80 PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON. 
Moritz Hill, to whom I have already alluded, speaks of the lan- 
guage of signs as “one of the two universally intelligible innate 
forms of expression granted by God to mankind,” the other being 
speech. Now it is hardly necessary to urge that speech is the form 
of expression natural to hearing persons, and I think a little re- 
flection will satisfy most persons that with the deaf the language of 
signs is the only truly natural mode of expressing their thoughts. 
Mr. Bell urges that the use of signs in the education of the deaf 
is a hinderance rather than a help, and that it would be better 
to banish them altogether. To this view I must give my earnest 
dissent. 
I might, of course, cite the opinions of very many successful in- 
structors of the deaf, who have followed only the sign method, to 
sustain my position, but I prefer to call in again the testimony of 
Moritz Hill, a man whose whole life was devoted to the instruction 
of the deaf by the oral method. In an exhaustive work on the 
education of the deaf,* Hill says, speaking of those who pretend 
that in the “ German method” every species of pantomimic language 
is proscribed : 4 
“Such an idea must be attributed to malevolence or to unpardon- 
able levity. This pretence is contrary to nature and repugnant to 
the rules of educational science. 
“Tf this system were put into execution the moral life, the in- 
tellectual development of the deaf and dumb, would be inhumanly 
hampered. It would be acting contrary to nature to forbid the 
deaf-mute a means of expression employed by even hearing and 
speaking persons. * * * It is nonsense to dream of depriving 
him of this means until he is in a position to express himself orally. 
* * % Even in teaching itself we cannot lay aside the lan- 
guage of gestures (with the exception of that which consists in 
artificial signs and in the manual alphabet—two elements proscribed 
by the German school), the language which the deaf-mute brings 
with him to school, and which ought to serve as a basis for his edu- 
cation. To banish the language of natural signs from the school- 
room and limit ourselves to articulation is like employing a gold 
key which does not fit the lock of the door we would open and 
refusing to use the iron one made for it. * * * At the best, it 
would be drilling the deaf-mute, but not moulding him intellectually 
or morally.” 
* Der gegenwiArtige Zustand des Taubstummen Bildungswesens in Deutsch- 
land; von Hill, Inspector der Taubstummen Anstalt zu Wetssenfels; Ritter des 
St. Olafs, &c. Weimar, H. Béhlau, 1866. 
