Alfred Large

“ Still, before they are eligible for an institution of the deaf and dumb, much may aud ought to be done by the parents for their improvement. The first and primary aim of the teacher is to get at the minds of the pupils, and for this end it is of immense advantage that they should be brought up together, so that they may acquire and maintain the language of signs. The acquisition enables them to convey to one another much and varied information, which proves of great service in the Lands of the teacher in the class-room ”

“ Now, as deaf and dumb persons educated without articulation can only have two of the means, viz., the third and the fourth, that is, the impressions made upon the eye by characters and the action of the hand in writing, can it be questioned that we render them an essential service by adding the actions of the organs of speech, a very powerful auxiliary, since by it words become, as it were, a part of ourselves, and more immediately affect us ? ”

“ Such a calamity as the deprivation of hearing must be productive of great and varied disadvantages, as it totally excludes the mind from an extensive class of ideas and associations. It is then not to be wondered at that this state of social isolation should occasionally give rise to moroseness and despondency, and that external objects should inspire little sense of surprise or admiration. ”

“ It is the opinion of some that infant schools for the deaf and dumb would prove of immense advantage in compen sating for the extra length of time requisite to acquire any thing like a perfect knowledge of the English language, but others are strongly opposed to these for social, physical, and intellectual reasons, socially, as it tends to alienate the children from their parents ; physically, as being naturally of delicate constitutions they require the years of childhood to be invigorated, and so to be fitted to undergo the strain of a regular and systematic course of instruction ”

“ In learning the pronunciation of letters, a very important operation is going on in the mind of a deaf person, namely, the association and understanding of the figures of written or printed character with certain movements or actions of the organs of speech. The very habit of regarding the one as the representative of the other paves the way for considering combinations of those actions or characters, as the sign of things or ideas that is, significant words, written or articulate. We who hear consider words chiefly as sound ”

“ That difficulty has its ground in the unwillingness of parents to admit that their children -were born deaf. Their deafness is often attributed to some infantile disease, though the defect is congenital. On the other hand, when they have lost the sense of hearing at an early age, they may be included among the congenitally deaf. But all institutions for the deaf and dumb contain instances which illustrate scientific investigations, and establish the position that such causes as those now alluded to tend to induce and perpetuate the disease of deafness. ”

“ In America, and in almost every country in Europe except Great Britain and Ireland, the state successfully undertakes the instruction of the deaf and dumb. All the institutions are munificently supported by large annual appropriations from the local legislatures, the state regarding it as a primary duty that the deaf and dumb, the blind, &c., shall not be excluded from those educational privileges accorded to every member of the community. ”

“ The cultivation of it and its effective use is the only peculiar, although not the chief qualification of the teacher, lie will teach written language by the sign, laying aside the latter as soon as the ready use of the former has been secured. It is not necessary to descant upon the beauty, the grace, or the power of the sign language. The mute has no other, and the teacher must use and improve it as best he may." The first lesson in which the pupils are instructed on their entrance into school is the mode of visible communi cation known as the finger or manual alphabet. ”

“ In the English census returns for 1871 we find that only 529 deaf mutes, out of a total of 11,518, of whom 51 were imbeciles and 26 blind as well as deaf and dumb, were inmates of workhouses in England and Wales. That small proportion affords evidence of the fact that by means of education the deaf and dumb may be transferred from the dependent and burdensome class into the self-supporting class of the community. ”

“ Above all others, John Conrad Amman, a Swiss physician living at Amster dam, distinguished himself by his ingenious and successful method of teaching the deaf and dumb to speak. He reduced the work to a fixed art or method, which he published in his Surdus Loquens, 1692, whereof an English translation was afterwards published by Daniel Foot. In France the work of teaching the deaf and dumb was late in receiving the attention it deserved, in consequence of the still prevalent doubt as to its practicability, although many instances of success in other countries were generally known. ”

“ Many children who are numerated as congenitally deaf have the sense of hearing to a greater or less degree, but not to such an extent as to be of service to them in the acquisition of language. It is remarkable that the. defect of hearing is not generally dis- covered till an advanced period of childhood, and though the child remains mute the real cause is neither readily acknowledged nor properly attended to. Children Avho have lost their hearing after the acquisition of the power of speech cannot be included in the class of deaf mutes ”

“ In more intellectual occupations we find several gentle men in the civil service, respecting one of whom, who has gained a superior position in his ollice, it has been remarked to us by some whose duties bring them into contact with, him, that notwith standing his aflliction they can do business better with him than any other clerk in the establishment. There is a young gentleman making himself noted as an entomologist ; some are teachers of the deaf and dumb, occasionally even principals of institutions ”

“ Every other State in the Union provides for its deaf-mute ward with similar gene rosity. It is to be hoped that the day is not far distant when the deaf and dumb in Great Britain and Ireland may be congratulated on the inauguration by the legislature of a humane and beneficent policy on their behalf. ”

“ The former are those with which all deaf mutes are familiar before coming to school, and which they use in ordinary intercourse with their friends. The latter are chosen and systematized by the teachers of the several schools, and, in combination with the natural signs, are employed to convey ideas of a complex nature. Every action, the visible part of which can be imitated by gesture, admits easily of being so expressed, as the action of eating by lifting the hand to the mouth followed by the motion of the jaws, and of sleeping by closing the eyes and reclining the head ”

