in the country-having an aggregate attendance | who have not the means of supporting themselves, of 4068 pupils. Every State in the Union, with the exception of Florida, has a public institution of the kind. The project did not stop here. A number of men, who had given much thought to the matter, took the high ground that "deafness, though it be total and congenital, imposes no limits upon the intellectual development of its subjects, save in the single direction of the appreciation of acoustic phenomena." The natural inference from this was, that it only required the necessary appliances and training to place deaf-mutes on a par intellectually with those who had the full use of their senses. Impressed with this idea, they persevered. The Honourable Amos Kendall was the leading spirit in the movement; and in order to test it, he founded, and for a time supported, an institution at Washington for the higher training of deaf-mutes. In 1857, he engaged as his assistant Mr. E. M. Gallaudet of Hartford, himself the son of a mute mother, and of a father whose life was spent in the education of mutes. Mr. Gallaudet, we are told-and we can well believe it, considering his training and experience -possessed keen insight into the workings of the deaf-mute mind, thorough belief in their capacity, and a warm desire for their intellectual, social, and spiritual elevation. He entered on his work with rare enthusiasm. He proved to the public what could be done. He pointed to the census returns, which made the startling revelation that there were nearly twenty thousand deaf-mutes in the United States. He showed statesmen the great advantages that must accrue to the country from placing these on a par with their fellow-citizens in regard to education. He at length succeeded in convincing the Senate that the Central Government was the only proper authority to undertake such a work. A college for deaf-mutes, he rightly argued, would be national in its scope and in the benefits it would confer ; for it would develop the hitherto dormant talents and energies of a large class of men. Accordingly, on the 28th of June 1864, the National College for Deaf-mutes was publicly inaugurated at Washington, and liberally endowed by Congress. Provision was made for the free admission of residents in the district of Columbia and for all whose fathers are in the military or naval service of the United States. To students from other States, who are not able to defray necessary expenses, the Board of Directors render assistance; so that hitherto the requirements of every worthy applicant have been met. This fact is a noble testimony to the enlightened educational policy of the Goverment of the United States. The course of study is almost identical with the Arts course in other American colleges. It extends over four years; and embraces Latin, Greek, French, German, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Metaphysics, Logic, Moral Philosophy, the Evidences of Christianity, Political Economy, Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology, with Drawing and Painting as optional studies. Candidates for admission must pass a searching matriculation examination; and the corporation is authorized by act of Congress to confer "such degrees in the arts and sciences as are usually granted in colleges." In an official paper, published last year, and kindly placed in my hands by President Porter, I find the following most gratifying statement:"The experience of nearly five years in the progress of the college has fully satisfied those familiar with its workings, that their assumption as to the ability of deaf-mutes to master the arts and sciences was well-founded; while at the same time the expressions of interest the enterprise has called forth from instructors of youth, from deafmutes and their friends, and from the public journals, are taken as evidence that the community approve the undertaking." Mr. Gallaudet's Report for 1870 shows the wonderful success which from the very first attended the students who graduated : “Our first three graduates were at once called to fill honourable and useful positions: one in the service of the Patent Office; one to instruct his fellow-mutes in Illinois; and the third to supply a professor's place, as tutor, in the college from which he had just graduated. "The young men of our second graduating class have also given gratifying evidence that their collegiate training has been to good purpose. One has been called to teach in the Tennessee Institution for Deaf-mutes; another has been employed in a similar manner in the Unio Institution; a third has taken an eligible position as teacher | their talents. They, as it were, liberate, in the in the new Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in persons of speaking teachers, a great amount of Belleville, Canada; the fourth is a valued clerk intellect fitted for other spheres of labour. It was in the Census Bureau; and the fifth is continuing with a true appreciation of this fact, that Mr. his studies here with the view of becoming a Secretary Cox said to the graduating class on a librarian, while he fills temporarily the position recent occasion: "It is not so essential that you of private secretary in the office of the president rise in the outside world as that you become misof the institution. The aggregate annual income sionaries among your brethren in misfortune. to-day of the nine young men who have graduated You should devote yourselves to the task of elefrom our college is 9600 dollars; giving an aver- vating them with a zeal as assiduous, with a age of more than 1000 dollars (£200) each.” fidelity as enduring, as the Jesuit displays for his vows." And to this the Report