[CHAP.

the evils of land-speculation in leading to the robbery of land granted as Indian reserves, to give some of his friends a short address, explaining my views on land reform. I note in my journal, "preached on 'Land Nationalization,' talk afterwards." At this time, however, the one subject of private interest everywhere in America was land-speculation, and nobody could see anything bad in it. My ideas, therefore, seemed very wild, and I don't think I made a convert.

One of the most interesting visits I made in Washington was to the National Deaf-Mute College, founded in 1857, and one of the best institutions of the kind in the world. The president, Dr. Galaudet, learnt to speak by signs before he spoke audibly, his mother being deaf and dumb, while his father was the first teacher of deaf-mutes in the United States. There are about one hundred and twenty students from all parts of the Union, and the buildings stand in one hundred acres of beautifully wooded grounds, within ten miles of the Capitol. The more advanced students learn every subject taught in the best colleges, such as mathematics, the ancient and modern languages, the various sciences, moral philosophy, etc., and all these subjects are taught as thoroughly and as easily as to those who possess the power of speech.

But besides being taught to use the gesture language as easily and as quickly as we use ordinary speech, and to read and write as well as we do, they are also now taught to speak-a much more difficult thing, and long thought impossible, because, not being able to hear either the teacher's voice or their own, they have to be taught by watching their tutor's mouth while speaking, and then trying to imitate the movements of the lips and tongue, aided by feeling the throat with their fingers. It is a very slow process, and success depends much on the special imitative faculties and vocal organization of the learner. Even in the best cases there is a hardness and want of modulation in the voice, but they learn to say everything, even to make a speech in public, and at the same time they learn what is termed lipreading—that is, to know what a person is saying by watching the motions of the lips and throat. But in this there is,

of course, a good deal of guesswork, and unless they know the subject of conversation, they are likely to make great mistakes.

Many persons cannot understand how it is possible to convey all kinds of abstract ideas by means of gestures or signals as quickly and as certainly as by vocal sounds. But in reality the former has some advantages over the latter, and is equally capable of unlimited extension and the expression of new ideas, by a modification of familiar symbols. If we consider how easily we convey the idea, "Don't speak," by putting the fingers to the lips; "yes" or "no" by the slightest motions of the head; "come" or "go" by motions of the hand; "joy" or "sorrow" by the expression of the face; "a child" or "a man" by holding the hand at the corresponding height; weakness of mind by tapping the forehead with the finger, we can see how a system of signs and gestures may be gradually built up as surely as have been the vocal sounds of all the various languages of the world. And such a system has been built up, and is so complete that a spoken lecture upon any subject whatever can be translated into gestures so as to be perfectly understood and enjoyed by an audience of deaf-mutes. Of course, proper names and the less common technical terms are given by rapidly spelling out the word by letter-signs. No doubt the power of speaking and lip-reading is by far the more valuable for the deaf-mute, since it enables him to communicate with the outside world; but as a means of familiar intercourse with each other, the gesture language is the most certain and the most enjoyable. Both require light, but the latter, involving motions of the limbs and body, can be understood at a greater distance and with less strained attention.

The students trained in this college have no difficulty in finding employment. Some become teachers to the deaf, but others are editors or journalists, clerks, surveyors, draughtsmen, mechanics, etc. I saw one of the younger pupils being taught to speak, which requires immense patience and perseverance in the teacher, and in some cases

is almost impossible, except to a very limited extent. Others, on the contrary, learn with comparative rapidity, just as some who can hear acquire foreign languages with a rapidity which seems almost incredible to those without the special faculty. Those who are familiar with the gesture language, and can read and write with facility, seem to enjoy their lives as well as we hearers and speakers enjoy ourselves. They are seen walking together, laughing and gesture-talking with each other, or engaged in the various sports and occupations of their age without any indication of the loss of the means of communication which seems to us so essential. As now taught, the deaf-mute is in a far less painful position than the blind; indeed, Professor Newcomb told them, in an address he gave at the college in 1885, that they were peculiarly fortunate in being so situated as to escape much of the idle, useless talk that is going on in the world. His own time, he said, was largely taken up by people who had nothing to say. Almost everything worth knowing that has been said is now to be found in print.

