He kept birds, fowl, and rabbits, spending most of his time in the city, but occasionally venturing into the country.

While he was teaching, he continued his education at Trinity College in Hartford, completing his studies for a Bachelor of Science degree two years later.

In 1864, Gallaudet sought college status for the Columbia Institution and got it when President Abraham Lincoln signed a bill into law which authorized the Columbia Institution to confer college degrees[3]—a law which was not strictly necessary, but which Gallaudet desired.

Although he initially preferred manualism, stating that sign language was the "natural language of deaf people", throughout his life he came to believe that students should be educated using whichever method fit their specific needs—which could include speech training.

[7][8] "The same arguments which go to show that knowledge is power, that the condition of a people is improved in proportion as the masses are educated, have their application with equal weight to the deaf..."—Edward Miner Gallaudet, 1864.

[9] "Deafness, though it be total and congenital, imposes no limits on the intellectual development of its subjects, save in the single direction of the appreciation of acoustic phenomena.

"As eternity is longer than time, as mind is stronger than matter, as thought is swifter than the wind, as genius is more potent than gold, so will the results of well-directed labors toward the development of man's higher faculties ever outweigh a thousand fold any estimate in the currency of commerce, which man can put upon such efforts.