Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/741

 DEAF AND DUMB 737 e blind. At Brussels are two schools: one for girls, pursuing the manual method; the other for boys, using the labial method. At Rotterdam is an articulating school, directed by D. Hirsch, the leading living advocate of this system. In Denmark a royal decree de- clares that " every deaf and dumb child born in this kingdom shall receive the education necessary to render him a useful member of society." There are two schools at Copen- hagen, the royal institution and Keller's pri- vate articulating school. All pupils are first sent to the royal institution for a month, then examined by the heads of the two schools, and all who seem likely to attain success in artic- ulation are removed to Keller's school, the state paying for them at the same rate as at the other. In Sweden, the Stockholm insti- tution has the second finest edifice in Europe. In Russia, the St. Petersburg institution has two residences, one in the city, the other on an island in the river near by, occupied du- ring the intense heat of summer. The Ger- man schools are numerous and well supported, but mostly small, and each teacher follows his own method, so that there is little unanimi- ty. Nearly all admit that there is a large class who cannot profit by articulation, and permit the free use of natural gestures, though they re- ject both conventional signs and dactylology. Germany has been prolific of writers on the deaf; Reich of Leipsic, Grashoff and Sagert of Berlin, Neumann of Konigsberg, Graser of Baireuth, Daniel of Zuffenhausen, and Kruse of Schleswig may be particularly mentioned. The Organ der Taubstummen- und Blindenan- stalten is a valuable periodical now publish- ed monthly at Friedberg in Hesse. In Aus- tria, the system of De 1'fipee was first used, but a combined method is now generally employed. The imperial institution at Vienna, successive- ly under Stork, May, and M. and A. Venus (father and son), and that at Prague in Bo- hemia, have always stood high. At Vienna are two of the best articulating schools in Eu- rope, one supported by the Jewish community, the other the private establishment of Herr Lehfeld. The Swiss and Italian schools most- ly retain the French system. The works of Assarotti of Genoa, Pendola of Siena, and Scagliotti of Turin, are of high repute. At Milan are four schools, two of which, one for boys and the other for girls, are under the di- rection of Signor Tarra. The third is a small private school for the wealthy. The fourth, the royal institution, was in 1863 converted into a normal school; its beneficial effects are already evident, but much remains to be done before education will be within the reach of all the deaf of Italy. In Spain, its birth- .place, the art has languished. De Alea and Ballesteros of Madrid have labored almost alone. Portugal has but one school, at Lisbon. Schools were started at Melbourne and Rio Ja- neiro about 1865. The want of recent and full statistics from most parts of Europe renders the Prussia 80 Other German states and Austria 60 Italy 15 Spain 2 Portugal 1 Australia 1 Brazil. . .1 following table of existing institutions only ap- proximately correct : United States 86 Canada 6 England and Wales... 18 Scotland 6 Ireland 6 France 60 Belgium and Holland 10 Denmark, Sweden, and Norway 5 Russia 8 These institutions probably have 1,000 teach- ers and 10,000 pupils, and cost over $3,000,000 per annum. Psychical Condition and Meth- ods of Education. The psychical condition of the uneducated deaf mute, born deaf or ren- dered so at an early age, is difficult for others to realize. It has often been compared to that of the blind, but there is no real resem- blance. Blindness is almost purely a physical misfortune : it leaves open the most important avenues to the mind. Deafness, less severe as a physical affliction, is far more so in its re- pressive effects upon the intellectual and moral nature. Verbal language is with us the great means of informing and developing the mind. But " the deaf knows nothing, because he hears nothing." He has no language whereby to receive or convey ideas, except rude ges- tures. The great objects of education are, first, moral and mental development ; and second, the acquisition of a ready and ample means of communication which may in some degree restore the sufferer to society. With regard to the means and manner of attaining these ends, there have been from the first two opposite theories, one maintaining the pre- eminent value of articulation, the other of signs ; while not a few instructors have taken a middle course and combined both methods. In writing the history of the art, the terms German, French, and early English are ap- plied to these systems. But geographical boundaries have long ceased to divide them; all three are now to be found side by side in almost every country. We will therefore use the terms labial, manual, and combined. The advocates of the labial method maintain that articulation is the only true bond between thought and w6rds. Writing and dactylology are merely representatives of speech ; and only on the presupposition of speech can they be proper vehicles of thought. Signs, though useful as a preliminary means of understand- ing between teacher and pupil, are not neces- sary links between ideas and words. They should be restricted to perfectly instinctive gestures, and even these can be discarded at a very early stage, and new words explained solely by means of words already familiar. The system of conventional signs first devised by De 1'Epee is as arbitrary as any set of spoken or written symbols, and no more nat- ural, no more readily apprehended even by the deaf. Its continued use is highly objec- tionable, leading the mind away from words, and habituating it to think in a different order.