GENERAL MEETING. 53 
vocal organs, and if we can teach deaf children the correct adjust- 
ments of the perfect organs they possess, they will speak. The diffi- 
culty lies with us. We learn to speak by imitating the sounds we 
hear, in utter ignorance of the action of the organs that accompa- 
nies the sounds. I find myself addressing an audience composed of 
scientific men, including many of the most eminent persons in the 
country, and I wonder how many there are in this room who could 
give an intelligible account of the movements of their vocal organs 
in uttering the simplest sentence? We must study the mechanism 
of speech, and when we know what are the correct adjustments of 
the organs concerned, ingenuity and skill will find the means of 
teaching perfect articulation to the deaf. 
The Old Fallacy—“ Without Speech, no Reason.” 
I have already stated that children who are born deaf are also 
always dumb. How, then, can they think? It is difficult for us to 
realize the possibility of a train of thought being carried on with- 
out words; but what words can a deaf child know, who has never 
heard the sounds of speech ? 
When we think, we think in words, though we may not actually 
utter sounds. Let us eliminate from our consciousness the train of 
words, and what remains? I do not venture to answer the ques- 
tion ; but it is this, and this alone, that belongs to the thoughts of 
a deaf child. 
It is hardly to be wondered at, therefore, that the fallacy should 
have arisen in the past that there could be no thought without 
speech ; and this fallacy prevented for hundreds of years any attempt 
at the education of the deaf. Before the end of the last century 
deaf-mutes were classed among the idiots and insane; they had no 
civil rights, could hold no property ; they were irresponsible beings. 
Even those interested in the religious welfare of the world consigned 
their souls to the wrong place, for “faith comes by hearing,” and 
how could a deaf child be saved? I say that for hundreds of years 
the old fallacy, that “without speech there could be no reason,” 
hindered and prevented any attempt at the amelioration of the con- 
dition of the deaf. But, strange to say, it was this very fallacy that 
first led to their education. It was attempted, by a miracle to teach 
them to speak. 
In Bede’s History of the Anglo-Saxon church we read “ How Bish- 
opp John cured a dumme man with blessing him.” 
