IN SENATE.

The joint committee to whom was referred the resolution directing them to inquire into the expediency of making an appropriation for the purpose of encouraging the schools established and to be established in this State, combining the improvement of the mind with manual labour, have taken the same under their most deliberate consideration, and having maturely reflected upon the subject, beg leave to report that they consider the plan of combining labour with study one of great importance to the rising generation, and well deserving public patronage.

Your committee believe it will be attended with the most beneficial results to the moral and physical as well as mental powers of the subjects of this system of education, while it will greatly diminish the costs and expenses of education; so much so that it is believed that if these schools shall be put in operation and general use, which may be done, your committee believe, by the aid and fostering care of the Legislature in the employment and proper use of the means set apart for the encouragement of learning, and for the establishment of schools and academies, it would be in the power of all classes of children to receive the benefits of the most useful and even liberal education. Instead of having our young men brought up and educated in idleness and dissipation, with mind and body enervated by indolence and luxury, these schools would send them out into society well educated, industrious, practical business men, not useless drones and idling loungers, but hardy, enterprising, active, and useful members of the community.

And

These schools, under proper regulations, will educate our young men for the real business of life, and prepare them for any occupation they may wish to follow, for farmers, mechanics, and all other pursuits and professions. which is of still greater importance in the opinion of your committee, this system of education, it is believed, is calculated to exert the most salutary influence over the morals of our youth, while in the pursuit of education, and in preserving them from being contaminated with those vices and habits of dissipation to which our young men are so liable in our academies and colleges at this day under the present system of education. Believing, therefore, as your committee do, that this system is deserving at least a fair ex

periment, and perceiving that it has attracted the attention of the three principal denominations in the State, to wit:—the Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian, and that they have each established, and are making an effort to put into operation, schools upon this plan, your committee believe it to be the duty of the Legislature to aid them and other societies or associations, having for their object such laudable purposes; they therefore beg leave to offer the following resolution:

Resolved, That this Legislature feel a lively interest in the establishment of such schools in this State upon the manual labour system, and believing it to be their duty to foster them and encourage all attempts that have been or may be made for their establishment, and especially to aid the efforts now making by said denominations to bring them into operation in this State.

Resolved, That a bill be introduced in the Representative branch of the Legislature for the purposes of carrying into effect the foregoing system of education.

Agreed to, 28th November, 1834.

JACOB WOOD,

President of the Senate.

Attest-JOHN A. CUTHBERT, Secretary.

In the House of Representatives,

Concurred in, 8th December, 1834.

THOMAS GLASCOCK,

Speaker of the House of Representatives.

ATTEST JOSEPH STURGIS, Clerk.

Assented to, 12th Dec. 1834.

WILSON LUMPKIN, Governor.

IN SENATE.

The committee on public education and free-schools, to whom was referred that part of the Governor's message relative to the establishment of an institution for the education of the deaf and dumb in Georgia, having availed themselves of all the documents and correspondence furnished by that department as well as other sources of information; and having given the subject the reflection which its importance required, beg leave to submit the following report :—

In order to awaken in this General Assembly a lively interest in behalf of this unfortunate class of our fellow-citizens, it will only be necessary to show, from satisfactory data, the number of deaf and dumb persons in our State, and the extent to which their unfortunate condition may be ameliorated by a proper system of instruction. It has been satisfactorily ascertained by careful enumeration, both in Europe and in this country, that about one in every two thousand persons is of the class denominated mutes, or deaf and dumb; and farther to excite the exertions of the benevolent and elicit governmental aid for their relief, it has been demonstrated by calculations, and the fact confirmed by reference to all the institutions for their relief, that the larger portion of them are in circumstances requiring the aid of institutions for their instruction free of expense to themselves or their friends. By the census of 1830, it appears, that in the United States, in a population of about 13,000,000, there are about six thousand two hundred deaf and dumb persons; and in the State of Georgia, in about 300,000 white inhabitants, one hundred and forty-five of all ages, viz.-fifty under the age of fourteen years, fifty-one between fourteen and twenty-five, and forty-four over the age of twenty-five years. The proportion of mutes, as ascertained by the census of the United States in 1830, your committee would remark, is found to agree with that of a similar enumeration in Europe, where the subject has, for the last twenty years, received the careful attention of the benevolent and enlightened. These facts, which it is believed may be certainly relied on as correct, afford strong grounds, in the opinion of

your committee, for an appeal to this enlightened Legislature for relief in behalf of so large a portion of their fellowcitizens, whose condition, under Providence, has been thus unfortunate and dependent.