While at Washington I was asked by two American papers-The Nation and The Independent-to review a book just published by Professor Cope, with the rather catching title, "The Origin of the Fittest," made up by combining Darwin's title, "The Origin of Species," and Herbert Spencer's, "The Survival of the Fittest." With such a title from a man who, owing to his extensive knowledge of anatomy and palæontology, was looked up to as a kind of American Haeckel, a really important work might naturally be expected. But this volume consisted almost entirely of a collection of lectures, addresses, and magazine articles, printed just as they were written or delivered, some in the first, some in the third person, with whole pages of the same matter repeated in different chapters, some of the illustrations having no reference in the text. In fact, a more egregious case of bookmaking with a misleading title was never perpetrated. Of course, there was good and original matter in it; but all

those parts which attempted to justify the title by propounding a new theory of evolution were either quite unsound in reasoning or wholly unintelligble. When the second application came, I told the editor that I had already agreed to write one, but could easily write another from a different point of view. This was accepted, and as the reviews were unsigned, it was not difficult to make them appear to be by distinct writers. In the first (which appeared in The Nation, February 10, 1887) I gave a careful summary of the most important contents of the volume, pointing out the novel views, and stating how he differed from the Darwinians and from the chief other schools of biologists. Only in one paragraph at the end I pointed out the great imperfections of the work, due to the absence of any attempt to weld the mass of heterogeneous matter into a consistent whole.

In the other article (The Independent, March 17, 1887) I presented my readers with a severe but, I think, perfectly fair criticism, pointing out the extraordinary incongruity of the materials, the numerous repetitions, the illustrations without explanation on the plates or any reference to them in the text, and many other deficiencies. I showed how contemptuously he spoke of Darwin as a mere compiler of facts which every one knew, and the inventor of a theory that proved nothing, until he himself had now supplied the missing link-the new conception which cleared up everything! Then I dealt with his own supposed discoveries, his growth-force, his law of acceleration and retardation, and other such matters, showing that, so far as they were intelligible, they were all included in Darwin's writings; and I concluded by expressing regret that the talented author should have issued so incomplete a work. I do not think that any of my friends in Washington suspected that I was the author of either of the articles, which I heard spoken of as fair criticisms.

Before I left Washington, Judge Holman took me one morning to call upon the President, Mr. Cleveland. The judge told him I was going to visit California, and that turned the conversation on wine, raisins, etc., which did not

at all interest me. There was no ceremony whatever, but, of course, I had nothing special to say to him, and he had nothing special to say to me, the result being that we were both rather bored, and glad to get it over as soon as we could. I then went to see the White House, some of the reception rooms being very fine; but there was a great absence of works of art, the only painting I saw being portraits of Washington and his wife.

Washington itself is a very fine and even picturesque city, owing to its designer having departed from the rigid rectangularity of most American cities by the addition of a number of broad diagonal avenues crossing the rectangles at different angles, and varying from one to four miles long. The broadest of these are one hundred and sixty feet wide, planted with two double avenues of trees, and with wide grassy spaces between the houses and the pavements. Wherever these diagonal avenues intersect the principal streets, there are quadrangular open spaces forming gardens or small parks, planted with shrubs and trees, and with numerous seats. Conspicuous in these parks are the many specimens of the fine Paulowina imperialis, one of the handsomest flowering trees of the temperate zone, but which rarely flowers with us for want of sun-heat. It has very large cordate leaves and erect panicles of purple flowers, in shape like those of a foxglove. It was a great regret to me that I had to leave before the flowering season of these splendid trees.

It is, however, a great pity that when the city was founded it was not perceived that the whole of the land should be kept by the Government, not only to obtain the very large revenue that would be sure to accrue from it, but, what is much more important, to prevent the growth of slums and of crowded insanitary dwellings as the result of land and building speculation. As it is now, some of the suburbs are miserable in the extreme. Any kind of huts and hovels are put up on undrained and almost poisonous ground, while in some of these remoter streets I saw rows of little villas closely packed together, but each house only fifteen feet wide.