PLEA FOR THE DEAF AND DLMB. 205 



the Canary Islands, and to the southward of these takes to the Barbary 

 shore as far south as Cape Blanc, where it arrives at its first starting 

 point, and is again under the influence of the trade winds. 



PHONOGRAPHY. 



A PLEA FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB. 



The miraculous element in many of the Saviour's wondrous works 

 ■was not so much the nature of the eifect prodnced as the mode of its 

 production. Many of the sick he healed could doubtless have been 

 cured by the use of natural means, but he cured them at once and with 

 a word. "The dumb speak !" By an act of divine power, he instanta- 

 neously unlooses their tongues, and communicates to them the gift of 

 speech in its perfection. As truly a miracle as the raising of the dead. 



But the dumb now speak. Deafness, which was long considered an 

 insuperable obstacle to the acquisition of speech — as the necessary cause 

 of hopeless silence, now no longer seals the lips. lie may be deaf but 

 he is not dumb. Though he hears me not, he sees my words, as they 

 fall from my lips, and answers me intelligently with a voice that had 

 seemed condemned to be forever the vehicle of incoherent sounds, less 

 intelligible than the instinctive cries of the brute. It seems almost as 

 though a new sense had been imparted to the mute, who is taught not 

 only to catch up the soul of the printed page, but to seize the thought 

 of the speaker by watching merely those muscular movements which 

 are necessary for the enunciation of his words, and which, as they are 

 merely a means to the end, (the spoken word,) we vvho are blessed with 

 the auditory sense, so seldom observe at all. 



Now why is it, that this astounding discovery, that mutes can be 

 taught to understand spoken language and themselves to speak, has not 

 sent a thrill of joy throughout our land ; that our Asylums for the Deaf 

 and Dumb have not become the sources of living language to the mute.' 

 Why ? Because the English language is not phonographic ! 



The want of a better system of signs for our sounds, is a theme that 

 begins to sound familiar to the readers of the Journal. Would that its 

 importance were more generally felt and that a deeper interest were 

 manifested in the recent eflbrts to correct this great evil! The difficul- 

 ties of such an undertaking are great, but not insurmountable, the ad- 

 vantages would be incalculable. 



A few days since a pamphlet was handed to me entitled, "■Thoughts 

 on a Reform of the English Alphabet and Orthography, by a Teacher." 

 The author feels the importance of the subject and presses home upon 



