SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1891. 



DEAF-MUTES : THEIR INTERMARRIAGE AND 

 OFFSPRING. 



Dr. Alexander Graham Bell says [Science, Dec. 26, 

 1890), "I cannot agree with Dr. Gillett that it is not a very 

 great calamity to have a deaf and dumb child." I never 

 made that statement, and shall not make it now. What I 

 have said is, that what was once a calamity is now, to those 

 deaf persons who improve the privileges and opportunities 

 they enjoy under our civilization, reduced to a very serious 

 inconvenience. Dr. Bell says, "The deaf themselves surely 

 will not indorse it." I am glad to say, and I hope Dr. Bell 

 will be glad to kiiow, that some very intelligent deaf persons 

 whom I have the pleasure of knowing, and some others 

 whom I have never seen, do indorse it in letters to me since 

 its publication. One gentleman whom I never saw writes 

 me, "I have read your article in Science, Dec. 26. Allow 

 me, as a man deaf, to express my most hearty approval of 

 all you protest against for ever holding up the deaf as victims 

 of a terrible misfortune, and objects of commiseration and 

 charity. As I read the article, so intensely do I sympathize 

 v?ith every word, that I could scarcely refrain from dancing 

 around the room with delight." Another, whom lam proud 

 to number among my former pupils, a man filling an hon- 

 orable and important station in life, who has for many years 

 been battling with the world and well maintaining his 

 family, writes, "Now, my dear doctor, I want to thank you 

 for your very able article in Science, Dec. 26. The whole 

 mute population is under everlasting gratitude to you for 

 the noble and able stand you have taken."' A lady (married) 

 writes, "I have read your article on the intermarriage of 

 the deaf with deep interest. May the Lord inspire you more 

 and more to plead the cause of the deaf, and show you in a 

 way that will counteract the plausible reasoning of other 

 learned men, who think they know just what is proper for 

 us, and would legislate us into marriage with hearing per- 

 sons, and rob us of more domestic happiness than their 

 theories would secure us in a thousand years, if we could 

 live to that age." Another gentleman, writing me with 

 reference to my article, says, " I cannot look upon my deaf- 

 ness as a serious calamity or a.grave misfortune; and I dare 

 say that an older, better, and more experienced person than 

 I — my dear, noble mother — will share my sentiments thus 

 expressed. She may have thought it a great calamity when 

 I became deaf in infancy, but she would not say so to-day." 

 I could give others of similar import, but these will sutfice 

 to show that there is manly, self-reliant spirit in many of 

 the deaf to a greater degree than some may have credited 

 them with. I did not expect that any whose capital mainly 

 consists of "grave misfortune" to work upon the sympathy 

 of others, and many who have been educated to view them- 

 selves as specially unfortunate, would at once coincide with 

 my view. I suppose that some think, as it seems Dr. Bell 

 does, that most if not all of the deaf will cling to the idea, 

 "I am a poor unfortunate deaf-mute; somebody will take 

 care of me " I fancy that I have had more experience along 



the line of urging the deaf to self-reliance than some who 

 write very glibly about "a very great calamity" and "a 

 grave misfortune." If Dr. Gallaudet and Dr. Bell would 

 get down from their high horses, and labor for a few years 

 in daily intercourse witii all classes and grades of deaf-mutes, 

 possibly they might have a better appreciation of some diffi- 

 culties encountered by the workers among the dull as well as 

 the bright. 



With reference to "the calamity of having a deaf and 

 dumb child," having so often heard the tale of sorrow (un- 

 necessary, as I believe, but nevertheless real) of parents, I 

 do not wish to speak further than to say that with Gen. 

 Benjamin F. Butler declaring the deaf-mute is only half a 

 man ; President Edward M. Gallaudet proclaiming deafness, 

 always in spite of school and college education, a grave mis- 

 fortune; and Dr. Alexander Graham Bell understood to be 

 advocating measures looking to the elimination of the deaf 

 from society, — it is no wonder that the iron enters the soul 

 of the parent of such a child, and that he is filled with dis- 

 appointment, and (I blush to write it) sometimes, as I have 

 known, with shame. That deafness is primarily a calamity, 

 I distinctly asserted in my article in Science, Oct. 31; but I 

 am happy to know that educational skill and energy in the 

 evening of the nineteenth century is abreast with human 

 progress in other lines, and has immensely mitigated the 

 misfortunes flesh is heir to, so that we are not obliged to hold 

 on to the nomenclature of a by-gone age when we speak of 

 the deaf, any more than we are to repudiate the railroad, 

 the telegraph, the telephone, and cling to the old stage coach 

 and post-boy. No one can contemplate the present state of 

 society without feelings of pride and gratification on many 

 accounts, but to my mind there is no more powerful exponent 

 of the advanced civilization of this age than is found in its 

 educational and humanitarian measures. The education of 

 the deaf is by no means the least of these. Indeed, it may 

 well la,y claim to the pre-eminence. Out of it have come 

 some of the best methods of teaching that have been ingrafted 

 upon the public-school system. It was the first of all the 

 great humanitarian enterprises, and opened the way in the 

 hearts of the people for that philanthropy that has reached 

 the insane, the blind, the feeble-minded, and, it is hoped, will 

 soon reach the epileptic. No one can too highly appreciate 

 the change in the condition of the deaf. Others may think 

 differently, and accordingly estimate their work. They are 

 welcome to all the comfort resulting from their view, but I 

 thus estimate my work. It is poor comfort to a parent to 

 be told, that, after all that can possibly be done for his deaf 

 child, his misfortune will be a grave misfortune still. De- 

 liver me from further lacerating the heart ah-eady torn. 

 It suits me far better to send a beam of hope and light into, 

 a family already invaded by foreboding, than gloom and 

 despondency. 



There is at this writing before me a letter fi-om the mother 

 of two deaf persons, now well settled in life, in which she 

 says to the daughter, speaking of their early childhood and 

 their deafness, "I thought it was an awful calamity, but I 

 do not think so now; but, as Dr, Gillett says, in many cases 

 I believe it has proved a blessing." This mother knows 



