DEDICATION OF THE GALLAUDET MONUMENT
(1854)
In September 1851, just one year after the grand reunion in Hartford, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet died from a form of dysentery. His passing prompted an outpouring of tributes. The directors at the American Asylum called him “a central power in a movement destined to effect great good in the world.”1 Harvey Peet, the president of the New York school, praised Gallaudet’s skill in pantomime, teaching, and especially religious instruction. The Christian Examiner pronounced him a “great man.” But perhaps no tribute was as meaningful as that from deaf Americans themselves.
Shortly after Gallaudet’s funeral, Thomas Brown called a meeting in Vermont to discuss the idea of a monument. An association was formed, with Laurent Clerc as its president. He appointed agents in various states to solicit contributions from deaf people. Albert Newsam, a deaf artist in Philadelphia, prepared the plans for the monument. John Carlin designed a prominent bas relief that showed Gallaudet teaching in a schoolroom, with three students around him. Another panel had the name “Gallaudet” in letters of the manual alphabet, represented by sculpted hands. The association raised the amount of money needed for construction of the monument in two years. A hearing man, James Batterson of Hartford, executed the work. It was a little more than twenty feet high, made of marble, and had a granite base.
On September 6, 1854, the monument was dedicated on the grounds of the American Asylum. Attendees included deaf people from all over the country and many citizens from the Hartford vicinity. Clerc gave a short address. Carlin was the orator of the day, giving one of his trademark speeches, filled with allusions and lofty rhetoric. Excerpts of both presentations follow.
The Gallaudet Monument
The effort to raise funds for the monument also led to the establishment of a permanent organization to honor Gallaudet, the New England Gallaudet Association of the Deaf. It was the first of many associations of deaf citizens in the United States, and marked another step in the coalescence of the American deaf community.
Clerc’s Address
It is very gratifying to the graduates of the several Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb of the United States, to behold so many distinguished gentlemen and ladies here present, on the occasion of raising a monument to perpetuate the memory of the friend and teacher that mutes can never forget, the Rev. Dr. Gallaudet. It is a modest but elegant monument, at a cost of about two thousand five hundred dollars, wholly raised from the contributions of the deaf and dumb; for none who can hear and speak have been allowed to contribute one cent. …2
Mr. Gallaudet … was a good man. His physiognomy was the type of his goodness and mildness. In his manners and conduct there was nothing affected. He had the wisdom becoming a man of his age and profession. He was not ambitious, nor mercenary. He was content with what he received. His forte, however, was not the dexterous management of the perplexing business of so large an Institution; the school-room was the true arena for the display of his great abilities and greater affections. He made good scholars, many of whom we are happy to see here, expressing with tearful eyes their gratitude to him, who first brought them to speak and hear.3 No bigot was he, although strict in his religious passions. He was not too denunciatory of others’ faults; for so persuaded was he that genuine repentance can only come through the grace of God, that he loved to pray for sinners rather than reprove, when reproof only served to irritate. We therefore saw nothing in his piety but what ministered to our improvement and edification. His mind was well cultivated. His knowledge was extensive, and taste so correct, that in his usual conversation there appeared to be nothing but good taste and correct reasoning. When in discussion with others, he was deep as the sea, smooth as oil, and adroit as Talleyrand. Methinks, we are under vast obligations to such a man, who knew how to say thousands of fine things, but was always willing to say common ones, in order to accommodate himself to the capacity of those with whom he talked. No person knew better how to speak to others of what he himself knew, and of what he knew would please his listeners. He was a man of uprightness and equity. Neither greatness, nor favor, nor rank, could seduce or dazzle him. In a word, he was one of the best men who ever lived; benevolent, obliging, and kind to everybody. No wonder, therefore, that he was beloved by all the deaf and dumb.
Carlin’s Oration
Ladies and Gentlemen:
This day—the sixth of September, a day to be remembered—has come, and we are on this occasion to witness the consummation of our work. We now behold there standing in graceful proportions the MONUMENT, reared to the memory of the First (next to our own illustrious Washington) in the hearts of the deaf mutes of America—Rev. Dr. Thomas H. Gallaudet. It is a substantial testimonial of our deep gratitude for his disinterested labors in promoting our mental and religious welfare, and of our high appreciation of his sterling worth.
As there is much reason to believe that this is the first monument in the world that has ever been erected by a community exclusively deaf and dumb, how exquisite is the satisfaction with which we look upon ourselves as its founders! What a source of gratification flowing through our veins while we contemplate this glorious result of our silent labors, commenced and accomplished within so short a time! Conscious as we may feel of its unassuming dimensions and moderate cost, let us congratulate ourselves upon our promptitude in raising up to the public gaze this symmetrical marble pile, to demonstrate the truth that our (the deaf mutes’) warm hearts are not destitute of one of the brightest virtues of man—GRATITUDE! Oh, may the fact that it is our own work, devised and supervised by our minds—once darkened, but now disenthralled from the horrible meshes of ignorance—enhance the value of our Institutions in the eyes of the public!
