GENERAL MEETING. 59 
I did not go.” I told the pupils to be very careful to observe 
whether they could distinguish any difference between the words I 
uttered and the words they wrote. I therefore went over the whole 
string of words again, articulating them one by one very distinctly. 
No difference whatever was detected. 
The mother of one of my pupils was present, aa was greatly as- 
tonished to see her daughter writing down words so different from 
those I had pronounced. She said that she could not have believed 
that her daughter could have been so stupid; but her surprise was 
increased when she found that the other children had written the 
same sentence. I told her that there was no difference in appear- 
ance between the words I had uttered and the words they had writ- 
ten. She desired to test the matter herself with her own child. 
She asked her daughter to repeat after her the words I had written, 
but the result was the same. The last part of the sentence she re- 
peated at least a dozen times, without shaking her daughter’s con- 
fidence in the belief that the words she had uttered were precisely 
the same as those spoken by her mother. To one who could hear, 
it was a startling revelation to observe the confidence of the child 
in the accuracy of her replies. 
“ Repeat after me,” said the mother, as she pronounced the words 
singly and with deliberate distinctness : “high ;” answer, “I; “ knit,” 
ans., “did ;” “donned,” ans., “not;” “co,” ans., “go.” “Are you 
sure you have pronounced the words exactly as I have said them ?” 
Ans. “Yes; perfectly certain.” ‘Try again.” “ Knit,” answer, 
“did ;” “donned,” answer “not.” ‘Are you sure I said that?” 
Ans. “Yes; absolutely sure.” “ Try again,” and here the mother 
mouthed the word “donned,” ans., “not.” The mother was con- 
vinced, and she left the room with the remark that she felt that she 
had been very cruel to her child through ignorance of the fact that 
words that were very different to her ear looked alike to her child, 
and could not possibly be distinguished, excepting by context. 
I have seen a teacher attempting to impart instruction to a deaf 
child by word of mouth. She would speak word by word, and the 
pupil would repeat after her. Upon one occasion the pupil gave 
utterance to a very different word from that which had been spoken 
by the teacher. The latter repeated the word a number of times, 
opening her mouth to the widest extent, and the boy each time re- 
peated the incorrect expression. The teacher grew annoyed at the 
supposed stupidity of the pupil, and the pupil grew sulky, and was 
