Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-05-09
What Kendall Green Has Done.

To the Editor Of The Evening Star:
The reports Of the exercises on presenta-
ton day at Kendall Green give the ad-
dress OF President Gallaudet. in which
he mOdestly said the question to determine
was whether this college for deaf mutes
had In forty years done all that might be
expected OF 1t for the great expenditure Of
money, and whether its future answered ar
frmatiyely. us 1t worth the while?'
The writer of this became deaf from
cerebro spinal meningitis. growing out of a
cold contracted at Forepaugh's circus on
that awful Monday night in early April.
1881. which crippled many others for life
and from which some got their very deaths.
To me, giancing back through these TWEEN
ty-three years OF total deafness. one OF the
NOSE evident things of general import
Is the fact that there are no pupils in the
public schools or any other schools of
WIN not finish my schooling with the deaf
and dumb" / think President Gallaudet's
institutions are above all else just what is
needed. When there is such an Institution
for the blind, then will our great educa-
tional system be nearer completion and
nearer the ideal.
When I went first to Kendall Green 1
thought 1t was to go to st. Elizabeth's, and
nearly jumped out of the little H street
bob-tai1 horse car just after crossing the
Baltimore and Ohio tracks and came upon
the Home for the Aged of the Little Sisters
of the Poor. Ciinging to my fond fathers
hand we entered the gates Of Kendall
Green.
Father pointed out the four-foot wall
and asked II / saw any barred windows
and the first deaf and dumb inmate" we
met was cousin of my stepmother. an
M. A. of the college graduating in June Of
that year. I went home next day to say,
why, 1t Is nothing but a boarding school
The books given me were like all other
school books-the arithmetic being pretty
hard, but the grammar an easy bOok-a
baby lookout found it much otherwise
when we got to analysing sentences OF
Berards English History in March's and
Porter's diagrams.
had here, at fifteen, the opportunity or
my life to get liberal education. / had
the chance to get diploma and degree as
soon as any of my fortunate classmates
or younger schoolmates at st. Johns Acad-
envy. in Alexandria, or the old Norfolk
/ need not follow this further, but let me
mention one like myself-Edward Strecth OF
Lafayette, Ind. At ten he became deaf
from cerebral meningitis and at twenty
one, had his life been spared few months,
he would have graduated at Gaiiaudet,
class of 1874, with its highest honors This
poor fellow became consumptlve. Inc
disease was slow and he suffered all the
while, and with the worm gnawing at his
very yftals he seemed stronger and more
resolute. Two weeks before his death this
young man, who knew what hearing was
and what that Kendall Green institution
can be to a great number, wrote his sis
ter, and In that letter are found these
words:
ut win take away half the bitterness or
death to have been allowed to learn some
thing: to have obtained one glimpse across
the hills and valleys of that promised land
Of perfect knowledge. perfect love, perfect
purity. where men no longer see as through
glass darby for such I take to be the
true result Of study. The more one learns
the clearer does he see Gods won
drous goodness. the closer he Is drawn to
all things holy"
What educational institution can boast OF
sweeter or more far-reaching tribute to
its wOrks7 What thoughts or words on
this score can we recall more sublime7
noticed at Kendall Green the other day
several things that not few could but read
between the Hnes- Let 1t merely be said
heze that DIR. Gallaudet's forty years at
the head OF the only college for the deaf
in the universe--and he has been at Ken
dali Green upward Of nifty years. and on