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Thus we find that, in 201 instances of relationship between the parents of mutes, 85 were in the degree of first cousins, 63 in that of second, 32 in that of third, 7 in that of fourth, and in 14 they were more remotely related. Dr Bondin, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, Paris, noticed the following striking result of such unions :—

"Two brothers in perfect health, and well constituted men, had married two sisters, their cousins-german. The elder brother has had several children, one of whom is deaf and dumb.. The other brother has had six children, the first, third, and fifth of whom can hear, while the second, fourth, and probably the sixth (an infant) are deaf and dumb."

The report of Dr S. M. Bemiss of Louisville, Kentucky, to the American Medical Association on the subject of the influence of marriages of consanguinity on offspring and records the following results of 833 such marriages :

Of the 3942 children of those marriages 1134 were defective in one way or another, viz.,-deaf and dumb, 145; blind, 85;' idiotic, 308; insane, 38; epileptic, 60; scrofulous, 300; and deformed, 98; 883 died young; and the writer concludes by remarking, "I feel satisfied, however, that my research gave me authority to assume that over per cent. of the deaf and dumb, and over 5 per cent. of the blind, and nearly 15 per cent. of the idiotic, in our State institutions for subjects of those defects, and throughout the country at large, are the offspring of kindred parents, or of parents themselves the descendants of blood intermarriages.'

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Another great cause of deafness is hereditary transmission. "It has clearly been ascertained," says Dr Harvey (On the Ear)," that the most common cause is a strumous and delicate habit of body, generally hereditary."

The subjoined table from the census returns for Ireland in 1871 proves that deaf-muteism is often transmitted by hereditary taint or family peculiarity. The table is divided into two sections,-the first showing where the disease is transmitted by the father, the second by the mother. Mute relations on Father's side.

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there was no issue. We find four instances of the marriage of a congenital deaf mute with an acquired deaf mute, from three of which 7 children resulted, one of whom was deaf and dumb. There were 13 instances of the intermarriage of persons both of whom resulted, of whom only one was deaf and dumb, and another was were deaf and dumb, and from 12 of these marriages 44 children deaf only. The grand-parents of the former on the mother's side, and a grand-uncle of the father's, were also deaf and dumb. Of 315 children resulting from 87 of the afore-mentioned marriages, only intermarriage of congenital deaf mutes, although the husband's two were deaf and dumb, and one deaf ónly. In a case of the parents were second cousins and the wife's also related, and her sister deaf and dumb, yet none of the 8 childreh resulting from the marriage were in any way afflicted."

that it is much the most common for the children of deaf and
The Principal of the New York Institution says, "We can show
dumb parents to possess the faculties of which their parents are
deprived; still, although the offspring may not be defective, they
may likely inherit that peculiar taint of constitution by which the
disease will be transmitted to future generations, which is so often
the case."

following table :-
Mr Turner, in a paper on Hereditary Deafness, gives the

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From this it appears that in 86 families with one parent a congenital deaf mute there were 218 children, of whom 21 were deaf and dumb, or about one-tenth of the whole. In the 24 families with both parents congenital deaf mutes there were 57 children, of whom 17 were deaf and dumb, or about one-third of the whole. The proportion of deafmute children of parents both congenitally deaf is thus more than three times greater than of parents only one of whom is congenitally deaf.

The subjoined table shows the proportion of the families, constituted as above, who had deaf-mute children in them :

1 16 26

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One incidentally and

189

one congenitally deaf

56

8

Both congenitally deaf..

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The Commissioners' Report is as follows:"Although it has been shown that muteism is transmitted by hereditary taint, yet it very seldom descends directly from the parent to the offspring, which is manifest from the following results of the inquiry made respecting the marriage state of the congenitally deaf. After a minute investigation of this subject, we find 115 instances, 77 males and 38 females, of the marriages of congenital deaf mutes where either one or both parties were affected. instances we ascertained that only one of the parties was congenitally deaf, and that 264 children, none of whom were deaf and dumb, resulted from 67 such marriages; in the remaining 14 instances

In 81

The proportion of families having one congenitally deaf parent, with at least one deaf-mute child, is about one-tenth of the whole, while the proportion of the families having both parents congenitally deaf with a deaf-mute child or children is more than one-third of the whole. The above tables show the amount of deafness transmitted by the marriage of one congenitally deaf with one hearing person. The cases of deafness resulting therefrom are only onetenth of the whole, whereas those from the intermarriage of deaf mutes are about one-third. Similar results could be obtained from reports of many of the institutions, but from what has already been stated on this cause of deafness, it appears that, while there is sufficient reason to justify the tional cases of deaf mute offspring as the result of unions prohibition of the intermarriage of deaf mutes, the excepof deaf mutes with hearing persons would not justify interference in such marriages.

maintained, even by philosophers, that the education of the History of Instruction.-In early times, it was an opinion deaf and dumb was not possible. It was then believed that language could only be acquired through the medium of the ear. The couplet of Lucretius is well known

'To instruct the deaf no art could ever reach,
No care prove them. and no wisdom teach."

