DEAF AND DUMB 



1719 



DEAF AND DUMB 



aroused the interest of the public in the sub- 

 ject by declaring, authoritatively, that "writ- 

 ten characters and ideas may be connected 

 together without the use of sounds." Cardan 

 also pointed out that deaf-mutes were normal 

 beings in intelligence. Shortly after this a 

 Spanish Benedictine monk gave regular in- 

 struction to the deaf and dumb, whom ; he 

 taught, as he said, "to speak, read, write, 

 reckon, pray, serve at the altar, know Chris- 



DEAF AND DUMB ALPHABET 

 For two hands. 



tian doctrine and confess with a loud voice." 

 Another Benedictine monk, Juan Bonet, pub- 

 lished in 1620 what is probably the first treatise 

 on the education of deaf-mutes. These pioneer 

 teachers used signs, pantomime and finger- 

 spelling. 



In 1648 the first English treatise on the sub- 

 ject was published by Dr. John Bulwer, and 

 the movement in Europe was fairly started 

 with the establishment of a school for poor 

 deaf-mutes in Paris, in 1760. The founder of 

 this school, Charles-Michel de 1' Epee, is one 

 of the greatest benefactors the deaf have ever 

 had. Eighteen years later the first public in- 

 stitution was Opened in Leipzig. It was not 

 until early in the nineteenth century, however, 

 that the education of the deaf and dumb was 

 placed on a systematic, organized basis. At the 

 present time institutions for the deaf are main- 

 tained in practically every country in Europe, 

 and a few schools have been opened in Japan 

 and China. 



In America, Connecticut led the way, the 

 first permanent school for the instruction of the 

 deaf being opened at Hartford in 1817. A few 



years previous to this an unsuccessful attempt 

 had been made to found such a school in 

 Virginia. New York and Massachusetts were 

 the next states to begin the systematic edu- 

 cation of deaf-mutes, and now every state in 

 the Union has one or more institutions in 

 which they receive instruction. Public day 

 schools for the deaf are maintained in Cali- 

 fornia, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Mich- 

 igan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, 

 Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. In 

 the number of deaf-mute institutions the 

 United States leads the countries of the world, 

 with over 150 state institutions, public day 

 schools and private schools. Some authorities 

 believe that the deaf and the hearing should 

 be taught together in the same school, interest- 

 ing experiments along this line having been 

 made in Chicago, Milwaukee and New York. 



Schools for the deaf are maintained in sev- 

 eral cities of Canada, particularly Montreal, 

 Quebec, Toronto, Winnipeg and Victoria. 



Attention is also being given to the develop- 

 ment and training of the residual hearing that 

 exists in the cases of very many so-called deaf- 

 mutes. This is, perhaps, their most valuable 

 possession, as it supplies the only normal means 

 of access to the speech centers of the brain. 

 It has been found by patient effort that an 

 amount of hearing so slight as to be over- 

 looked by the average physician and parent can 

 be so educated as to develop in the child's 

 brain a considerable ability to interpret speech 

 by ear and to modify the speaking tones. 



Methods oj Instruction. The education of 

 the deaf and dumb is carried on by means of 

 two general methods, the sign and the articula- 

 tion methods. When the former is used, ideas 

 are communicated through the medium of ges- 

 ture, facial expression and pantomime, and 

 by means of the manual alphabet, whereby the 

 pupil is taught to spell with his hands. The 

 two forms of the manual alphabet, the one- 

 handed and the two-handed, are shown in the 

 accompanying illustrations. 



The articulation method is used both in teach- 

 ing the deaf-mute to understand what is said 

 to him and in teaching him to speak. By 

 watching the motions of the lips of his teacher, 

 he learns to interpret what is said, though he 

 cannot hear the words. This method of inter- 

 pretation is known as lip reading. One who 

 has acquired a mastery of it can understand a 

 public lecturer, if he is not too far from the 

 speaker, and also the utterances of the actors 

 in a moving-picture play. Those who have 



