GARDINER GREENE HUBBARD 47 



voice he heard the prophecy that deaf children might speak, 

 and to him is due, probably more than to any other one man, 

 the fact that all America has realized the fulfillment of that 

 prophecy. 



The results of the teaching of his own little child, made deaf 

 by illness in earl} 7 childhood, by means of lip-reading and speech, 

 without the use of signs or the manual alphabet, were so satis- 

 factory that Mr and Mrs Hubbard were confirmed in their opin- 

 ion of the importance of very earl} 7 instruction for deaf children 

 and of the superiority of the. oral method of instruction. They 

 were most anxious that this method should be fairly tried and 

 felt strongly that such trial could not be made satisfactorily in 

 any of the already established schools, which employed the sign 

 method and to which pupils were seldom admitted under ten or 

 twelve years of age. 



The story of Mr Hubbard's efforts to establish a school in 

 Massachusetts, in which instruction should be given through lip- 

 reading and speech alone, may most fittingly be told in his own 

 words. He writes that previous to that time " the sign language 

 was believed in this country to be the best and only efficient 

 method of instruction for the deaf. The reports of the Hon. 

 Horace Mann in favor of the German system of articulation had 

 attracted attention, and gentlemen from our oldest institutions 

 had been sent abroad to examine into the subject. Their re- 

 ports were only partially favorable, and the efforts to engraft the 

 German system of articulation upon the French system of signs 

 then in use in our country proved a failure." So when in 1864 

 Mr Hubbard presented a petition to the legislature asking for a 

 charter for a school, it was the first attempt to establish a school 

 under the oral method in a country where for fifty years the 

 sign method had been firmly established. 



He says : " This application wa£ opposed by the friends of the 

 American Asylum, on the ground that it was a visionary project 

 and attempting the impossible. Dr Samuel G. Howe, of South 

 Boston, earnestly seconded the petition and appeared with me 

 before the legislature. Our efforts were unsuccessful and our 

 proposition was rejected. I determined to show that it was not 

 a visionary project, and meeting Miss Rogers, who was then 

 teaching a deaf girl by articulation, we determined to organize 

 a small school, so that when we again appealed to the legislature 

 we could show the results of our new system. A small fund 

 was raised. Our plan was advertised in the papers and after 



