431 



DEAF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THI 



DEAF AND DUMB, EDUCATION OF THE. 



422 



his teacher, produce examples without understanding a single idea 

 which they contained. 



In distinguishing gender, the abbe says, " The gender is explained by 

 putting our hand to our hat for the masculine, and to the ear, the part 

 to which a female's head-dress extends, for the feminine." In the 

 English institutions the hand is placed to the beard to denote the 

 masculine, and drawn along the forehead, in allusion to the parting of 

 the hair, for the feminine. The following is the generally received 

 sign for singular and plural : " The elevation of the right thumb 

 designates the singular, the motion of several fingers the plural." The 

 following is also good : " To express doubt, we turn our head to the 

 right, a yes, and to the left, a no ; which of the two will take place we 

 cannot tell ; we shall know only by the event." Many similar examples 

 might be adduced : how superior are these to " twirling two fingers 

 round each other while declining, that is, while descending from the 

 first to the sixth," to signify the term case ; or " the left hand under 

 the right for the noun-substantive," and " the right under the left for 

 the adjective," will be readily perceived. 



We do not regard the success of the Abb<5 do 1'Ep^e as complete, 

 but we are satisfied that he pursued his methods with openness and 

 candour, and with the single desire of promoting the moral and intel- 

 lectual advancement of the deaf and dumb. Heinicke of Leipzig, and 

 PeYeire of Paris, must be regarded as his rivals, but he invited them to 

 a discussion of the merits of the various systems, which they declined. 

 While the good abb<S, with that frankness which formed a beautiful 

 feature in his character, solicited the examination and the judgment of 

 the learned upon his methods, his rivals shrouded their proceedings 

 under a veil of mystery. The abbe 1 devoted his Ufa and whole fortune, 

 excepting a bare supply fur his own wants, to the service of the class 

 whom he had taken under his protection. Pdreire refused to disclose 

 his methods, except for a large recompense ; and Heinicke, in addition 

 to receiving payment from the rich, had four hundred crowns annually 

 allowed him by the grand duke of Saxony. Both these persons made 

 the art they professed an interested spoliation ; the Abb6 de l'Epe"e 

 only tolerated the rich he was proud of being the instructor of the 

 indigent. His successor, the Abbd Sicard, carried forward the principles 

 ort)e I'Epe'e ; he instructed his pupils in the elements of composition, 

 a branch of their education comparatively new, and in which Sicard 

 most completely evinced his superiority over his master. Sicard at 

 first conducted a school at Bordeaux ; on the death of the A M.r de 

 I'Epe'e, Sicard was called to fill his place at Paris. The philosophical 

 opinions and penetrating views which Sicard maintained and practised 

 are well developed in his ' Cours d'Instruction d'un Sourd-Muet,' in 

 which is developed the plan on which he conducted the education of 

 his celebrated pupil Massieu. He followed the leading principles of 

 !>< rEpe"?, particularly in employing methodical signs as one of the 

 chief instruments of instruction; he considered well the nature of 

 language, and by his clear and analytical methods of sensible illustra- 

 tion, he contrived to make the leading principles of grammar familiar 

 to his pupils. In the latter years of Sieard's practice he thought more 

 favourably of articulation, as a means of rapid communication between 

 master and pupil, than he had done at the commencement of his 

 career. The Baron Degc"rando gays of his most popular work, " When 

 w read the ' Count d'Instruction d'un Sourd-Muet,' we almost fancy 

 that we are reading a kind of philosophical romance. It borrows its 

 forms, and creates a similar interest ; we find in it something of the 

 romance of the Arabian Theophail (' Le Philosophe Autodidactique ') ; 

 something which appears borrowed from the pictures of Buffon, tlir 

 statue of Condillac, and the Emilius of Rousseau ; it is a soul which 

 has hitherto slumbered, which awakes ; an intelligent life, which begins 

 to develop itself, amid a variety of scenes, to the voice of the in- 

 structor ; it is a kind of savage, strange to our customs, who is initiated 

 into our ideas, our knowledge, and at the same time into our language. 

 The Abbe" Sicard enlarges upon each of these progressive stages, and 

 spreads over them the charm of a drama ; he paints with warmth 

 the uncertainties and the joys of the master and the pupil ; and he 

 succeeds in thus showing, in an animated picture, definitions and pro- 

 cesses which appear the most barren in their nature ; he gives a shape 

 to the most abstract notions ; it might be said that the Abbe" Sicard is 

 the painter of syntax and the poet of grammar. This work went 

 through several editions, and we need not be surprised at it, for it is 

 not to the deaf and dumb alone that it may be profitable." 



Of the ' Theorie des Signes,' a work founded on the principles of the 

 Abbe de 1'Epee, we can only give a faint sketch. It is a kind of 

 dictionary, in which the expressions of the face, and the attitudes of 

 the body, for the communication of certain ideas, are described. The 

 arrangement is not the ordinary alphabetical form of a dictionary, but 

 a kind of logical order " more conformable to the nature of things, and 

 the growth and expansion of ideas." The work is divided into twelve 

 classes of things, adopting in each class an alphabetical order cor- 

 responding to the French language. These classes are arranged as 

 fnllowB : 



1. Signs of names of the most common objects, and such sa come 

 under observation during infantile years ; these are the parts of the 

 body, clothing, food, beverages, a town and its parts. 



2. Vegetables, comprising forest-trees, shrubs, fruit-trees, culinary 

 vegetables, medicinal nerbi, wild plants, Ac. 



