232 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIX. No. 481 



past efficient support of its work by the sending of a large com- 

 pany of students to it well prepared to enter and to profit by its 

 advantages. 



The proposal that the college should provide oral recitations for 

 students tliat have been able to engage in such recitations in the 

 schools in which their preparation for college has been completed, 

 appears at first glance to be a very natural and proper one. A 

 full study of the subject, however, discloses objections which to 

 many minds will seem very serious. First of all should be con- 

 sidered the expense of carrying your suggestion into effect, not 

 for a single year only, which would be small, but for the five 

 years of the college course, which is quite another matter. The 

 time and strength of the professors now at the command of the 

 college are fully consumed with the duties at present assigned to 

 them, and were separate oral recitations provided for orally taught 

 members of each class, a complete duplication of the faculty 

 would be demanded, and this not only as to numbers, but also as 

 to ability, qualification, and experience. Such an increase of our 

 teaching corps would involve an additional annual expense of at 

 least ten thousand dollars. 



The whole force of your suggestion rests, if I mistake not, on 

 the statement that the pupils of oral schools " hesitate, and object, 

 and refuse, when directed to Kendall Green, not because it is not 

 a good school, nor because its professors are not competent men, 

 but because of a well founded fear that that which they have 

 spent much time and labor in gaining, namely, their speech and 

 their ability to read speech, may be vei-y seriously impaired " by 

 the lack of oral recitations in the college. Now I will lay no 

 stress, as many would, on the admission made in stating this 

 point, that the speech and power to read the lips of others, gained 

 only at great cost by the orally taught deaf, are possessions which 

 may easily be lost : for my experience leads me to have much more 

 faith in the security and permanence of these valuable acquisi- 

 tions than you and Mr. Greenberger seem to enjoy, and my rea- 

 sons for this stronger faith will presently appear. 



It is not true, as the uninformed reader would infer from your 

 letter, that the orally taught deaf of the country have never en 

 joyed the advantages of the college. Pupils from the Clarke In- 

 stitution, from the Boston Day School, from private oral schools, 

 from Mr. Greenberger's school, and last, but not least, a pupil who 

 had for several years the special training of Professor Alexander 

 Graham Bell, have been connected with our college for longer or 

 shorter periods, one of them graduating with honor fr-om our sci- 

 entific course. None of these students enjoyed the advantages of 

 oral recitations in the college. They had no special teaching in 

 speech or lip-reading. They did, however, have considerable 

 practice in speech while connected with the college. 



No complaints came to me from these pupils, nor from any of 

 their friends, while they were with us or after they had left us, 

 that their powers of speech and hp-reading were even temporarily, 

 much less permanently, impaired by their connection with the 

 college. The father of one of Mr. Greenberger's pupils, who was 

 for two years a student here, writes, under date of .March 29, 1892 : 

 "In reply lo your inquiry I desire to say that H. did not speak 

 quite as well on his return, perhaps because that at college he had 

 not as much chance to use his lips as he did while at school in 

 New York, but since he is home, our conversation at home, as 

 well as in our business with him, is so frequent, that I am happy 

 to say he speaks as well and as understandingly as ever." 



The father of another of Mr. Greenberger's pupils who pursued 

 our full scientific course, taking the bachelor's degree, says in a 

 letter just received: " I do not think my son's power of speech 

 and ability to read the lips were injured in the least by his taking 

 a course in your institution." 



Four others of the orally taught pupils to whom I have just 

 referred have informed me within a few days that, on the testimony 

 of their friends, they experienced no permanent injury to their 

 powers of speech and of lip-reading in consequence of their con- 

 nection with the college. And the friends of two of these thought 

 their speech improved while they were in college. 



Now, in considering the cases of these orally-taught pupils to 

 whom reference has been made, it must be kept in mind that they 

 were all connected with the college at periods when no instruction 



in speech and lip-reading was afforded to any student. And yet 

 it appears that not one of these young people, representing as they 

 did the leading oral schools of the country, suffered any perma- 

 nent injury to their powers of speech and lip-reading while 

 students here. What more convincing proof could be given 

 that the '• fears " of the oralists voiced in your letter are not 

 '• well-founded?" And if these fears are justly dissipated by the 

 records of times when no articulation teaching was afforded in 

 the college they surely need be accorded little weight at present, 

 when ten instructors are actively engaged in giving daily lessons 

 in speech and lig-reading to the students of the college. There 

 are those whose opinions are entitled to respect, who believe that 

 the plan put in operation the present year by the college for pre- 

 serving and improving the speech of all its students, including 

 the orally taught, will produce more satisfactory results than the 

 one proposed by you, which would involve, inevitably, an increase 

 of ten thousand dollars in the annual expenses of the college, and 

 this for the sake of a number of students not likely to be more 

 than twenty-five. And should the alternative you press in your 

 letter as, apparently, an ultimatum, be followed, of establishing a 

 college especially for the orally-taught deaf, the increase in the 

 expense of their higher education would be much greater than, 

 even the figure I have named. We are trying an experiment, 

 the results of which are thus far encouraging, to continue which 

 will involve no increase of expense, while you urge a scheme cer- 

 tain to be very costlj', and by no means sure to give better results. 

 In view of the unprecedented facilities for oral teaching newly 

 offered in the college the present year, and which will be continued 

 next year, will it not be safe to intrust orally-taught pupOs to us 

 for a year or two, or at least until it can be demonstrated that our 

 way of preserving and improving Iheir speech is a failure? For 

 if it prove a failure, no one will be readier than I to accept such a 

 result, and to advocate what you believe to be " the more excellent 

 way.'" 



The oincers of the college are gratified at the prospect of receiv- 

 ing a greater number of students from the oral schools than have 

 come to Kendall Green in the past, and while they cannot feel 

 justified in acceeding to the particular demand of your letter, at 

 least until their own experiment has proved a failure, they are 

 ready to give the most earnest assurance that, with every orally- 

 taught pupil who may seek admission here the coming year, no' 

 pains will be spared to preserve undiminished whatever powers of 

 speech and speech-reading such pupils may bring with them. 



The force at present available for articulation teaching in the 

 college will make it possible for us to give special individual train- 

 ing to such orally-taught pupils as may seem likely to derive more 

 benefit from instruction so afforded, than when given in a class. 



Some editorial comments on your letter, which appear in the 

 Silent World of yesterday, leave me to say, in closing, that nothing 

 could be further from the truth than an assertion that the present, 

 attitude and existing arrangements of the college as to oral teach- 

 ing put the stigma of governmental condemnation upon the oral 

 method. The fact that ten instructors are devoted to the work of 

 speech teaching in the college is a sufficient refutation of any such 

 claim. It by no means follows because a certain manner of 

 using a certain method is found helpful to certain deaf children 

 in primary schools, that the identical way of making use of this 

 method is necessary, or will even lead to the best results, with 

 these same persons under the changed conditions of collegiate in- 

 struction. And it would be a most distorted inference to conclude 

 that because the college gives oral teaching to its students in a 

 manner somewhat different from that employed in the pure oral 

 schools it is thereby placing a stigma on the oral method. 



The editor of the Silent World is quite right in acquitting ■' the 

 authorities at Washington'" of any such intention, and I trust the 

 statements of this letter will give wings to all his apprehensions 

 on the subject. 



Our directors feel that the existing arrangements of the college, 

 under which the essential features of the two leading methods of 

 instruction are combined in a manner calculated, as they believe, 

 to produce the best results, ought to satisfy the friends of both 

 methods. 



They have great confidence that results in the neai future will 



