Page:Vocal Speech for the Dumb.djvu/9



am I standing before you to-night? Why am I reading this paper on the 'deaf and dumb' before your honourable Society? Not as a schoolmaster wishing—to bring before your notice some special method of teaching that he himself invented; not as a medical man wishing to advocate some special treatment of ear diseases; not because, in fact, I have any claim to speak in my own person as a professional practitioner, either scholastic or medical, but solely because that has happened to me which might happen to anyone here present; illness came upon my only child—its life was spared, but its hearing lost.

Great, indeed, were the difficulties we experienced in deciding on the best way of educating our child, meagre, indeed, the help we could obtain in our own country. I am desirous that others should have the benefit of our experience, so that no one need go through the terrible uncertainty and anxiety we had to endure. Our child was three months old when a severe attack of fever took away her hearing. For a year or two we kept hoping on. I even refused to enter the child in the census as 'deaf and dumb.' I would not 'brand' it as long as there was any doubt; such was my foolish pride, such is the foolish