adds: "The disability of deafness interposes no obstacle to success in literary and scientific pursuits. The silent voice of the editor and the author may reach a larger audience and be more potent for good than the silvery tongue of the orator. The calm eye and steady hand of the astronomer and the chemist may gather as much that is valuable to humanity as the quick ear of the doctor or the musician. The legal lore of the closet is often of more value in the court-room than the noisy appeal of the advocate." My visit to the deaf-mute college impressed me more than anything I saw in America. It seems to me to be one of the noblest examples of Christian work ever undertaken by a Christian nation. It displays at once deep and far-seeing political sagacity, and genuine humanity. There may be a great deal of sentiment in leaving such work to be carried on by the voluntary liberality of Christian men. It may be said that charity is thus evoked where it would otherwise lie dormant. I maintain, however, that there is ample field for the outgoing of charity without trenching on the province of the State. It is a false policy, and short-sighted besides, to leave to the uncertainty, and as a general consequence the inadequacy, of individual effort, any enterprise fitted to confer general and permanent benefits upon the country. There is true statesmanship manifested in the ability to see the beneficial results to the public of raising a large class of persons, who must otherwise be a burden, to such a position as renders them an advantage to the commonwealth. As a rule, properly trained deaf-mutes form the best instructors of their fellows; and were this the only field open to them, it would be of great importance to the country to be able thus to utilize The first thing that struck me on entering the grounds was the all-pervading silence. It was almost painful. Youths were moving to and fro with every outward sign of animation; but not a voice was heard. Reaching the doors, I asked for the president. A young man whom I addressed regarded me with a look of intelligence, which showed that, though deaf, he perfectly understood my question; and motioning me to follow, he led the way to the head-master. I was welcomed with the utmost courtesy, conducted over the entire building; everything was explained, and all official documents connected with the origin and progress of the college were placed in my hands. In one room we found a little group engaged in experimental chemistry, and a pupilteacher was explaining in sign-language a complicated process of analysis. In another room three students were working out on black-boards propositions in the higher branches of mathematics, for which, the professor told me, many of them show extraordinary aptitude. I was introduced to one of them who had left a lucrative employment in an engineering establishment, in order to return to college and complete his mathematical training, so as to be qualified for the higher departments of his profession. In another room I found two classes in which I felt special interest; they were engaged in the study of Greek-reading, parsing, translating, and yet silent. The difficulties connected with pronunciation are, of course, to them unknown; but in all other respects they show as great facility in acquiring a knowledge of ancient classics as those who possess the sense of hearing. I saw a group discussing, I was told, some of those questions which now separate, or are supposed to separate, science and theology. The features of each speaker's face, and the attitude he assumed, were so expressive, that an observer could almost follow the course of the argument. In the lecture and examination rooms, writing and gesture are the sole modes of communication. The student commits his lessons by placing one hand under the table-under, in order to avoid disturbing his fellows-and spelling out each word rapidly by means of the manual alphabet. The motions of his hand resemble those of an expert telegraph operator. Sometimes, in the heat of an examination, one is seen suddenly to cease writing, ply his fingers until he has caught up the thread of an argument, and then proceed with his paper. Probably the most impressive of all the college exercises are those of the chapel. No sound of bell is heard; yet at the appointed hour the students assemble and take their places. There is no hymn of praise; there is no audible reading; there is no voice of prayer. A silence as of death reigns in that chapel; and yet God's Word is there conveyed to attentive minds, and prayer, in which all join, is offered up in that mysterious sign-language. Nowhere in the world, perhaps, can one witness a more touching illustration of that grand truth, "God is a Spirit ;" and of the lesson it teaches, that spiritual worship, in whatever form offered, is the true, and the only true, worship. RELIGION AND EDUCATION. "the school committee shall require the daily reading of some portion of the Bible." One of America's greatest statesmen has said: “Moral habits cannot be safely trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits." In carrying out their plans of national education, American statesmen have all along drawn a clear distinction between sectarianism and religion. They exclude creeds, formularies, and catechisms from their schools, because they proceed from and represent sects; but they steadfastly and consistently deny that the Bible is a sectarian book. It is, say they, the common property and the common standard of Christendom. It belongs alike to Protestant and Catholic, to all sects and to all men. They thus strike a wise mean between what has been called ecclesiastical bigotry on the one hand, and secular bigotry on the other. They hold that the fundamental principles of religion and morality can be taught apart from catechisms; and they also hold that a thorough education can never be given where the principles of religion and morality are ignored. "No one of all our citizens, we think," says a recent Report, "would wish that there should be the inculcation of denominational sentiments, or anything that would give the least bias in that direction; but there are great principles, both of morals and of religion, which are common to all, which are easy both of apprehension and of application, and which our statute law makes obligatory to be taught in all our schools." "We suppose that our Roman Catholic friends, who were op Wherever I went, in the United States, I found in each school, college, and seminary for educa-posed to the reading of the Bible in school, mistion, that the existence of a God is openly ackow- understood it as requiring their children to read ledged, his Word is read, and the obligation to the Protestant Bible. But this is not so. The worship him is admitted and acted upon. Each law guarantees them perfect liberty, if they have State in the Union has its own distinct Board of any conscientious scruples against the Protestant Education, and its own laws, with which the su- version, to read their own Bible, in whatever preme legislature cannot interfere. The laws differ version their own Church has approved. We to some extent in different States; but, so far as mean to defend them in this liberty. Their chilI have been able to ascertain, they all agree in dren shall have the same right to read their Bible laying down as the basis of education the prin- as our children have to read ours. But as to the ciples of religion and morality. "Without these," Bible, whether read in a Protestant or Romish says the Massachussett's Report, "life is a failure." version, being excluded or abused, trampled on The same Report affirms that the Bible is the or destroyed-no, not while this remains a land of standard of religion and morality, and conse- right and liberty! The Bible is too good a book, quently one of the general statues declares that too vital, too universal-it belongs too much to the world's history, and literature, and morality, and jurisprudence-it is too thoroughly interwoven with our national traditions, our morality and our legislation, to have any contempt or insult put upon it that we can remedy or prevent. In this land of light and freedom, no man shall put out its light; while every man shall be protected in reading it in any version he may choose, and interpreting it according to the dictates of his own conscience." It seems to me, that if British statesmen would only show a little of that firmness and consistency which American statesmen have shown, in legislating on national education, the religious difficulty which is now agitating the three kingdoms would very soon be solved. Designing men are playing with the weakness and vacillation of our rulers. They are agitating and threatening, that they may gain their own ends. But let our statesmen boldly affirm that this is a Christian country, and that Christian principle lies, and must ever lie, at the foundation of its constitution. Let them assert in practice, as they admit in theory, that the morality of civilized nations is not based upon Confucius, Zoroaster, the Koran, or Church Councils, but upon the Bible. Let them affirm that perfect freedom from sectarianism does not exclude the cultivation of the heart and conscience. Let them affirm, too, on the other hand, what every thoughtful man must admit, that any attempt to train our youth intellectually and morally, so as to make them enlightened and useful members of society, while altogether ignoring the religious element, is an impossibility. The facts and principles of Christianity must of necessity enter largely into every scheme of education which is at all complete or efficient. But states men must be very careful, at the same time, not to suffer the entrance of those fundamental facts and principles to be made an excuse for the introduction of creeds. The Times, it seems to me, has set this aspect of the question in its true light. In a recent acute and eloquent article, it says:-" The child is to be taught that is to say, its faculties are to be trained so as to apprehend facts, and its mind opened so as to understand their relation to itself and to one another. There is not a single branch of knowledge opened before the child which does not run away into the depths; and by avoiding as much as by dwelling on these depths the child is educated. By silence as much as by speech, by gesture as much as by word, it is taught. An object-lesson is one of the simplest exercises of the opening mind. May the teacher lead the child to think of design in the adaptation of parts of the object to its uses and ends? 'Gross superstition,' cries the objector. Is the teacher to be silent on such topics? 'Dark atheism,' answers another. Every lesson upon the natural world involves similar difficulties. The history of mankind, the distribution of man as men exist now, the points on which they agree and differ, involve new difficulties. The difficulty is everywhere. Teaching without any recognition of religion is an offence as much as teaching with it; and if every nice offence is to be a stumblingblock, we must undo what we have done, and give up national education altogether." But there is no need to give it up. The thought of doing so is a confession of cowardice. statesmen only need to be honest, consistent, determined; and agitation, generated by weakness, and fomented by vacillation, will speedily disappear. FORTITUDE.