Institution, is not included in this statement.) During the same period the number of pupils has varied from two hundred to two hundred and twenty-five, the average being two hundred and seventeen. The annual mortality, therefore, on the average of these six years, has been only one in one hundred and eighteen. This is a very favorable result, especially when we reflect that a large portion of the deaf and dumb are of constitutions originally delicate, or made so by injudicious parental tenderness. There is reason to believe, that the proportion of deaths among the pupils of the Institution is considerably less than it would be among the same number of deaf and dumb children kept at home. We have dwelt more particularly on this point because health is a very important condition of intellectual improvement, and because the general health of a community (of children and youth especially,) is the best proof of the enjoyment of general happiness.

The great majority of our pupils are between the ages of twelve and twenty. Deaf mutes are eligible as State pupils in New-York, from the age of twelve to that of twenty-five, and in New Jersey from twelve to twenty; but it is very desirable that they should be sent to the Institution between the ages of twelve and fourteen. Those whose friends are able to continue them under instruction for more than the usual term, may in some cases, be advantageously admitted at an earlier age. But in the case of those whose term of instruction is limited to five, six, or seven years, the greatest amount of benefit, for this term, will be realized, by making it include that period of life in which the thirst for knowledge is strongest, the motives to diligence and good conduct most influential, the impressions on the memory most durable, and habits of intellectual application most easily formed. The period between twelve or fourteen and eighteen or twenty, has been found by experience much the best time of life for the most rapid and durable attainments in a study so difficult as is written language for the deaf and dumb. At an earlier age, the power of attention and of continued study is too small, and impressions on the memory too effaceable; at a later age, the mind has passed the period of development, and the memory left so long uncultivated, is hardly capable of receiving a new class of impressions. The years between twelve and twenty are also the golden time for imparting mechanical skill, for forming habits of industry, good manners and good morals that will have the best chance to become permanently

fixed, and for preparing the heart to receive the great truths of religion. In short, all the ends we propose when we undertake to give a complete intellectual, mechanical, and moral education to our pupils, are best promoted by receiving them at such an age that the course of instruction shall include the golden years of youth, and not much later than the age of eighteen or twenty.

There is only one consideration that leads some European schools to receive their pupils at a much earlier age than we find desirable, namely the teaching of articulation which can be undertaken with any hopes of success, only while the organs of speech which in a few years become rigid and unmanageable by disease, yet possess the pliancy of infancy. And those teachers who for the sake of teaching articulation receive their pupils at the age of six or eight, admit that for all other purposes, this period is much too early; that it is unfavorable to the obtaining of the best intellectual results; that it makes the teaching of trades almost impossible, and that pupils received thus early complete their allotted term at an age too tender to struggle with unfavorable circumstances or to preserve good habits amidst corrupting influences.

We may add, that the facts just cited are by no means the only objections to the teaching of articulation as a general branch of instruction in the schools for the deaf and dumb. A great deal of time is necessarily wasted in the mere mechanical repetition of letters, syllables or words, to which the pupil can attach no ideas, or only very vague and incorrect ones. The consequence of this loss of time, as might be expected, is that the pupils of articulating schools, other things being equal, are found much less intelligent, much less thoroughly grounded in the ordinary branches of a good education than our own pupils, after an equal term of instruction. And after all these sacrifices are made for the sake of teaching articulation, the result, as proved by the evidence of the most competent observers is, in the majority of cases, of no practical value. The statements sometimes put forth by teachers as to the facility in speaking and reading on the lips acquired by the pupils of some German schools, are to be understood as applying only to the best cases, which are almost always those of persons who became deaf after learning to speak distinctly, or whose deafness is only partial. Of these two classes, there are always enough in every large school for the purposes of display; and in our own institution there are several who

retain the ability to speak quite intelligibly, and, in some cases, can read a few simple sentences on the lips. When we find that the pupil already possesses some ability to speak, we consider it a duty to give such special attention to the case as may prevent this ability from being lost by disease. Farther than this, we regard the teaching of articulation as inexpedient, because to operate any considerable improvement in the enunciation of those who speak very imperfectly would demand a degree of time and of labor, on the part of the teacher, that would very seriously prejudice the improvement of the rest of the class, in the more important studies in which the whole class share. And in the case of those who come to us wholly unable to speak, the attempt to teach articulation, as we know from experiments actually made in our institution, as well as by the longer and more costly experience of many foreign institutions, would only prove a useless waste of time and of labor. The names of the instructors are as follows:

President of the Institution-HARVEY PRINDLE PEET, LL D.

