Delivered at the Home Congress in Boston, Oct. 77, t8cj6. 
Homes for Teaehinq Deaf Childreffto Speak. 
By MARY S. GARRETT, 
Principal Home for Training in Speech of Deaf Children 
before they are of School Age, 
Belmont and Monument Avenues, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U. S. A. 
I. What they should be; 
II. How their general establishment will at once shorten 
the time for which deaf children must be sepa- 
rated from their parents for their education ; 
III. How they will, if properly conducted, finally do away 
with any separation at all. 
I. 
What They Should be. 
The idea conveyed to the mind on the mention of the 
word “ Home ” in its general sense, is usually more what a home 
should be, than what a careful examination of facts shows 
many homes really to be. 
The expression, “ Home influence,” is often carelessly used 
to express an influence necessarily good—but home influence 
is not necessarily good. It is not long since the generally 
accepted idea of a good mother, was a mother whose whole 
time and thoughts were given to her own children and their 
interests; fortunately, the broad principle of humanity and 
love to all is beginning to unveil the selfishness of such a 
policy, and mothers are training their children to work with 
them for all who need their help. 
The opportunities for influencing children in their homes 
are the best possible, because they are of the age when they 2 
accept everything unquestioningly, and when the most lasting 
impressions are made. The benefit of these opportunities is 
lost to deaf children, unless they are taught at the same 
natural age as hearing children, the speech and language, 
which are the only medium through which clear and com- 
plete ideas can be communicated, and through which children 
can be properly developed. 
Even parents, who not only realize this, but who further 
realize that the deaf child must from infancy be guided to learn 
speech and language through sight, feeling and imitation, and 
that it must have nothing to imitate as a medium of commu- 
nication but articulate speech—find, that in a way, every 
man’s hand is against them in their efforts; so that they can- 
not make the child’s home what it should he. From the 
moment a child is discovered to be deaf, everyone, more or less 
unconsciously, begins to treat it differently from a hearing child, 
which naturally tends to make it different. People also con- 
tinually convey ideas to them through motions, instead of 
simply giving them the same repetition of speech and lan- 
guage, through the eye, while learning, which a hearing child 
receives at the same period through its ability to hear every 
word spoken in its presence, whether addressed to it or not. 
This, and the fact that so many parents do not yet know what 
can be done for deaf children, nor how to do it, led my sister 
to found in Pennsylvania a “ Home for the Training in Speech 
of Deaf Children before they are of school age,” where she 
hoped to show what the home influence should be to give deaf 
children the same means that hearing children are given, to 
prepare them to enjoy the good things of this world, and to 
intelligently perform their share of the world’s work. 
That you may have an idea of our Home life, 1 will read 
from my part of the Report about to be issued: 3 
Report of Secretary and Principal. 
“ As our metliods are in no wise changed from those inau- 
gurated by Emma Garrett, it will be necessary to repeat some 
paragraphs of our last report in order to give a clear and 
accurate report of progress at this date. 
“ The object of the Home is to give young deaf children the 
same conditions and opportunities for learning speech and 
language through the eye, that we had at the natural age for 
learning through the ear, it having been proven that when 
this is done the deaf child learns like the hearing one. To 
this end, the little ones are continually surrounded by influ- 
ences guiding them to articulate speech and speech reading. 
An idea is never conveyed to their brains through any motion 
or sign ; it is thought better for them to go temporarily with- 
out understanding, until they are able to understand through 
repeated speech in connection with objects and evident ideas, 
so that they may form and perfect the habit of talking, and 
of speech reading, which will be everything to them during 
their later lives. 
“ They eat at the table with grown people, and are con- 
stantly attended in their walks, plays, baths, and sleeping 
rooms, by educated house-mothers, whose office is to talk with 
them, just as to hearing children, and intelligently guide them 
to the use and understanding of speech. The dining tables are 
so arranged that each child sits at a table with grown people, 
whose business it is to keep the conversation on the plane of 
the child, and yet to guide it onward; so that the babies are 
addressed in simple sentences and only expected to use words; 
the children who are learning the first sentences are guided 
to use them; and the older children are engaged in conversa- 
tion through which they are constantly learning new words, 
combinations and facts. The children spend four hours and 4 
three-quarters divided into five periods, with the teachers daily, 
(except Saturdays and Sundays). The work with the younger 
ones is, of course, not routine class work, and with all of the 
children it is principally speech and language, although the 
older ones are now gaining general information through this 
medium. They are learning to write, but writing is not used 
to explain anything to them which they cannot understand 
through speech, which is always first, as it was writh us. We 
teach the vertical system, because it uses less paper, believing 
that every opportunity to teach economy to the American 
nation should be taken advantage of. 