Parents, influenced by this belief. allowed their children to grow up without culture. They were abandoned to themBelves, and exiled from the community of rational beings. To such a culpable extent was this preju lice carried, that it has been the practice in some countries to destroy children who remained at three years of age incapable of either hearing or speaking, and by the code of Justinian deaf mutes are declared to be incapable of civil acts. In France, the very birth of such children was accounted a sort of disgrace to the family from which they sprang, and the duties of humanity were deemed to extend no further in their behalf than to the maintenance of their animal existence, while they were carefully secluded from the eyes of the world either within the walls of the cloister or in some hidden asylum in the country. Abandoned thus early to their fate, and regarded as little better than idiots, it is not surprising that their future behaviour should have been such as might seem to justify the erroneous views which had prompted this ungenerous treatment. The progress in the art of instructing the deaf and dumb was in consequence greatly retarded; attempts to instruct them were scarcely known, and no school was estal·lished till the middle of the 18th century. In the 4th century, St Augustine, influenced by the dictum of Aristotle, expresses his unfavourable opinion respecting their ability to obtain any religious knowledge, remarking, "that deafness from birth makes faith impossible, since he who is born deaf can neither hear the word nor learn to read it." But in this enlightened age it has been fully proved that the neglect and forgetfulness to which these outcasts were formerly consigned were founded on very mistaken notions of their mental capacities.

The first instance of a deaf mute being instructed is mentioned by Bede in 685. No other case is met with till some centuries afterwards Rodolphus Agricola, of Heidelberg, who was born in 1442, and died in 1485, makes mention in his De Inventione Dialectica, of an educated deaf mute; but this instance, and probably others, were discredited on the ground of their impossibility. Jerome Cardan, a native of Pavia, born in 1501, took a more philosophical view of the subject, and says, "Writing is associated with speech, and speech with thought, but written characters and ideas may be connected without the intervention of sounds;" from which he further argues that "the instruction of the deaf is difficult, but it is possible." It was no doubt this enlightened view that gave to the education of the deaf and dumb its first and greatest impulse. A Spanish Benedictine monk of the convent of Sabugun in Spain, named Pedro de Ponce, who was born in Valladolid in 1520 and died in 1584, is the first person who is recorded to have instructed the deaf and dumb and taught them to speak. He was fifty-six years old when Jerome Cardan died, and he had no doubt, from his association with Cardau, imbibed his principles. He has, however, left no work upon the subject, though it is probable that the substance of his method is contained in a book of Bonet, secretary to the constable of Castile, printed at Madrid in 1620 under the title of Reduccion de las letras y artes para enseñar á hablar á los mudos. In the time of Bonet the teaching of the deaf and dumb was becoming more general and was entered upon by several persons, both in Italy and in England. Dr John Bulwer, an English physician, and Dr Wallis, professor of mathematics in the university of Oxford, were both engaged in the work in England about the same time, though it is not accurately known to whom the honour of being its prime mover is due. The former published a treatise qu the education of the deaf and dumb in 1648, several

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years before Dr Wallis's valuable and able work had appeared. In the year 1669, some years after Dr Wallis's writings and practice of instructing the deaf and dumb had been known, Dr W. Holder, rector of Bletchington, published a work entitled Elements of Speech, with an Appendix concerning Persons Deaf and Dumb: in 1670 George Sibscote issued a Treatise concerning those who are Born Deaf and Dumb; and in the year 1680 George Dalgarno, a native of Aberdeen, published an able and philosophical work, under the title of Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, which was reprinted some years ago by the Maitland Club. This last-named work is considered by Professor Porter as one of the most remarkable and important productions in the whole history of the art." To an early work of his, entitled Ars Signorum, both Bishop Wilkins and Dr Wallis were indebted, but they never mention his name. This ungenerous silence unfavourably contrasts with Leibnitz's frequent commendation of the work. Above all others, John Conrad Amman, a Swiss physician living at Amsterdam, distinguished himself by his ingenious and successful method of teaching the deaf and dumb to speak. He reduced the work to a fixed art or wethod, which he published in his Surdus Loquens, 1692, whereof an English translation was afterwards published by Daniel Foot.

