THE GESTURE-LANGUAGE. ] 7 



been taught to understand these signs and use them in school, 

 they ignore them in their ordinary talk, and will have nothing 

 to do with them if they can help it. 



By dint of instruction, deaf-mutes can be taught to commu- 

 nicate their thoughts, and to learn from books and men in 

 nearly the same way as we do, though in a more limited de- 

 gree. They learn to read and write, to spell out sentences 

 with the finger-alphabet, and to understand words so spelt by 

 others ; and besides this, they can be taught to speak in articu- 

 late language, though in a hoarse and unmodulated voice, and 

 when another speaks, to follow the motions of his lips almost 

 as though they could hear the words uttered. 



It may be remarked here, once for all, that the general public 

 often confuses the real deaf-and-dumb language of signs, in 

 which objects and actions are expressed by pantomimic ges- 

 tures, with the deaf-and-dumb finger-alphabet, which is a mere 

 substitute for alphabetic writing. It is not enough to say that 

 the two things are distinct ; they have nothing whatever to do 

 with one another, and have no more resemblance than a picture 

 has to a written description of it. Though of little scientific 

 interest, the finger-alphabet is of great practical use. It appears 

 to have been invented in Spain, to which country the world 

 owes the first systematic deaf-and-dumb teaching, by Juan 

 Pablo Bonet, in whose work a one-handed alphabet is set forth 

 differing but little from that now in use in Germany, or perhaps 

 by his predecessor, Pedro de Ponce. The two-handed or 

 French alphabet, generally used in England, is of newer date.^ 



The mother -tongue (so to speak) of the deaf-and-dumb is 

 the language of signs. The evidence of the best observers 

 tends to prove that they are capable of developing the gesture,, 

 language out of their own minds without the aid of speaking 

 men. Indeed the deaf-mutes in general surpass the rest of the 

 world in their power of using and understanding signs, and for 

 this simple reason, that though the gesture-language is the 

 common property of all mankind, it is seldom cultivated and 



' Bonet, ' Eeduction de las Letras, y Arte para ensenar a ablar los Mudos ;' 

 Madrid, 1620 ; pp. 128, etc. Schmalz, ' Ueber die Taubstummen ;' Dresden and 

 Leipzig, 1848 ; pp. 214, 352. 



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