The duties of this professorship are for the present discharged by the professor of history and ancient languages. TWENTIETH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB, October 29, 1877. SIR: In compliance with the acts of Congress making provision for the support of this institution, we have the honor to report its progress during the year ending June 30, 1877. NUMBER OF PUPILS. The pupils remaining in the institution on the 1st day of July, 1876, numbered.... Total ...... Under instruction since July 1st, 1876-males, 94; females, 13; of these, 59 have been in the Collegiate Department, representing twentytwo States and the Federal District, and 48 in the primary department. A list of the names of the pupils connected with the institution since July 1, 1876, will be found appended to this report. CHANGES OF OFFICERS. Mr. James C. Balis, a graduate of the college in 1875, who has for two years most satisfactorily filled the office of clerk, resigned his position in September to accept an appointment as instructor in the Maryland Institution for colored deaf-mutes and blind, located at Baltimore. Mr. Balis's retirement is sincerely regretted by all with whom he was associated, and he carries with him the best wishes of his friends here for his success in his new position. Mr. John B. Wight, for several years connected with a prominent business-house in Washington, has been appointed to the office of super visor. In addition to the duties heretofore performed by the clerk, Mr. Wight will be charged with others of a supervisory character pertaining to the conduct of the domestic affairs of the institution. Mr. Baumgras, who has for many years given instruction in drawing. and painting in both departments of the institution, resigned his posi tion in September to take a professorship in a collegiate institution at Champaign, Illinois. Mr. Baumgras has been a successful and valued instructor, and his place will not be easily filled. Our best wishes attend him to his new field of labor. HEALTH OF THE INSTITUTION. We are permitted to record another year of exemption, not only from prevailing disease, but from serious illness, the few cases of sickness that have occurred yielding readily to treatment. DEATH OF FRANK A. BRANNER. Death has, however, invaded the institution, coming suddenly and in a manner which caused great distress to the friends of the deceased. During our Easter holidays a party of our students obtained leave to go on a fishing excursion up the Potomac River. One of the number, Frank A. Branner, of Tennessee, was capsized from a canoe, and, though an expert swimmer, was drowned. All efforts for the recovery of his body proved unavailing, and it was not until two weeks after the accident that the remains floated to the surface. Mr. Branner was a youth of fine promise and high character, and his death was felt to be a most painful dispensation by all connected with the institution. The following expressions concerning the sad event are taken from the records of the faculty: The connection of Mr. Branner with the college was a continual source of pleasure and satisfaction to the faculty. Though his progress as a student was not rapid, it was remark able for the zeal with which he strove to improve every advantage, and the manly spirit in which he accepted every correction. Difficulties disturbed, but did not daunt him; a failure with him only marked the beginning of a new struggle. His instructors remember that he set out upon his fatal excursion with a book under his arm and the determination to use every spare moment in conquering his shortcomings. But his influence lay in his character as a man, rather than in his attainments as a student. In him uncommon personal attractions were joined with uncommon nobility of spirit. Endowed with great physical strength, he was kind even to gentleness with his inferiors in that respect. He seemed naturally lifted above all littleness. His whole course was characterized by strict honor, truthfulness, and candor. So he lived without fear and without reproach, proving day by day that he was entitled to a place among the ranks of that last and rarest product of a Christian civilization-the gentleman. It was as such that he has impressed himself upon the faculty. While they grieve with his friends that Providence has seen fit to summon him to so sad and sudden a departure from this earthly life, they feel that his short career gave unmistakable evidence that he was called to a high and noble mission, and that his memory will remain a living and elevating influence in the hearts and lives of all who were so fortunate as to know him. COURSE OF STUDY. The courses of study pursued in the several departments have remained substantially the same as in previous years. As a full statement of these courses is to be found in our last annual report, it seems unnecessary to burden this report with a repetition of them. EXERCISES OF PRESENTATION DAY. The exercises of the regular public anniversary of our collegiate department took place on the 11th of April, in the hall of the institution. After prayer by the Rev. B. Peyton Brown, D. D., of Washington, the candidates for degrees delivered essays as follows: Oration, "Oratory as a Power in Human History," by Wilbur Norris Sparrow, Massachusetts. Dissertation, "Mythology," by Lester D. Waite, Ohio. Oration, "Botany as a Study," by John Emery Crane, Maine. After the conclusion of