In France the work of teaching the deaf and dumb was late in receiving the attention it deserved, in consequence of the still prevalent doubt as to its practicability, although many instances of success in other countries were generally known. It was not till about the middle of the 17th century that the subject was taken up with any interest. Vanin, a Father of the Christian Doctrine, made some attempts to alleviate the condition of the deaf and dumb, but his work was cut short by death. After him came Ernaud, Rodriguez Pereira, the Abbé Deschamps, and the Abbé de l'Épée. In Silesia. at the beginning of the 18th century, W. Kerger established his method on the principles of John C. Amman; and in 1718 George Raphel, a German, and contemporary with Kerger, published the system he had carried out in the education of three deaf mutes in his own family. All this interesting work had been accomplished before any public school for the deaf and dumb had been established; and it was not till 1760 that Abbé de l'Épée started the first school in Paris. About the same time Thomas Braidwood opened a school in Edinburgh; and in 1778 Heinicke in Germany founded another at Leipsic under the patronage of the Government, where he pursued the system of articulation and lip reading which forms the basis of instruction in the German schools of the present day. Thomas Braidwood made himself famous by his remarkable success. was visited by Dr Johnson when on his tour to the Hebrides, who expressed himself highly gratified with the success in what he considered a great philosophical curiosity. In 1783 Braidwood left Edinburgh and opened a school at Hackney, near London, where he continued his arduous duties till 1806, when he died. Two of his sons became instructors of the deaf and dumb. A school was opened in Edinburgh by one of them in 1810, and the other In the year started a school at Birmingham in 1825. 1792 the first public school in Great Britain for the gratuitous education of the deaf and dumb was opened in Bermondsey, London, of which Dr Watson, the nephew of Thomas Braidwood, was for thirty-seven years the head instructor. Since the above date (1792) schools have been established in many of the principal towns of Europe and America.

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Methods of Instruction.-All the institutions and schools for the education of the deaf and dumb employ one or other

of the two following methods (1) that in which the sign language and manual alphabet form the basis of instruction, with articulation and lip reading to a greater or less extent, but, as a rule, only for the semi-mute, semi-deaf, and those of the congenitally deaf of good capacities, and who show an aptitude for it; and (2) that in which articulation and lip reading form the basis of instruction, and the sign language and the manual alphabet are used more or less as a means to the end. The former is the more general, and is carried out in all the schools of the United Kingdom (although in the London Asylum articulation and lip reading are professedly and systematically taught to every pupil), in America, and in some of the Continental schools. The latter is the one chiefly employed in the German and Austrian schools, and is followed in one or two private schools in London. The signs in use in all schools are of two kinds-the natural, and the conventional or arbitrary. The former are those with which all deaf mutes are familiar before coming to school, and which they use in ordinary intercourse with their friends. The latter are chosen and systematized by the teachers of the several schools, and, in combination with the natural signs, are employed to convey ideas of a complex nature. Every action, the visible part of which can be imitated by gesture, admits easily of being so expressed, as the action of eating by lifting the hand to the mouth followed by the motion of the jaws, and of sleeping by closing the eyes and reclining the head; the expression of different passions, of approbation or disapprobation, of surprize, curiosity, &c., may all be signified very intelligibly by modifications of the countenance. "It is in this simple manner," observes Dr Watson, "that two or more deaf persons are enabled to hold instant converse with each other though brought together from the most distant parts." Thus far these signs may be termed natural, but the naturally deaf do not stop with this language of pantomime. When they are fortunate enough to meet with attentive companions, especially where two or more deaf persons happen to be brought up together, it is astonishing what approaches they will make towards the construction of an artificial language. By an arbitrary sign fixed by common consent, or accidentally hit upon, they will designate a person, place, or thing, and this sign is ever after used by them as a proper name. It is impossible to give a verbal description of those signs, because they are as various as the fancies and circumstances of their inventors. Yet being grafted on the parent stock of natural and universal signs, they may in some measure be regarded as different dialects of the same language. But since it would be impossible by means of natural signs alone to convey to the minds of the deaf and dumb ideas of a complex nature, recourse must be had to that system of signs known as conventional or arbitrary, These signs have been extended and systematized on natural and philosophical principles by the several teachers of the deaf and dumb, and they differ in degree in all schools. It would be impracticable to maintain the same system of signs throughout, even should such be desirable, but it is of the utmost importance that those in use in each school should be so cultivated as to prevent any confusion of ideas by the improper use of them. It is by their aid chiefly that all instruction is carried on, and, as used by missionaries for the deaf and dumb, they are remarkably serviceable, there being always to be found, in an assembly of deaf mutes, many whose minds cannot be reached by any other means. Attempts are often made in the institutions for the deaf and dumb to dispense with signs, and to use the manual alphabet alone after the pupils have acquired a certain proficiency in language. Although this would prove of immense educational advantage, attachment to the natural language of signs is so strong that it has always

