50 ACCOUNT OF A BOY 



I shall only add one other sentence, from which my readersr 

 will be enabled, without any comment of mine, to perceive 

 with what sagacity and success, this very original thinker, had 

 anticipated some of the most refined experimental conclusions 

 of a more enlightened age. 



" i\Iv design is not to give a metlrodical system of gramma^ 

 tical rules ; but only such general directions, whereby an indus- 

 trious Tutor may bring his deaf Pupil to the vulgar use and 

 oTi of a language ; that so he may be the more capable of re- 

 ceiving instruction in the 5J on from the rules of grammar, 

 when his judgment is ripe for that study : Or, more plainly ; I 

 intend to bring the way of teaching a deaf man to read and 

 write, as near as possible, to that of teaching young ones to 

 speak and understand their mother-tongue." 



In prosecution of this general idea, he has treated, in one 

 very short chapter, of a Deaf Mans Dictionary ; and in ano- 

 ther, of a Grammar for Deaf Persons ; both of them contain- 

 ing (under the disadvantages of a style uncommonly pedantic 

 and quaint) a variety of precious hints, from which, if I do not 

 deceive myself, useful practical lights might be derived, not 

 only by such as may imdertake the instruction of such pupils 

 as Mitchell or JNIassieu, but by all who have any concern in 

 the tuition of children during the first stage of their educa- 

 tion. 



The work from which these quotations are taken, is a very 

 small volume, entitled " Didascalocophus, or, The Deaf and 

 " Dumb Man's Tutor, printed at the Theater in Oxford, 1680." 

 As I had never happened to see the slightest reference made 

 to it by any subsequent writer, I was altogether ignorant of its 

 existence, when a copy of it, purchased upon a London stall, 

 was a few years ago sent to me by a friend, who, amidst a mul- 

 tiplicity of more pressiiig engagements and pursuits, has never 



lost 



