BORN BLIND AND DEAF. 47 



pupils that species of accomplishment, which is to furnish the 

 only scale upon which the success of their own labours is ever 

 likely to be measured by the public. 



The example of Dr Wallis of Oxford, the most eminent 

 English author who has yet turned his attention to this study, 

 has probably had considerable influence in misleading his suc- 

 cessors. His thoughts (as he tells us himself) were originally 

 led to it by his analytical inquiries concerning the mechanical 

 formation of articulate sounds, a subject which he appears to have 

 Very deeply and successfully meditated ; and accordingly, the 

 first step which he took with his two most distinguished pupils 

 (Popham and Whaley) was to teach them to speak. He also 

 informs us, that he had in various instances applied the same 

 principles, in curing organical impediments. Indeed, it was 

 evidently on this branch of his art, that he valued himself 

 chiefly as an instructor of the dumb. In cultivating the intellec- 

 tual powers of these, his success does not seem to have been 

 such as to admit of comparison with that of the Abbe Sicard ; 

 and it is remarkable, that the pupils, of whose progress he 

 speaks most highly, are a few with whom he carried on all his 

 intercourse by means of writing, without wasting any of their 

 time in communicating to them the gift of oral speech. " A- 

 " lios aliquot surdos, loquelam docere non agressus smn, sed 

 " solummodo ut res scriptas mediocriter intelligerent, suaque 

 " sensa scripto quadantenus insinuarent : Qui tempore non lon- 

 " go progressus eos fecerint, rerumque plurimarum notitiam ac- 

 " quisiverint, multo ultra quam quod putabatur fieri posse a quo- 

 " quam in eorum circumstantiis posito; fuerintque plane capaces 

 " acquirendi (si plenius exculti) ultiorem cognitionem qua? pos- 

 " sit scripto impertiri." See Wallisii Opera Mathemat. vol. iii. 

 p. 696. See also his letter to Mr Beverley, in the Transac- 

 tions of the Royal Society of London for 1698.— I am obliged 



to 



