128 JOURNAL OF SCIENCE. 



I would therefore hold before you as the ideal marriage a mar- 

 riage with a bearing person. Do not let any one place in your minds 

 the idea that such a marriage cannot be a happy one. Do not let any 

 one make you believe that you cannot find a hearing person who will 

 treat you as an equal. The chances are infinitely more in your favour 

 that out of the millions of hearing persons in this country you may be 

 able to find one with whom you may be happy than that you should 

 find one among the smaller numbers of the deaf. 



I think the sentiment is hurtful that makes you believe you can 

 only be happy with a deaf companion. That is a mistake, and, I 

 believe, a grave one. I would have you believe that the welfare of 

 yourself and your children will be greatly promoteel by marriage with 

 a hearing partner, if you can find one with whom you can be happy. 



And now, my friends, I must thank you very much for the atten- 

 tive way in which you have listeneel to me, and I hope you will all 

 dispel from your minds any idea that I intenel to interfere with your 

 liberty of marriage. I know that very grave misconceptions of my 

 j)csition anel views have been circulated during the past few years 

 among the deaf, and I want you to help me in dispelling these ideas. 



These misconceptions have arisen chiefly, I think, from too great 

 reliance upon newspaper stories anel second-hand information. The 

 newspapers seem to know a good deal more about my opinions and 

 views than 1 do myself, and I am constantly seeing items about myself 

 that have utterly no basis in fact. Only a few weeks ago I read in a 

 newspaper a long report of an interview with me that never took 

 place. The substance of that article has since been copied from paper 

 to paper all over the United States. I happeneel to be suffering from 

 a slight headache when the reporter called at my hotel, and I thought 

 this would afford a good excuse for avoiding an interview. I therefore 

 sent my compliments to the reporter, and begged to be excused. He 

 went away, and I thought that that Avas the end of the matter. Alas, 

 no ! Next morning I found myself in the paper, in large capitals, 

 giving forth opinions relating to the education of the deaf that I had 

 never expressed. 



Now, I would impress upon your minds the fact that if you want 

 to do a man justice, you shoulel believe what a man says himself 

 rather than what people say he says. There is no man in America, I 

 think, who has been more interviewed by newspaper reporters than I 

 have, and I can assure you that T have never yet seen a report of an 

 interview with me that was free from error. 



But now I begin to be afraid of you ; for you are the interviewers 

 in this case, and I wonder how I shall be reported by you in the 

 newspapers of the eleaf. I am talking to you by word of mouth, while 

 my friend, Professor Fay, is translating what I say into the sign- 

 language. Then by and by you will translate it all back again into 

 English for the benefit of your deaf friends in distant parts. You 

 are the interviewers this time, anel I fear you are just as liable to 

 make errors of statement as the ordinary newspaper reporter. I 

 have therefore brought with me to-night a gentleman who has taken 

 a stenographic account of all that I am saying to you. T will look 



