256 PROBLEMS OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 



The danger, then, is due to the education of the deaf and dumb, 

 and philanthropy is bringing about results that cannot but be 

 regarded as deplorable. The following figures are very sugges- 

 tive: In the United States (a comparatively new community, 

 constantly recruited by settlers with, presumably, hardly a deaf- 

 mute among them) there is I deaf and dumb person to 1514 

 of the population, whereas in Great Britain the proportion is I 

 to 1969, and in Spain I to 2I78. 1 These figures must be viewed 

 in connection with the statistics of education. In the United 

 States I in 575 of the deaf-mute population is an educational 

 institution, in Great Britain I in 7, in Spain only I in ^6. 2 We 

 require further to know, if possible, the date at which in any 

 particular country the education of deaf-mutes became general. 

 In the United States there were thirty-three educational insti- 

 tutions for the deaf and dumb founded before 1870, and in 

 Great Britain only twenty-three. In our country till 1891 the 

 education of deaf-mutes was left mainly to charity. 3 



No doubt consanguineous marriage is another factor. This 

 probably has much to do with the fact that when civilised 

 countries are arranged in order according to the percentage of 

 deaf-mutes in the population of each, Switzerland heads the list. 

 The inhabitants of each mountain valley are to a great extent iso- 

 lated. In flat countries there is more freedom of intercourse, and 

 there is consequently less intermarriage between relatives. In 

 Belgium the deaf-mute population is only i in 2247, though I 

 in 3'2 is being educated. The Roman Catholic religion, by for- 

 bidding marriages between cousins, apparently keeps down deaf- 

 mutism. In Berlin among the Roman Catholics the proportion 

 of deaf-mutes is I in 3000 j among Protestants I in 2000 ; among 

 Jews, with whom intermarriage with blood relations is frequent, 

 I in 400. 4 



1 See Deaf Mutism, p. 217. 



2 I have obtained the materials for these figuies from Deaf Mutism, $, 217, "and 

 the Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, p. 253. 



3 See Deaf Mutism, p. 334. But something was done by the School Boards as 

 early as 1879. See the Report of the Royal Commission on the Blind, the Deaf 

 and Dumb, pp. liii. and liv. 



4 See Dr Love's Deaf Mutism, p. 119, on the influence of religion on deaf mutism. 



