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DUMB AND DEAF.

deaf mutes in the U. States is about 6000, and in Europe not less than 140,000; all of whom, by their deafness (which we see is usually beyond the reach of remedies), are shut out from the intercourse of society, and the ordinary means of acquiring knowledge. The situation and character of such a large class of unfortunate persons are subjects of deep interest. Communication.-Natural Language. The necessity of communication, and the want of words, oblige the deaf mute to observe and imitate the actions and expressions which accompany various states of mind and of feeling, to indicate objects by their appearance and use, and persons by some peculiar mark, and to describe their actions by direct imitation. In this way, he and his friends are led to form a dialect of that universal language of attitude, gesture and expression, by which the painter and the sculptor convey to us every event of history, and every feeling of the soul-which becomes a substitute for words in the hands of the pantomimic actor, and which adds force and clearness to the finest effusions of the orator-in other words, the natural sign language.

Description of the Language. The terms of this language are of two kinds-the descriptive and the characteristic or indicative signs. Descriptive signs involve an account (more or less complete) of the appearance, qualities and uses of an object, or the circumstances of an event, for the purpose of description or explanation, and must, from their nature, be varied, like a painting, only by the point of view from which the objects are described, or the capacity and accuracy of the person that describes. The indicative signs, on the contrary, which are employed in common conversation, are usually mere abbreviations of these, involving a single striking feature of the person, or object, or event; as an elephant is indicated by its trunk, a flower by its fragrance, or a town by a collection of roofs. The signs of persons are usually conventional, and derived from some feature, or mark, or habit, but often from an accidental circumstance in dress, &c., which struck the deaf mute on first seeing the person, and is still referred to when it no longer exists. It is obvious that, in this class of signs, there is great room for dialects, according to the situation, capacity and habits of observation of the individual, and that much may be done for its improvement, by a proper selection.

Extent of the Sign Language. The

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sign language, like every other, varies in
its extent with the intelligence, the wants,
and the circle of ideas of those who use
it. When employed by an insulated deaf
mute, it will usually exhibit only the ob-
jects of the first necessity, and the most
common impulses, like the language of a
savage tribe. When his ideas expand,
from age or observation, he will find new
modes of expressing them; and, when his
education is begun, an intelligent deaf
mute will often express ideas in this lan-
guage, for which it is difficult to find ex-
pressions in words. When a number of
deaf mutes are brought together in a sin-
gle institution, selections and combinations
of their various dialects are formed; the
best are gradually adopted by all; and a
new and more complete form of the lan-
guage is the result-as in nations collected
by civilization. This process, carried on
for half a century in the institution of
Paris, and some others in Europe, under
the observation and direction of intelligent
men possessed of hearing, has produced
a language capable of expressing all the
ideas we convey by articulate sounds,
with clearness, though not always with
equal brevity, and which those who value
it least admit to surpass speech in the
force with which it communicates the
feelings and states of mind. Like paint-
ing (as Condillac observes), it has the im-
mense advantage of presenting a group
of ideas at once, which lose much of their
force and beauty, by being detailed in the
successive words and artificial arrange-
ments of written language. The eye, the
hand, the whole body, speak simultane-
ously on one subject; the representation
changes every moment, and these peculiar-
ities, with the elliptical form of expression
which is adopted in conversation, give a
rapidity to communication by the sign
language, which, on common subjects,
among those familiar with it, surpasses
that of speech. If we remark the new
shades of meaning given to the same
words, by the varying attitude aud gen-
eral expression of the speaker, and the
accuracy with which a nice observer will
discover, in these signs, the thoughts, and
feelings and intentions, even of one who
wishes to conceal them, we shall find
reason to believe that they are capable of
conveying the most delicate shades of
thought. Generic and abstract terms, as
their objects do not exist in nature, have no
corresponding terms of equal clearness in
the sign language; and the abbreviated
manner in which we express relations by
conjunctions, prepositions, relatives and

