First, chronologically, comes “The American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons,” the mother-school of all similar institutions in this country. In 1887, when the recurring years brought about the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, the founder of this school for the deaf, the day was celebrated by all deaf-mutes throughout the United States, and commemorated by public services and general festivities. In a building on Main Street, now constituting the southern end of the City Hotel, the American Asylum gathered its first seven pupils, April 15, 1817. The starting-point of the enterprise was the eager desire of Dr. Mason F. Cogswell to secure an education for his daughter, Alice, a deaf-mute, whose infirmity was caused by an attack of spotted fever. In 1815, several prominent gentlemen in Hartford took steps towards the organization of such a school at the instance of Dr. Cogswell, and decided to send the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, then just out of the Andover Theological Seminary, to Europe, for the purpose of acquiring the art of instructing deaf-mutes. Accordingly, Mr. Gallaudet proceeded to Paris, where he was cordially received by the Abbé Sicard, the Director of the famous Institution for Deaf-Mutes, founded some years earlier by the Abbé de l’Epée. Here every facility was accorded to Mr. Gallaudet, and when he was ready to return to America, one of Sicard’s pupils--Laurent Clerc by name,--offered his services as an instructor in the school to be founded in America, and as he was himself a deaf-mute he was a living demonstration of the fact that a very high degree of education was possible to deaf-mutes. In 1818, the number of pupils having increased to sixty, it appeared to the directors that their work was likely to become national, and it seemed proper to invoke the aid of Congress. A petition was accordingly sent to Congress, and was strongly supported by the Connecticut members, by the Speaker, Henry Clay, and by many other influential and philanthropic men. Congress responded by an appropriation of an entire township, comprising 23,000 acres of land. This grant was judiciously converted into cash and invested, and the income thus received has enabled the institution to receive pupils at about one half the actual cost of their education. The building now in use was completed in 1821. Since 1825 pupils have been received from the States of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, and Rhode Island, under an arrangement made with the official authorities in those States. While a large proportion of the instructors have always been college graduates, at the same time industrial instruction has, since 1823, been an essential feature in the training, thus rendering the pupils self-supporting members of society.