Verily, my heart experiences sensations of pleasure from seeing so many mutes assembled here to enjoy the happy day, whose faces are stamped with such intelligence, and whose minds are endowed with such capacity of subjecting language to their wishes to represent their ideas. …
My mute friends. What deeds of the soul were perpetuated by Dr. Gallaudet so as to deserve this grateful tribute? Was he an eminent statesman, who our national senatorial floor, coped with the GREAT TRIO—Clay, Calhoun and Webster—flinging upon their heads his vivid thunderbolts of forensic eloquence?4 No! He was too gentle in disposition, too modest to venture into that great political arena. Was he then a military genius, leading our little band of brave men victoriously from Palo Alto to Buena Vista, or from the impregnable castle of San Juan d’Ulloa, overlooking sullenly Vera Cruz, to the ancient halls of Montezuma?5 Oh no! he was too much of an evangelical messenger of God, blessed with a most fraternal heart, to relish the sight of human blood shed on the gory battleground. …
Nay, his achievements were of the pure benevolence, which, in a philosophical sense, were equal to those of Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott in promoting the glory of our Republic.6
Before Dr. Gallaudet, whose soul was penetrated with the vital importance of the mission imposed upon his willing shoulders, embarked for Europe to acquaint himself with the mysteries of deaf-mute instruction, all the deaf mutes of this country were ignorant heathen!7 Their minds were desolately blank! How vacantly their eyes wandered over the printed letters of the Holy Scriptures! In truth, they were absolutely isolated from society, even in the midst of civilization, where speaking men pursued their avocations in Arts, Sciences, Commerce, and Manufactures, besides their legislative, municipal, judiciary and ecclesiastical halls, and speaking women with their various female accomplishments moved in the elevated spheres allotted to them; and where schools, colleges and universities existed under such propitious auspices, with speaking students promising to grace their country by their brilliant talents and usefulness to the commonwealth.
But when he, in his return home with the precious knowledge of the art in his keeping, landed on his native shores, Ignorance, who hitherto wielded her gross sway over the minds of the deaf and dumb, was startled at his unexpected arrival, and retreated scowling all the time before the steady approach of Enlightenment! The desponding parents wiped their tears, and looked with swelling gratitude for the blessed day their unfortunate children might be sent to his school! His landing here on the sixth of August, 1816, was the epoch, as glorious as it was memorable, of our deliverance from the degradation to which we were unavoidably consigned. Columbus landed on the newly discovered continent and secured the glory and wealth of his royal patrons, and ended his days—in disgrace, with his ungrateful sovereigns. Cortes and Pizarro sought their own aggrandizement in wealth by rapine, and in power by usurpation, in the auriferous regions of Mexico and Peru, and died, unwept, despised and cursed even by their own men who fought with them. But how different the scene was when Dr. Gallaudet landed here without any imposing array of followers, save one foreigner, and converted the mutes’ heathendom into a grand field of benevolence, and he died, rich in faith in his Savior and in our love and gratitude.
Nevertheless, there were two serious obstacles in his way, namely, the want of money to commence his operations with, and his proverbial diffidence blended with modesty; yet, with the valuable services of that foreigner—a Frenchman whom he brought over from Abbé Sicard’s school at Paris—his love for the deaf and dumb surmounted the latter obstacle by undergoing the exceedingly unpleasant ordeal of soliciting and collecting money from the benevolent in several of our principal cities; and with funds thus obtained he established an infant institution in this goodly city; though in a literal sense he was not its founder, for the late Dr. Cogswell of Hartford, who indeed fathered that grand idea, was fully entitled to the honor. And how gratifying it is to say that the result of that deed of Dr. Gallaudet’s soul was thirteen institutions, which sprung forth in full vigor and beauty in the United States, and in which thousands of mute heathen have been enlightened! Blessed be his name which he bequeathed to us to be chiseled in our manual alphabet on this monument! Oh, let his memory be cherished constantly in our hearts, and those of the mutes of succeeding generations! May more institutions be produced with all possible dispatch, one or more in each state, according to the capacity of its legislature to maintain their existence, and thousands of benighted souls be thereby enlightened brought to the footstool of Jesus Christ, whom Dr. Gallaudet adored with the childlike simplicity and humility of a sincere Christian. …
Whilst we move on in our pilgrimage toward the Valley of Death, let us look back always to the day we have been here, and contemplate with pleasing emotions the virtues and benevolence of the American Abbé de l’Epée,8 to whose memory our hearts have been concentrated in this modest yet graceful Monument!
1. This and the following quotes are from Edward Miner Gallaudet, Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet: Founder of Deaf-Mute Instruction in America (New York: Henry Holt and Co., 1888), 329–31.
2. In their special tribute to Gallaudet and Clerc in 1850, and their insistence on erecting their own monument to Gallaudet, we can discern how deaf Americans increasingly viewed themselves as a distinct group.
3. Clerc writes metaphorically here. He implies that, by helping deaf people to learn both sign language and written English, Gallaudet enabled them to transcend their deafness.
4. Henry Clay (1777–1852), John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), and Daniel Webster (1782–1852) were prominent congressmen during the first half of the nineteenth century. Together, they crafted the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which helped temporarily to resolve the slavery issue. All three had recently died.
5. Carlin alludes to battle sites of the Mexican War, which had concluded six years before with a United States victory. Palo Alto, Texas, was the location of the war’s first major battle in 1846. Buena Vista, the site of another U.S. victory in 1847, was the single bloodiest conflict of the war. In March 1847, U. S. troops landed in Vera Cruz, the first step toward their ultimate goal of Mexico City. Montezuma’s Castle, in Arizona, is a cliff ruin left by the prehistoric Sinagua Indians; it was actually abandoned almost a century before the Aztec emperor Montezuma (1466–1520) was born.
6. Generals Zachary Taylor (1784–1850) and Winfield Scott (1786–1866) commanded the American troops in the Mexican War. Taylor also was the president of the United States from 1849 to 1850.
7. For more on the use of “heathen” and the status of deaf people before education, see p. 37, n. 2; and p. 41, n. 2. Carlin’s elevated rhetoric, like Spofford’s at the 1850 Grand Reunion, suggests a mythologizing of the Gallaudet–Clerc story at work.