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History-Related Web Pages

A Father, a Son, and a University: Edward Miner Gallaudet

Gallaudet Home Page

About Laurent Clerc

Deaf Culture: Suggested Readings

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by Cathryn Carroll

Encounter
1814, Hartford, Connecticut
Puzzled, Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet seated himself outside his parents' home and stared at the little girl. As the other children played, the girl stood alone by a tree and watched them.

Gallaudet had been away—first as a college student at Yale University, then as a salesman, then as an apprentice lawyer. He had lost touch with his parents' home and their neighbors. Gallaudet called over to Teddy, his youngest brother. Twelve-year-old Teddy knew everything.

"Her name is Alice and she is 9 years old. Alice is Dr. Cogswell's daughter," Teddy said. "She lives next door."

"But why doesn't she play with the other children?" Gallaudet asked.

Teddy shrugged.

"I guess she can't," he said. "Alice is deaf."

Gallaudet's eyes returned to the little figure by the tree.

"Bring her to me," he said.

Teddy ran to Alice and led her to his big brother. Then he ran back to play with the other children.

The man and the girl looked closely at each other. Gallaudet smiled at Alice and tried to talk to her. He saw that Alice was curious, but she didn't understand a word that he said. Because of the light in Alice's young eyes, he found that he really wanted to communicate with her.

Perhaps if she could learn to write...

Taking a stick, Gallaudet scratched three letters in the sand at his feet. H-A-T, he wrote. And he gave Alice his hat.

Alice looked at his letters. Perhaps she had seen the alphabet before. But H-A-T meant nothing to her. Gallaudet rubbed the word out with his foot. Then he wrote it again and pointed to the hat in Alice's hand. He did it again and again.

Suddenly Alice nodded. The next time Gallaudet wrote H-A-T, she pointed to the hat in Gallaudet's hands.

Gallaudet laughed.

"Are you sure you don't want my handkerchief?" he asked her. Alice shook her head, pointing to the hat. Smiling, Gallaudet offered he a twig and then a stone. Smiling, Alice shook her head. H-A-T only meant "hat." She knew it.

Statue of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and Alice Cogswell at Gallaudet Univeristy

Then Alice grew very serious.

She pointed to herself.

At first Gallaudet did not understand. He was laughing, still trying to play their new game.

Then he realized what Alice wanted. She wanted to know her own name. Gallaudet stopped laughing.

He took the stick and wrote in big letters A-L-I-C-E. Alice stared. It was a longer word that H-A-T. She pointed to herself and then the letters just to be sure. Gallaudet nodded.

Alice took the stick from Gallaudet's hands. She wanted to practice writing her name herself.

Dr. Cogswell came home, and his daughter ran to meet him. While Gallaudet watched, Alice dragged her father over to meet her new friend. Gallaudet knew Dr. Cogswell, of course, and the older man smiled and shook his hand.

"Watch this," Gallaudet told him, trying not to sound too proud.

Then he handed Alice his hat.

Alice grinned and handed the hat to her father. Then she grabbed her writing stick. H-A-T she stroked into the ground. Surprised and happy, Dr. Cogswell bent down to hug his daughter.

Alice squirmed away. She had another word to show her father. Gallaudet helped her write it: A-L-I-C-E.

As excited as he was, Gallaudet only got more excited as he watched the doctor's face. Dr. Cogswell was almost crying.

Mason Cogswell		Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet

Let's Start a School!
"No one knows how to teach deaf people in American," Dr. Cogswell explained to Gallaudet later.

But there were schools in France and England, he said excitedly. In England, the deaf children watch their teachers' lips. In France, deaf children use sign language. Dr. Cogswell had a copy of the book from the French school for the deaf. The book showed how deaf people in France used their fingers to spell words. He showed it to Gallaudet. Gallaudet turned the pages eagerly. He twisted his hands and fingers, trying to make the strange hand shapes.

Gallaudet and Cogswell began to ask people for money to help pay for a trip to Europe. Gallaudet would go and find out how to teach deaf children, and he would start an American school for deaf children in Hartford, Conn.

