Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/666

648 a great and successful barrister at law (studying under the learned chief justice), was a master of many languages—French (modern and old), Latin, Greek (ancient and modern), German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Danish, with some knowledge of Gaelic, Irish, Welsh, Swedish, Polish, Russian, Bohemian, Finnish, and had not neglected Hindostani and Sanskrit, He commenced Hebrew in his thirty-fifth year, and afterward constantly read the Old Testament in that language. He was also familiar with various branches of science, architecture, etc. The McLellan brothers, both deaf, are successful Canadian lawyers.

The results of competent oral instruction are simply marvelous, students being shown at the Penn Institute for the Deaf, at Mount Airy, Philadelphia, who can understand and repeat, in a fairly modulated voice, long sentences uttered away from them—i. e., when they are only able to perceive the movements of that corner of the speakers mouth which is toward them—who can also read fluently from the shadow of speaking lips thrown upon the wall. These visual organs of the deaf are made to do the work of two senses, and attain in time the most extraordinary power and even subtlety of vision. It has with propriety been suggested that such highly developed eyes would be of service in the most delicate astronomical and physical experiments, where instruments of precision are commonly employed. A likeness of Helen Keller and one of her teachers accompanies this article. This girl was congenitally deaf and blind, and has been taught to use articulate speech by the oral system of education now so successfully practiced.

By oral instruction I mean that system which teaches the deaf to communicate with the world at large by means of articulate speech, in contradistinction to the inferior and largely discarded manual-alphabet system, which entirely isolates them as a class from society in general, which does not understand their signs and can not spare time to use the writing pad.

theory of probability and uniform experience, said Dr. William Harkness, at the American Association, alike show that the limit of accuracy attainable with any instrument is soon reached; and yet we all know the fascination which continually lures us on in our efforts to get better results out of the familiar telescopes and circles which have constituted the standard equipment of observatories for nearly a century. Possibly these instruments may be capable of indicating somewhat smaller quantities than we have hitherto succeeded in measuring with them, but their limit can not be far off, because they already show the disturbing effects of slight inequalities of temperature and other uncontrollable causes. So far as these effects are accidental they eliminate themselves from every long scries of observations, but there always remains a residuum of constant error, perhaps quite unsuspected, which gives us no end of trouble.