52 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
nation of the dumbness of children who are deaf. The idea gives 
rise also to the popular notion that stammering and other defects of 
speech are diseases to be “cured,” and the attempt has been made 
to do so, even by heroic treatment. It is not so very long ago that 
slices have been cut from the tongue of a stammerer, in the vain 
hope of “curing” what was, after all, but a bad habit of speech. 
I have myself known of cases where the uvula has been excised to 
correct the same defect. The dumbness of the deaf and the defect- 
ive speech of the hearing are some of the penalties we pay for ac- 
quiring speech ignorantly, by mere imitation. If parents realized 
that stammering and other defects of speech were caused by igno- 
rance of the actions of the vocal organs, and not necessarily through 
any defect of the meuth, they would have their children taught the 
use of the vocal organs by articulation teachers, instead of patron- 
izing the widely-advertised specialty physicians, who pretend by 
secret means to “cure” what is not a disease. Speech is naturally 
acquired by imitation, and through the same agency defects of 
speech are propagated. A child copies the defective utterance of 
his father. A school-fellow mocks a stammering companion, and 
becomes himself similarly affected. In the one case the fallacy that 
the supposed disease is hereditary prevents attempts at instruction 
and correction, and in the other the idea that the affliction is the 
judgment of God in the way of punishment discourages the afflicted 
person and renders him utterly hopeless of any escape excepting by 
a miracle. 
A practical illustration of the fact that defective speech is prop- 
agated by imitation is shown in my own case. When I was a boy 
my father was a teacher of elocution, and had living with him at 
one time one or two pupils who stammered. While under the care 
of my father, these boys spoke clearly and well, without any ap- 
parent defect, but, owing to his being called away for a protracted 
period of time, his pupils relapsed, and the boys commenced to 
stammer as badly as at first. Upon my father’s return he found a 
house full of stammerers. His own sons were stammering too! I 
can well remember the process of instruction through which I 
went before the defect was corrected in my own case, 
Ignorance the Real Difficulty in the Way of Teaching Deaf Children 
to Speak. 
Speech is the mechanical result of certain adjustments of the 
