''DEAF AND DUMBr in 



Let me illustrate, if I can. Take tlie matter of buying and selling, 

 for instance. A hearing child wants to go to the store and buy 

 five cents' worth of candy. Think how much language he uses in 

 talking about it ! He saj^s : " Mother, I want five cents to go to 

 the store and buy some candy. Will you give me five cents ? 

 May I go to the store ? Please let me go. If I am good, may I 

 go ? " When he gets to the store he says : " I will have one stick 

 of that, and one stick of that, and a cent's worth of this," etc., and 

 when he comes out he says : " I bought some candy. I like to 

 trade at that store. The woman gives good measure " ; and when 

 asked, " Who sold it to you ? " he says, " Oh, the woman herself." 

 Now look back, if you please, and observe the amount of language 

 used in connection with this one very simple transaction. See the 

 different moods and tenses, and the different constructions intro- 

 duced. If an uneducated deaf child wanted to go to the store and 

 buy some candy, he would hold up five fingers to his mother, put 

 his hand to his mouth to indicate candy, and then make some sign 

 for store, perhaps a gesture to represent the act of paying ; and 

 after he had been to the store and bought his candy, he would 

 go through just the same pantomime to indicate the finished 

 action as he used to indicate his unaccomplished wish, for he can 

 not distinguish between time past and time to come by natural 

 pantomime. 



If this illustration seems tedious in its details, it must be par- 

 doned, for its object is to make the average man see the great gulf 

 which exists between the deaf child who knows how to buy some 

 candy and the hearing child who knows how to buy it and talk 

 about it, to express his desire for it, and to relate the facts con- 

 cerning the purchase. There is but one bridge for this gulf, the 

 bridge of language, and all the teachers of the deaf in this or any 

 other country are at work building this bridge. They differ in 

 their tools and in their methods of building, but their aim is 

 always the same. Language, be it spoken or written, is what the 

 deaf child must have if he is to understand the world about him 

 as his hearing brother understands it, and all the discussion of 

 the educators of the deaf to-day is as to how it can best be given 

 to him. 



The builders who have this task to accomplish work in two 

 ways. Some and they are among the oldest and the wisest of the 

 master builders lay their foundation and make the base of their 

 structure of a material different from the bridge itself, while 

 others use but one material from deepest-driven pile to topmost 

 guard-rail. Each party of workers claims that its structure is the 

 stronger and furnishes an easier highway whereby the deaf may 

 pass from the isolation of their wordless state to companionship 

 with the hearing, speaking world. 



