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DEAF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THK. 



M.AF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THK. 



418 



very limited phcre, owing to the poverty of hi* knowledge, but still 

 knowledge, deduced from observation, limited also by the want of a 

 conventional mode of expressing it The existence of the reasoning 

 power being thus evident, the mean* to cultivate it would be the 

 next object for philosophic investigation. That Ariitotle had never 

 mad* theM ohterration* and investigations U evident, or he would 

 not have come to that absolute conclusion which exclude* the deaf 

 from all participation in knowledge. Among other people of ancient 

 Utue UteM unfortunate being* were the object* of a specie* of proscnp- 

 Uon, being tuppoaed to labour under the curae of heaven. Previoiu to the 

 Muut of Justinian the Roman law* m'"i" an absolute silence upon 

 the deaf and dumb. They apeak frequently of deaf persons, not 

 tmhg dumb ; and also of dumb person* not being deaf ; but never 

 of those labouring under both these deprivation*. The Code (lib. vi. 

 tit xxii. 1. 10) mention* the deaf and dumb in a manner express and 

 special. Five clissra of person* labouring under one or both of these 

 deprivation* are established. Those who from their birth were deaf 

 and dumb were legally incapable of making a will, or of manumitting 

 a slave, and laboured under other civil disabilities. 



The reader will find in the work of C. Ouyot, of Groningen, which 

 is a dissertation written in Latin on the legislation relative to the 

 deaf and dumb down to 1824, all that relates to this part of the 

 subject, with a list of author*. Saint Augustine, in the fourth 

 century, declares that the deaf and dumb are shut out from obtaining 

 religious knowledge, remarking " that deafness from birth makes faith 

 impossible, since be who is born deaf can neither hear the word nor 

 learn to read it ; " and many respectable ecclesiastics in the time of 

 the AbW de 1'Epee openly condemned his undertaking. The bene- 

 volent abbe 1 also informs us that parents considered it a discredit to 

 have deaf and dumb children, and they believed that they fulfilled 

 every claim such offspring could have on them by merely supplying 

 their "'*"! wants, concealing them from the eyes of the world within 

 the walls of a cloister, or in some other obscure abode. He also 

 averts that in some uncivilised countries the deaf and dumb were 

 in kit time regarded as monsters, and were put to death as soon as 

 their calamity was ascertained. So that we find naturalists, legisla- 

 tor*, divines, philosophers, and even parents, agreeing in the imprac- 

 ticability of conveying knowledge otherwise than by speech, and 

 thereby excluding the deaf and dumb from all means of intellectual 

 improvement. 



From the advantages which instruction has afforded to a certain pro- 

 portion of the deaf and dumb for more than half a century, a tolerably 

 correct estimate may be formed of their capabilities for improvement. 

 The deaf-mute living in society, but without instruction, must be 

 regarded as one of the most solitary and melancholy of beings. He is 

 shut out from all but the most imperfect intercourse with his species ; 

 and the very intellect by the possession of which he is raised above 

 the lower creation serves only to heighten his calamity, and to render 

 the sense of his deprivation more acute. Hi* perceptions of external 

 object* are indeed accurate but superficial, and confined to a very 

 small sphere. Of the various arts by which the necessaries and con- 

 venience* of civilised life are produced, he can have no knowledge 

 beyond that which is included in the range of hi* own vision. Animal 

 desires he feels, and he is led by the conventional usages of society 

 to the performance of moral duties and the avoidance of open and 

 flagrant crime. Thus he becomes experienced, as other human beings 

 are, in what is right or wrong. He sees that virtuous actions have a 

 certain amount of reward, in the opinions of good men ; for he learns 

 to discriminate between those whose actions are proper and those who 

 do wrong; and again, he sees that in many cases vice meets with dis- 

 approbation and punishment among mankind. How this kind of expe- 

 rience shall affect his own conduct must depend not only on the cir- 

 cumstances in which he is placed, as to example and the moral in- 

 fluence of those with whom he has to associate, but also on his own 

 natural tendencies. 



The performance of moral duties implies the exercise of intellectual 

 faculties ; and from hi* birth the deaf-mute makes use of his reasoning 

 powers. He is subject to changes of purpose, to changes of feeling, to 

 the passion*, the pleasures, and the infirmities common to his species ; 

 he U sensible of kindness, and he gives proofs of affection. That 

 such U the state of the deaf and dumb when uneducated might be 

 proved by the observations of their parents, friends, and instructors, in 

 hundreds of instances. That such must necessarily be the case, sup- 

 posing them not to be idiots, it would be easy to show. We affirm, in 

 contradiction to those who contend that deaf-mutes are naturally more 

 debased than other men in intellect and in morals, that there is not an 

 individual deaf-mute now under instruction improving, and thereby 

 evincing rational faculties who, previous to instruction, however dis- 

 advantageous the circumstances which attended his earlier years, did 

 not evince moral sentiments and intellectual operations. We have 

 traced the history of many of 'this clans in different ranks of society, 

 from the period when the deprivation under which they have laboured 

 wa* first ascertained to the time when their direct education has com- 

 menced ; and we have found invariably that mixture of good and evil 

 in their action* and tendencies which is seen amongst other children. 

 We have also had sufficient proof* of the exercise of intellect even 

 while they were in a state of childhood. 