One of the biggest churches in America asked Gallaudet to come and be its minister. Thomas Gallaudet refused. Instead, he started to work with Alice—and to plan for his trip to Europe.

It's a Secret 1815, London, England
After they raised enough money, Gallaudet sailed to Europe on a ship. His first stop was in London, England. He was disappointed there. The school for deaf children was owned by a family named Braidwood and run by Joseph Watson, a nephew. Watson and the Braidwoods did not welcome Gallaudet. The way that they taught deaf children was a secret. If Gallaudet agreed to work at their school for three years, then they might share their secret with him.

Three years!

But that was not all. The Braidwoods told Gallaudet that he would have to promise to keep their secret, even back in America. He could tell no one else how to teach deaf children! Further, when he returned to America, he must take a member of their family with him. A Braidwood must be the assistant in his new school.

Gallaudet made an important decision. His answer was no.

Laurent Clerc

The Teachers from France
Gallaudet was surprised to learn that French teachers of deaf students were visiting London. They were demonstrating French teaching methods to the English people. Gallaudet saw an advertisement for their demonstration.

Of course, he went to see it. Two of the French teachers were deaf. They were Jean Massieu, and older man, and Laurent Clerc.

At the demonstration, Massieu and Clerc answered questions from their audience in signs and writing. They wrote their answers on two large chalkboards for all to see.

Gallaudet had never seen sign language. Now he watched amazed as Clerc and Massieu used signs to answer questions. Their answers were clever, he thought.

For example, one man asked Clerc:

"Which do you like better, English or French women?"

Clerc smiled. "I like them both equally," he said diplomatically.

Watching the two deaf teachers, Gallaudet realized that words could be signed as well as spoken and written. He realized that the hands and voice were equally able to express ideas, feeling, and whatever someone wanted to communicate.

After the demonstration, he went to meet the men from France.

"Come to our school!" they told him.

No talk of money. No talk of secrets. No promise to work for them for years. They could teach Gallaudet all they could for free. All he had to do was let them.

Good Signs 1816, Paris, France
Gallaudet showed up at the school for deaf children and stayed for two months. First he took lessons from Jean Massieu, then from Laurent Clerc.

Gallaudet talked often with Clerc. He knew a little French, and Clerc knew a little English. Clerc thought Gallaudet was learning signs quickly—at least for a hearing man.

Clerc agreed to travel to the United States and help Gallaudet start his school. He would teach Gallaudet sign language. Further, he would prove to the American people that deaf people could become well-educated.

Gallaudet looked at the deaf teacher from France.

And he was thrilled!

Alice Goes to School 1817, Hartford, Connecticut

A page from Alice Cogswell's journal

Alice Cogswell and six other deaf students entered the school that would become the American School for the Deaf, (From 1819 to 1895, the school was known as the American Asylum at Hartford for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb) the oldest school for deaf students in the United States. Gallaudet was the principal. Gallaudet and Clerc were the teachers.

Later that year, Sophia Fowler, a pretty teenager, and her sister, Parnel, entered the school. When Sophia graduated, Thomas asked Sophia to marry him. They had eight children.

The American School for the Deaf as it looked in 1821

1830
Gallaudet retired from his job as principal of the school for deaf children in 1830. By that time, hundreds of deaf students were learning how to read and write. There were schools for deaf children in New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Ohio. Gallaudet spent the rest of his life writing and preaching. He wrote to support education for deaf people and sign language. He also wrote children's books.

He was 64 years old when he died in 1851.

Epilogue

In 1864, Gallaudet's youngest son, Edward Miner Gallaudet, helped start the world's first college for deaf students and became the college's first president. The college was later called Gallaudet University, after Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet.

Chapel Hall, Gallaudet University

Every year, students graduate from Gallaudet University and go on to become doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, botanists...whatever they want to be.

Gallaudet University is a beacon of educational opportunity for deaf people around the world.

Suggested Readings
Carroll, C. (1991). Laurent Clerc: The Story of His Early Years. Washington, DC: Kendall Green Publications/Gallaudet University Press.

Neimark, A. E. (1983). A Deaf Child Listened: Thomas Gallaudet, Pioneer in American Education. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc.