Graduated from Yale, Gallaudet attempted at many different professions. When he was expected to settle down as the minister of one of the churches at age 27, his attention was drawn to Alice Cogswell, who had been a deaf-mute since her infancy. Anxious to educate his childhood playmate Alice, the philanthropic young man decided to go abroad to study the best European methods of teaching deaf-mutes. A group of citizens in Hartford with the same interest helped Gallaudet surveyed the number of deaf-mutes in the region. Records have showned that there were at least eighty deaf-mutes in Connecticut and probably four hundred in New England. Moved by such humane cause, the state immediately formed the "Connecticut Asylum for the education of deaf and dumb persons", and made her first appropriation of five thousand dollars to the new institution. In the meantime, Gallaudet pursued his quest of methods in both London and Paris. He brought back Laurent Clerc, a deaf-mute taught by an European educator, to help him in the establishment of his American Institution. The little experimental school, opened in 1817, grew from seven to thirty-one pupils within a year and succeeded in teaching deaf-mutes to read and write, read lips, and talk by manual signs. Following Gallaudet's foot steps, numerous schools for the deaf and dumb were found in the next thirty-five years in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Tennesee, Illinois, North Carolina, Georgia, South Carolina, Missouri, and Michigan.
VIDEO! This is a link about Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet meeting Alice Cogswell. It is a youtube video in sign language and should be opened up directly through a proxy.
Fervent Humanitarian for Educating the Blind
Samuel Gridley Howe
Equivalent to Gallaudet in religious and humanitarian fervor, Howe spent much of his time after Harvard Medical School fighting for the independence of Greece. After the success in that endeavor, Howe continued searching for the material on the education of the blind. The first school he opened up was at his own home. While housing six pupils, Howe invented books with raised letters from scrap to teach his pupils how to read geometrical diagrams and geographical maps. As soon as his pupils were ready to be presented to public, Howe took them onto exhibitions to arouse the interests of the society on this matter. Touched by Howe and his work, Colonel Perkins offered his spacious house to establish a school for the blind. Women of Boston assissted in raising fund for the new institution. Within six weeks, the Perkins Institute was established. Determined to make books for the blind numerous, cheaper, and easily handled, Howe spent nights and days studying all the techniques, equipments, and details, including size of type, thickness of paper, the height of the letters. Furthermore, to incorporate his work with his religious fervor, he cooperated with the American Bible Society to produce a vast amount of Bible in raised type.
TRIVIA: VIDEO! Do you know the song "Battle Hymn of the Republic?" It is a song made by Howe's wife Julia Ward Howe. This is a youtube link and should be directly opened up through a proxy.