At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the deaf and dumb 



an generally inferior in their moral and intellectual power* to those 

 who do not labour under the same defect. But this inferiority is only 

 one of degree, and may be satisfactorily accounted for, in accordance 

 with the opinion* above expressed. Andral has described the state of 

 an uneducated deaf and dumb person, and to a certain extent we can 

 adopt his sentiment*. Experience and observation among this claw of 

 persons would have induced this accomplished pathologist to have 

 bestowed on them even a more liberal endowment. " The deaf-mute 

 exhibits in his intellect, in his character, and in the development of 

 his passions, certain modifications which depend on his state of isolation 

 in the midst of society. We find him remain habitually in a sort of 

 half -childishness, and he ha* great credulity ; to balance this he is like 

 the savage, exempt from many of the prejudice* which we owe to our 

 social education. In him the tender sentiments are not very de. 

 appears not to be susceptible either of lasting attachment* or of lively 

 gratitude ; pity touches him but feebly ; he is an entire stranger to 

 emulation ; he has few enjoyments and few desires ; and the impression* 

 of sadness but slightly affect him. This is what is most commonly 

 observed in deaf mute* ; but this picture is not universally applicable. 

 Some, more happily endowed, are remarkable for the great develop- 

 ment of their intellectual and moral nature ; there are others, on the 

 contrary, who continue in a state of complete idiocy." (' Dictioimaire 

 de Mecfecine,' article ' Surdi-MutiteV) This last remark of Andrei's 

 requires some qualification. Deaf and dumb persons who possess 

 intellectual faculties are no more liable to become idiots than others 

 whose organs perform their appointed functions. Their powers may 

 remain undeveloped ; they may be ignorant of everything which 

 depends on intercourse with mankind ; their reasoning may be incon- 

 clusive, and their inferences erroneous from their confined observations ; 

 but still their mental powers will be called into action, and they will 

 be, to a great extent, under the control of their reasoning faculties. 

 This is not the case with idiots : in them there is a deficiency, more or 

 less, of self-government, and of intellectual control. There are, at the 

 same time, numerous cases of idiots who are dumb; not, however, in 

 consequence of deafness, but from their incapacity to understand the 

 meaning of language, to imitate it, and to apply it. These person* 

 cannot be classed with lite deaf and dumb. It may be this class to 

 which Andral particularly alludes in the latter part of our quotation ; 

 for he qualifies his remark in some measure by adding, " The differeuei< 

 in the intellectual and moral nature of man is often primitive, and 

 independent of all external influences." Of the same opinion with our- 

 selves we find Degerando, Bdbian (the successor of Sicard), Piroux of 

 Nancy, and all the more successful teachers of the deaf and dumb of 

 the present day, in this country and throughout Europe and America. 



Passing over the miracles of our Saviour when the deaf were made 

 to. hear and the dumb to speak, by immediate inspiration we learn 

 from the Venerable Bede's ' Ecclesiastical History,' quoted by the Abbe 1 

 Carton in his ' Annual of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind,' published at 

 Bruges in 1840, that a deaf man was taught to pronounce words and 

 sentences by John, Bishop of Hagulstad (Hexhom), afterwards known 

 as John of Beverlcy (Bioo. Div.), in the year 685. This, and other 

 works of healing, were attributed by the simple-minded Anglo-Saxons 

 to some miraculous power conferred upon the good and sensible bishop 

 for his holy life ; but enough is recorded to show that the process was 

 the gradual one afterwards pursued by most of the early professors of 

 the art of teaching speech to the deaf and dumb, and even now fol- 

 lowed in some of our institutions. The bishop mode the sign of the 

 cross on the mute's tongue, which ceremony is now dispensed with, 

 and then pronounced the Anglo-Saxon word ^ea, yea, upon which his 

 tongue was loosed, and he uttered the sound, or a sufficient approach 

 to it to induce the clever 1 ' 

 and afterwards sentences, 

 certain process towards success. 



The next mention we meet with of the capacity of those born deaf 

 to receive instruction, is in the writings of Kodolphus Agricola (born 

 in 1442) of Oroningen. He does not inform us who was the parent 

 of the art ; but he mentions in his posthumous work, ' De Inventionc 

 Dialectical,' that he had himself witnessed a person deaf from infancy, 

 and consequently dumb, who had learned to understand writing, and, 

 as if possessed of speech, was able to note down his whole thoughts. 

 The truth of this relation was doubted by Louis Vives, of Valentia, 

 who wrote in the beginning of the 16th century ; but there is as good 

 reason to put trust in Agricola's account as to join in Vives's disbelief. 

 (See the treatise, ' De Anima,' of Vives, L. ii. c. ' De Disoendi Ratione.') 

 Not long after the death of Agricola, and during the life of Vives, the 

 theoretical principles on which the art rests were discovered and pro- 

 mulgated by the learned Jerome Cardan, of the University of Pavia, 

 hi* native place. He was born in 1501, and died in 1576. Cardan thus 

 expresses himself : " Writing is associated with speech, and speech 

 with thought; but written characters and ideas may be connected 

 together without the intervention of sounds, as in hieroglyphic charac- 

 ters." (See ' Journal of Education,' No. VI. p. 204.) The most noted 

 early practitioner of the art of instructing the deaf was Pedro de 

 Ponce ; this fact is authenticated by two of his contemporaries, Kran- 

 ciscus Vallesius and Ambromus Morales. Ponce was a monk of the 

 order of St. Benedict, at Ofia. Morales, in his ' Antiquities of Spain,' 

 thus speaks of Ponce : " He has already instructed two brothers and a 

 sister of the constable, and he is now occupied in instructing the son 



bishop to pronounce letters, syllables, words, 

 is, which the deaf man imitated, a slow but 



