GENERAL MEETING. 61 
words which have the same sound to the ear, but different signifi- 
cations. For instance, were I to ask you to spell the word “ rane,” 
you could not tell whether I meant “rain,” “rein,” or “reign.” 
These words sound alike, but they lead to no confusion, for they 
are readily distinguished by context. In the same way “homo- 
phenous words,” or words that have the same appearance to the 
eye, are readily distinguished by context. 
As a general rule when a teacher finds that her pupil does not 
understand a given word, she supposes the non-comprehension to 
be due to an untrained eye, and this leads to the patient repetition 
of the word with widely opened mouth, to make the action of the 
organs more visible. This, unintentionally, enables the pupil to 
acquire a knowledge of homophenous words; for, when he fails to 
understand in the first instance, he is requested to try again. He 
then guesses at the meaning. He thinks of all the words that past 
experience has taught him looked something like the word pro- 
posed, and after a series of guesses generally succeeds in his at- 
tempt to unravel the meaning. 
In this way success comes at last, not in consequence of the pupil 
seeing more than he saw at first, but in consequence of knowledge 
gained by experience of failure. He learns what words present the 
same appearance to the eye. Let teachers find out the words that 
look alike, and teach them in groups to their pupils. In this way 
instruction will take the place of painful experience. 
Ill. The third requisite to good speech-reading is familiarity 
with the English language. Familiarity with our language, either 
in its written or spoken form, is absolutely essential in order that 
a deaf person may make use of context in his attempt to decipher 
our speech. It is a mental problem that the deaf child has to 
solve and not solely a problem of vision. The eyes of the con- 
genitally deaf, if there is any difference at all, are rather stronger 
and better than the eyes of those who become deaf from disease; 
and yet, as a class, the congenitally deaf acquire the art of speech- 
reading with much more difficulty than those who could speak be- 
fore they became deaf. The reason is, that, as a class, the former 
have not a vernacular knowledge of our language even in its writ- 
ten form, while the latter have. Children who become deaf in 
infancy from disease are at as great a disadvantage in this respect 
as the congenitally deaf, and for the same reason. 
I shall inquire more particularly into the cause of this lack of 
