Soon after the act of the 23rd March, 1827, was received, it was laid before the Board of Directors, and they ordered their assent to be filed, signed by the President and Secretary of the Institution, and the same was executed and deposited in the office of the Secretary of State, in April, 1827.

In June they were enabled to deposit in the Mechanics' Bank of the city of New-York, $10,000. This amount was set apart for the special object of assisting to build the Asylum, and was deposited in the name of John Slidell, Stephen Allen and Peter Sharpe, a Special Committee for this purpose. During the same month, the Corporation of the city, granted a lease (at a very moderate rent) of four acres of ground, in the neighbourhood of the city, for the purpose of building an Asylum thereon. Plans for the contemplated building having been obtained, they were submitted to the Secretary of State, with the lease from the Corporation, and other documents required before drawing for the state appropriation. The Honourable the Secretary, the Acting Superintendent of Common Schools, having expressed an opinion that it would be improper to expend so large an amount of public money in building upon leased ground, the Directors renewed their application to the Honourable the Corporation of the city, and in July they were pleased to convey in fee, one acre of the four previously leased, to the Directors of this Institution, upon which the Asylum has since been commenced.

The Secretary of State having approved of the plans, and being satisfied with the purchase, and the site of the ground, it was competent for the Directors to draw for the state appropriation, and they accordingly did draw, through their own Treasurer, upon the Comptroller of the State, for ten thousand dollars.

This amount when received, was paid over to the Special Committee, before mentioned, and deposited in the same bank with the other deposit, that the whole might be applied to "the erection of a building or buildings for an Asylum and

workshops for the Deaf and Dumb." In order that the Directors may account to the Comptroller of the State, for the disposition of this money, they have directed the Committee to take duplicate receipts for all their expenditures; one sett of which will in due time be submitted as required..

The plans for the Asylum were not definitively decided upon, until the Institutions at Philadelphia and Hartford were visited by a Committee of the Directors, in the months of June and July; and when the grant of a site for the building was ceded by the Corporation, (for the consideration of one dollar,) the Directors proceeded to make arrangements to build. Contracts were accordingly entered into, and the Asylum was commenced in October. On the 19th of that month, they had the satisfaction of laying the corner-stone of the contemplated building. The Honourable A. C. Flagg, Secretary of State, (who was in this city, on his official visit to the school,) assisted at the ceremony, which was honoured by the presence of the Mayor and Common Council of the city, and a large assemblage of citizens. Since that time, the foundation of the Asylum and the basement story have been completed, the first tier of beams laid, and the whole covered and secured from the weather, for the winter. The work will be resumed in the spring, and the entire building will be finished in November, 1828. It will be three stories above the basement, 110 feet in length, by 60 feet in breadth. The principal school-rooms will be in the centre, and the ends appropriated to the residence of the pupils, and their accommodation out of school. The male and female pupils will be completely separated, by intervening walls and partitions. The workshops will be separate and distinct buildings, at a convenient distance from the Asylum.

In complying with the law requiring them to report the amount of receipts and expenditures, they have hereunto annexed an abstract of the Treasurer's account current, and a statement of the fund set apart for the Asylum, showing a balance in the hands of the Treasurer, of $923.45; and a

balance of the Asylum fund in the hands of the Special Committee, of $14,278.76.

The expenditures of the Institution have exceeded ten thousand dollars during the past year, but one thousand at least may be deducted, as not within the ordinary annual expenses of the Institution. The items of this deduction. are, the expense of clothing for state pupils, which the Directors are not required to furnish; the expense of prosecuting the venders of lottery tickets, and the expense of the delegations to Albany, Philadelphia and Hartford. These being deducted, the annual expenditure will be about $9117, which, divided by 63, the number of pupils at the end of the year, will give $144 as the average expenditure for each.

During the year there have been 14 pupils received and 15 discharged, which with 64, the number at the date of the last report, makes 78, leaving 63, one less than was reported 1st January, 1827.

