Wood, Edwin O. History of Genesee County, Michigan. Volume 1. Indianapolis, Indiana: Federal Publishing Co., 1916.

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become principal. He accepted the invitation of the trustees and notice was given that the school would be open for the reception of pupils on the first of February, 1854.

On the 6th of February the first pupil came; he was James Bradley, who for many years had been a prosperous farmer at Lawton, Michigan, but is now residing near Flint. By the close of the first year, there were seventeen pupils in attendance. Doctor Fay continued as superintendent for a little more than ten years, resigning in September, 1864. During his administration the school met with more than the ordinary difficulties of young institutions, as the great Civil War demanded most of the attention and money of the state; still it prospered and the attendance rose to one hundred and three pupils (eighty deaf and twenty-three blind), in July, 1863; but then the department for the blind was suspended, and in June, 1864, there were only eighty-one, all deaf.

It would be a serious omission to pass over this period without mentioning the services of Hon. James B. Walker, of Flint. Up to 1856, this school and the asylum for the insane were under the management of one board, but in that year the Legislature enacted that there should be a separate board for each, and the governor appointed as trustees for the school for the deaf: James B. Walker, Benjamin Pierson and John P. LeRoy. Mr. Walker was chosen treasurer and building commissioner, offices which he continued to hold until March 31, 1873. During this time all the larger and more expensive buildings of the school, with the exception of Brown Hall, were erected, and the state of Michigan owes much to Mr. Walker's energy and business ability.

Doctor Fay showed rare foresight in the selection of his assistants. His first two teachers were W. L. M. Breg and James Denison; the former, after years of faithful work, has gone to his reward; the other for many years has been the honored head of the Kendall school at Washington, D. C. To these were added, in 1858, Misses Belle H. Ransom and Harriet L. Seymour, and Jacob L. Green, who was succeeded, in February, 1859, by Thomas L. Brown, while Willis Hubbard appears as a new teacher in 1863. Egbert L. Bangs, a teacher of experience in the New York Institution, was chosen to succeed Doctor Fay, and under him the school continued to progress.

On August 14 and 15, 1872, a conference of superintendents and principals of the American institutions for the deaf was held at the Michigan school, which was addressed by A. Graham Bell, on the importance of using his father's invention, "Visible Speech," in teaching articulation to the deaf. Had those present known that Mrs. Bell was at work on the invention which made him famous all over the civilized world, his words in favor of visible speech would have had more weight. As it was, this particular method was adopted at the Michigan school, but only remained in use two years, though some of the eastern schools used it for ten or twelve years after that time.

It has been often said that one of the results of that visit of Mr. Bell was the beginning of the teaching of speech in the Michigan school, but this is not so, as at a conference of the superintendents held in Washington in May, 1868, a resolution was unanimously passed recommending that provision for such teaching be made at every American school for the deaf, in accordance with which George L. Brockett was "placed in charge of the department of articulation" in the fall of 1868. This department has grown steadily from that time and at present contains more than half the pupils of the school. To Mr. Bangs belongs the credit of establishing the excellent system of trade teaching that has for so long a time distinguished the Michigan school. Exactly when each trade was begun, it is impossible now to say. There was none when Mr. Bangs came, and he left a fine system well equipped. The official reports of the school are singularly silent of the subject, but tradition informs us that the first and most expen-