Page:Vocal Speech for the Dumb.djvu/15

Rh so, hearing children can understand all that is said to them, and that is what deaf ones never can.' Really! Can hearing children understand all that is said to them? Then why do mothers and nurses say the same thing, over and over again, a hundred times? And when the hearing child can imitate what is said to it, does it therefore know the meaning? Does it know what 'papa' or 'mamma' mean because it can say the words? Of course not.

The objects must be shown with the words spoken, and shown over and over again, too, before the hearing child can connect the object with the spoken word; and so—exactly so—is it with the deaf child; you do not let it go on talking its own language; but just as with the hearing, you educate it to repeat certain sounds after you, and to connect those sounds (spoken words) with certain objects—only with the deaf you cannot teach through the ear and so must through the eye. It is all by imitation, as with the hearing child; it does not 'come natural,' as unthinking people so often say, either to the hearing or to the deaf.

Now, let us contrast the effect of these systems on the after life of those educated thereon. We will take the 'French ' system first, as that best known in this country. I have said over and over again, and here repeat, that if the object of the education of the deaf were to fit them to live in large asylums and comfortable institutions, they should by all means be educated on the 'French' system. It is the easiest and pleasantest to the pupils, so long as they are together or with their teachers. But we know well that institution life can be but the lot of very few. Almost