Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (1787-1851) was a twenty-eight-year-old seminary graduate waiting “for some decided indication of Providence as to the place of duty.” While visiting a neighbor, Dr. Cogswell, near his home in Hartford, Thomas observed the doctor’s nine-year-old daughter Alice playing apart from the other children. She couldn’t communicate with the other children, having lost her hearing from meningitis at age four. Thomas pointed to his hat and wrote H-A-T in the dirt with a stick. Alice understood, and Thomas was eager to teach her more words to use in communication. Dr. Cogswell, a wealthy man, offered Thomas the necessary funds to investigate schools for the deaf in Europe with the idea of starting a deaf school in Hartford. Thomas accepted the offer and traveled to England but found the for-profit deaf school less accommodating to assist this American neophyte and insisted on lip reading as their preferred teaching method. When he traveled to a deaf school in Paris, Thomas became intrigued with their “Natural Language of Signs” (now called ASI—American Sign Language) and convinced the school’s principal to allow Laurent Clerc to accompany him to start a deaf school in America. Laurent had been a star pupil at the school and was now its premier teacher. The principal graciously consented to loan Laurent to Thomas for three years. They put their fifty-two-day transatlantic voyage to good use, as Thomas taught Laurent English and Laurent instructed Thomas in sign language. They founded in 1817 the Connecticut Asylum for the Education and Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Persons, now American School for the Deaf (dumb meant “unable to speak” in the early nineteenth century). Thomas served as the school’s first principal, Laurent its first teacher and Alice one of seven students who initially enrolled at the school. The school, varying in age from ten to fifty-one, quickly expanded and Thomas’ prayer from his diary a year later expressed his fatigue and exhaustion. Thomas married a student at the school, Sophia Fowler, and they had eight children. Son Thomas became an Episcopal priest who planted a church for deaf people in New York City using sign language as its primary means of worship expression, and son Edward founded Gallaudet University, specializing in education for hearing-impaired students. Thomas’ prayer is well-suited whenever we are fatigued and losing energy for daily tasks:
Thomas Gallaudet
O Almighty God, in thy wise providence Thou hast placed me in my present situation–Thou sees my heart—Thou knowest my desire to be devoted to Thy service and to be made the instrument of training up the deaf and dumb for heaven. Oh! Turn not a deaf ear to my request. Oh! Raise me from this bodily and intellectual and religious lethargy which has now so long prostrated all the energies and deadened the affections of my soul. Oh! Show me clearly the path of duty and teach me submission to thy holy will—more self-denial and humility—more patience and perseverance.
Edward Minear Gallaudet, The Life of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, 1888.
Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.