In this whole enterprise, its undertakers should resolve to be convinced by no sneers, daunted by no difficulties, arrested by no obstacles. Difficulties and obstacles enough, indeed, will present themselves to the timid or superficial glance; but they will vanish, before calm scrutiny and brave determination. Even where the means of solving or removing them may not occur before hand to the mind, what was lately said in a worse cause, will prove to be true: "Where there is a WILL, there is a WAY." In such a cause as ours, and in reference to the epithets of "visionary," "impracticable," "chimerical," "Quixotic," and all the other imaginary lions which will be discovered in our path, well may we say, with the generous confidence of Lord Chatham, that we "_trample upon impossibilities_." Has not our success, indeed, been already demonstrated? Demonstrated, in the first place, by unnumbered instances of parallel, and more stupendous enterprises, accomplished under circumstances less favorable than those which attend our undertaking? Such enterprises as the Reformation of Luther--the settlement of America--her deliverance from a foreign yoke--the teaching of the blind and the dumb[18] to read and to write? Demonstrated, again, by actual _experiment_, that sovereign test of practicability--experiment, seven times repeated, with extensive, if not complete success--in New York, in Connecticut, in Massachusetts, in Austria, in Germany, in Prussia, in Scotland? Yes--it is no untried path we are called to tread: scarcely a step of the way, but has been explored and smoothed before us. All that we have to do, is to look around--see what others have done--correct our own procedure by what we perceive defective in theirs--and forthwith open the floodgates of light, and bid the torrent pour. [Footnote 18: Dr. Johnson, after having witnessed the surprising performances of the pupils in a College for the deaf and dumb at Edinburgh in 1773, concluded that such a triumph over an infirmity apparently irremediable, left nothing hopeless to human resolution. "After having seen the deaf taught arithmetic," says he, "who would be afraid to cultivate the Hebrides?" _Journey to the Western Islands_.]