the essays presented by the candidates for degrees, the following addresses were delivered: ADDRESS BY J. C. WELLING, LL. D., PRESIDENT OF THE COLUMBIAN UNIVERSITY. Mr. PRESIDENT: I never attend the very interesting exercises of presentation day in the Deaf-Mute College without feeling myself entitled to confess some slight touches of envy, not indeed at the sumptuous appointments by which we are here surrounded, but at the extraordinary privileges accorded to the productions of this college-stage. Most of us, whether we speak from the college-stage, the pulpit, or the platform, are compelled to be content if our speeches are uttered in a single edition, but here, I observe, that all your academic discourses are simultaneously issued in two editions, one addressed to the ears of your audience, and the other addressed to the eyes of the more select class among your spectators. Few of us who "speak in public on the stage" are able to say anything that is deemed worthy of translation, but here I observe that all public addresses are translated at once from the mystic language of signs, read only by the eyes of a chosen few, into that vernacular mother-speech which is common to all of us who rejoice in the possession of the five senses. For myself, anxious to lose no part of the double entertainment here set before me, I am sometimes in doubt whether I should close my ears and open my eyes, or whether I should shut my eyes and open my ears, to catch the winged words that flit before me, and in this state of uncertainty between the senses whose guidance we are expected to follow, I may be pardoned, perhaps, if the strange surroundings of this time and place should remind me of thoughts that come from the visions of the night, and Ì can recall no vision more appropriate to this occasion than the dreams that came to the celebrated Dr. John Kitto while he was lying in an English work-house. I need not say that Dr. John Kitto, the author of the "Daily Bible Illustrations," the editor of the "Cyclopedia of Biblical Literature," &c., deserves to be numbered among the most erudite scholars of the present century. Though not absolutely a mute, he was doomed by the total loss of his hearing at a very early period of his life to pass the greater part of his days in a mute-world, insomuch that he lost all facility of vocal utterance, if not entirely the faculty of speech. And to this loss was added the loss of friends and of all means for self-support, until in the end, at the early age of fifteen, he was compelled to find his sole surviving refuge in the cold charity of the Plymouth work-house. But into this forlorn retreat there followed him a love of learning which was unquenched and unquenchable. The tedium of his confinement, in the intervals when he laid aside the lapstone and the awl of the cobbler, was beguiled by the reading of books and the keeping of a daily journal, in which he recorded the memoranda of his monotonous life. One day he fell asleep over the book he had been reading, and dreamed that he was transported into a bookseller's shop, where he saw a printed volume lying on the counter entitled "The Journal and Memoranda of a Man with Four Senses." He recognized the "journal" to be a printed copy of his own humble diary, and while he was wondering how that private record could have attained to the honor of a public typography, and while a few brainless witlings were pouring arrogant scorn on the book, a man of grave and reverend aspect interposed with gracious words to rescue it from their contempt, and to assert for it an honored place in his library, as being a work which redounded not a little to the credit of its unfortunate author. The pride of authorship thrilled the young dreamer's heart, but the joy was transient, for he awoke and found it was only a dream. At a later day, while still pining in the same Plymouth work-house, John Kitto had another dream. He saw, as in a vision, the form of an angel standing before him. The heavenly visitant was taller than the sons of men; his eyes beamed with celestial fire; his vestments were of ethereal blue; a starry zone of glittering gems encircled his waist; and in his hand he bore a rod of silver. The angel touched John Kitto with his wand, and said, "Child of mortality, what wishest thou? I am the angel Zared, and am sent to teach thee wisdom. Wishest thou honor, glory, or riches?" And John Kitto was mute, as in a sort of glad astonishment, when the angel said, "I know what thou wishest; thou wishost learning, and learning hon shalt have, with the fame it brings to those who win it." Again the angel touched him with the silver rod and vanished, when straight way it seemed to John Kifto that he was transported to a spacious room, two sides of which were covered with books piled up to the very ceiling. On a table lay letters addressed to John Kitto, from all parts of the globe. On the chimney-piece, conspicuously displayed, were placed sundry volumes with the name of John Kitto written in letters of gold upon their backs, for of those books it seemed that he was the acknowledged author. The dream of Kitto does not need a Daniel for its interpreter. It was but the radiant reflection of his waking aspirations. Shakspeare has said of us all that "We are such stuff as dreams are made of," and even more literally is it true that our dreams are commonly woven from such stuff as we are made of. The vision of that grave and |