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With our best pupils, on the other hand, favorites whereever they go, writing, spelling, or making signs as the exigency may require, able to make themselves understood in any company by signs alone, winning regard and information from all with whom they come in contact, able to read books with increasing pleasure as years pass on, mingling with society with comparatively little sense of isolation, how wide the contrast!

We have confined the comparison hitherto to the best pupils of the two schools. But there is one painful fact which must not be omitted. Not more than one-fourth of those taught in the German schools attain such a knowledge of articulation as to be of practical benefit to them, while in our own schools every child not deficient in capacity is made acquainted with written language. "It is a very sad feature," says Professor Vaisse, "of the schools where what has been called the German system is more thoroughly carried on, that a very large proportion of their pupils are dismissed before completing their course of instruction, on the score of their being unable to speak, and consequently to be taught anything at all in such institutions."

Mr. Henry W. Syle, who has recently visited all the important British schools for the deaf and dumb, writes that not one in thirty of those born deaf receive any benefit from articulation, and that in a great majority of other cases, the attempts to teach it are failures. Mr. Syle is a nephew of the late lamented Henry Winter Davis, of Baltimore, and a most competent witness.

It is not difficult to explain the mistakes so often made by intelligent men in their examination of foreign schools. In the first place they go abroad with no knowledge of our own schools for the deaf and dumb, as it respects either their system of instruction or the results attained by it. Secondly, they suppose that articulation is a new thing, when there are at all times in our American schools persons wholly deaf, who can both speak and read from the lips. Thirdly, they are ignorant of the fact that it is only those, with rare exceptions, who lost their hearing after having learned to speak that are taught anywhere to articulate with success.

It would, doubtless, be of advantage to all children if they

could have instruction as to the manner of using the vocal organs in uttering the various sounds, both simple and compound, which enter into spoken language. As it is, the child's only endeavor is to imitate his parents. If the speech of the parents is defective, the child's will be so. But where the speech of the parent is perfect, or very nearly so, the speech of the child may be marred by great defects. These, in part, he may copy from others, but very much of the imperfection of speech is to be imputed to a natural indolence of the muscles of the voice. Certain sounds are more difficult to utter than others somewhat resembling them, and there will be a constant tendency to substitute the easy for the difficult.

The Yankee dialect so admirably exhibited by Professor Lowell, in the Biglow Papers, is not merely the imitation, by one generation, of the manner of speaking of its predecessor, but is a result of this indolent and shirking habit to which all the muscles of the body are more or less inclined. Thus, to say "hender" is much easier than to say "hinder," "wal" is easier than well, "ith" than with. That this mode of speaking is due very largely to this natural tendency to shirk labor in the vocal muscles, that is, to substitute that which is easy for that which is more difficult, was strikingly illustrated in an experiment which we lately tried. We requested a semi-mute to read to us Zekle's courtship from the Biglow Papers. He did not at once understand the meaning of the words under the new form of spelling, but it was a pleasure to see how much easier he found it to pronounce them after this manner than in the correct mode. Probably there is no nation on the face of the earth whose mode of uttering the words of their language is so defective as ours. Very grievous mistakes are not only made in the utterance of the vowel sounds, but the tongue and the lips secm often to refuse to perform their office in uttering the consonants.

By all means then let us have teachers of articulation, but let them begin with those who hear. Let the children in our schools be taught not to rant in declamation, but to utter correctly all the vowel sounds of the language. Let them learn to open their mouths, let them be made to understand by actual experiment that it is the immovable position of the upper

lip which causes for the most part the disagreeable habit of talking through the nose-let them avoid distressing precision of utterance on the one hand, and a shameful neglect of all care for distinctness and completeness on the other. Let words be made to come out from their mouths as coins newly dropped from the mint. When those to whom God has given all their senses, have learned to speak, then perhaps we may favor attempts to impart to the deaf also this great accomplishment.

ARTICLE VII.-THE "CATHOLIC WORLD" MORE
CATHOLIC.

OUR readers may be presumed to remember, in the January number of our current volume, an Article contrasting certain inconsiderate statements concerning "the philosophy of conversion" to Romanism, which had just made their appearance in the "Catholic World." It will be remembered that the main drift of our criticism was to show how grossly and inexcusably the "Roman Philosopher," in his desire to make strong statements and to produce a striking effect, had misrepresented the belief and teaching of evangelical Protestants. The "Catholic World" for April contains a more judicions paper, from a more intelligent writer, not exactly replying to our censures, nor contradicting our positions, but rather inviting us to an amicable controversy on the points which distinguish the New England churches from the Church of Rome. Without accepting that invitation, in its whole extent, or committing ourselves to an interminable discussion of questions which have already been disputed for more than three hundred years, we propose to touch, not polemically-certainly not in any unkind feeling-upon some particulars in the courteous and well considered Article to which we have made reference.*

The new writer in the "Catholic World," instead of dealing with the "New Englander," chooses rather to deal with an individual contributor, whose name was printed on the cover of that number, in connection with our strictures on the Roman philosophy of conversion. We do not complain of his having done so; but this may be our excuse for saying that we too, instead of having to do, as before, with a writer whose person and name were entirely unknown to us, are dealing with one who, though anonymous in form, is not in fact anonymous to us. There are old memories-older than the day of his birth, and hallowed by death as well as by time-which make it easy

"Catholic World," April, 1867, pp. 104-119.

for us to use all kindness and tenderness in commenting on what he has written.

We have no disposition to dwell upon the fact that the Article now before us, though put forth in the form of a review, makes no show of vindicating the Article which was the subject of our criticism in January. A word or two is said by the writer in compliment to his predecessor, whom he styles "our able correspondent ;" and then he proposes to express his "own independent judgment as a reviewer" on some "important bearings" of the question between us and the able correspondent aforesaid. He will allow us, however, to suggest that he seems to err at the outset in one point a little personal to ourselves. He says that as the author of the essay which we criticised, "presented his view of what Protestantism is, reduced to its logical elements and constitutive principles," so we, in our criticism, "attempt to make a statement of [Roman] Catholic doctrine, as it appears to [our] mind, when reduced to its logical elements." We are not conscious of having made any such attempt; nor does a reperusal of what we wrote impress us with any evidence of such an attempt on our part. Instead of making our own statement of what conversion to Romanism is, or of what that is which the convert accepts in his conversion, we attempted to exhibit, in all honesty, the representations of the author whose performance we were considering. It was the writer in the "Catholic World," and not the writer in the "New Englander," who represented the Roman Church as pretending to "look with the eyes of God on the souls of men," and as demanding that the heart which God demands for himself shall be given to her. He it was who said, "the heart and will of her disciples have but one exercise, and that is submission." Not we, on our own authority, but he, from his own knowledge, said, "Unconditionally, unquestioningly, unprotestingly, they bow before her voice and echo its decrees." He it was who said that conversion to that organization is "the abnegation of all choice and self-affirmation, and the complete subjection o the heart and will to the obedience of faith" in "the Church.'" He it was who said, "What the Church teaches is from that hour the faith of that Christian heart. What the Church com

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