Professors and Teachers-David Ely Bartlett, M. A., Josiah Addison Cary, M. A., Oran Wilkinson Morris, M. A., Jacob Van Nostrand, M. A., Thomas Gallaudet, M. A., Isaac Lewis Peet, M. A., Jeremiah Wood Conklin, Gilbert C. W. Gamage, Fisher Ames Spofford, Isaac Hoyt Benedict, Edward Peet, B. A.

By order of the Board of Directors,

G. S. ROBBINS, Secretary.

HARVEY P. PEET, President.

NEW-YORK FREE ACADEMY.

BOARD OF EDUCATION-REPORT.-The Board of Education of the city and county of New-York, in pursuance of the provisions of the act authorizing the said board to establish a Free Academy in said city, passed May 7 1847, respectfully present to the Common Council of the city of New-York, and to the Board of Regents of the University of the State, this their second annual report of the operations and condition of the Free Academy now established in said city.

It is matter of public congratulation and grateful acknowledgment that the operations of the Free Academy, during the past year have been uninterrupted by any epidemic disease, or any other disturbing cause whatever. On the contrary, the Institution, in the midst of that general health and public tranquility, which have so

abundantly blessed the whole community, has been permitted to pursue its course of activity and usefulness, in that undisturbed peace and quietness so essential to the success of every educational institution, but especially so to one of a somewhat novel and comparatively yet untried character.

The Free Academy has profited by this concurrence of favorable circumstances, in the uninterrupted exercise of all its appropriate functions, the testing by actual experiment of its peculiar excellencies, and the gradual establishment of its character. As the number of its pupils has increased, and its several classes have advanced in their prescribed course of studies, the character and capacities of the Institution have been correspondingly developed, and by the results, the Institution has fully verified the intelligent foresight, and vindicated the wisdom of its founders.

It would doubtless be as hard to pretend, or it would be unreasonable to expect, that a young institution, like the Free Academy, so novel in its organization and objects, so great a departure from established ideas, and so much in opposition not only to prevailing prejudices but to opinions long settled and which age had rendered as venerable as they were unyielding, had come into existence perfect both in its plan and its details.

In the whole range of actual and ideal existences, the past presents but a single instance of one springing into being fully grown and fully armed. But the Free Academy, like all other actual causes and consequences of an advancing civilization, is doubtless subject to the universal law of progress, and can, therefore, only receive its perfection from time and experience.

But if, as is believed, its fundamental principle be sound, and its distinctive features correct, by the judicious adoption, from time to time, of such modifications and additions as experience may suggest and as shall adapt the Institution more fully to the educational wants of the community, and the exigencies of the times, it is confidently believed that the original object of the Free Academy will be effectually accomplished, and the sanguine expectation of its friends fully realized.

The outline and course of instruction in the Free Academy are comprehensive and liberal. When this outline shall be fully filled up, its apparatus enlarged and its library rendered what in such an Institution it is indispensable it should be, it is confidently believed that, with a corps of teachers as able, and an administration as wise, orderly and efficient as those which the Free Academy fortunately now enjoys in its present Principal and Faculty, its means of instruction gratuitously offered to all, will be fully equal to those of any educational institution in the country, of whatever grade, or however richly endowed; and will be, as it now is, every way worthy of the favorable regard and support of the public.

The Free Academy affords gratuitously the means of a sound, practical, and classical education to many, who otherwise would be wholly deprived of them. It is in reality what it has been well called, "The People's College." This peculiar and distinctive feature of this new Institution, should commend it to every philanthropist and friend of popular education.

But it is not merely in the good the Free Academy directly accomplishes, that it is worthy of encouragement: drawing as it does, its pupils exclusively from the common schools of the city, it reflects back upon those schools a benign and salutary influence. This effect is already apparent, and will, it is believed, in the future, be still more operative and manifest. Whether, therefore, regard be had to the good which the Free Academy, by its direct agency, accomplishes, or the favorable influence which indirectly it does already exercise, and is destined hereafter still more largely to exert, in every aspect, this young and novel Institution is invested with peculiar interest, and deserves peculiar encouragement.

The Board of Education cannot close their preliminary remarks without alluding again to the present condition of the library and apparatus of the Free Academy, and not merely to the importance, but the indispensable necessity of an immediate and liberal increase of both, and especially of the former. It is believed that no educational institution of the character and objects of the Free Academy, ever attained to high reputation and usefulness, without these two indispensable means of instruction.

The Board, therefore, would respectfully but earnestly present this important subject to the notice and consideration of the common