242 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



every facility for talking, but does not talk, and why ? Because he 

 cannot hear. This is the only reason, for he has sound lungs, a well- 

 shaped mouth, tongue, teeth, palate, and every facility for talking, 

 but cannot hear; he can laugh, and cry, and make the same 

 noises in doing it that the hearing child does. Why happens this ? 

 Because this comes natural, it is spontaneous, it comes of itself. 

 Not so with speech; this noise has to be shaped, gauged, and so 

 fixed and manufactured, as when it presents itself it is lan- 

 guage, and can be understood. Now, this deaf child lacks noth- 

 ing but the knowledge of putting his talking-machine in opera- 

 tion. And as every good, plain talker's machine undergoes just 

 the same operation, I would ask, is there no person in the land 

 that has ingenuity and acuteness enough to assist this child in 

 putting his machine in motion aright? I am ready to answer in 

 the affirmative. I think it can and will be done." 



How the School of Miss Rogers originated. At a hearing before 

 a legislative committee in Boston, in January, 1867, Miss Rogers 

 said : 



*' I knew nothing of it (articulation), except that it had been 

 tried abroad ; but I thought that what had been done abroad could 

 be done here. I visited a lady in Providence who had taught ar- 

 ticulation, got what information I could from her, and went home. 



" I found, after my first pupil had been with me two months, 

 that the finger-language was so much more definite than reading 

 from the lips, that she was not satisfied unless it was used, and 

 that the two systems could not be used together. I then took her 

 and went to visit her parents, and told them they must decide 

 which system they would choose. My preference was for articu- 

 lation. They decided upon articulation. Then, just as soon as 

 she could make any articulate sounds for the words she had 

 learned, I obliged her to give up the finger language, and now 

 she knows nothing of it." 



This was why Miss Rogers gave up everything but articulation 

 and reading on the lips. On the first of June last she received as 

 a pupil a congenital mute, nearly 8 years old. Of him and his 

 progress she said at the same hearing : 



"The congenital deaf-mute knew nothing of articulation; he 

 had never articulated a word. I placed him before me ; I held 

 liis hand and breathed upon it, and taught him to breathe upon it. 

 When he could do that, he had the power of the letter h. The first 

 day I gave him the power of five letters, but he could not articu- 

 late either of them aloud. The second day, I think it was, he 

 articulated one or two of those letters aloud; and the third day I 

 taught him his first word, ' pie.' He repeated it many times be- 

 fore he made an audible sound, but he did once or twice that day 

 repeat the word in an audible voice. He knew four words when 

 he came to me, as I have stated, when he saw them in a book, 

 and he could also write his own name, and knew it when it was 

 written. He did not know the letters contained in his name, but 

 imitated it when it was set for a copy ; and I do not know but he 

 could write the names of two or three of his family at home. 



" This congenital mute, who knew so little when he came, now 



