ADDRESS AT HORACE MANN SCHOOL. 207 



Fortunately for our purposes, during the later years of his 

 life, Mr. Green wrote out some of the main incidents of his 

 career, telling how he became interested in the deaf, and what 

 he had done by the aid of his pen toward their education, and 

 also giving a sketch of his family for several preceding gener- 

 ations. This account he entitled : " Genealogical and Bio- 

 graphical Anecdotes of the Green Family, Deduced from the 

 First American Generation by Francis Green for his Children's 

 Information, 1806." 



Many years ago the original manuscript was placed tempo- 

 rarily in the hands of my father, the late Dr. Joshua Green, of 

 Groton, who copied it for the use of his branch of the family. 

 Without doubt it was indirectly through the copy then made 

 that the authorship of" Vox Oculis Subj'ecta" — a work well- 

 known to scholars interested in the education of the deaf — 

 was first recognized and identified. The simple fact was pre- 

 viously known that the writer of the book was an American, 

 and that his name was Green, but nothing more. 



Taking some interest in the manuscript myself, and think- 

 ing that the statements there recorded might be also of inter- 

 est to others, I made a short abstract of the account, and sent 

 it to Mr. Chamberlain, editor of "The Gallaudet Guide," a 

 monthly periodical, then published in Court Square, Boston, 

 and devoted to the cause of the deaf. The article was printed 

 in the number for November, i860, and — as I had hoped, but 

 hardly expected — it attracted the attention of two or three 

 persons, who cared enough about the matter to write to me 

 for further facts concerning Mr. Green's history. Among 

 these correspondents was Mr. Samuel Porter of Hartford, at 

 that time the editor of the " American Annals of the Deaf 

 and Dumb " (Hartford), who is still living at the advanced 

 age of nearly ninety years. In a letter from him, dated De- 

 cember 27, i860, he wrote, asking for more details, and also 

 expressing his deep interest in the subject. At his request 

 I prepared another paper, entitled " The Earliest Advocate 

 of the Education of Deaf-Mutes in America," which appeared 

 in the "American Annals" for March, 1861. In the main 

 this account was an amplification of the other one that had 