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inflections, can only be imitated by adopt ing similar conventional signs, which do not easily fall in with the idiom of the language. In these respects, therefore, the sign language wants the algebraic brevity and accuracy which are found in artificial languages, and which render these so invaluable as mediums of thought, and instruments of philosophical investigation; at the same time, it is capable of describing what is conveyed by these forms, with an accuracy at least as great as that of words, by circumlocution and example. It is worthy of remark, that the order of expression, in the sign language, is that which we term inverted the subject before the quality, the object before the action, and, generally, the thing modified before the modifier. This language, in its elements, is to be found among all nations, and has ever been the medium of communication between voyagers and the natives of newly discovered countries. It is employed by many savage tribes to supply the paucity of expression in their language, or to communicate with other tribes, as in the Sandwich islands, and in North America. Among the Indians of the western territory of the United States, major Long found it an organized language, employed between tribes who spoke different articulate languages. The accounts received from himself, as well as his work, show that it corresponds, almost precisely, with that in use in the school of Paris; and a Sandwich islander, who visited the American asylum for deaf mutes, gave a narrative of his life in the sign language, which was perfectly understood by the pupils. If testimony be wanting that it still retains its universal character, in its cultivated form, the writer of this article, who acquired it in this form, can state, that he has employed it, or scen it employed, with success, in communicating with an American Indian, a Sandwich islander, a Chinese, and the deaf and dumb in various parts of the U. States, in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The more lively nations of Europe, belonging to the Celtic race, the French and Italians, &c. make great use of this language, in connexion with words, and, sometimes, even without them. The more phlegmatic people of the Teutonic race, in England and Germany, are so little disposed to it, and so much less able to acquire or understand it, that they regard it as a species of affectation or buffoonery in their southern neighbors; and to this circumstance it is probably owing,

that it has been so extensively rejected, among these nations, as an auxiliary in the education of the deaf mute.

Natural State of the deaf Mute. The natural condition of the deaf mute may be inferred from the account we have given of his language. It is obvious that the mere loss of hearing cannot, in itself, diminish the natural vigor of any other faculty, either of body or mind. He must, however, be destitute of all ideas of sounds; but these form so small a part of the circle of our ideas, in comparison with those derived from sight, that they cannot seriously affect him. His conceptions, derived through the medium of sight, are usually more accurate than ours, his recollections more vivid, and his powers of description more striking, because his attention is more undivided. His discrimination of feelings and character is often intuitive, and he frequently divines the subject of conversation from the appearance of the speaker. The tremendous part of his misfortune is the interruption of communication with his fellow men, on all subjects except the primary wants and impulses, which arises from the imperfect character of his sign language, in an uneducated state. His ideas are very much limited to the objects and events he witnesses, and the exterior relations of things; and he is shut out from all the knowledge derived from history and tradition. Past ages, distant countries, a future world, a Deity, are all beyond his reach. In regard to the combination and application of the ideas which he acquires, he is still in the state of nations in the infancy of society, and cannot be aided or directed by others, in his efforts to reason. After extensive observation and inquiry, we cannot hear of or find a single instance in which a person, born deaf, has conceived of a First Cause, from a view of the works of nature, without education. They describe themselves as looking at these objects like the brutes. Even those whose friends have made great efforts to communicate religious truths seldom have an idea of the Deity, as a Creator or Benefactor; and a deaf mute at Chartres, in France, who had been taught to perform all the rites of the Catholic church, and was deemed very devout, on receiving his hearing, stated that he had no conceptions of any thing but the external forms of religion. Conscience, in them, derives all its light from the observation of the conduct of others, and the instinctive impulses; but recognises no invariable law, and often leaves

DUMB AND DEAF.

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these unfortunate persons to commit gross crimes, without any sense of guilt. short, they are enveloped in intellectual and moral darkness, in the midst of the clearest light.

History of the Art of Instruction. Mention is made of deaf mutes in the writings of Pliny; and they were declared, by the Code of Justinian, incapable of civil acts. No attempts appear to have been made to give them instruction, until the latter part of the 15th century, when we are merely told by Agricola, professor of philosophy at Heidelberg, in Germany, of a deaf mute who had been instructed. In the middle of the 16th century, Pascha, a clergyman of Brandenburg, instructed a daughter, who was a deaf mute, by means of pictures. But the first effort for this interesting object, of which we have a distinct account, was made by Pedro de Ponce, a Benedictine monk, of the Spanish kingdom of Leon, who instructed four deaf mutes, of noble families, to write and speak, in 1570. In 1620, John Bonet, another Spaniard, published the first book known on this subject, containing an account of the method which he adopted in a similar course of instruction, and accompanied by a manual alphabet, from which that now in use at Paris was derived. In 1659, the instruction of deaf mutes was attempted, with apparent success, by doctors Holder and Wallis, both of whom published accounts of their methods. At about the same time, Van Helmont, in Holland, published an ingenious treatise on the manner of forming articulate sounds, the principles of which, he says, he had applied with success to the instruction of a deaf mute. In 1691, John Conrad Amman, a Swiss physician in Leyden, published a similar work; but he and his predecessors appear to have devised and executed their plans without any knowledge of those who had previously attempted the same thing. In 1704, the methods published in Spain, England and Holland, were first applied, in Germany, by Kerger, apparently with much ingenuity and success, and some improvements. He was soon followed by a number of laborers in the same field, of whom Arnoldi appears to have been the most distinguished. In 1743, the practicability of instructing deaf mutes was first publicly demonstrated in France, by Pereira, a Spaniard, before the academy of sciences, who gave their testimony to its success. About the same time, this branch of instruction was attempted in France, by several others, among