3. Minerals gold, silver, copper, brass, lead, tin, iron, &c. 



4. Of man ages of man, relationships, school, institution, college, 

 officers, domestics and servants of a house, tradespeople, mechanics, 

 merchants ; the liberal arts ; titles, dignities in towns, cities, and 

 states, and their functions ; terms of war ; ecclesiastics, and monastic 

 functionaries. 



5. Of God, angels, saints. 



6. Of the elements ; of fiery, luminous, and watery meteors ; the fir- 

 mament, earth, cardinal points, signs of the zodiac. 



7. Parts of the world ; names of nations, empires, kingdoms, repub- 

 lics, capitals, principal islands, &. 



8. Numbers, measures, weights, time, money, exchanges, commerce. 



9. Organic qualities of man ; abstract organic qualities of man ; 

 maladies of the body. 



10. Qualities of matter ; such as strike the senses of man, dimensions, 

 shapes, surfaces, extent, quantity, lines, angles. 



11. Physical actions of man, such as are expressed by verbs. 



12. Intellectual and moral actions of man, expressed by verbs, nouns, 

 adjectives, and adverbs. 



These are the divisions Sicard adopted for his nomenclature, which 

 occupies nearly the whole of the two volumes comprising the work, the 

 latter portion of which is purely grammatical ; in it the different parts 

 of speech are considered, not only under a general view, but under 

 certain divisions which indicate their value, and assimilate those which 

 bear a relationship to each other; thus adverbs of manner, of number, 

 of place, of quantity, of quality, of interrogation, of affirmation and 

 negation, of time, of dottbt and inquiry, and of comparison, are distinctly 

 and separately treated of. Without questioning whether the classifi- 

 cation adopted in the twelve divisions of the ' Theory of Signs ' be the 

 best, we may see in such a classification the kind of gradations needful 

 for supplying the deaf with an extensive nomenclature ; and though 

 few instructors would make the work a practical one, so far as to adopt 

 the system of methodical signs there developed, yet, as a text-book, it 

 unfolds a plan which any teacher may modify according to his own 

 views. We think the work is less valued than it deserves to be, for as 

 signs will to a certain extent be always in use among the deaf and 

 dumb, especially in those institutions where they are educated, the 

 theory of signs would be found of great use as a work of reference to 

 all teachers. We need not panegyrise the Abbd Sicard ; his exertions 

 for the deaf and dumb are well known in this country, which he visited 

 during the political troubles of France in 1815 ; his merits are acknow- 

 ledged wherever the education of the deaf is pursued. We have some- 

 times been surprised that the ' Cours d'Instruction d'un Sourd-Muet ' 

 has not been translated into our language. Independent of its novelty 

 and interest as connected with its more immediate design, its gradual 

 unfolding of a great mind involved in moral and intellectual darkness, 

 by a metaphysician of high endowments, presents some interesting 

 psychological facts which would make it serviceable in general educa- 

 tion ; the illustrations of language and the development of ideas are 

 just such as an accomplished and livply teacher would desire to place 

 before his pupils, to assist in conveying to their minds a just esti- 

 mation of the value of words, and the knowledge which they serve to 

 impart. 



In England, after the time of Bulwer, Wallis, Sibscota, and Dal- 

 garno, the art slumbered for many years. It was revived by Henry 

 Baker, the naturalist and microscopical observer, who taught dumb 

 persons to speak, and of whom it is recorded by Dr. Samuel Johnson, 

 that he once " gave him hopes of seeing his method published ; " he 

 however kept the plan he followed secret. Of the extent of his success 

 we know nothing, but it is said that the names of some of the first 

 families in the land are among those of his scholars. [BAKER, HKNRT, 

 Bioo. Div.] About the year 1760, Thomas Braidwood had an 

 academy at Edinburgh, where he taught the dumb to speak, and 

 cured impediments in the speech. He professedly pursued the plan of 

 Dr. Wallis, as developed in the ' Philosophical Transactions." Articu- 

 lation was therefore the chief instrument of instruction, and the 

 principal medium of communication between the pupil and teacher. 

 In 1783 Braidwood removed his school to Hackney, where he enjoyed 

 for many years a deserved reputation for his successful application 

 of the discoveries of his predecessors. [BUAiowooD, Bioo. Div.] 

 Under him the late Dr. Watson became acquainted with those prin- 

 ciples which he brought to much greater perfection than his prede- 

 cessor, and developed in his work on the ' Instruction of the Deaf and 

 Dumb,' and which he practised during his long superintendence of the 

 Asylum in Kent Road, London. Indeed Dr. Watson was to Mr. 

 Braidwood what Sicard was to De l'Ep<!e ; the disciples in each instance 

 jave solidity and permanence to the systems of their respective 

 masters. 



The teachers of the deaf and dumb of the present day are divided, 

 as formerly, into two classes, namely, those who make articulation, and 

 reading on the lips, their main auxiliaries of instruction, but who gene- 

 rally use dactylology and pictures also ; and those who depend more 

 upon natural or imitative signs, and who also employ writing, 

 pictures, and dactylology. In only one school in England, that of 

 London, is articulation systematically followed ; in all the provincial 

 schools it is discarded as a main instrument of instruction, though in a 

 few it occupies a very subordinate place. In teaching the deaf and 

 dumb, the first object in view is to impart to him the language of 

 his country ; the second is_ grounded on this to fill his mind with 