That the circumstances and condition of this unfortunate class admit of great amelioration and the most astonishing improvement, is clearly manifested by reference to the enlarged faculties and the multiplied enjoyments of those who have been subjects of instruction in institutions which the enlightened benevolence and philanthropy of the present age have established for their education. More than twenty years ago the attention of enlightened and philanthropic individuals in France was turned to this subject; and under the distinguished Abbé L'Eppee the system of instruction received a substantive form, which was improved and perfected by the scientific skill of the able Sicard, to whom mainly we owe the blessings of the system as now practised in Europe and America. It was introduced into the United States as early as the year 1817, and established by the pupils of these eminent philosophers and benefactors of mankind. Those institutions, so far as your committee can ascertain, have had their origin in associations of benevolent individuals, and received from several of the States charters and endowments; and in one instance a donation from the Congress of the United States. The American Asylum for the deaf and dumb in Hartford, Connecticut, was endowed with a grant of twenty-three thousand acres of the public lands; besides which, it receives regular appropriations from six different States for the education of the indigent deaf and dumb. There is an institution of the same character at Philadelphia, endowed by three or four different States; and as your committee are informed, another in each of the States of Kentucky, Ohio, and North Carolina. Under the benign influence of these institutions, the unfortunate deaf and dumb have been transported from intellectual darkness to all the light of cultivated intellect; and the gloomy lot, the mental inanition of the mute has been exchanged for the pleasure of society, the delight of social converse, and the gratification of epistolary correspondence; his benighted mind illumined by the rays of science and philosophy, and his soul lighted up with the truths and cheered with the hopes of the religion of a Saviour. Not less than six or seven hundred have received the benefits of education since the introduction of the system into the United States; and such is its progressive success here and abroad, that recent accounts give information of the startling fact that the dumb have been taught to

speak articulately-which is rendered, however, less to be doubted from its having been ascertained that one-half of the mutes are born with the usual senses and faculties, but are reduced to their condition by the loss of hearing in early infancy. And while benevolent associations and enlightened legislatures are vieing with each other in exertions thus to ameliorate the condition of the unfortunate, will the proud State of Georgia, with her rich resources, refuse her contribution?

But while your committee would thus invoke the aid of the Legislature in behalf of this class of our citizens, they cannot recommend the plan of establishing an institution for their benefit from the funds of the State. From all the information within their reach, and reports from the managers of the deaf and dumb asylums, it satisfactorily appears that six institutions will be sufficient for many years to educate all the deaf and dumb of the United States, even with the progressive increase of population.

Having ascertained the fact, that one in two thousand is deaf and dumb, it follows that in a population of thirteen millions, there will be something more than six thousand of this class, it is well ascertained that the births in the United States are nearly as one to twenty of our population annually; and estimating the white population of Georgia at three hundred thousand, there would be less than ten deaf and dumb children born annually in the State, deducting the proper proportion of those who would die before the age of ten (the earliest period for the commencement of their instruction), there would remain a number annually requiring the benefits of the institution, far too small to render its establishment, in the opinion of your committee, a measure of sound policy, as respects economy of expenditure; especially when the fact already mentioned is adverted to, that fully one-half are indigent, and unable to defray any portion of their expense. By the treasurer's report, it appears that the salaries of the necessary officers and instructors in the Philadelphia institution, for seventy-two scholars, amount alone to more than three thousand dollars; and the purchase of land and erecting of suitable buildings could not be estimated at less than ten thousand dollars. The amount received from pupils, able to defray their own expenses, could bear no proportion to this expense, even should the manual labour system be introduced, which has been connected with such institutions in the Northern States for more than ten years past, and which your committee would deem a most important part of the plan.