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whom Deschamps, Ernaud, and Vanin were best known. In 1755, Heinicke in Germany, De l'Epée in France, both of whom were led to feel an interest in deaf mutes thrown accidentally in their way, formed each an independent system of. instruction, established the first institutions for the education of deaf mutes, at Paris and Leipsic, and may be justly regarded as the founders of the two great schools, into which the instructers of the deaf mutes have since been divided. In 1764, Thomas Braidwood, of Edinburgh, devised a system of instruction, in which, as in that of Heinicke, articulation was the chief object. Both these persons, for a long time, refused to communicate their inventions, except for a compensation, and under seal of secrecy; and their principles have scarcely extended beyond the countries in which they originated. De l'Epée devoted his fortune and his life to the instruction of his pupils, and the gratuitous communication of the art to all who would learn it; and, in consequence of his efforts and instructions, schools were founded by Silvestri at Rome, Stork at Vienna, Guyot at Groningen, and Ulrich in Switzerland, which still exist in the hands of their disciples. The system of De l'Epée was materially improved by Sicard, his pupil and successor in the institution of Paris, who is admitted to have surpassed his master, and to rank with him as one of the greatest benefactors of the deaf mute. Towards the close of the last century, Assarouli, of Genoa, established, by his own benevolent efforts, an institution which ranks among the first in Europe, and formed a system of instruction, based, indeed, upon that in Sicard's works, but involving important improvements, which entitle him to be considered the founder of the Italian school.

European Institutions. From the last report of the Paris institution, with some additional accounts, it appears, that there are now 81 establishments for deaf mutes in Europe; of which Spain has 1, Portugal 1, Italy 6, Switzerland 4, Baden 4, Wurtemburg 3, Bavaria 1, Prussia 8, the rest of Germany 10, Denmark 2, Sweden 1, Russia 1, Holland 4, Great Britain 10, and France 26. Sixty-two of these have been established within the last 30 years. A few in Great Britain, and in Germany and Switzerland, are conducted on the system of Heinicke and Braidwood. The rest, including several in Great Britain, adopt the fundamental principles of De l'Epée and Sicard.

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American Institutions. The first instruction of deaf mutes in America was given in Virginia, by a descendant of Braidwood, who adopted the system of concealment, like his ancestor. A small school was formed; but we have not learned the results, and believe it has ceased to exist. The first institution for this purpose, and which now ranks among the most distinguished of the kind, was the American Asylum, projected in 1815, and established in 1817, in Hartford, Connecticut, by the efforts of the Reverend T. H. Gallaudet, aided by Mr. Laurent Clerc, a distinguished pupil of Sicard, and sustained by the contributions of gentlemen in that town. The course of instruction is based on the system of Sicard, but with important improvements by Mr. Gallaudet. Asylums for the deaf mute were subsequently founded in Philadelphia, at Canajoharie, in the state of New York, in Ohio, and in Kentucky, all of which obtained their system of instruction from the American Asylum; and this institution is thus entitled to the praise of having given birth to an American school of instructers, and to an American system of education for the deaf mute, whose results have excited surprise in Europe, and have even been declared to be utterly improbable, from their superiority to those usually produced. An asylum was established in the city of New York, at about the same time with the American Asylum, which has not derived its system from any existing institution. The legislatures of Maryland and most of the states north of this have granted annual supplies for the education of their indigent deaf mutes, at some one of these institutions; other states have proposed to establish asylums, and, by a bill now before the congress of the U. States, a tract of land is granted to every such institution. If the deaf mutes in the U. States be estimated at 1 for every 2000, or 1000 for every 2,000,000 of inhabitants, the annual increase for one generation, supposing it to be 30 years, will be 33 for every 2,000,000; and, if the course of instruction occupy 4 or 5 years, 150 deaf mutes, for every 2,000,000, ought to be continually under instruction. According to this calculation, the five existing institutions are sufficient for the existing 8,000,000 of inhabitants north of Tennessee and Virginia; and it only remains to establish two or three others, at central points, for the Southern States.

Systems of Instruction. The objects to be accomplished in the education of a deaf

