The Deaf: Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United StatesBest, Harry
History
The Deaf: Their Position in Society and the Provision for Their Education in the United States
Best, Harry
Deaf -- Education -- United States; Deaf -- United States
In Virginia shortly afterwards a second school was started, which in
itself is to be set down as an important stage in the course of the
early attempts to create schools for the deaf in America. In 1812 there
came to the United States John Braidwood, a member of the family which
was in control of the institution at Edinburgh, Scotland, in the hope of
establishing a school. He began plans for one at Baltimore, but before
it had gotten under headway, he was called to Virginia to undertake the
instruction of the deaf children of William Bolling, of Goochland
County. This private school continued, with seemingly satisfactory
results in the progress of the pupils, for two and a half years. In
1815 it was moved to Cobbs, Chesterfield County,[169] to be open to the
public. The school now promised well, and there were already several
pupils. However, Braidwood was looking about for other opportunities,
and had been in touch with several parties in regard to the employment
of his services.[170] In 1816 he went to New York, where he proposed to
start a school, and collected a few pupils, only to return to Virginia
again after a few months. In 1817 he began operations anew, this time at
a private classical school at Manchester under John Kilpatrick, a
minister. In less than a year this too was abandoned by Braidwood, who
soon after met his death. Kilpatrick attempted to continue the school
only a year or two longer, possibly even taking a few pupils with him
when he moved to Cumberland County in 1819; and so was brought to an end
the checkered career of this early school for the deaf in Virginia.[171]
Such were the beginnings of the instruction of the deaf in America.
With the exception of these undertakings, barely touching the surface in
the number of children reached, the only means of education possible in
the land was in sending children to a school in Europe, which was done
in the case of a few wealthy parents. For the great mass of the deaf,
isolated and scattered though they were at the time, there was no
instruction to be had.
But this period was now nearly passed. Attention in more than one
quarter was being directed to the deaf and the possibilities of their
education; and in the breasts of not a few men a feeling was astir that
instruction was somehow to be brought to them.[172] The seed was already
sown, and by the time the school in Virginia was broken up, others were
beginning to arise elsewhere. When the work was finally to be taken up,
it was to be upon a solid foundation which should last with the
lastingness of education.
BEGINNING OF THE FIRST SCHOOLS
The seat of the first permanent school to be established in the United
States for the education of the deaf was Hartford, Connecticut; and the
name of the one man with which the beginning work will forever be
coupled is that of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet. America, however, was not
to commence the work of itself: the spirit and the method had to be
brought from Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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