“ It would at first sight appear scarcely credible that a person, without the guidance of the sense of hearing, would be able, merely by watching the position and actions of the organs of the voice, to utter articulate sounds, with any tolerable perfection. ”

“ After-birth or acquired deafness occurs at all ages, and has its origin in such diseases as small-pox, measles, typhus, convulsions, paralysis, hydrocephalus, and other affections of the brain, and " scarlatina, which more frequently than any other disease leaves the patient deaf, in consequence of the inflammatory state of the throat extending to the internal ear, causing suppuration and destruction of the delicate apparatus on which hearing depends ”

“ Occupations.—Most of the deaf and dumb soon after leaving school are put to some trade. They will be found to be engaged in all kinds of employment except those to which hearing and speech are indispensable. The depriva tion of hearing is no barrier to learning most trades, and the deaf and dumb acquire them with the same facility and show the same expertness as others. As a rule, they are very steady, and apply themselves with assiduity to their work ”

“ In many of the large towns where institutions are established, associations iu aid of the deaf and dumb are springing up and carrying on most important and valuable work. Their first business is to seek out neglected children and to get them placed in some special school. Situations are procured for those on leaving school whose parents are unable to do anything for them, and the education com menced at the institutions is carried on by means of lectures ”

“ To instruct the deaf no art could ever reach, No care improve them, and uo wisdom teach. " Parents, influenced by this belief, allowed their children to grow up without culture. They were abandoned to them selves, and exiled from the community of rational beings. To such a culpable extent was this prejudice carried, that it has been the practice in some countries to destroy children who remained at three years of age incapable of either hearing or speaking, and by the code of Justinian deaf mutes are declared to be incapable of civil acts. ”

“ Great patience, perseverance, and kindness are qualification3 necessary on the part of the teacher to ensure success in ordinary cases, and the degree of success will greatly depend upon the number of children among whom the teacher has to divide his attention. A wide difference must ever be perceptible between the speech of the deaf and those who hear. ”

“ The causes assigned for congenital deafness are consanguineous marriages, hereditary transmission, weak constitutions of parents, scrofula, climate, and the ill-health of the mother at a certain period of life. There is necessarily difficulty in ascertaining the real cause of deaf ness. ”

“ One or more deaf I and dumb in 5 1 The proportion of families having one congenitally deaf parent, with at least one deaf-mute child, is about one-tenth of the whole, while the proportion of the families having both parents congenitally deaf with a deaf-mute child or children is more than one-third of the whole. The above tables show the amount of deafness transmitted by the marriage of one congenitally deaf with one hearing person. The cases of deafness resulting therefrom are only one- tenth of the whole, whereas those from the intermarriage of deaf mutes are about one third. ”

“ In all cases of congenital deafness it will be found that there exists some disorganization of the organ of hearing itself, some obstruc tion in the internal ear or compression of the auditory nerve, whereby the vibrations of the ear are prevented from pro ducing the required effect upon the internal parts of the ear, or from being communicated to the brain. ”

“ Children congenially deaf, of good capacity, with a well-toned voice, can make surpriz ing progress in the hands of private tutors ; but the limited success which has attended this method of instruction with numbers has not induced teachers to introduce it generally into large institutions, but rather to restrict it to special cases: Most of the German teachers consider that arti culation is necessary for the acquisition of thought, and can be successfully taught to the majority of the deaf and dumb ”

“ In France, the very birth of such children was accounted a sort of disgrace to the family from which they sprang, and the duties of humanity were deemed to extend no further in their behalf than to the maintenance of their animal existence, while they were carefully secluded from the eyes of the world either within the walls of the cloister or in souie hidden asylum in the country. ”

“ There seem to be few societies which have a greater claim on public sympathy; and that it deserves recognition is testified by the great good it is doing to this neglected and isolated class of persons, many of whom would otherwise have pro bably acquired habits of idleness and intemperance. ”

“ The constant observation of the deaf mutes of the superiority of others over them tends to dishearten and depress them, and as they are at 1 Mr Bell has also invented an instrument called a Fhonautograph, which he says has been found useful for educational purposes, as was demonstrated by a young deaf and dumb pupil from the Boston insti tution. ”

“ In 1861 only 30 persons were described as blind and deaf and dumb. As dumbness can only co-exist with deafness from birth or from early life, the number of deaf and dumb, unlike that of the blind, does not increase with age, but is highest immediately after the age when the epidemic diseases of children have been passed through. Table II. shows concisely the locality, the date of establishment, and approximately the number of pupils in each of the institutions iu Great Britain and Ireland. ”

“ The Principal of the New York Institution says, "We can show that it is much the most common for the children of deaf and dumb parents to possess the faculties of which their parents are deprived ; still, although the offspring may not be defective, they may likely inherit that peculiar taint of constitution by which the disease will be transmitted to future generations, which is so often the c,asc." Mr Turner, in a paper on Hereditary Deafness, gives the following table : No. of No. of Class. Parents. Families. Children Deaf. Children Hearing. ”

“ Thus far these signs may be termed natural, but the naturally deaf do not stop with this language of pantomime. When they are fortunate enough to meet with attentive companions, especially where two or more deaf persons happen to be brought up together, it is astonishing what approaches they will make towards the construction of an artificial language. ”