296 MEMOIRS^ the 
A Method ofinftru5ilng ^erfons De3i£ and Dumb to /peak, and 
tinder jl and a Language 5 hy 2)r. Wallis. Phil. Tranf. N° 245. 
P-355- 
IN order to teach a deaf perfon a language, it b, neceflary in 
the firft place that he be taught to write, that fo there may 
b- fomewhat to exprels to the eye what the Ibund of the letters 
reprelents to the ear: It will next be very convenient, becaule 
pen and ink are not always at hand, that he be taught how to 
riCiign each letter by forae certain place, pofition or motion of a 
finger, hand or other part of the body, which may_{erve inftead 
of writing 5 as for inftance the five vowels a^ e^ /, 0, u^ by point- 
ing to the top of the five fingers 5 and the other letters h^ r, 5, &c. 
by fuch other place or pojfture of a finger as ihall be agreed upon. 
After this a language is to be taught the deaf perfon, by fuch 
like metiTods as children are at firft taught, tho' the thing per- 
haps is not much heeded, only with this difterence, children 
learn founds by the ear, but the deaf perfon is to learn the marks 
of thoie founds by the eye 5 but both the one and the other do 
equally fignify the fame thing, or notion, and are equally of 
mere arbitrary fignification. It is then moft natural, as children 
learn the names of things, to furnifh them by degrees with a l^o- 
fnenclator^ contaming a competent number of names of things 
common and obvious to the eye, that you m.ay fhew the thing 
anlwering to luch a name 5 and thefe are to be digelled under 
proper titles, and placed under them in fuch order, in fe^^eral co- 
lumns or other regular fituation in the paper, as by their pofition 
may belt exprefs to the eye their relation or refpe6l to each 
other ; as contraries or correlatives, one over againft the other, 
iubordinates or appurtenances under their principals, which may 
ierve as a kind of local memory 5 thus in one paper under the 
title Mankind may be regularly placed, man^ i^oman^ child, &c. 
and if you pleafe the names of fbme known perfons, with fpaces 
left to be fapplied with other like names or words, as afterwards 
there may be occafion for; then in another paper under the title 
body may be written, in the like proper order, the parts of the 
body, as head, hair, fKin, ear, face, neck, breaft, belly, ^c. with 
like vacant fpace^as before, for more to be added as there is oc- 
cafion : And when he hath learned the import of words in each 
paper, let him write them in like manner in diftin61: leaves or 
pages of a book, prepared for that purpofe, in order to confirm 
his memory, and to have recourfe to it upon any occafion. In a 
third paper you may inftruct him in the inward parts, as the 
fkull, 
