present state of the useful and elegant arts; history, ancient and modern; natural philosophy, chemistry and astronomy; universal geography; and natural history. It is proposed to extend them, as circumstances may admit, by establishing courses, on subjects not included among the above.

The single reason which, in the minds of some friends of the institution, rendered the success of the lecture-system problematic, seems to have been a belief, that alphabetic language is essentially necessary to the systematic communication of knowledge. The reverse, however, is strictly the truth; and the proposition cannot be too often repeated, or too strongly impressed upon the minds of those who think upon this subject, that knowledge of some sort at least, is essentially necessary to instruction in language. What are words but the nomenclature of ideas, and how shall ideas be named before they are conceived? Language is a structure entirely artificial. It is the engine by which we use the accumulation of facts, or of truths which we possess, but, let it be remembered, it constitutes no portion of that mass; it is the instrument, and the instrument only. It follows, therefore, that if instruction in language is indeed practicable with deaf mutes, instruction in the knowledge of facts is much more so. And, further still, such knowledge may precede that of language by any space of time; nay, more, and experience verifies this assertion, facts to almost any extent may be communicated to those, who could hardly acquire language with any length of application. This is true of the many, who have become advanced in years without instruction, though possessed of ordinary strength of intellect.

Written words are to the deaf, assemblages, entirely arbitrary, of characters equally arbitrary in their form. To retain these combinations in the mind, with no association of whatever description on which to rest, requires a positive effort of the memory, beyond the ability, we have reason to believe, of many who hear and speak. For it must be borne in mind, that we in speaking never spell, and that indeed our power to do so is consequent upon our ability to speak. How many, if forced to enunciate words literatim, with no knowledge of sound to aid them, would find their ability to communicate their thoughts absolutely destroyed? The reason is this, that memory, however powerful when resting on the fulcrum of an association, becomes, when thrown upon its own resources, after having been long indulged in

habits of dependence, weak and impotent. Facts will therefore be retained; for facts are allied to facts, or if existing separately, exist, of course, simply. But words require positive and unassisted effort to retain them; and in the multiplicity and minuteness of their elements, present a species of complexity, which a mind untrained to the task in early life, is utterly unable to grasp. Here then, is the reason why we may always assume the practicability of communicating a knowledge of facts to all the deaf of ordinary natural intelligence, while we cannot, with equal certainty, expect to make the entire number masters of written language, and in many instances, must be, indeed, compelled, when the pupil is advanced in life, to leave the task half completed. Happily our laws (and this is the very reason) are so framed as to embrace the ages most favorable to the commencement of an education; ages during which experience has universally demonstrated the power of memory in all minds of ordinary endowments, sufficiently independent of association, and sufficiently nervous to retain the orthography of the longest words and the construction of the most complicated sentences.

The system of lectures having become incorporated into the plan of instruction pursued in the Institution, a necessity of course arose to provide an apparatus for use in illustrating by experiment the great laws of nature, and rendering intelligible the causes of its various phenomena. The resources of the Institution would not, however, admit of large expenditure, and nothing more than a beginning was therefore attempted. Imperfect, notwithstanding, as is the apparatus at present, it embraces the necessary instruments for exhibiting the most important experiments in mechanics, hydrodynamics, pneumatics, electricity and magnetism, with some of the most useful in optics, including optical illustrations of astronomy.

A complete set of model lessons in linear drawing, imported directly from Paris, has likewise been presented to the Institution by Mr. Vaysse, under whose direction a class has been formed for the cultivation of this art, and has been for several months in a course of instruction.

To supply the deficiency complained of in the last report in respect to books for occasional reading, a library has been procured expressly for the use of the pupils, consisting of 100 volumes selected with care. These books, though perused, and perused with advantage by the industrious, have nevertheless, not as yet been in as high demand as the Board hope hereafter to see them. Among the evils resulting from the facility of communication afforded by the sign-language, it is not the least that a taste for reading is constantly repressed. Words not familiar to the pupil must necessarily be of frequent occurrence, and when so, the book is too often abandoned for the momentary gratification of conversing through a medium perfectly intelligible. We all recollect the impatience with which we ourselves in early life, have labored through an embarrassing sentence in a foreign or a dead language. Deaf mutes in reading our vernacular tongue, must long experience a similar feeling.

