194 



IH'MIJ AND DEAF. 



1 1, .->!. 



Ur Wuoo. 



Deaf UUffht arithmetic, who would )>< afraid to culti- 

 vate th Hebrides ?" (Jimmri/ to the H'ntcrn I tics.) 



It is said that Mr Uraidwood \\.i- restrained t'ruui 

 laying his system before the public, solely l>y a persua- 

 sion that hi' could not explain it in \Korrlt u illi sufficient 

 precision to enable any one to act upon it. Hut we tor- 

 tun atelv possess the mean* of appreciating its merits ful- 

 ly, in the work of his relation and able assistant l)r \Vat- 

 son ; who. it is generally understood, teaches according 

 to the principle* of his master. That work, to which 

 We hare already referred so frequently, is, without any 

 exception, the Ix-st that has yet appeared relative to the 

 education of the Deaf ami Dumb. How far Mr Braid- 

 wood was acquainted with the writings of Wallis we 

 know not ; but his general \iews are the same. Dr 

 Watson seems to have methodised and improved the 

 system* of both. 



DeL'Kpt'c. All this had been done and written, before the name 

 ofDeL'Epee was known. But chance now directed 

 the attention of this reverend JHTSOII to the education 

 of the Deaf and Dumb; and he had soon the good for- 

 tune, not only to acquire a much more general reputa- 

 tion throughout F.uropc, than ever had been enjoyed 

 by his predecessors or cotemporarics ; but even to be 

 looked on with admimtion by many, as the first pliilo- 

 ^opher who hml discovered the possibility of illumina- 

 ting the minds of this unfortunate class of persons. 

 The A bin- happening to go into the house of a lady in 

 Paris, who had two daughters that were born Deaf and 



..ml), found her disconsolate for the death ot'their pre- 

 ceptor Father Vanin. He was touched with pity for 

 N their condition, and went home reflecting how he could 



best supply tho place of their teacher. Soon after, he 

 returned : put some of his reflections to the test of ex- 

 periment ; was satisfied; and resolved to become their 

 preceptor himself. Thus Ix-gun his philanthropic*! 

 exertions as an instructor of the Deaf and Dumb, and 

 thus commenced his fame. 



The English translator of his Method informs us, 

 (Pref. p. viii. ) that the Abbe instituted a seminary, in 

 which he received s many of the Deaf and Dumb, as 

 he could superintend, and formed preceptors to teach 

 those in distant parts. " The number of his scholars,' 1 

 says he, " grew to upwards of sixty ; .and, as the fame 

 ofhiaoper. -;ded, persons from (iermany, from 



Switzerland, from Spain, and from Holland, came to 

 Paris to be initiated in the method lie practised, and 

 transfer it to their sever.il countries." 



" The expences," this author observes afterwards, 

 attending the seminary which he established, were 

 wliolly defrayed by himself. He inherited an income, 

 .19 M. tie Bouilly informs us, amounting to about 

 14,000 livres, (nearly L. 600 sterling,) of which he Al- 

 lowed 2000 for hi* own person, and considered the re- 

 sidue 'imony of the Deaf and Dumb, to whose, 

 use it was faithfully applied. So strictly he adhered to 

 this appropriation, that in the rigorous winter of 

 when in hi- (i."itli year, and suffering under the infirmi- 

 ln denied himself fuel rather than intrench 

 upon tli<- fund he had destined them. Hisln. 

 having olserved his rigid restriction, and, doiibtHM, 

 imputing it to its real motive, led into his apnrtflMnf 

 forty of his pupils, who besought him, with tc; 



.-re himself for their snkes. Having been thus 

 led on to exceed his c rdinary c\]x-iiditurc 

 300 livres, he would afterwards say, in playing with 

 his scholar-, " I hnre wronged my children out of a 

 hundred crown.*." 



he pnbfehed work in French, entitled 



Hit Mini' 



101}. 



Institution of the Denf and Dumb by the tray of Me- Dumb nd 

 l/iodicul A'/'irn* ; and, in 17H4, a new edition of this, 

 much altered, appeared under the title of, la t; ritalilc ,^" 

 mitiiii'-re d'nutniire les tourds et mui/.<, 



It is this List work which lu: in- 

 troduced into the Encyclopedic .1/r/Aor//'ryur, under the 

 article Muds etSourdt, (part referral to at p. 187.) and 

 which Was translated into English, anonymously, at 

 London, in 1801. 



He continued to teach at Paris, with unremitting 

 perseverance, until 17<t<>, when he died, aged (J7. 



After the great and almost universal celebrity which 

 the Abbe seems to have acquired, we sliall hardly be 

 listened to when we affirm, that the system which he 

 taught was utterly useless. Vet that this was the case, 

 is but too obvious from the works which lie himself has 

 published, from the criticisms made on his method in 

 the work even of his pupil and successor .sicard, and 

 from his own confidential letters respecting it, which 

 Sicard has presented, along with these criticisms, to the 

 public. 



When he first began his career as an instructor of the 

 Deaf and Dumb, he seems to have Ix-cn entirely . 

 rant that Pereire was then teaching, and had taught, 

 for several years at Paris ; or that tli of educa- 



tion had ever been the subject, either of speculation or 

 practice, at any former time, or in any other country ; 

 and he confesses that it never occurred to him to 

 be practicable to teach his pupils to speak. Hut the 

 works of Bonnet and Amman soon became known to 

 him ; and, guided by their direction, he seems to have 

 succeeded in bestowing the gift of Speech on several of 

 his scholars. Latterly, however, he appears to have ne- 

 glected this branch very much ; whether from a mis- 

 take]] idea of its inutility, or really (as he professes) 

 from his inability to undergo the labour of teaching a 

 niimlxr of pupils at once, is very doubtful. In the 

 part of his book which relates to this subject, he pre- 

 tends to no more, than to have added a few reflect 

 of his own, to what he had found in Bonnet and Am- 



man. 



But the peculiarity of his method of education, and 

 the object to which cviry other seems to have been sa- 

 crificed, was his system of " Methodical Signs." This 

 w*8 an extremely com pli rated Language of the Hand, 

 representing, not single ! MI the common Ma- 



nual Alphabet, but whole words ; and the sole occupa- 

 tion of the pupil seems to have been, acquiring this 

 language, and converting Metluxlical Signs into Wri- 

 ting, or Writing into Methodical Signs, according to 

 th.' dictation of the master. 



It is only necessary to reflect, however, that this sys- His mcth*. 

 tern of signs was entirely peculiar to De 1'h'pee. to Jical 

 see, that it must have been altogether useless to his U1 1 fc 

 pupils as soon as they passed from school into socie- 

 tv : and that it was an absurd and inexcusable waste of 

 time to teach them a complicated artificial language, 

 which was perfectly unintelligible to the whole of the 

 rest of the world. It is true, indeed, that while the 

 Abbe instructed his sclioLis in these Methodical Signs, 

 In professes also to have taught them the meaning of 

 tlic word.- which they were intended to represent. But 

 whatever mny have been his wishes or his ]> 

 on this subject, the fact is, that the stock of words 

 which they nctHalli/ understood. seems to lu\c Ix-un ex- 

 cei-dingly -mall. 1 Ic appears to Ivave e*tabh>lu-d in their 

 minds, merely an association between Manual Signs and 

 Written Characters; neglecting or failing to a< -complwh 

 a connection of infinitely more importance, that between 



