of body and mind, as free exercise in the open air; to say nothing of the other important purposes for which portions of the grounds may be required.

The same unparalleled growth of our city which makes the occupation and control of this ground necessary to the Institution, also makes the measure a safe pecuniary investment. Such portions of the grounds as we may find can be spared, will, within a few years, bring a greatly enhanced price; and can be sold under conditions that will prevent their being occupied by buildings, the neighborhood of which would be undesirable. And if, hereafter, the locality shall become too close and confined for the purposes of the Institution, the whole can then be sold for a sum sufficient to refund both principal and interest of the present cost.

Since this purchase was made, much anxiety has been caused to the friends of the Institution, by the measure of opening Forty-ninth street through these grounds. To divide by a public thoroughfare the grounds into two long and narrow portions, will be a serious inconvenience, besides materially restricting the space available for the purposes of the Institution. Neither, in our view, is the measure called for by considerations of public convenience; as Fiftieth-street is already open, and there is no impediment to the opening of Forty-eighth street. The board did not fail to urge these considerations before the proper authorities, but its representations were ineffectual to arrest the measure.

The number of pupils returned to the last Legislature was two hundred and twenty-two. Of these thirty-nine have left, and one has been removed by death. During the year just closed, forty-one have been admitted, and four former pupils readmitted. The number of pupils resident in the Institution on the 31st December, 1850, as will appear by the accompanying catalogue, is two hundred and twenty-seven.

Including graduates of the Institution employed as teachers, or in the domestic and mechanical departments, the whole number of deaf mutes resident in the Institution, is two hundred and forty-two.

Of the pupils, one hundred and sixty are beneficiaries of the State; sixteen of the city; thirteen of the State of New-Jersey. Their own friends defray, in whole or in part, the expenses of twenty-four; and the remainder, fourteen, are boarded and instructed gratuitously by the Institution. These last, as in former years, are mostly children selected by the Superintendent of common schools, in anticipation of vacancies in the State list, a certain number of whom are received at the beginning of every term. By this arrangement, among other desirable results, the State list is kept full without the necessity of receiving pupils in the middle of the term, when there are no classes in which they can advantageously be placed.

The health of the Institution has seldom been better than during the past year. We have not been afflicted with any general season of sickness; the cases of severe illness have been few; and the only death we have to record, in the household, was the case of a female pupil, who came to us with a constitution so impaired, that had medical skill been able to prolong her life, it could afford no hopes of permanent health. Another death by consumption occurred during the year, some months after the patient had returned home to her friends.

For the general condition of the Institution, and especially for the improvement of the pupils in all the ordinary branches of an English education, we would refer to the testimony of the gentleman who, in the absence of the Secretary of State, and by his appointment, conducted the annual examination on the part of the State. We anticipate that the report of this gentleman, (Rev. Mr. Day, formerly an instructor of the deaf and dumb,) which will be made to the department, will prove highly satisfactory and valuable from his intimate acquaintance with the subject of deaf-mute instruction, no less than from his high personal character, and from the reputation he acquired by his very able report on the schools for the deaf and dumb in Central and Western Europe, annexed to our twenty-sixth annual report.

Mention was made in our last report of the proposed convention of American instructors of the deaf and dumb, the holding of which, in 1849, was prevented by the prevailing epidemic.

This danger having providentially passed away, the call was renewed, and in the month of August last instructors from seven institutions, and members of the board, together with several former teachers of the deaf and dumb, and some other gentlemen interested in the subject of deaf-mute education, met at the New-York Institution, and devoted three days to the discussion of the best means of improving the moral, intellectual, and social condition of the deaf and dumb,, and of diffusing more widely among them the blessings of education. The occasion was one of great interest; and we trust has given a new impulse to the good cause in which the members of the convention were laboring. At the suggestion of the Secretary of State, (who gave a new proof of his devotion to all the educational interests. of the State by attending the convention, of which he was chosen the presiding officer,) the proceedings of the convention are annexed to this report. It is hoped that similar conventions will be held annually hereafter.

