as the hearing, all our institutions
being supported mainly by the Government. It was long doubted that the
deaf could master the higher branches of study, and it has been reserved
for this college to see if they can. In this country we have the deaf as
teachers, lawyers, chemists, artists, clergymen, editors, &c. Many take
a most creditable rank among the hearing persons in their professions.
Among the graduates of this college will be found some of the most
intelligent and best educated deaf mutes in the world. The college is
the only one of its kind in existence. Two young men from the old world
have come all the way here to obtain an education which they could not
get at home. They are cordially welcomed, and we hope many more will
come until the time arrives when they have a college of their own, where
they may acquire the advantages of a high and liberal education. Mr.
Francis Maginn, son of the Rev. C. A. Maginn, county Cork, was then
introduced to Canon Farrar, and his address read by Dr. Gallaudet. "As
one of the two students from Europe just alluded to by my friend, I have
the pleasure of welcoming my distinguished countryman, Archdeacon
Farrar, to Washington. Having acquired the rudiments of my education in
the metropolis of Great Britain, where you from Sunday to Sunday expound
the unsearchable riches of Christ, and being a native of Ireland, where
my father ministers in the Church of Ireland, it is but natural I should
express my deep gratification that you should have come amongst my
American brethren in affliction. I am sure, sir, that you have felt as I
have done when coming to the great and prosperous United States, that
the American people is one of which we may well be proud--a great and
highly civilised people, with whom we are connected by every tie of
blood, and every relation of business--they are a people who bear our
civilisation, in many things improved, our language, literature, laws,
and religion. In an educational point of view the nation is prominent,
and her silent children have the advantages of spacious institutions,
supported by her revenues. It is greatly to be regretted that our
brethren in Great Britain enjoy none of these elaborate advantages of
intellectual culture. Whilst Mr. Foster's Act benefits thousands, and
while $15,000,000 are annually voted for the masses, one third of the
mutes of right school age are being left uneducated. What that means,
the English have no conception, o