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mcc-jrr_624-012
Unnamed Cemetery, 62-4 Summary Report, page 12
6In other countries, schools of this class had been sustained entirely by private charity, and had had only transient means of support. The founders of the school at Hartford, while availing themselves of private charity to put it in operation, and demonstrate the need of it, and its ability to meet that need, at once set to work to put it on a reliable basis of support. In October, 1816, the Legislature of Connecticut was appealed to for aid and made an appropriation of five thousand dollars. In 1819, the Congress of the United States, under a motion made by Henry Clay, gave to the school twenty-three thousand acres of public land, and with the proceeds of the sale of this land grounds were secured, suitable buildings erected, and a permanent fund provided. In 1819, Massachusetts provided by legislative appropriation for the education of twenty indigent pupils here. In 1825, New Hampshire and Vermont adopted the same policy of educating their deaf-mute children here at the expense of the State. Other States soon followed this good example. Thus, through the efforts of the founders of this school the humane, just, and wise policy of educating deaf-mutes at the public expense was firmly established in this country, and has been adopted by almost every State in the Union. In some of the Western States means for the education of deaf-mutes are secured by Constitutional provision. This has put the schools for deaf-mutes in the United States on a better basis, financially, than those in any other part of the world. AN ACT TO ALTER THE NAME OF THE ASYLUM. 88 At a General Assembly of the State of Connecticut, holden at Hartford in said State, on the first Wednesday of May, Anno Domini 1819: 89 Upon the petition of the “Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons,” showing to this assembly, that the said institution, although styled the Connecticut Asylum, was originally founded for the relief of the Deaf and Dumb wherever situated, and that no preference has ever been given to applicants for admission on account of their local residence. And that, in consideration that the Congress of the United States have very liberally granted, for the use of the Asylum, a township of land, and in consideration also of the contributions of charitable individuals in the other States in the Union, the members of the corporation are desirous of changing its corporate name so that in future it be called “The American Asylum at Hartford, for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.” 12 - (2310)