Apkil 30, 1915] 



SCIENCE 



651 



deafness comes the education of the deaf. Mr. 

 Best calls attention to the extraordinary fact 

 that in many states the laws for compulsory 

 education do not apply to the deaf, whereas 

 they ought to apply to them with greater force 

 than to the hearing, as the deaf are in more 

 extreme need of special training. He says that 

 "in the wide sweep of education the deaf 

 have heen the gainers as no other people in 

 the world have been." "Yet," he continues, 

 " the victory of the deaf is not complete. So 

 long as people look upon them as an unnatural 

 portion of the race; as of peculiar tempera- 

 ment and habits . . . just so long will the deaf 

 be strangers in the land in which they dwell." 

 He goes on to say that " there is still more or 

 less conilict as to methods (of instruction), but 

 this does not seem vital to the success of the 

 schools." In this opinion it would seem that 

 Mr. Best is mistaken. The one thing that 

 makes the deaf " strangers in the land in 

 which they dwell" is the use of a foreign 

 language, the language of the fingers and of 

 gesture. This situation has been created by 

 the " method " by which they have principally 

 been educated. That the employment of these 

 silent means of communication is not neces- 

 sary is amply demonstrated by the fact that all 

 the deaf children of Massachusetts have for 

 many years been educated wholly by means of 

 the common communication of the race with- 

 out recourse to the foreign language of the 

 hands, and that the largest school for the deaf 

 in the world, the Pennsylvania Institution for 

 the Deaf, is so conducted. If this can be 

 done in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, what 

 state is willing to acknowledge that the intel- 

 ligence of its citizens and the extent of its 

 educational capacity is less than that of any 

 other state? It would seem, therefore, that 

 the method is vital to the success of the 

 schools in gaining a complete victory. 



Mr. Best finds that 18.2 per cent, of those 

 born deaf can use speech as a means of com- 

 munication. Are the other 82 per cent, of too 

 low an order of intelligence to acquire this 

 ability? Certainly not. They have not ac- 

 quired it because they were not given the same 

 chance fortunately enjoyed by the 18 per cent, 

 who were taught by the proper methods. 



At the opening of a chapter on " The Use of 

 Signs as a Means of Communication," the 

 author says: "Deaf children can not be edu- 

 cated as other children, and in the schools there 

 have to be employed special means of instruc- 

 tion." So far as this " special means of in- 

 struction " refers to the use of a language of 

 the hands in communication the statement is 

 entirely false. Deaf children have been edu- 

 cated in large numbers without special means 

 of communication, and it has been the error 

 into which this writer has fallen that has been 

 largely responsible for the isolation of great 

 numbers of the deaf. This error was brought 

 here by an unfortunate chance, from France, 

 where it was long since abandoned. But, as 

 the author points out, the trend of progress is 

 plainly indicated to be away from the initial 

 error of silent methods and toward the normal 

 speech method. 



There can be no objection to deaf adults 

 using any form of communication between 

 themselves that they desire or find convenient, 

 and the ability to use the sign language and 

 finger spelling can be acquired by any one in a 

 very few weeks. But an ability to communi- 

 cate with hearing people by means of speech 

 and speech reading can not be acquired except 

 through long and patient effort from childhood 

 and should therefore be used exclusively dur- 

 ing the educational period. As the use of the 

 speech method becomes more universal the 

 " differentiation from the rest of their kind," 

 and the lack of absorption in the body politic 

 to which the author refers will steadily de- 

 crease, since they will no longer be so largely 

 " removed from the usual avenues of inter- 

 course." 



Mr. Best finds that though an early disap- 

 pearance of deafness does not seem likely, it 

 is apparently decreasing. His second chapter 

 is entitled " The Deaf as a Permanent Ele- 

 ment of the Population." His third chapter 

 takes up the deaf with relation to the state; 

 the attitude of the law and of legislation tow- 

 ard them. He finds that " legislation dis- 

 criminatory to them has practically disap- 

 peared, and in judicial proceedings particular 

 usage has almost entirely passed away." 



Chapter four takes up the " economic con- 



