Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/18

 Lot it be supposed that a girl had been seen by a deaf mute child to drop a cup of milk which she was carrying home. He would relate the incident in the following order of sign words. Saw-I- girl-walk-cup-milk-carry-home-drop. This mode of dictating is the only sure road to the acquisition of language by those who have nothing but the natural language of gesture and feature to assist them. The value of the language of signs is well expressed by the principal of the Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, who says : &quot; The use of good scaffolding must attend the erection of every buildin^. As scaffolding in architecture so is the sign language in deaf mute education, and only tyros in architecture or education would dispense with either. The riper the experience the deeper the conviction comes of the necessity and usefulness of the sign language, and in its use we find the corner stone of all deaf mute institutions. 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.&quot; 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. There are two kinds of this, the doubled-handed alphabet, where the letters are expressed by the dispositions of the fingers of both hands, and the single-handed, in which the letters are formed with the fingers of one hand. It is supposed that the former was derived from a finger-alphabet which appeared in a work by Dalgarno ; and the latter is said to have been invented in Spain, and appears to have been published in a work by Bonet to which the Abbd de 1 Epee was much indebted. Z 90D BAD The Double-handed Alphabet, as in use in most of the schools for the deaf and dumb in England. Talking with the fingers is an art easily acquired and retained, or recovered if lost, and it furnishes a ready sub stitute for pen or pencil ; but it must not be forgotten by those familiar with it that the extent to which the deaf mute will be able to understand any commuication will depend entirely upon the state of his education, or upon his knowledge of language. The deaf and dumb when properly instructed converse with the utmost rapidity by this method ; habit enables them to follow with the eye The Single-handed Alphabet, as used in the American and Conti nental schools, and also in one or two English schools. motions which to others would be too rapid for observation. They readily catch at the meaning of a word or question before it is half spelt.

Articulation.—Another very important branch of the education of the deaf and dumb is that system by which deaf mutes are taught to speak and to understand the speech of others by merely watching the motion of the vocal organs. This method is by no means novel, as it has long been practised in some of the schools in England, and the earliest attempts to teach the deaf and dumb to speak appear to have been as successful as those in modern times. Wo learn from the Venerable Bede s Ecclesiastical History (quoted by the Abbii Carton in his Annual of the Deaf and Dumb and Blind] that a deaf man was taught to pronounce words and sentences by John, bishop of Hagulstadt (Hexham), in the year 685 ; and from that time we meet with only isolated cases, till the latter part of tho 18th century, when Samuel Heinicke established a school where this system formed the basis of instruction. 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. Experience, however, has shown that this accomplishment, though laborious and tedious of acquisition, is not attended with extreme difficulty. 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. This artificial speech is laborious and constrained. It frequently conveys the idea of pain as well as effort, and as it cannot be regulated by the ear of the speaker, it is often too ioud, and generally monotonous, harsh, and dis cordant. It is often from this cause scarcely intelligible except to those who are accustomed to its tones. The 