been found 'as impracticable to make the change as to substitute articulation and lip reading. Signs to the educated deaf and dumb should be as crutches to the halt-to be used only when occasion requires,-otherwise their constant use will tend to enfeeble rather than strengthen the intellect. In the sixth report of the American Asylum at Hartford, Connecticut, the following is given as an answer of a deaf mute to the question, "Which do you consider preferable the language of speech or of signs?"

language of signs is capable of to give me elucidation and under"I consider to prefer the language of signs best of it, because the standing well. I am fond of talking with the deaf and dumb quickly, without having the troubles of the voice: therefore the language of signs is more still and calm than the language of speech, which is full of falsehood and trouble."

The Abbé de l'Épée, to whom teachers of mutes are greatly indebted for the methodical and ingenious system of signs, altogether mistook their function as a means of educating the deaf and dumb and in consequence his method failed entirely. He gave to each word its peculiar and appropriate gesture in the natural order of the language; and by the intervention of these gestures he succeeded in enabling his pupils to transcribe whole pages of the most abstract disquisitions. The substance and diction of these, how ever, were not theirs but his own, and, of course, the gestures, which they had mechanically associated with certain characters, conveyed to them no notion of the real signification of those characters. Notwithstanding the radical and glaring defects of De l'Épée's method, which could have had no utility to those who followed it, the ostentatious display he made (which was of a nature particularly calculated to impose upon superficial observers) excited the astonishment and applause of a host of specta tors; and, being seconded by the impulse of his religious zeal and beneficent character, it soon raised him to a high degree of reputation. His fame spread all over Europe, and his lectures and exhibitions attracted everywhere crowds of enthusiastic admirers. Some, however, saw through the delusion. At a public exhibition of the pupils of the Abbé Storck, who were taught according to this method at Vienna, Nicolai, an Academician of Berlin, proposed to the Abbé to require one of his pupils to describe in writing the action he was about to perform. The challenge being accepted, the Academician struck his breast with his hand, upon which the deaf and dumb boy wrote the words, "hand, breast." Nicolai withdrew satisfied with this proof of total failure. It was evident that, notwithstanding their apparent knowledge and their quickness in writing down any question together with its answer, both had been equally dictated by their master, in the same language of gesture, but without any corre sponding ideas or the exertion of any intellectual faculty, except that of memory. They were utterly incapable of composing a single sentence of their own accord; and it was found, accordingly, that their spontaneous answers to questions were limited to the monosyllables yes and no, of which it is even doubtful whether they fully understood the meaning. The proper method by which the pupils' knowledge of the construction of language can be tested is by dictating the lesson in the sign language in the manner in which deaf mutes themselves use it, without any regard to logical or grammatical distinctions. Most pupils after a few months' instruction will be able to write down a very fair piece of composition if dictated by the method as employed by the Abbés de l'Epée and Storck, but without understanding its meaning. The following instance will at once explain the way in which the sign language is employed by the teachers, and used amongst the deaf and dumb themselves

Let it be supposed that a girl had been seen by a deaf mute child to drop a cup of milk which she was carrying home. He would relate the incident in the following order of sign words. Saw.I. girl-walk-cup-milk-carry-home-drop. This mode of dictating is the only sure road to the acquisition of language by those who have nothing but the natural language of gesture and feature to assist them.

The value of the language of signs is well expressed by the principal of the Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, who says:

"The use of good scaffolding must attend the crection of every building. As scaffolding in architecture so is the sign language in deaf mute education, and only tyros in architecture or education would dispense with either. The riper the experience the deeper the conviction comes of the necessity ard usefulness of the sign language, and in its use we find the corner stone of all deaf mute institutions. The cultivation of it and its effective use is the only peculiar, although not the chief qualification of the teacher. He will teach written language by the sign, laying aside the latter as soon as the ready use of the former has been secured. It is not necessary to descant upon the beauty, the grace, or the power of the sign language. The mute has no other, and the teacher must use and improve it as best he may.'