It is true, indeed, that, in the nature of things, the books which we present to them, cannot partake of that living interest, which attaches itself to events passing immediately under their eyes, or contemporaneously in the world around them. They cannot come with intelligence of things, which, as they relate to matters still pending, or momentarily occurring, seem to have for them something of individual or personal interest. In this consideration, is to be found the second great reason why reading seems to possess for the deaf mute so few attractions. The two, combined, form a strong obstacle in the way of his improvement, so strong indeed, as to have led one writer, Mr. Arrowsmith of London, to disapprove entirely the creation of deaf mute communities, and to advocate rather the separate education of each individual, in the midst of those who hear, in which situation he would be constantly compelled, by the most powerful of motives, stern, uncompromising necessity, both to read and to write.

Since the date of the last report, the third biennial circular, from the Royal Institution at Paris, has been received. The object of this publication, a most laudable one, is to concentrate the results of experiment, and the deductions of observation, in this particular department of education, and thus, by making the experience of many available to all, and the opinions of many universally known, to accelerate the progress of improvement. The present number extends itself to two hundred and seventy octavo pages, and briefly notices the eleventh and twelfth reports of the New-York Institution. But the fourteenth report, which this Board, but a year ago, had the honor to submit to the Legislature, has met with a

more positive expression of approbation abroad. In the seventeenth report of the ably conducted institution at Claremont, near Dublin, large extracts are made from the body of that document, and the two principal articles of the appendix, with a composition of one of the pupils, are republished at length. This circumstance, in itself highly gratifying, is rendered more so by the fact, that the Claremont report alluded to, with several of earlier date, was directly transmitted to the New-York Institution, through a gentleman, member of the board of trustees, on a visit to America, and that the occurrence was entirely unexpected.

The same report of this Institution has met a response from Mr. Kinniburgh of Edinburgh, who has been so kind as to transmit a number of books, prepared by himself for the use of his own school.

The Board look with high gratification upon these evidences of public opinion abroad, as it respects the character of the Institution confided to their care. From London, they have as yet received no direct communication. Yet they are assured that Mr. Watson has expressed his willingness, and indeed his purpose to communicate with them freely on the subject of his methods, and they feel no trifling pleasure in contemplating this proof of the good feeling which seems to exist toward them in this and in every other quar

ter.

It will be seen, therefore, that from those European cities, with which our country is in more immediate and constant intercourse, the testimonials of respect which we have received are amply satisfactory. From the continued interchange of good offices, and the expression of friendly feeling, we cannot but hope for the most pleasing consequences.

The Board have thus far, confined themselves principally to the consideration of matters hitherto reported on, the importance of which seemed to demand that a renewed mention of them should be made; of the recent measures incidentally growing out of these; and of circumstances entirely casual, which could no where else be more properly noticed. These topics having been disposed of, the appropriate place has arrived for the introduction of others, in which the Institution, according to the anticipation expressed in the last annual report, has proceeded to perfect its methods of in

Among the improvements of this nature, which the past year has originated or perfected, the Board view with particular satisfaction, the reduction of the principles of grammar to a visible and symbolic form. Grammatical rules and grammatical distinctions, like the fundamentals of every other science, presuppose generalization. But the minds of deaf-mutes, accustomed always to fasten upon particular and well-defined objects, conceive with great difficulty the apparently limitless notion of an universal judgment. Something palpable, something simple, something individual, and itself within the circle of familiar things, is demanded by the mind, as a prop on which it may rest, while it strives to push its conceptions into the region of the purely intellectual. Metaphysicians tell us that the great advantage, which the speaking world derive from the use of language, is the power of comparing, constrasting, combining, in short, familiarly using ideas, which it would be utterly impossible for the mind, with a single direct effort, to grasp. And the reason is obvious, that articulate sounds, or in other words simple signs addressing themselves to sense, stand as the representatives, and, in truth, occupy the places of all notions of whatever nature, how far soever they may be removed from the domain of the palpable. Upon the same principle, before this system of signs, that is to say, before alphabetic language is understood, signs of a different species portraying the philosophy of this system, and serving as an auxiliary to its acquisition, may be interposed between it and ideas themselves; not indeed as the representatives of those ideas, but as a ideographic exhibition of the laws, according to which the alphabetic combinations, which are the real representatives, must arrange themselves in the enunciation of a judgment.

This, in general terms, is the office, which grammatical symbols fulfil. It is not thought necessary in a document of this nature, to consider them in their particular uses and applications. Their utility is perhaps set forth in a more popular form, in an article published in the Commercial Advertiser, on the 16th of August last, and subjoined in the appendix to this report.

It is by no means claimed for the New-York Institution, that the idea of grammatical symbols was there absolutely originated. Such symbols were employed by Sicard; but not to the knowledge of this Board, farthar than to distinguish the different species of elements which compose a language. And these characters of Sicard constitute the basis of the system now in use with us. It