218 REPORT— 1880. 



better method, and to make those advantages easier of attainment, are, 

 we believe, the objects we were appointed to promote, and to this purpose 

 thus understood we have assiduously applied ourselves in our present 

 enquiry. 



That a large proportion of the deaf children of this country ai'e grow- 

 ing up without education, we think is undeniable. The blessing of educa- 

 tion to the individual, and the burden to the community of an uneducated 

 deaf and dumb population, impart to this questioii an importance which 

 cannot be gainsaid. Whenever it is the foolish — and in this case culpable 

 — reluctance to part with the child which keeps it at home in lifelong- 

 ignorance, we think compulsion is necessary. Thus far as to children 

 not at school : our verdict is that they ought to be sent there, and that it 

 is the nation's duty to send them. Of those who are at school the nation 

 should further see that the best is made of the opportunity (1) by those 

 who go to learn, and (2) by those who claim to teach. 



1. To those who learn, sufficient time should be given. They should 



not be kept waiting for admission on the chances of election by 

 the votes of the subscribers; nor should they be prematurely 

 taken from school through failure of funds for paying the fees, 

 or the eagerness of parents to get them employed. 



2. Those who teach should be furnished with the best advantages in 



the way of training, remuneration, and status ; and they should 

 instruct the pupils committed to their charge by the best 

 methods which are attainable. 

 That the ' German ' system — speech and lip-reading — is the best 

 method of instruction for the deaf, we entertain no doubt whatever. No 

 other system can be placed in comparison with it. That it should not be 

 applicable in this country to English children, when it is found in success- 

 ful use in Germany, Holland, Italy, and other countries, is a plea which 

 cannot be seriously entertained. What is not good enough for those 

 conntries cannot be admitted to be good enough for us. This was forcibly 

 put before the Section at Sheffield last year, and we heartily endorse it. 

 To the Training College for teachers, now established at Ealing, we look 

 for results of the greatest importance. A course of systematic and pro- 

 fessional training, and a system of granting certificates after examination, 

 form an entirely new departure in the education of the deaf. Nowhere 

 was such a change more needed. Improvements in every other depart- 

 ment of educational woi-k left this sole exception only the more observ- 

 able. 



If the new movement is well supported and fully developed, the great 

 hindrance to future progress will be removed. That hindrance we find 

 was this — The persons engaged as teachers had no qualifications for Iheir 

 work, and they were first required to learn the sign-language of the pupils 

 — to descend to the pupil's level. The newer system is, to instruct the 

 pupil in the language of the teacher, and so to raise him to the teacher's 

 level. A generation of practice on this principle will work a change not 

 easy to realise. It will assimilate the deaf, as far as possible, to the 

 intellectual and social condition of those who hear, and will bi'eak down 

 those restraints which confine them amongst themselves, and make them 

 more and more ' deaf and dumb,' thus confirming and strengthening that 

 introversion of character which is natural, and which wiser methods and 

 wider influences would unfold and develop, to their far greater happiness. 

 In order to promote the valuable objects we have described we re- 

 commend — 



