Library Collections: Document: Full Text


Annual Report Of The Trustees Of The New-England Institution For The Education Of The Blind, 1833

Creator: n/a
Date: 1833
Source: Perkins School for the Blind


Introduction

In 1829, Dr. John Dix Fisher and several other leading Bostonians founded the New England Asylum for the Blind. Fisher had become interested in the possibilities of educating American blind children after visiting the world’s first school for blind children, L'Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris, France. The Massachusetts state legislature granted the new asylum a limited amount of funding in 1830, namely, any funds left unspent by the American School for the Deaf (about $1,400 per year). The asylum’s trustees also made donations. Little progress was made until 1831, however, when prominent reformer Samuel Gridley Howe agreed to direct the asylum. After spending several months studying European methods for teaching blind children, the asylum officially opened its doors to six students in 1832. Howe successfully used public exhibitions of his students’ capabilities to raise private donations, but lacked sufficient funding to expand the asylum to the planned population of thirty students.

In this Memorial, or petition, to the Massachusetts legislature, Howe and the trustees of the asylum argued that the asylum deserved permanent public funding on par with that provided to deaf children. At this time, Massachusetts provided funds for deaf children to attend the American School for the Deaf in Hartford, Connecticut, since Massachusetts did not yet have proper facilities. The authors of the Memorial suggested that the education of the blind was simply another aspect of the common school movement pioneered by Horace Mann in Massachusetts. Although Howe hoped to prove that blind children were just as capable of learning as their able-bodied counterparts, he and his co-authors defined the problem of blindness as linked with poverty and public dependency. Educating blind children, the committee suggested, would prevent these social problems. The argument proved convincing, and legislators provided $6,000 per year of funding for twenty pupils.


Next Page   All Pages 

Page 1:

1  

To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled.

2  

The undersigned, a Committee in behalf of the Trustees of the New England Asylum for the Blind, respectfully represent, that after considerable delays and expense, they have at length brought that Institution to a state of forwardness, which is not only sufficient to demonstrate that the Blind are capable of being made to contribute in a considerable degree to their own support, but are susceptible of great progress in intellectual and moral improvement. In order to arrive at this point the Trustees first despatched a gentleman of high reputation to Europe, where he remained several months, and in the course of that time, visited most of the Institutions on the Continent of Europe, as well as in England, for the Instruction of the Blind. On his return to this city he brought with him two blind Teachers, one of them a native of France, as an instructer in the Mathematics and higher branches of literature and science; the other from Scotland, as a Teacher in several mechanic arts.

3  

Immediately on the return of their Agent, the Trustees decided after mature deliberation, to select a half dozen children from among the numerous blind in the State, and make an experiment in educating them.

4  

In the month of August last, the Institution was opened in this city, with six young persons, most of whom were supported at the expense of the Institution, being unable to contribute any thing towards their own education.

5  

The Trustees are now desirous that the Legislature, by whose bounty they have been enabled to prosecute their design thus far, should witness the success of the experiment. The mission of an Agent to Europe; the purchase of the necessary apparatus for teaching; Salaries of Teachers, and the support of the pupils thus far, has so nearly exhausted the slender resources in the hands of the Trustees, that without further aid it will be impossible to continue the establishment even in its present humble condition, much less to extend its usefulness so as to embrace any considerable proportion of the unhappy class of beings for whose benefit it is intended.

6  

The undersigned respectfully request that the Legislature will permit the Trustees to lay before them the results of their exertions, confidently relying on the good feeling and intelligence of the community to extend to them that aid which they are convinced may be justly claimed for the indigent Blind of the Commonwealth.

7  

EDWARD BROOKS
HORACE MANN,
S. C. PHILLIPS,
Committee of the Trustees.
Boston, January 15th, 1833.

8  

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES , JANUARY 15,1833.

9  

Referred to Messrs. MCKAY, of Pittsfield, FOSTER, of Worcester, and OLIVER, of Boston, with such as the Senate may join.

10  

Sent up for concurrence.
ATTEST, L.S. CUSHING, Clerk .

11  

IN SENATE, January 15, 1833.
Read and referred to Messrs. LOUD, and MOTLEY, in concurrence.
CHARLES CALHOUN, Clerk

12  

Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

13  

The Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Representatives to whom was referred the Petition in behalf of the New England Asylum for the Blind, having fully considered that subject, ask leave to

14  

REPORT:

15  

That the Trustees of the said New England Asylum, after the organization of that Institution in the year 1829, pursuant to their Act of Incorporation, finding themselves entirely destitute of funds wherewith to accomplish the objects of their association, applied to certain individuals in this city, from whose liberality they realized about the sum of $2000. In the year 1830, they applied to the Legislature for aid, and by a Resolve of that year the unexpended balance of the annual appropriation for the Institution of the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford, was placed at their disposal. From this source the Trustees have realized on an average upon the three years during which they have received it, the sum of about $1400 a year. These have been the only funds in the possession of the Institution; and it is with these means alone that the Trustees have defrayed all the expenses of the measures hereafter spoken of, and have placed the Institution in its present encouraging condition.

16  

This unexpended balance now constitutes the whole resources of the Institution; and aside from the smallness of the sum, it will be at once perceived that it is liable to be altogether withdrawn to meet the priority of claim, which the Deaf and Dumb may have upon it.

17  

At the time of this grant there was not an Institution for the education of the Blind on this side of the Atlantic; and the Trustees, being fully convinced, that the most effectual mode of subserving the permanent interests of the Asylum, would be to avail themselves of the experience of other Institutions established for a similar purpose, deemed it advisable to despatch a special messenger to the Continent of Europe and the Island of Great Britain, where schools for the instruction of the Blind had, for many years, been in successful operation. They accordingly engaged the services of Dr. Samuel G. Howe, who embarked for Europe in September 1831, and having thoroughly examined the principal Institutions upon the other side of the Atlantic, he returned to this country in July 1832. At Paris, he engaged the services of Mr. Frencheri, a blind gentleman, who had been a teacher of Mathematics at the Royal Institution in that city. Dr. Howe also engaged a blind mechanic from the Institution at Edinburgh, who is capable of teaching his blind brethren to manufacture a great variety of articles, requiring mechanical skill and ingenuity and for the fabrication of which an apprenticeship is necessary even for those who are blessed with the organs of sight.

Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3    All Pages