“The older ones have the habit of speech sufficiently to 
be permitted and encouraged to write weekly letters. They 
also read children’s books now, and we have commenced a 
library of simple stories and sketches, from which they select 
fortnightly. From learning the names of the parts of the 
body, they have advanced to the acquiring of the knowledge 
of the organs and their uses, and how to care for the body in 
order to preserve health. From having seen the ocean, 
travelled some on the railroad, and seen several cities, we 
have been able to teach them about our vacation trips, all of 
which not only keep them in touch with our lives and 
interests, but lay the foundations for future studies in geog- 
raphy. Much of their language is obtained through studies 
of nature, and the situation of our home being in the country 
district of Philadelphia, gives many delightful opportunities 
for them. Our good neighbor Reich neFs farm, has fur- 
nished many and most fascinating lessons. 
“ They are commencing to know and understand about 
William Penn, and a morning full of interest and improve- 
ment for them was recently spent in visiting his house in the 
Park. As soon as the smaller children can articulate the 
names of animals, they are taken to the neighboring Zoologi- 5 
cal Garden. The children read rapidly from the lips, all that 
they know, and, as with us when we were learning a new lan- 
guage, they understand for a while more than they can say. 
They have physical culture, the older girls are taught sewing 
on Saturday mornings, and the boys Sloyd ; the older ones 
also sit up an hour after tea, and play games with the teachers. 
They have daily exercise and play in the fresh air, and, that 
they may learn to be useful and helpful, the older ones make 
their beds, can dust rooms and clear and set tables beautifully. 
Of course they will learn their business or trades later from 
the hearing people among whom they must ply them. 
“ While the delusion that deaf children are imbeciles has 
passed away, there still remains in the community, a habit 
of treating them differently from hearing children, which 
ends in making them different. Were it not for this, each 
mother and family could do the work for its deaf child better 
than we can, as she should begin at six months old and 
talk to it, and treat it exactly the same as her other children ; 
and the family, friends, and community should do just the 
same; and the result would be just what it has been with the 
few deaf children who have been fairly treated—the child 
would become like other children, and not be able later to 
remember when it could not understand. 
“We cannot well admit babies under two years of age, 
but we can, of course, do much more for them commencing 
at that age, than if their speech training were deferred several 
years beyond the natural age; and we look forward to a time 
—which I trust, is not more than a generation distant—when 
family, friends, and the community, will so aid the mother, by 
talking to her deaf child exactly as to her hearing ones, 
that we shall not need institutions especially for them. 
“ Among deaf children are some who have more or less 
perception of sound, and yet insufficient to learn speech 6 
through it. Of late years efforts have been made in insti- 
tutions for the deaf to develop their hearing, and various 
instruments are used. We do not use any instruments, but we 
frequently test the little ones to discover any latent hearing, 
and when we succeed, we simply repeat the words and lan- 
guage they have learned through the eye into the ear until 
they learn to recognize it, and we have had some very en- 
couraging results. 
“We also find that it is worth while to persevere in 
trying to develop a little hearing, even in children who for 
a long time seem not to have a vestige." 
It is well to remember in training deaf children that 
although they cannot have the advantages that come through 
hearing sounds, they are also saved from certain disadvan- 
tages. Their brains are not wearied with constant sounds and 
constant subjects, so that they are entirely able to take all the 
repetition of ordinary colloquial and idiomatic language 
necessary to give them a thorough knowledge of it. Their 
nervous systems are also saved the shocks that come from 
what might be called the “ blows of sounds ” that are harsh 
and violent. 
We do not give vacations, because interruptions to the 
acquiring of speech, and the speech habit during the first few 
years are fatal to the facility and freedom of communication 
with their families and others which we wish to give the chil- 
dren before they leave us. The teachers have vacations in 
turn, and substitutes for them are provided. I have given 
special training for the work to all the teachers and substi- 
tutes employed in the Home. 
We admit children between the ages of two and eight 
years, giving them a six years’ course from time of entrance. 
Nearly all the children who have completed two-thirds of our 
course give every evidence that at the end they will be able to 7 
go to schools with their hearing brothers and sisters; a few 
may need a little longer training here. 
The children’s parents and friends are received on Wed- 
nesday afternoons, between two and five o’clock, and every- 
thing is done to keep np and encourage the children’s love for 
them. 
Each room has a large frame in which the photographs 
of the children’s parents, relatives and friends are constantly 
before them, and the first words taught are “ Mamma,” “ Papa,” 
etc., and all their home interests are subjects of constant con- 
versation. 
II. 
Up to the present time, with rare exceptions, deaf chil- 
dren have entered schools for the deaf with no knowledge 
of the speech and language, which should precede their school 
training. No such severe course is ever adopted towards hear- 
ing children. To make any progress under these circum- 
stances, they must be separated from their homes and families 
for courses of study covering a dozen years or more. If these 
schools can be superseded by the general establishment of 
properly conducted homes, it may be hoped that the influ- 
ences sent out by these may so instruct parents and the 
community that in the course of a few years or a generation 
the home influence in every deaf child’s family may become 
what it should be to give the little deaf child the same chance 
to learn speech and language, and to develop all its powers, 
as is accorded to its more fortunate brothers and sisters. 
III. 
Then there need be no more separation of children from 
their homes than there is with hearing children.