56 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
some of our institutions to summon the pupils from the play-ground 
by the ringing of a bell! Does this not indicate that a large num- 
ber of the pupils could hear the ringing of the bell, and that they 
told the others who could not hear atall? Such pupils could have 
been taught to speak at home by their friendsif artificial assistance 
had been given to their hearing. There was no necessity for their 
ever becoming deaf and dumb. 
It is only within the last fifteen years or thereabouts that schools 
have been established in the United States where all the deaf chil- 
dren admitted are taught articulation and speech-reading, but such 
schools are rapidly increasing in number. Still, it is not generally 
known that the experimental stage has passed, and that all deaf 
mutes can be taught intelligible speech. This is now done in Italy 
and Germany, and the international conventions of teachers of the 
deaf and dumb held recently at Milan and Brussels have decided 
in favor of articulation for the deaf. 
I have stated before that the difficulties in the way of teaching 
articulation are external to the deaf. They lie with us and in our 
general ignorance of the mechanism of speech. A teacher who does 
not himself understand the mechanism of speech is hardly competent 
to produce the best results. So dense is the general ignorance upon 
this subject that it is probable that of the 50,000,000 of people in 
this country the number of persons who are familiar with all that 
is known concerning the mechanism of speech might be numbered 
on the two hands. Considering this, the success obtained in our 
articulation schools is gratifying and wonderful. 
Upon the Art of Understanding Speech by the Eye. 
It has been found in the articulation schools of this country that 
deaf children can acquire the art of understanding by eye the utter- 
ances of their friends and relatives, and this fact has led some 
teachers to suppose that speech is as clearly visible to the eye as it 
is to the ear, and this fallacy tends to hinder the acquisition of the 
art by their pupils. 
When we examine the visibility of the elementary sounds of our 
language we find that the majority can not be clearly distinguished 
by the eye. How then, you may ask, can a deaf child who cannot 
distinguish the elements understand words which are combinations 
of these elements? 
When the lips are closed we cannot see what is going on inside 
