DEAF, BUT NOT DUMB. 



185 



have not been disturbed. But, it may be ar- 

 gued, " Could not more time be given to articu- 

 lation?" It would be of no avail, I reply, so 

 long as signs constitute the basis of education, 

 for so long will the pupils think in them rather 

 than in articulation. In that case no good re- 

 sult is to be gained, because articulation will be 

 but a foreign language, in which ease enough to 

 be pleasant or useful will rarely be gained, an 

 annoyance very often — a task, and will ever lead 

 to disappointment. 



A " foreign " language ! Is it not startling to 

 hear English spoken of thus, in the case of Eng- 

 lish children ? Yet such is English to those 

 taught on the " French " or " Combined " meth- 

 ods. It is a foreign language to them, as we 

 are constantly reminded by the teachers of 

 those systems. Let us see whether such is the 

 case with those taught on the "German" system. 



Here, to begin with, there is no inverted 

 order ; and, as those taught thereon have no 

 other medium for thought than the English lan- 

 guage, there is certainly no reason, theoretically, 

 why their language should not be as pure as that 

 of hearing children. This is scarcely the case 

 at first, yet such a result is reached before leav- 

 ing school, and is not lost afterward. 



I fancy I hear some one say, " This may be 

 so with the semi-mute and the semi-deaf, but 

 can it be possible with the toto-congenital, who 

 have never heard ? Are they able to make 

 speech the means of communication with the 

 world in general ? " Wait a minute, and I 

 think, when you have heard a few examples of 

 the very many cases that have come under our 

 Dotice, and which we tested for ourselves, that 

 you will acknowledge that articulation under the 

 "German" method is no mere accomplishment, 

 but is the practical means by which those so 

 taught communicate, not with their fellow-pupils 

 and teachers only, but with their hearing fellow- 

 creatures also. 



Remembering the three classes called " deaf 

 and dumb " in this country, let us take a few 

 examples, all of which came under our personal 

 notice, unless mentioned to the contrary. In 

 these cases names and dates will not be speci- 

 fied, but they are at the service of any person 

 who chooses to ask for them for the purpose of 

 proving the accuracy of the statements con- 

 tained in this paper. 



I will not weary you with cases of the semi- 

 deaf speaking, because it must be evident to all 

 that this class — having hearing, although not 

 sufficient to enable them to be educated with 



hearing children — have ear enough to understand 

 to a certain extent the modulations of sound. We 

 will pass on, therefore, to the next class, the 

 semi-mute. 



t The first case we will take is that of one of 

 the daughters of a gentleman who, through his 

 kindness to us, has become a great personal 

 friend of my own. As soon as he heard the ob- 

 ject of our journey, and that our child was deaf, 

 he spared neither pains, time, nor personal exer- 

 tion to help us in this matter. 



His child had lost hearing, from fever, be- 

 tween four and five years of age. At that time 

 there were no schools in this country on this 

 admirable "German" system; but the parents, 

 convinced of the advantage of this method, made 

 themselves acquainted with the details of instruc- 

 tion, which were successfully carried out in the 

 person of their own child, as you will acknowledge 

 when I tell you that she was able to go into shops 

 in Germany and get things that her father wanted, 

 he being unable to speak the language ; and that 

 she came to stay with us in our house in the 

 country, and was conversed with by our friends, 

 both at garden parties and privately, to the sur- 

 prise of all who saw her. 



Take another case. A lady of great wealth 

 had four children ; fever came and struck down 

 three; two died, the other lived, but her hearing 

 was totally lost. She was then four years of age. 

 The poor mother, as might be expected, was 

 overwhelmed with grief, and for twelve months 

 was herself ill, and unable to attend to the educa- 

 tion of her poor little deaf child. It was not 

 until the latter was between five and six years of 

 age — twelve months after losing hearing — that 

 the mother attempted to educate her at all. Her 

 speech was almost gone ; indeed, to such an ex- 

 tent was this the case, that she had but one word 

 left — a word natural to a child — " cake." The 

 mother was an energetic, clever woman, no doubt, 

 but she had a large household, and kept much 

 company, living in the most fashionable society 

 of a wealthy neighborhood ; yet she found time 

 to educate her child, notwithstanding that a large 

 younger family (she had eight living children 

 when I saw her), added to her other cares, must 

 have left her little time for such teaching. She 

 made a practice of giving her deaf child two 

 hours every morning, and with this instruction her 

 daughter became a highly-educated and agreeable 

 woman in society. We spent the day at her 

 father's house, and a most accomplished woman 

 we found her. She talked to my wife of pictures, 

 poetry, and all manner of subjects common to 



