| Edward Miner was the youngest son of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet and deaf mother, Sophia Fowler Gallaudet. He graduated from Trinity College in 1856 and taught at the American School for the Deaf for 18 months. Gallaudet became the first superintendent of the Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf, Dumb and Blind (now Kendall Demonstration Elementary School for the Deaf) in 1857 and went on to found Gallaudet College in 1864 and serve as its first president. Gallaudet was a leading advocate of the ""combined system"" and was concerned about literacy in the deaf community. |