Woodward, the superintend ent of the asylum for the insane at Worcester, Massachusetts, "is as necessary and beneficial to the insane as to the rational mind; in a large proportion of the cases it will have equal influence. They as well know their imperfections, if they will not admit their delusions; and they feel the importance of good conduct to secure the confidence and esteem of those whose good opinion they value."

According to a Report of Dr. Earle, made in 1840, the deaths in the European institutions for the insane vary from thirteen to forty per cent.; while in the American asylums none exceed ten per cent.*

The number of the insane in the asylums in the United States is about three thousand five hundred; in 1840, the whole number of the insane and idiotic in the country, of all ages and conditions, was, according to the census, seventeen thousand four hundred and thirty-four, being about one to every nine hundred and seventy-nine inhabitants. Of these seventeen thousand four hundred and thirty-four insane persons, five thousand one hundred and sixty-two were maintained at the public expense, and twelve thousand two hundred and seventy-two at that of their friends. In 1850 the number of the insane and idiotic was, by the census, twenty-nine thousand two hundred and twenty-nine-the insane being fourteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-two, and the idiotic fourteen thousand two hundred and fifty-seven.

While the State governments have been doing so much for the establishment of hospitals and asylums for the insane, much has also been done by individual munificence. Some of the State institutions have been assisted by donations from private citizens. Thus two benevolent gentlemen in the State of Maine gave $10,000 each toward founding the asylum for that State.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY.—ASYLUMS FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB.

OUR asylums for the deaf and dumb owe their existence to a series of efforts on the part of a few Christian friends.

The late Dr. Cogswell, a pious and excellent physician in the city of Hartford, Connecticut, had a beloved daughter who was deaf and dumb. For her sake he proposed to a devoted young minister of the Gospel, the Rev. Mr. Gallaudet, to go to Europe, and there to learn, at the best institutions, the most approved methods of teaching this unfortunate class of people. The mission was cheerfully undertaken. Mr. Gallaudet returned in 1816, after having spent above a year in Paris, where he studied the methods of instruction pursued at the Royal Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, under the Abbé Sicard, the pupil and friend of the Abbé l'Epée. Thereupon an effort was immediately made to found an institution at Hartford. An act of incorporation was obtained in 1816, a large sum was contributed by the people of Hartford for the erection of the requisite buildings, and Congress granted from the national lands a township, consisting of twenty-three thousand and forty acres, toward the endowment of the institution. It was opened, ere long, for the reception of pupils, and from that time to this has been going on most prosperously. It is the oldest establishment for the purpose in the United States, and is called "The American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb." So far, indeed, it is a national institution. It was endowed to a considerable amount by . Congress; it is open to pupils from all the States, and it does, in fact, receive them from the South as well as from the North. It is peculiarly, however, the Deaf and Dumb Institution of New England, five of the States of which support within its walls, at the expense of their treasuries, a certain number of pupils every year. The number at the asylum is usually between one hundred and fifty and two hun

dred. The course of study lasts four years. Mechanical arts are taught to the young men at certain hours daily, while the young women learn such things as become their sex and situation in life.

Since 1816 sixteen other institutions for the deaf and dumb have been established in the United States, all on the model of that at Hartford.

All these institutions receive paying pupils from families which have the means of defraying the expense of educating their own children. But the number of such pupils probably does not exceed one sixth of the whole.

The number of pupils in these seventeen asylums ranges from one thousand to one thousand two hundred, and as the States by which they are supported have both the means and the disposition to do so, they will doubtless furnish instruction to the deaf and dumb of the other States, which have resolved to send them thither until they can have asylums of their own. There will, indeed, be but a partial provision for some time for the indigent deaf and dumb of the newest States; yet the known enterprise and benevolence of their inhabitants warrant us to believe that as soon as their population shall have become sufficiently numerous, and they shall have established those more general and important institutions that lie at the basis of an enlightened society, the whole of the confederated States will be found ready to make provision for conducting their deaf and dumb, by means of a suitable education, to usefulness and happiness. For this it is not requisite that each State should have an asylum for itself; it would be found enough that two or more should unite, as at present, in one.

The number of deaf and dumb persons throughout the United States in 1850 was nine thousand one hundred and thirty-six, or about one to every two thousand five hundred and thirty-five of the entire population; but the proportion of proper age for being placed in an asylum, to receive the usual instruction there, is hardly above a fourth of the entire number.

