AMERICAN ANNALS OF EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION, FOR THE YEAR 1834. EDITED BY WILLIAM C. WOODBRIDGE. NEW YORK ATOR LIBRAR NEW-YORK BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM D. TICKNOR. Press of Light & Horton. 1834. AMERICAN ANNALS OF EDUCATION AND INSTRUCTION. JANUARY, 1834. VISIBLE ILLUSTRATION OF BENEVOLENCE. (With a view of the New England Asylum for the Blind.) Why THERE is a depth, and strength, in the impressions produced upon the mind through the medium of the eye, which surpasses all that is discovered in the influence of the other senses. it is, we know not that any have pretended to explain. the fact, we believe, none have doubted; and on this principle have been founded the multiplied methods of visible illustration, adopted in the instruction of children. But the truth of the principle is not less certain in adult age. The great public works which have traced the name of Napoleon in the memory of our race, in characters which centuries cannot obliterate, inspire more awe and admiration, than volumes of history, or scores of panegyrics. The traveller, who has seen the Bridge of Jena or the Column of the Place Vendome, or the Road of Mount Simplon, has perceptions, and sensations, if I may so speak, of the greatness and energy of the mind that conceived these works, which can never be known by those who only read of them. The question has occurred to us - Why may we not employ this principle to aid the cause of benevolence? We never pass the noble edifice presented to the Institution for the Blind, once the abode of wealth and luxury and now devoted to the protection and redemption of the unfortunate, without an involuntary act of homage to the individual who conceived and executed this noble act of beneficence without an earnest wish, |