Alexandria Gazette, Commercial And Political

From the Connecticut Journal.
New-Haven, Oct. 23.
INTERESTING.

On Friday evening of the past week, Mr. Clerc met a number of the gentlemen of the Legislature of the town for the purpose of giving them an opportunity of witnessing the efficacy of his venerable instructor, the Abbe Sicard's mode of teaching the deaf and dumb. Mr. Clerc prepared an address for the occasion, a copy of which we lay before our readers, assuring them at the same time, on the authority of his friend, Mr. Gallaudet, that with the exception of a few corrections, which we have faithfully and minutely printed, it was entirely his own, both with regard to thought and style, without any thing being suggested, or dictated by any other person. We understand, also, that it was the fruit of about four or five hours labor. Our simple object in stating this is to show the entire efficacy of that mode of instruction which is capable of producing such results. We also add several replies which were made by Mr. Clerc to questions proposed on the spot.

Gentlemen--I am a stranger, but I hope you will deign to attend to a Frenchman who has come to America to do good. Since my arrival at your country, I have been in many of your principal towns. Everywhere I have seen numerous and public monuments of your beneficence towards humanity; establishments for the instruction of youth, retreats for the poor, hospitals for the sick, prisons for the malefactors. To my great regret I have seen none for the Deaf and Dumb persons, and nevertheless these unfortunate, who are innocent and interesting beings, deserved no less right to your benevolence.

It is a great benefit, without doubt, to rescue from their misfortune those whom nature has deprived of the sense of hearing; to restore them to society, to their families, to the cultivation of their understanding, in the same degree as if they could hear and speak; to render them proper to almost every kind of labour for the acquisition of all the arts and of all the sciences, and for filling various employments; in this manner, to bring comfort to their parents, to whom they are in the indigence a painful burthen, and in the easier and higher ranks of life a subject of affliction; to preserve perhaps some of the exalted geniuses who advance the bounds of our knowledge, who do honor to humanity, and who are its benefactors.

Pray occupy yourselves, Gentlemen, with this important object. Mingle your generosity with that of Europeans. Urge the establishment of this school. Give the example to the Legislatures of the other States of America. Call on all enlightened and feeling minds to assist you. Touch them with that ardent zeal which animates here an entire nation for every thing which tends to the instruction of infancy, to the soothing of misfortune, and to the prevention of crimes.

If those who have told me it, are correctly informed, there are more than 2000 deaf and dumb in the United States of America without education. I have seen many of them either young and old in Hartford, Boston, Salem, and N. Haven. They are, I must confess it, endowed with considerable intelligence: they have an idea of the most common uses and customs, and of what strikes the sense of sight; but who can prove to us that they may have ideas abstract qualities of the objects purely intelligible and of all that exist in the understanding? It is almost impossible to have an idea of metaphysics, the mysteries of religion, the faculties of the mind and of the heart, if at first we have not learned to write and to read. For it is in proportion as we instruct ourselves, that we can acquire the knowledge of intelligible things, and then the language of signs on intellectual things, as simple as nature is capable of extending itself like her, and of attaining the further limits of human thought.

I have conversed by signs, with those deaf and dumb abovementioned; we have understood each other perfectly well, because we have spoken of material objects; and this language is universal. I shall never forget the days in which I made acquaintance with Mr. Thomas Aspinwall, a deaf and dumb person of Roxbury, near Boston, and more especially with a young lady of about twelve years old of Hartford, and surprisingly intelligent for her age, and lately with Mr. Jones of this town. As soon as I beheld them, my face became animated: I was as agitated as a traveller of sensibility would be on meeting all on a sudden in distant regions, a colony of his countrymen. On their side, those deaf and dumb persons fixed their looks on me, and recognized me as one of themselves. An expression of surprize and pleasure enlivened all their features. I approached them. I made some signs, and they answered me by signs. This communication caused a most delicious sensation in each of us and it was for the persons who were present a scene of expression and sensibility which gave them the most heartfelt satisfaction. Thus, in making use of the natural language of signs, we could establish a rapid and universal system of communication, which supplies the want of spoken language all over the world. But gentlemen, if the deaf and dumb are happy together, those who do not know how to write and read, are not so with the persons endowed with the sense of hearing and the use of speech, because they cannot make themselves understood by them. Be then so good as to hasten their happiness; your countrymen have been too negligent of that unfortunate class of deaf and dumb; I hope you will soon rival the benevolence of Europe.

LAURENT CLERC.

Have you any idea how God could have existed from eternity?
God was before all ages: but we cannot comprehend how he is from eternity, it is a great mystery for us.

What idea have you of God?
That he is the supreme Being, by whom all exist in this world, the Creator and preserver of all visible and invisible beings.

Have you any idea of the manner in which we converse with those who are deaf and dumb?
I know that in speaking you express your thoughts by the means of the voice but I have no idea of the effect of the sound.

How long ago, and in what manner did you learn the English language?
I began to learn it at the moment in which I left France: and being on the sea, I applied myself so much, that I succeeded to make some progress.

How do deaf and dumb persons first learn the names of objects or things?
We at first draw the object in question, show it to them, make the sign of it, and write the name of that object, and make the pupils imitate the letters such as they see them, and by dint of repeating we succeed to teach the word to them.

The thanks of the meeting were expressed to Mr. Clerc by a vote, to which he immediately wrote the following reply:

Gentlemen--I am very sensible of the interest you express for me. I thank you in my turn, to have honoured me with your presence. I hope you will reflect on my address at your leisure, and pronounce on the future happiness of the poor deaf and dumb of this country. They are my brothers, and I must do for them what they would do for myself, if I was in the same situation as they are.