It is delightful to contemplate how much has been done for this interesting part of the community within the last few years, and especially delightful to the Christian to know that all these seventeen asylums are under the direction of decidedly religious men, and that the course of instruction pursued in them is entirely evangelical. The Bible is made the text-book of their religious studies. Every morning and evening they are assembled for prayers, and then a portion of Scripture is written on a large slate. Some pertinent remarks are addressed to them, followed by prayer, both the remarks and the prayer being performed, by the principal or one of the professors of

the institution, by signs. In the same way, upon the Sabbath, a sermon is preached and other religious services are held. God has greatly blessed these instructions. Many of the pupils in these several asylums have become, from time to time, as their lives attest, truly pious persons; and in some instances these institutions have richly shared in the revivals that have occurred in places where they are established.

CHAPTER XXIX.

INFLUENCE OF THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE ON THE BENEFICENT INSTITUTIONS OF THE COUNTRY.-ASYLUMS FOR THE BLIND AND FOR IDIOTS.

In the year 1832 the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the blind was founded.

Thomas H. Perkins, Esq., of the city of Boston, gave his valuable house and grounds, with out-buildings thereon, estimated to be worth $50,000, for an asylum for the blind, provided the sum required for its establishment should be raised in New England. $50,000 having been speedily collected, and the Legislature of Massachusetts having voted a large annual grant to give permanency to the projected institution, the corporation entered vigorously upon the work, and opened a school for the blind, which has now been nearly twenty-five years in successful operation. As the property, so munificently given by Mr. Perkins, was not in all respects suitable for the purpose, it was exchanged in 1839 for Mount Washington House and grounds, in South Boston, beautifully situated near the bay which spreads out to the east of the city, and in every way adapted for the purpose. The institution is under the direction of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, a man of remarkable qualifications for the post.

There are ten other institutions for the blind in the United States. All these have sprung up since the establishment of that at Boston in 1832, and they are all more or less flourishing. The whole number of the blind in the United States in 1850 was seven thousand nine hundred and seventy-eight.

Some twenty years ago, a Mr. Will, of Philadelphia, bequeathed a sum to be laid out in establishing a hospital for the blind, but the institution that has arisen out of this bequest is not a school, but a retreat, where the aged and infirm blind may pass their remaining days in comfort.

Although most of these institutions are aided by the Legislatures of the States within which they are established, nearly all of them, nevertheless, may be traced to the benevolence of Christian citizens, acting individually or together. Few establishments can be contemplated by the eye of Christian sympathy with greater interest than these quiet retreats. There the blind not only learn the elements of a common education,* and attain such expertness in some of the mechanical arts as enables them, even while under tuition, to contribute toward their own support, but they cultivate music also, by which many an hour sweetly passes away, and many of them show in this pursuit remarkable aptitude.

Nor is our literature for the blind inconsiderable, when we remember that it is not twenty-five years since printing in "raised” characters for their use was first introduced among us. Above fifty volumes have been published at Boston, and about half that number at Philadelphia, comprising several of the most interesting religious works in the English language, the perusal of which has already proved a blessing to many of the blind. It is gratifying to think that these institutions have all along been, to a great extent, in the hands of good men, so that this benevolent enterprise has, from the first, taken a happy direction.

The Report of the Boston institution for 1841 gives the history of a child who had been four years a pupil there, and whose case is more interesting, probably, than any other that has ever been known. Laura Bridgman, born in 1829, had lost, when twenty months old,

* Joseph B. Smith, a pupil of the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, pursued the study of Latin, Greek, and the other branches of a preparatory course with success, and entered Harvard University in the autumn of 1839, where he made respectable progress. He learned his lessons with the help of his companion, who carefully read them over to him, and sought out in the lexicon the meaning of words he did not understand. In geometry, when the diagram was too complicated for him to retain a clear conception of it, he caused it to be "embossed" upon thick paper, that he might examine it with his fingers.

Among the books published by the institution at Boston are, the New Testament; parts of the Old Testament; Lardner's Universal History; Selections from Old English Authors; Selections from Modern English Authors; Howe's Geography for the Blind; Howe's General Atlas; Howe's Atlas of the United States; Blind Child's First Book; Blind Child's Second Book; the Dairyman's Daughter; the Harvey Boys; Blind Child's Spelling-book; Blind Child's English Grammar; the Pilgrim's Progress; Baxter's Call; Life of Melancthon; Book of Sacred Hymns; Viri Roma; Pierce's Geometry, with Diagrams, illustrative of Natural Philosophy; Political Classbook; Blind Child's Manual.

The Pennsylvania Institute, besides printing portions of the Old Testament, has published, with others, a Guide to Spelling; Select Library; Student's Magazine; French Verbs; a Grammar; and several books in the German language.