-A SONNET. HE smiling vale is sweet in summer days, When corn and mingled flowers together grow. Like living gems, they vibrate in the rays That spread through earth and heaven, one ardent glow. But ah! the scene no constancy displays; One wasting storm can lay its beauty low : Our Show me a spot majestic to the gazė, "He doth uphold. Amen, come what come may." B. JOHANNES FALK: THE PHILANTHROPIST OF WEIMAR. PART II. ABRIDGED FROM THE GERMAN OF BAUR. IN TWO PARTS. ALK'S first step was to organize the Society of "Friends in Need," who solicited subscriptions in Jena, Eisenach, and other cities, and devoted the funds thus collected to apprentice poor boys to honest tradesmen. He preferred family to institution training, and placed hundreds of children in pious families in Weimar and its vicinity. Afterwards, however, he found an institution to be indispensable to the attainment of his object. He always kept a limited number of the children in his own house new-comers, in order to learn their respective dispositions; and those who happened to be specially neglected or depraved, in order to have them under his | own eye. Boys receiving a higher culture, preparatory | to a university course, were considered as belonging to his own family. Afterwards a large number of children resided with Falk in a house built for the purpose; yet he still preserved regular intercourse with those placed elsewhere. Every evening he instructed the boys destined for the ministry in Bible history and chorale-singing. The girls of the institution were taught sewing and spinning, and all the children under the care of the society were expected to attend the Sunday school. Thus a delightful work of Christian charity sprang from the distressing exigencies of the times. The love wherewith, a century earlier, August Hermann Francke of Halle espoused the cause of the young, had begun a new career. In both cases the spring of action was the same-the love of God as manifested in Jesus Christ; and the object the same-to gain souls for the kingdom of heaven; but the means employed were very different. Falk's religious views, we may here state, cannot possibly be judged by a strictly orthodox standard. Side by side with his intense hatred of sin, which forced itself daily in a thousand forms on his view, there existed in him a warm admiration of the goodness of the human heart. He rejected the notion of education being in itself sufficient to regenerate mankind, and disliked the rationalism then prevailing at Weimar under the auspices of its leading clergyman, whose ministry he would not suffer his pupils to attend. But, on the other hand, it is to be regretted that he failed to entertain the correct scriptural view of the atonement. The anger of God at sin, the necessity of a sacrifice, and the stupendous fact that the Son of God died for sinners, he never duly realized. To him love was all in all-the Divinity whom he worshipped; and in the Saviour he beheld the most wonderful incarnation of divine love. When he looked to the Cross-as he frequently and thankfully did he was less affected by the vicarious sacrifice than by the divine example, which love inspired him with new strength to imitate. The distinguished philanthropists of that period supported Falk all the more readily, as they were not repulsed by his religious views; yet, nevertheless, in Weimar he was accounted a mystic; and orthodox Christians ne doubt acted rightly in freely according to him their sympathy and assistance. "Many and divers are the flowers in the garden of God!" exclaimed the pious Blochmann of Dresden, heartily rejoicing in Falk's labour of love. And there was indeed good reason for rejoicing: since Falk brought to his work, not only a heart glowing with love, but likewise all the freshness and versatility of his poet's nature. The experience of his youth, the sorrows of his manhood,-his deep earnestness and rich vein of humour,his acquaintance with the popular dialect and national songs,-all lent their aid in attracting the attention and rivetting the affections of the children, and awakening their intellect; and thus subserved the grand end of restoring humanity from the ruins of the fall, and redeeming God's children from the power of the evil one. Falk lived with the children, giving them of his best, and labouring early and late on their behalf. Daily and hourly he had to instruct, to reprove, to correct, or encourage. He well knew how to sound, in common conversation, the inmost depths of the young heart. Once there arrived from a neighbouring village a youngster, who, fancying he had a call to the ministry, thought it below his dignity to drive home his father's cows. Falk asked him whether he came from a town or a village? "From a village," replied the boy. "Oh, indeed; then I wonder that you need to come to Weimar to learn what a cow is. Perhaps, however, you don't know how much we owe to that valuable animal. Tell me, now: when a faithful maid-servant rises early and goes with basket and sickle to the meadow to cut the long wet grass, it rustles, does it not?" "Yes." "And when a wealthy sluggard sleeps away the fine morning behind silk curtains, they rustle too?" "Yes." "And which sound, my son, do you think God loves best to hearthe sickle in the wet grass, or the silk curtains of the sluggard?" "The sickle." "But why?" Here the wits of the young peasant came to a stand-still. "I will tell you, my son," continued Falk. "If those curtains were to rustle for ten years, what good would it do?" "None." "But if the sickle gleam in the morn ing sun for six or seven years, filling the basket with grass and clover for the cow-house, where the little calves and yearlings patiently await their fragrant food |