12 Document No. 7. [Session
aided by the " Academy of Science and Arts." With this
event a grand impetus was given to the work which has
resulted in spreading it over the civilized world.
About the year 1832, the first Institution was established
in the United States, and within eighteen years thereafter,
nineteen others had been founded in the different States.
Think back one short century ago of the condition of the
blind, and then compare it with the present ! What a
mighty change ! The revolution has been only the victory
which Christianity has gained over sin, ignorance and
shame.
THE DEAF AND DUMB.
In early times those who were deaf and dumb occupied a
peculiar situation. The idea of educating them seems never
to have occurred to the ancients. In many instances the
authorities, if they did not publicly approve of the crime,
connived at the destruction of such children. Among the
Hindoos a most shameful law was enacted, which solemnly
decreed that whoever was " deaf from infancy" should not
inherit any estate. The Justinian Code excluded persons
who were deaf and dumb from the management of their own
affairs, and classed them among the insane and idiotic.
In their last hours, upon their death bed, they had not
even the poor privilege of designating the one to whom
their estate should descend. The Feudal Governments of
Europe took their idea in this regard from the Justinian Code
and adopted the same harsh, rigorous, unjust rule. The ad-vent
of Christianity protected them from murder, it is true,
but still left them the companions of the idiot and the maniac.
Without education, with their minds shut up, with no hope
for improvement, they passed through life unnoticed and
uncared for. Indeed, they were reduced to the painful ne-cessity,
pressed by hunger, of stretching forth their hands,
and in silence, appealing for the alms they were unaoie to
ask for.