The moral and intellectual improvement of the pupils has been gratifying and satisfactory. On these points it is expected that the Secretary of State, the Acting Superintendent of Common Schools, who spent several days in examining the pupils, will give a more detailed account.

The teachers are the same as were reported and named the last year. In expectation of continued patronage by the state, and an increase of the pupils, when the Asylum shall be completed, the Directors made inquiries for a teacher at the Royal Institution at Paris. They have ascertained that a competent teacher can be obtained, and a Committee has been authorized to engage one who will be possessed of the latest improvements in the art of instructing Mutes.

The latest work on this subject published in France, has recently been received. It is in two volumes, in the French Janguage, by Mons. Bebian, formerly Censor of the Royal Institution in Paris, and now the principal of a private Institution for Deaf Mutes. The author professes to have made improvements upon his predecessor, the Abbe Sicard. One

volume contains 32 plates, with numerous figures. The work is an interesting and valuable acquisition to this Institution, inasmuch as it shows that the method of the Abbe Sicard is not to be implicitly followed, and is susceptible of much improvement. The Directors of this Institution accord with Mr. Bebian in these opinions, and they are satisfied that their teachers have also improved upon Sicard. Mr. Bebian employs the figured representation of objects to explain single words, not only nouns, but other parts of speech; as adjectives, verbs, pronouns, prepositions, and even words of an abstract meaning. These are all confirmations of the correctness of the course pursued by our teachers, and of the value of the Elementary Exercises for the Deaf and Dumb, published in the city of New-York, in 1821, " by order of the Board of Directors, under the inspection of the Committee of Instruction." Although it has been published six years, and Mons. Bebian's work was first published in 1827, he does not appear to have seen it. This is not to be wondered at, as the Elementary Exercises have been confined to the few schools in this country, and their circulation limited. The two works are arranged upon similar principles, that is, the conveying of ideas to Deaf Mutes, by means of the figured representation of objects. The Directors are now, by comparison, the better enabled to appreciate their own work, and to recommend it to others engaged in the instruction of the Deaf and Dumb. The author thinks he could make a new edition, more valuable, and this will soon be wanted, and as the engravings are all in possession of the Directors, it can also be rendered cheaper than the copies of the first edition.

The general state and condition of this Institution is as prosperous as it ever has been, and it calls forth the interest of individuals and the community as powerfully as at any former period, notwithstanding the efforts of individuals to depreciate the talents of the teachers, and lessen the exertions of the Directors.

Two pupils have been removed by death during the year 1827. One died with a disease of the brain, to which he was subject, and which was supposed to have been the original cause of his deafness. The other was a female, who died of a bilious remittent fever, contracted during the August vacation, while she was on a visit to her friends in the country, where the same disease was prevalent, and where it originated from a neighbouring swamp.

The Directors consider it their duty to take this opportunity to explain some things which might otherwise appear obscure, and from which unfavourable impressions might be drawn by a future Legislature, to the detriment of this Institution, in consequence of the Report presented to the Senate on the 5th March, 1827, by the "Committee on Literature, on the bill from the Assembly, to provide for the building of an Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb in the city of New-York."

In the second page of the Report, the Committee state that "it is unaccountable, that during one of the years, either in 1820 or 1821, nothing should have been received from the licenses to lottery venders."

The Committee of the Honourable the Senate, in examining the Second Annual Report of this Institution, made in conformity to law, must have omitted to examine in detail, the documents accompanying the same, where it will be found that $1125 were received for lottery licenses in the year 1820, and the Treasurer's account current states the names of the persons from whom the same was received. The Treasurer's account accompanying the Report of that year was in two parts; the first by Mr. John Slidell, who on resigning as Treasurer, was succeeded by Mr. Jonas Mapes. The second part by Mr. Mapes, appears to have been entirely overlooked by the Committee, and would have explained the seeming inconsistency.

The Third Annual Report of this Institution states, that $1875 were received from the venders of lottery tickets, in 1821, as ascertained by the Committee, but at the same time they state as an apparent piece of neglect, that " on