Page:Vocal Speech for the Dumb.djvu/22

14 and so?' 'Yes,' said his father, 'How do you know, who told you?' 'Father, I saw his lips move, and I guessed that was what he said.' 'You had better practise watching people's lips,' his father said. The 'German' system was then unknown in America; But the boy did practise, both with his family, and by studying his own lips before the glass. The only difficulty being that he soon discovered a difference in his own pronunciation of words ending in 'tion' as he called it 'ti-on,' and such like spellings, where the sound and the spelling did not agree. At twelve years of age he was sent to the American Asylum at Hartford, and for a whole year he could make absolutely nothing out of the signs and finger talking used around him. This made him very wretched. He continued to say his lessons aloud to the master, who questioned him on his fingers. One day going to his master for the meaning and pronunciation of some new and difficult word, the master in a fit of impatience at his not pronouncing it rightly wrote the word down, spelling it phonetically; the boy at once gave it correctly, and his delight and joy were intense. Here was the key of knowledge. From that day he always went to others with his new words, with the request 'Spell it wrong; spell it as it sounds,' and he had no more difficulty. He married a deaf and dumb woman, and had several children, all of whom heard. When these children were old enough, they were sent to school. Very soon a complaint came to the father from the teacher, his children were so remarkably impudent and naughty they would write nonsense on their slates instead of their exercises. They had been punished, but continued to bring such sentences