Page:Science vol. 5.djvu/143

 Fbbbuabt 13, 1885.]

��SCIENCE.

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��at dinner some agreeable companion. A con- versation-room could be added, and the place become a general rendezvous for scientific and literary men ; and these rooms could be so arranged as to admit, on precious occasions, of being thrown together, so as to banquet a Huxley, a Helmholtz, or a Pasteur in a suit- able place and manner.

If we look for a suitable name to give to the edifice which shall be the free home of the arts and sciences in Boston, what can better represent its local history*, its exalted science, its ' divine ' art, than the name of ' BowDrrce ' ? ^ Bowditch hall,' then, let it be ; and let those in Boston, and they are many, who honor the sciences and love the arts, make this more than a name, and help the advancement of all these varied institutions at once by securing them a common and a fitting home. The so- cieties can doubtless bear a part of the ex- pense ; but the plan is too large for them to carry out unaided, too fair to fail. What other plan could promise such solidarity of all high interests? What better fitted to restore the ancient prestige of Boston's name?

��IS THERE A CORRELATION BETWEEN DEFECTS OF THE SENSES?

People sometimes assume that a defect of any important sense is balanced to the indi- vidual by the increased perception of the re- maining senses. For instance : it is often thought that deaf persons have better eye- sight than those who hear, and that blind persons have better hearing than those who see. The returns of the tenth census of the United States (1880) concerning the defective classes show clearly the fallacy' of such a belief. They indicate that the deaf are much more liable to blindness than the hearing, and the blind more liable to deafness than the seeing.

About one person in every thousand of the population is blind, and one in every fifteen hundred deaf and dumb. Now, if these pro- portions held good for the defective classes themselves, we should expect to find one in a thousand of the deaf-mute population blind, or one in fifteen hundred of the blind popula- tion deaf and dumb : in other words, we should expect to find no more than thirty-four blind deaf-mutes in the country ; whereas, as a mat-

��ter of fact, no less than four hlindred and ninet^'-three blind deaf-mutes are returned in the census.

In the following table, I., I present an analysis of the doubly and treblj- defective classes. The information has been compiled from the published statements of Rev. Fred. H. Wines (who had charge of the depart- ment of the census relating to the defective classes ^), supplemented b}' unpublished infor- mation kindly furnished by the census ofiSce.

TABLE I.

Analyaiit of the defective classes as returned in the tenth census of the United States (1880).

��Singly defective. Deaf and dumb ^. . ..

Blind

IdioUc

In«ane

��30.005 46.721 73,370 01.133

��Total singly defective

��Doubly defective. Blind deaf-muteff .... Idiotic deaf-mutcM .... Insane deaf-mutes ....

Blind idiots

Insane blind

��246 2,122

268 1,186

528

��Total doubly defective

��Trebly defective. Blind Idiotic deaf-mutes Blind insane deaf-mutes

��Total trebly defective

��217 30

��Total defective population

��242»210

��4,860

��247

��246,816

��1 The ' deaf and dumb ' have no other natural defect save that of deafness. They are simply persons who are deaf from childhood, and many of them are only ' hard of hearing.* They have no de- fect of the vocal organs to prevent them from speaking. A child who cannot hear our language with sufficient distinctness to imitate it remains dumb until specially instructed in the use of his vocal organs. In the above table, the * deaf and dumb ' are therefore classified with those having a single defect.

��In the following tables, II.-V'II., I have re- duced these figures to pei'centages.

TABLE II.

Percentage of the population of the United States

who are defective.

��ToUls.

��Deaf and dumb Blind. . . Idiotic. . . Insane. ..

��33,878 48,928 76,805 01,050

��Defective populaticm. . Population not defective

��246,816 40.008,967

��Total population

��50,155,783

��Percentage.

��0.0675 0.0075 0.1533 0.1833

��0.4021 09.5070

��100.0000

��I See American annaU of the deaf and dumb fi>r January, 1885.

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