1907] 
teresting ; for although (for reasons here- 
after to be explained,) I do not interfere - 
with the treatment of the deaf, yet, the 
subject is intimately connected with one 
to which a considerable portion of my 
attention is devoted; and nothing which 
promises to throw new light upon the 
science of surmounting organic defici- 
ences, can be andirer ent: to me. 
But, while I make my acknowledge- 
ments to Mr. Mann for the entertain- 
ment derived from his two papers in the 
Monthly Magazine of June and August 
last, he wiil perhaps excuse me, if I sug- 
gest the possrbility that, im some two or 
three particulars, he may Happen to have 
been misinformed. 
In the first place he seems to suppose, 
that the sole objects of the work published 
by Bonet, in 1620, was to “teach the 
deaf and dumb to think and write, and 
léarn useful arts,” 
eolamunication of the power of speech. 
Not being acquainted with the Spanish 
language, lam not capable of answering 
for the contents of the book ; but the title 
is, I believe, Reduction de las Letras, y 
Arte para ensennar a hablar los Maudos. it 
professes, therefore, to teach the dumb to 
speak ; and the Abbé de ’Epée, expressly 
informs us, in his “ Method of Teaching 
the Deaf and Dumb,” that it was from 
this very book, and Amman’s Disser- 
tatio de Loguela Surdorum et Mutorum, 
that he first derived the suggestions, that 
ultimately enabled him to teach his 
deaf and dumb pupils to speak. Having 
procured the first of these books, ‘‘ [ im- 
mediately resolved,” says he, “to make 
myself master of the Spanish, that I 
might be able to render my pupils so 
great a service ;” and, shortly afterwards, 
having obtained the second also “‘ by the 
light of these two, (continues this noble 
and enlightened enthusiast) I soon dis- 
covered how to proceed, in order to cure, 
in part at least, one of the two infirmities 
of my scholars. Their works are two 
torches, which have lighted my footsteps ; 
but | have taken the route which appear- 
ed to me the shortést and easiest, in the 
application of their principles.” What 
that route was, he proceeds to shew us 
in the second part of his truly valuable 
work, “The Method of Educating the 
Deaf and Dumb. %—(See Eng. Trans. 
Cadell. 1801.) 
How, therefore, your correspondent 
could have fallen into the second, and 
more important mistake, that ‘ the "Abbé 
‘gave up every attempt to becoine master 
Montuiy Mac., No. 164. 
Correction of Mistakes relative to the Abbé de UV Epie. 
without aspiring to the . 
445 
of the theory of teaching the dumb to 
speak,” Iam at aloss to conjecture. 
That he did masier both the theory 
and the practice, the evidencé. 1s com- 
plete and copious; and he appeats to 
have improved and simplified it to such 
a degree, that he would frequently un- 
dertake “ with men of learning, that he 
would make them proficients in it, in the 
Space of half an hour.” 
“ Before I had to instruct the multi- 
tude of deaf and dumb, that have been 
successively pressed upon me, my own 
application to the rules here laid down, 
proved so effective, as to enable Lewis 
Francis Gabriel de Clement de la Pujade 
to pronounce, in public, a Latin discourse 
of five pages and a half; and, in the en- 
suing year, to lay down a definition of 
plnlosophy, detail proofs of its accuracy, 
and defend it in. regular. disputation, 
answering, in all scholastic forms, the ob- 
jections offered against it by Francis 
Elizabeth John de Didier, one of his fel- 
low-students. [I also enabled another 
deaf'and dumb scholar to repeat aloud to 
his mistress, the twenty-eight chapters of 
the Gospel according to St. Matthew, and 
to recite the morning service along with 
het every Sunday.” . 
It is true, indeed, that after the num- 
ber of the Abbé de P Epée’s pupils began 
very much to encrease, he found it im- 
practicable to give up so large a portion 
of his own time, as would have been ne- 
cessary to instruct each of them indivi- 
dually in the practice of speech; this 
province therefore was resigned to other 
tutors, whom he had previously initiated; 
while he devoted himself to what ap- 
peared the more important, and were 
certainly the more difficult, parts of his 
system of instruction. Still, however, 
it appears that the generality of his pupils 
were taught to speak; and the contro-. 
versy between the venerable Abbé and 
Professor Heinich, was not, simply whe- 
ther it were better to teach the deaf and 
dumb to speak by the exercise of the 
organs of enunciation, or by the language 
of methodical signs ; if it had, perhaps the 
justice of the decision of the Academy of 
Zurich might have been called in questi- 
on: but whether the system of education 
by methodical signs, connecting in the 
ery first steps of tuition the particular 
treatment of the organic defect of his 
pupils, with the exercise and develone- 
ment of the understanding, as practised 
by the Abbé; or the mechanical system . 
of dactylogy, &c, adopted, or invented 
ME v 
