Chaptee II. 



MABKIAGES OF THE DEAF. 



Having shown that a large proportion of the deaf and dumb possess hereditary tendencies 

 toward deafness, the question naturally arises: "Do many of the deaf and dumb marry?" 



It is the custom in some of our institutions to hold periodical reunions of former pupils, and in 

 some cases advantage has been taken of the opportunities thus presented to obtain information con- 

 cerning the marriages of the pupils, &c. An examination of the reports of the- American Asylum, 

 New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois in.stitutious, yields the following results: 



Table XVIII. 



*Tbe total uumber of pupils noted incliules the children who were in attendance at the dates ot the reports. 



In the Appendix I have presented in tabular form a critical analysis of all the cases mentioned 

 in the reports of the American Asylum and Illinois Institution, classifying the pupils according to 

 the decades in which they were born. The labor involved has deterred me from making a similar 

 examination of the pupils of the New York, Ohio, and Indiana institutions until more complete 

 materials can be obtained than are to be found in reports published in 1854. The American 

 Asylum and Illinois Institution, however, as I have stated before, may be may be taken as repre 

 sentative institutions, and an examination of the tables in the Appendix leads to the conclusion that 

 a very considerable proportion of the deaf children admitted to our institutions marry. This will be ob- 

 vious, from the following considerations: 



Pupils of the American Asylum, born in the year 1840, were ?>7 yetirs of age in 1877 (the date 

 of the report), and the pupils of the Illinois Institution, born in 1S40, were 42 years of age in 1882 

 (the date of the Illinois rejiort), hence we may safely assume that, of the pijpils of these institutions 

 who were born before 1840, all, or nearly all, who intended to marry had married before the dates 

 of the reports; and in most cases it is probable that the fact of marriage had been recorded. If, 

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