ELEMENTARY LESSONS, BEING 156 A COURSE OF INSTRUCTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB; PART FIRST. BY HARVEY PRINDLE PEET, LL. D. PRESIDENT OF THE NEW-YORK INSTITUTION FOR TH PRINTED BY JAS. EGBERT, 374 PEARL-STREET, PRINTERS TO THE INSTITUTION. 1853. tered according to Act of Congress, 'in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six, BY HARVEY PRINDLE PEET. in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New-York. ! P34e4 PREFACE то THE FIRST EDITION. To prove to those for whose use this little volume is intended, that such a work is very seriously wanted, would be an act of pure supererogation. In most of the ordinary branches of education, elementary works are so numerous that the only difficulty of the teacher is in making a selection. The teacher of the Deaf and Dumb might esteem himself fortunate if the number, at least in the English language, of works suitable as textbooks for the use of an elementary class of deaf mutes, was such as to admit any latitude of choice. Besides that the few hastily prepared volumes hitherto published, have notoriously been of an inadequate character, and unsatisfactory even to their authors, even of these, copies can no longer be procured. It has, therefore, been not the desire of improving on other works of acknowledged utility already in use, but the total want of such works, and the pressing necessity for something of the kind, which induced the compilation of the present volume. The same necessity may probably lead the com809711 piler, if his leisure will admit, to follow it up with others containing the subsequent parts of the course. The volume now published is intended to embrace the first year's course. It contains about a thousand radical words,* with their most common inflections, each illustrated in several sentences carefully adapted to the comprehension of beginners, both in the simplicity of their construction, and in the ideas they express, which are mostly such as even uneducated mutes readily communicate by gestures. Numerous reading lessons are introduced, which the pupil should endeavor to understand by himself, with only the occasional assistance of the teacher in explaining single words. These generally turn on piquant incidents-such as take the strongest hold on the memories of deaf mutes, and such as can be described in phrases admitting the most literal translation in signs. Reading lessons prepared expressly for the use of the deaf and dumb, have long been a desideratum ; for every teacher knows that those contained in even the simplest elementary books for children. * The vocabulary at the end of the second edition embraces about 1400 words, of which 850 are nouns, 150 adjectives, 280 verbs, and the rest of other parts of speech. Many of these, however, had not been illustrated in the previous lessons, and were introduced in the vocabulary to make it more complete, so that the pupil who has gone through the vocabulary may be able to express readily most familiar ideas. who hear, are by no means adapted to the use of the former class of learners. The reason of this is obvious. Children who hear and speak, know as much of language when they begin to read, as most deaf mutes acquire in several years' instruction. It is evident, therefore, that books adapted to the comprehension of the former, will be too difficult for the latter, in the first year or two of their course. About one half of the nouns which could be so illustrated, are illustrated by cuts, as also many of the verbs and prepositions. This attractive and perspicuous mode of illustration, might with great advantage have been extended to many other words and phrases, but this the expense forbade. Pictures are especially useful in the first lessons. Our pupils usually come to us with but a scanty vocabulary of signs, and these, beyond those of natural emotions, are for the most part known only to themselves and their families. Under such circumstances, without uncommon skill in the teacher, and uncommon aptitude in the pupil, the former cannot assure himself that his pantomimic descriptions of absent objects are always clearly understood. But the use of well-executed pictures leaves no room for uncertainty. The pupil, however, is not long in acquiring the sign dialect of the community in which he is placed, and from |