One of the most important fruits of this convention yet realized, has been the establishment of a quarterly periodical, devoted to the cause of the deaf and dumb, the common property, as to its control and management, of the different American institutions. Such a periodical devoted to the discussion of different methods, the explanation of new improvements in the processes of instruction, or school-room arrangements, the record of facts bearing on the psychological state of the deaf and dumb, and other kindred topics, while it will exert a beneficial influence on the progress of the art, will, in time, form a valuable library of reference to young men having this branch of instruction in view. This last consideration is one of great importance. According to the lowest estimates, our population is destined to reach a hundred millions within a litle more than another half century; and among these there will probably be fifty thousand deafmutes, ten thousand of whom will be of the age to attend school, requiring the services of five hundred teachers. In view of this, more provision should evidently be made for training up teachers. Such a periodical, we trust, will tend also to diffuse among the body of well educated men, just and clear views on a subject correctly understood by very few of those who are not immediately interested in it.

In accordance with a resolution of the convention, a memorial has been presented to the Secretary of the Interior, requesting that a complete list of all the deaf-mutes in the United States be extracted from the original returns of the census of 1850, with all the particulars of age, occupation, place of birth, whether able to read or not, etc., and we have the pleasure of saying that the request of this memorial will be complied with. Such a list will furnish valuable materials, never possessed to any extent before, for solving many highly interesting statistical questions, and its publication is looked for with much interest. We shall endeavor in our next annual report, to set forth the results of a careful comparison and analysis of the census returns respecting the deaf and dumb.

We have, in former reports, particularly in the twenty-seventh, endeavored to urge upon parents and friends of deaf-mute children, the very great importance of early attention to the careful intellectual and moral training, at home, of their interesting charge. It is too often the case, that deaf-mute children are almost entirely neglected in the early years of childhood. Parents, who will freely incur any trouble or expense in the fallacious hope of restoring the lost faculty of hearing, strangely neglect the means by the diligent use of which this loss will cease to be felt as a calamity.

The question has been warmly argued, whether the early home education of a deaf-mute child is best conducted by the language of signs, or by the use of words in simple phrases, spelled on the fingers. In our view, the former mode is the readiest, and promises the surest and speediest results. Experience has shown, that when words are used in daily colloquial intercourse with a deaf-mute, there is a constant tendency to form a broken dialect scarcely intelligible to those unaccustomed to it; and it requires much more time and labor on the part of the friends to teach it even a broken and imperfect dialect of words than to form with it quite a precise and copious dialect of signs. We would, however, counsel that as many words as possible be taught by means of the manual alphabet. They will greatly aid in making the dialect copious and precise.

By early home education, we mean the development of the intellectual faculties and moral sentiments, the early exercise of the memory and judgment, which can take place only when there is a ready means of communicating with the deaf child; when, in short, there is a dialect established between the deaf mute and his parents and daily associates, sufficient not merely for necessary communications touching food, raiment, the labors of the day, etc., but for the mutual narrative of piquant incidents, for inquiring into motives, for expressing judgments on the moral or prudential character of actions, even in some measure for the lively interchange of jest and repartee; and after further cultivation, for imparting some ideas of distant countries, or of past periods of history. We have known deaf-mute children who, by the diligent cultivation, in the family, of such a dialect, have been restored to a good share of the social enjoyment and of the early intellectual development from which their misfortune had seemed utterly to exclude them.

It is hardly necessary to say that children thus early accustomed to think, to converse, to observe and remember, when they come to school are the most forward and encouraging pupils of their class, and usually most fully reward the labor of their teacher, and realize the fond hopes of their friends.

The readiest mode of forming such a dialect is by cultivating the acquaintance of some intelligent deaf-mute, or of some person who has associated with deaf-mutes and learned their language. When this is not practicable, recourse may be had to the directions in our twenty-seventh report, copies of which may be obtained by application at the office of the Secretary of State, or at the Institution.

We have repeatedly had occasion to acknowledge the liberality with which the State has provided for the instruction of all the deaf-mute children whose kindred have not the means of defraying the expenses of their education. Under the fostering care of the Legislature an Institution has been built up, which in the opinion of intelligent and candid observers, is second to none in the world, in its means of imparting a thorough education, in the most comprehensive sense of the word. Instruction in the