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The first lesson in which the pupils are instructed on their entrance into school is the mode of visible communilation known as the finger or manual alphabet. There are two kinds of this,-the doubled-handed alphabet, where the letters are expressed by the dispositions of the fingers of both hands, and the single-handed, in which the letters are formed with the fingers of one hand. It is supposed that the former was derived from a finger-alphabet which appeared in a work by Dalgarno; and the latter is said to have been invented in Spain, and appears to have been published in a work by Bonet to which the Abbé de l'Epée was much indebted.

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The Single-handed Alphabet, as used in the American and Continental schools, and also in one or two English schools. motions which to others would be too rapid for observation. They readily catch at the meaning of a word or question before it is half spelt.

We

Articulation.-Another very important branch of the education of the deaf and dumb is that system by which deaf mutes are taught to speak and to understand the speech of others by merely watching the motion of the vocal organs. This method is by no means novel. as it has long been practised in some of the schools in England, and the earliest attempts to teach the deaf and dumb to speak appear to have been as successful as those in modern times. learn from the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History (quoted by the Abbé Carton in his Annual of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind) that a deaf man was taught to pronounce words and sentences by John, bishop of Hagulstadt (Hexham), in the year 685; and from that time we meet with only isolated cases, till the latter part of the 18th century, when Samuel Heinicke established a school where this system formed the basis of instruction.

It would at first sight appear scarcely credible that a person, without the guidance of the sense of hearing, would be able, merely by watching the position and actions of the organs of the voice, to utter articulate sounds, with any tolerable perfection. Experience, however, has shown that this accomplishment, though laborious and tedious of acquisition, is not attended with extreme difficulty. Great patience, perseverance, and kindness are qualifications necessary on the part of the teacher to ensure success in ordinary cases, and the degree of success will greatly depend upon the number of children among whom the teacher has to divide his attention. A wide difference must ever be perceptible between the speech of the deaf aud those who hear. This artificial speech is laborious and constrained. It frequently conveys the idea of pain as well as effort, and as it cannot be regulated by the ear of the speaker, it is often too loud, and generally monotonous, harsh, aud discordant. It is often from this cause scarcely intelligible except to those who are accustomed to its tones. The

cases.

system of articulation and lip reading prevails in the Ger- | man and other Continental schools, where this art has been cultivated with greater success than in England, which must be attributed to the adaptability of the German language to this peculiar mode of acquiring speech; the decision of this question, as far as it concerns any particular individual, must, however, depend in a great measure on peculiar circumstances, such as condition in life and future destination, &c. Children congenitally deaf, of good capacity, with a well-toned voice, can make surpriz ing progress in the hands of private tutors; but the limited success which has attended this method of instruction with numbers has not induced teachers to introduce it generally into large institutions, but rather to restrict it to special Most of the German teachers consider that articulation is necessary for the acquisition of thought, and can be successfully taught to the majority of the deaf and dumb; but most teachers of experience in England hold quite the opposite opinion, and teach it only to the semimute and semi-deaf. This subject continues to be much disputed, and the question, whether or not it should form a part of the course of the education of the deaf and dumb, and, if so, to what extent, is still keenly discussed. The American institutions have sent over to Europe from time to time some of their most distinguished instructors to investigate the methods carried on in the English and Continental schools. They made most minute examinations of the different systems, and were somewhat disappointed to find that the German system so-called did not possess such advantages over theirs, or the French system, as they had been led to expect. Mr Gallaudet, in his report to the board of directors of the Columba Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, says :-"Nothing in my foreign investigations has led me to question the character of the foundation on which the system of instruction pursued in our American institutions is based. It is plainly evident, from what is seen in the articulating schools of Europe and from the candid opinions of the best instructors, that oral language cannot, in the fullest sense of the term, be mastered by a majority of deaf mutes." lowing is the opinion of the Rev. George Day The folregular part of a system of public instruction, its introduc"As a tion into our institutions, I am persuaded, would be a serious misfortune." Mr Hawkins (for many years a teacher in the London school), who may be said, in this connection, to represent the consensus of English authorities, says :-"Scarcely more than one in thirty attains anything approaching success."