mute, are to teach him an entire language, and to give him all that mass of moral, religious and ordinary knowledge that is necessary for him, as a social and immortal being, for which, in other children, 12 or 15 years of constant intercourse with society, and much study, are deemed necessary; all this is to be done in six, and often even in three years. It is obvious that, to accomplish this, some method, more rapid in its results than the ordinary one, must be adopted. The earlier instructers of the deaf mute usually had only one, or a very few pupils, and have given us hints for instruction, rather than a system. The first account which we have of the reduction of this art to a regular and permanent form, is in the works of Heinicke and De l'Epée. Heinicke, like many of his predecessors, considered the want of speech as the great misfortune of the deaf mute, and made it the great object of instruction to teach him to articulate, in order to aid the progress of his own mind, as well as to enable him to communicate with others in this manner. We are told by the successor of Heinicke in the Leipsic school, that the following "are and were the views and principles of Heinicke and his disciples:"-that "we think in articulate words, and cannot think in written words;" "that written words can never lead to the developement of ideas, in children born deaf;" and that "no freedom in thought, or in the use of language, can be produced without articulation, either by signs or by written language." If it were credible that sounds were more allied to abstract ideas than objects of sight are; if we could forget that we often have ideas for which we cannot easily find words, the facts we have stated concerning the language of signs, and the capacity of several hundred pupils, educated merely by signs, in the French and American institutions, to read and write, and converse and reason, prove the entire fallacy of these views; and the argument ab ignorantia cannot be adduced, at this day, on that subject, without disgrace. Those who follow this system admit the use of the sign language in the early stages of instruction, but seek to banish it as early as possible, considering it as a rude language, incapable of improvement, and which retards the expansion of the pupil's mind, and renders it less necessary for him to attend to written language. They adopt the methods of the early instructers, in waiting for occasions to teach words and explain phrases. They rely upon repeating the word or

DUMB AND DEAF.

phrase in the appropriate circumstances, and in questions and answers, as the means of making it understood, rather than on direct explanation, or examples presented by the sign language. Too many of this school forget one of the fundamental maxims of Heinicke—“first ideas, then words”—and occupy the pupil for a long time with mere mechanical articulation. In one school, months are passed in the mere study of names attached to pictures, without the least attempt to excite or enlighten the mind by means of signs; and usually a year is passed, at a period of life when most of the mental faculties are ripe for developement, in the mere exercise of memory (in learning names of objects, and qualities, and actions), which only requires the powers of an infant, and would be aided, instead of retarded, by the expansion of the mind, as the experience of the other schools fully proves. Religious instruction is rarely attempted, in this school before the second year, or until it can be given in words, from the belief that it cannot be given correctly by signs; and in the school of Leipsic, it is even deferred to the third year. The attention of De l'Epée, and other instructers of the same views, was called especially to the intellectual and moral wants of the deaf mute; and they deemed it most important first to develope his powers, and cultivate his feelings; and, next, to give him such a knowledge of written language as is indispensable to the acquisition of knowledge, and the communication of his wants. They found the only medium of conveying truth, or explaining terms, in the sign language which we have described. They employed it in its natural state, to explain the first simple terms. They discovered that it was capable of extension, and they preserved and cultivated it, as we have mentioned, as a language intelligible to the pupil, by which they could always refer to any objects of thought or feeling, physical, intellectual or moral, and thus form original explanations of new words, and avoid the error which might arise from the imperfection of previous explanations. Words they considered as arbitrary signs, and De l'Epée maintained, that the instruction of the deaf mute, like that of a foreigner, ought to consist in a course of translation and retranslation from the known to the unknown language. To aid in this process, he added a series of methodical and conventional signs, founded on analogy, for the particles and inflections of language. These

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were used chiefly in instruction, in order to render the translation complete, as well as to indicate the character and meaning of the connectives. He does not appear to have practised fully upon his own principles, but occupied himself too exclusively with the intellectual improvement of his pupils, and with single words, and seems to have despaired of enabling them to use language, in its connexion, except in a mechanical manner. Sicard endeavored to complete the plan of his master, by the improvement of the signs employed; and to him and his pupils we owe, more than to any others, the perfection which this language has attained. He also endeavored to avoid the error of De l'Epée, by explaining the theory of grammar, and the formulas of the various species of propositions, and, in this way, was led into a course of metaphysical and philosophical lessons, which later instructers have found too extensive and too little practical. According to the system adopted under his direction, the first year was occupied with a vocabulary of names, of adjectives, and of verbs in three simple tenses, with simple religious and other narratives in the sign language. It was only in the second year, that words were shown, in their connexion, in short phrases; the pronouns, prepositions, and the full inflection of the verbs, were taught, and religious instruction given, in written language. In the third and fourth years, the organs, senses, and operations of the mind, and the theory of sentences, were explained, original description and definitions required, and in the fourth year, books were put into the hands of the pupils. Throughout the course, public lectures were given, in which written accounts of Bible history and religious truth were explained in the sign language; but no devotional exercises in this language were ever connected with them, or practised by the pupils.

American System. This system has been materially modified in the school of Paris itself, and in several others on the continent of Europe, which adopt the same principles. As the American system of instruction, devised by Mr. Gallaudet, without any knowledge of others, except that of Paris, on which it is founded, comprises most of these improvements, with some others of great importance, peculiar to itself, we cannot do better, within the limits allowed us, than to describe this as we have found it, in his own statement, and in the American Asylum. Mr. Gallaudet has combined

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