DEAF AND DUMB 



707 



to perpetual silence, the tongue is included in the 

 km ; tin u-jli. if we cuuld by any means give to the 

 ear the faculty of hearing, the tongue would soon 

 learn for itself to fulfil it* proper office. To correct 

 the error involved in tin- apparent iniHiiomer, some 

 authorities use the term i/mf '.simply, others speak 

 <>f the deitf-tlumh and deuf-mute. The latter term 

 i- 1 -.minion in Ami-iica, as in France is its euivalent 



unrit.t -iiui' /v. In the Holy Scriptures tne same 

 riginal word i> translated 'deaf in Home places 

 (as in Mark, vii. 32), and 'dumb' or ' 8]>eeciiles8 ' 

 in others (see Matt. ix. 33, and Luke, i. 22). 



This afflict ion is very much more common than, 

 fora long time, and up to a recent period, it was 

 supposed to be. Happily, however, along with the 

 knowledge of its extensive prevalence, has come 

 the means of alleviating it, by education. It was 

 only when the schools now in existence began their 

 useful work, and caused inquiries to be made, that 

 the actual numbers of the deaf and dumb began to 

 appear. In every place where it was proposed to 

 establish a school in Paris, London, Liverpool, 

 Manchester, Yorkshire, and in New York the 

 objection was immediately started that children 

 could not be found in sufficient numbers to require 

 such schools. Their promoters, however, knew 

 better than this, and persisted in their design. 

 They soon had the satisfaction of converting the 

 objectors into their warmest supporters. The facts 

 thus ascertained, and the calculations based upon 

 them, continued to be the only statistics upon the 

 subject of deaf-dumbness in' Great Britain and 

 Ireland until the census of 1851, when for the first 

 time the number and ages of the deaf and dumb 

 formed a part of the inquiry. 



In 1891 the total number of deaf and dumb 

 persons in England and Wales was 14,192, in 

 Scotland 2125, in Ireland 3365, and in the United 

 Kingdom 1!>,(>82 a decrease in proportion to the 

 total population (38,104,975 in the United King- 

 dom at the same date), as appears from the figures 

 for earlier census years : 



1851. 



Number of 

 Deal and Dumb. 



England and Wales 10,314 



Scotland 2.155 



Ireland 4,747 



Islands of the British Seas . . 84 



Total 17,800 



1861. 



England and Wales 12,236 



Scotland 2.386 



Ird.m.l 4,930 



Islands of the British Seas. . 87 



Total 



Population. 

 17,927,60!) 

 2,b88,742 

 e,552,3b5 

 143,126 



27,511,862 1 in 1590 



Proportion. 



1 in 1738 

 1 ., 1340 



1380 

 1704 



20,060,224 



8,062,294 



6,798,967 



143.347 



1 in 1640 



1 1811 



1 ii 1176 



1 .. 1(547 



Total 19,688 



1871. 



England and Wales 11,518 



Scotland 2,068 



Ireland 4,467 



Islands of the British Seas . . 77 



Total 18,150 



1881. 



England and Wales 13,296 



Scotland . 2,142 



Ireland 8,993 



Islands of the British Seas . . 88 



29,070,832 1 in 1484 



22,712,260 



8,360.018 



5,412,377 



144,038 



1 in 1971 



1 ii 1609 



1 it 1211 



1 .. 1878 



81,629,-->9S 1 in 1742 



2C,974,439 



8,735,578 



6,174,880 



138.701 



1 in 1963 

 1 .. 1744 

 1 ii 1296 

 1 ii 1577 



Total 19618 



35,023,639 1 in 1794 



The increase of population in 1861 above that of 

 1851 was 1 A millions, and the number of deaf and 

 dumb had also increased ; but although the popula- 

 tion in 1871 had increased by 2$ millions above that 

 of 1861, the returns show a large decrease in the 

 proportion of deaf and dumb. A further increase 

 of population in 1881 of 3$ millions still shows a 

 diminution in the proportion of deaf and dumb ; 

 there was only a total increase of 1368 deaf and 



dumb. We can only attribute tin- to more extended 

 and improved sanitary measures, advanced know- 

 ledge in medical treatment, and more careful nm -ing 

 of children when suffering from those disease* which 

 so frequently result in deafness. 



Hut while social science is prosecuting it- import- 

 ant inquiries into the causes, inevitable and pre- 

 ventable, of deafness, Philanthropy lias before her 

 the work of educating these 'children of silence,' 

 to whom the ordinary means of instruction are 

 obviously inapplicable, and for whom, until little 

 more tlian a century ago, there existed scarcely any 

 available means of education at all. The deaf are 

 spoken of frequently in the writings lx>th of the Old 

 and New Testaments ; they are alluded to by the 

 poete, philosophers, and lawgivers of antiquity ; yet 

 we have no account of any attempt at educating 

 them until the loth century ; no school existed for 

 them until the middle of the 18th ; nor could it be 

 said that education was freely offered, and readily 

 accessible, until within the last fifty or sixty years. 

 Some isolated attempts had been made before the 

 18th century, by different men, in different coun- 

 tries, and at long intervals, to give instruction 

 to one or two deaf and dumb persons, and their 

 endeavours were attended with various degrees of 

 success. These several cases excited some atten- 

 tion at the time ; but after the wonder at their 

 novelty had subsided they seem to have been 

 almost forgotten, even in the countries where the 

 experiments were made. Bede speaks of a dumb 

 youth being taught by St John of Beverley (q.v.), 

 to repeat after him letters and syllables, and then 

 some words and sentences. The fact was regarded 

 as a miracle, and was classed with others alleged 

 to have been wrought by the same hand. From 

 this time, eight centuries elapsed before any record 

 of an instructed deaf-mute occurs. Rodolphus 

 Agricola, a native of Groningen, born in 1442, 

 mentions as within his knowledge the fact that 

 a deaf-mute had leen taught to write, and to note 

 down his thoughts. Fifty years afterwards, this 

 statement was controverted, and the alleged fact 

 pronounced to be impossible, on the ground that 

 no instruction could l>e conveyed to the mind of any 

 one who could not hear words addressed to the ear. 

 But the discovery which was to give the key to this 

 long-concealed mystery was now at hand. In 1501 

 was born, at Pavia, Jerome Cardan (q.v.), a man 

 of great but ill-regulated talents, who, among the 

 numerous speculations to which his restless mind 

 prompted him, certainly discovered the theoretical 

 principle upon which the instruction of the deaf 

 and dumb is founded. He says : ' Writing is asso- 

 ciated with speech, and speech with thought ; but 

 written characters and ideas may be connected 

 together without the intervention of sounds,' and 

 he argues that, on this principle, ' the instruction of 

 the deaf and dumb, though difficult, is possible.' 

 All this, which to us is obvious and familiar, was 

 a novel speculation in the 16th century. With us 

 it is a common thing for a man to teach himself to 

 read a language, though he cannot pronounce it. 

 There are, for instance, hundreds of persons who 

 can read French, who do not and cannot speak it. 

 Now it is evident, in this case, that written or 

 printed words do impart ideas independently of 

 Hounds, yet this was a discovery which the world 

 owes to Jerome Cardan; and it was for want of 

 seeing this truth, which to us is so familiar, that 

 the education of the deaf and dumb was never 

 attempted, but was considered for so many centuries 

 to lie a thing impossible. 



It was in Spain that these principles were first 

 put into practice by Pedro Ponce (1520-84), a 

 Benedictine monk, and again, in the following 

 century, by another monk of the same order, Juan 

 Paulo Bonet, who also published a work upou the 