:

The experience of Dr Watson, for many years principal of the London Asylum, is decidedly in favour of its utility. In support of his opinion he states the following argument, which must doubtless be allowed to have some weight:

"The more numerous are the means of observation, the more per: fect will be the recollection, or, in other terms, the more frequent the recurrence of words and their corresponding ideas to the mind. Thus, persons who can hear, speak, read, and write retain a discourse much better, and have far greater facility in expressing themselves, than persons who possess only two of these faculties, that is, illiterate persons, who can hear and speak, but who cannot read or write. Now, as deaf and dumb persons educated without articulation can only have two of the means, viz., the third and the fourth, that is, the impressions made upon the eye by characters and the action of the hand in writing, can it be questioned that we render them an essential service by adding the actions of the organs of speech, a very powerful auxiliary, since by it words become, as it were, a part of ourselves, and more immediately affect us? In learning the pronunciation of letters, a very important operation is going on in the mind of a deaf person, namely, the association and understanding of the figures of written or printed character with certain movements or actions of the organs of speech. The very habit of regarding the one as the representative of the other paves the way for considering combinations of those actions or characters, as the sign of things or ideas-that is, significant

words, written or articulate. We who hear consider words chiefly
as sound; the deaf who have learned to speak consider them
rather as actions proceeding from themselves. And this gives
language to them a sort of tangible property, which is of vast
importance both as respects its retention in the memory, and one
of its most important uses, the excitation of ideas in their own
minds. On this account the time, the labour, and attention,
necessary to articulate speech by those who are dumb through
want of hearing, would be well bestowed, even if their speech were
not intelligible to others."

tion. It has been introduced into several of the existing
In America oral teaching is now receiving much atten-
institutions, and two or three schools have been established
in which the German system is exclusively carried out,
and in order to facilitate the acquisition of articulate speech,
the ingenious method called "Visible Speech," invented by
Mr Melville Bell, has been introduced. In England, also,
there are several ardent advocates of the oral system.
and criticism of the different methods which have been
Time of School Attendance.-After the foregoing sketch
adopted for the education of the deaf and dumb, it is
natural to inquire what general end in their education is
proposed by teachers, and what principal aims in conformity
with that end should be regarded. Obviously the funda-
mental object should be to qualify the pupils to hold ready
hearing and speech, employ the current language of the
communication with persons who, having the faculties of
country for the purposes of mutual intercourse. They
language, both as an instrument for expressing their own
must above all things be taught the use of ordinary
thoughts and for understanding those of others. This
qualification, it is evident, is absolutely necessary to their
becoming members of that community from which by
nature they would have been excluded, and to which it is
our chief aim to restore them.2 Teachers are not agreed
as to the age at which the deaf and dumb should com-
yet as to the term required for school attendance. It is
mence their education with the greatest benefit, nor
the opinion of some that infant schools for the deaf and
dumb would prove of immense advantage in compen-
sating for the extra length of time requisite to acquire any-
thing like a perfect knowledge of the English language,
and intellectual reasons, socially, as it tends to alienate the
but others are strongly opposed to these for social, physical,
of delicate constitutions they require the years of childhood
children from their parents; physically, as being naturally
of a regular and systematic course of instruction; and
to be invigorated, and so to be fitted to undergo the strain
intellectually, as it has been found by experience that
hension or memory to enable them to advance with satis-
children of an early age have not that power of compre
faction. Doubtless, they would benefit somewhat by
coming to a school for the deaf and dumb for a short time
daily; but as the deaf-mute population is so scattered, very
The only available remedy would be their attendance at
few would be able to avail themselves of such a privilege.
ordinary schools for a stated time daily, where they would
write, and the boys to write and draw. By this suggestion
be disciplined and taught the girls to sew, knit, and
it is not meant to affirm the possibility of educating deaf
mutes along with hearing children. The plan has been
of the deaf mutes of the superiority of others over them
tried but has not been successful. The constant observation
tends to dishearten and depress them, and as they are at

1 Mr Bell has also invented an instrument called a Phonautograph,
which he says has been found useful for educational purposes, as was
demonstrated by a young deaf and dumb pupil from the Boston insti-
tution.

"Most institutions experience some difficulty in securing and then
retaining able and efficient teachers, as the sphere of labour in the profes
sion is so circumscribed and the salaries offered are far from being an
depressing influence of the work."
equivalent remuneration for the sacrifice of brighter prospects and the

VIT.

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