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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XVI. No. 412 



SCIENCE; 



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Vol. XVI. NEW YORK, December 36, 1890. 



No. 412. 



CONTENTS: 



Infant Psychology 



J. Mark Baldwin 351 

 The Intbrmabriage of the Deaf, 



AND THEIR EdCCATION 



Philip G. Oillett 363 



Notes and News 357 



Letters to the Editor. 

 Deaf -Mutes. A. Graham Bell. . , 358 

 The Geology of Quebec City 



B. W. Ells ; A. B. C. Selwyn 359 

 Study of the Surface-Markings of 

 the Planets in 1890 



Wm. W. Payne 360 



Snake Hill, N. J., as a Locality 



for Minerals. E. W.Perry.... 360 

 Color-Changes in Toads 



Frederic Gardner, Jun. 361 

 The Cause of Rain 



Franz A. Velschow 361 



Book-Reviews. 

 A Treatise on Electro-Metallurgy 361 



Outings at Odd Times 361 



Dust and its Dangers , 361 



Ahonb the Publishers 363 



LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 



•** Correspondents are requested to he as brief as possible. The writer^s name 

 is in all cases required as proof of good faith. 



The editor imll be glad to publish any queries consonant with the character 

 of the journal. 



On request, twenty copies of the number containing his communication will 

 be furnished free to any correspondent. 



Deaf-Mutes. 



I CANNOT agree with Dr. Gillett that it is not a very great 

 calamity to have a deaf and dumb child. Still less can I agree 

 with him that the deafness is no calamity to the child, but " only a 

 serious inconvenience," as baldness is an inconvenience "in fly- 

 time or cold weather" (Science, Oct. 31. p 249). 



President Gallaudet dissents from such a view (Science, Nov. 

 28, p. 295), and the deaf themselves will surely not indorse it. 

 The American public also, by their appropriations in aid of schools 

 for the deaf, have expressed a very difi'erent opinion. The aver- 

 age per capita granted for the education of hearing children is less 

 than twenty dollars per annum, whereas in the case of the deaf 

 it exceeds two hundred dollars 



Dr. Gillett says (Science, Oct. 31, p 248), " Not two per cent of 

 the deaf and dumb are the children of deaf parents." But, if the 

 percentage comes anywhere near that figure, the education of 

 these children alone would cost about one million of dollars. The 

 number of deaf-mutes reported in the census of 1880 was 33,878. 

 and two per cent of this number is 6T7. At $iOO a head, the cost 



of education would be |135,400 per annum, or $1,083,200 if in- 

 struction were continued for eight jeSrs. 



"Two per cent " may seem a very small matter to unreflective 

 minds, but a little consideration will dispel the illusion. Not one 

 per cent, not even one in a thousand, of the general population, 

 is deaf and dumb. In 1880 the percentage was 0675: in other 

 words, there were 675 deaf-mutes to every million of the popula- 

 tion. Dr Gilletfs " two percent" means 20,000 to the million, a. 

 proportion nearly thirty times as great. 



Nor must it be forgotten that Dr. Gilletfs percentage is taken 

 upon the whole of the deaf-mute population (which, of course, 

 includes children and unmarried adults), whereas the deaf off- 

 spring are the products of the married couples alone. 



Indeed, as President Gallaudet points out (Science, Nov. 28, p. 

 295), they are chiefly the offspring of couples in which one or both 

 of the parties were born deaf, or came from families containing^ 

 more than one deaf-mute. Sporadic deafness (if not congenital) 

 is rarely inherited, and the majority of the marriages of the deaf 

 are free from deaf offspring. How prohfic of deaf offspring the- 

 remaining marriages must be if their children alone constitute a 

 percentage of the whole deaf-mute population nearly thirty limes- 

 as great as the normal percentage for the country ! 



Dr. Gillett informs us (Facts and Opinions, pp. 53-58), that, of 

 1,886 deaf-mutes who had been admitted to his institution, 293; 

 were known to have married (his statistics included the children 

 then in school). Of this number, 272, or more than 93 percent, 

 married deaf-mutes; and 21, or less than 8 per cent, married' hear- 

 ing persons We are not told how many families were formed by 

 these pupils ; but, as we know that in the vast majority of cases 

 deaf-mutes choose partners who were educated in the same school 

 with themselves, we may safely infer that the families formed by 

 these pupils were very much less in number than the figures would 

 at first sight indicate. If none of these deaf-mutes married pupils 

 of other schools, theii the 273 cases alluded to above formed only 

 1.36 families. The true number, however, is probably somewhat 

 greater. 



Dr Gillett says (Facts and Opinions, p. 57), "These marriages 

 have been as fruitful in offspring as the average of marriages in 

 society at large, some of them resulting in large families of chil- 

 dren. It is interesting to know that among all these only sixteen- 

 have deaf-mute children." He seems to be unconscious of the 

 fact, that, if you take an equal number of marriages of hearing: 

 people, there should not be one deaf child among the offspring: 

 (in 1880 there was one deaf-mute for every 1,480 of the generaE 

 population). 



" Only sixteen," — this expression unfortunately is ambiguous. 

 Does he mean that there were only sixteen deaf children, or did' 

 only sixteen of his pupils have deaf children, or were only sixteeiij 

 of the families formed by the pupils productive of deaf offspring? 

 In this latter case, how many families were there, — 272, or 

 136? — and how many deaf children? And what percentage of 

 the offspring were deaf, and what hearing ? All he tells us con- 

 cerning this important point is, " In some of the families having ai 

 deaf child there are other children who hear." 



We are not told in how many of these cases the parents wers 

 born deaf, or belonged to families containing more than one deaf- 

 mute, nor how many of the marriages included a congehitally 

 deaf partner. 



What I. as a student of heredity, would specially like to know 

 is this : what percentage of the children were deaf in those cases 

 where the married partners were both deaf from birth, and in 

 those cases where both had deaf relatives? I am sure, that if Dr. 

 Gillett will make the calculation, and apply the results to the deaf 

 populHtion of the country, ha will realize, as I do, that the ques- 

 tion of intermarriage is one that deserves more serious considera 

 tion than he has given it in his letter to Science. 



While, on the one hand, Dr. Gillett does not think it matters; 

 much to a child whether he is born deaf or hearing, because '■' deaf- 

 ness is neither a crime nor a disgrace, nor entails suffering," and' 

 because it is so little of a calamity as to be " only a serious incon- 

 venience," like baldness in fly-time, on the other hand, he advo- 

 cates the intermarriage of deaf-mutes without regard to heredity, 

 because deafness is so great a calamity as to cut them off from 



