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OBSERVATIONS
EDUCATION  OF THE DEAF AND DUMB.
V
REPRINTED FROM THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
                BOSTON:
OFFICE OF NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,  14 WATEB. STREET.
                 J. H. Low, Printer.
                   1834. 
 
OBSERVATIONS,  &c.
   1.  De VEducation des Sourds-muets de naissance, par M.
      Degerando, Membre de VInstilut de France, Administra-
      tes de Vlnstkut Royal des Sourds-muets, etc. etc.  2
      vols. 8vo.   Paris.   1827.
   2.  Troisierne Circulaire  de VInstitut Royal des  Sourds-
      muets  de  Paris,  a loutes  les  Institutions de  Sourds-
      muets  de VEurope, de  VAmerique,  et de  VAsie;—
      Paris,  Septembre,  1832.
   3.  Reports of  the American  Asylum for the Education
      and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, first to seven-
      teenth  inclusive.  Hartford.
   4.  Reports of the New York Institution for the Instruction
      of the Deaf and Dumb, fifth  to fourteenth  inclusive.
      New York.
   5.  Encyclopcedia Americana, Vol. IV. Article, Dumb and
      Deaf.   Philadelphia, 1830.

   ' France,' says the distinguished author of the  work first
cited above,' we confess it with regret, with surprise,—has been
last to see the public attention directed to the art of instructing
the deaf and  dumb.'   With  equal  surprise, if not with equal
regret, we may observe of our  own country, that,  while this
interesting art has  been actually in  practice among us for nearly
twenty  years ; in  the hands, too, of men distinguished for
their ability ; nothing has  yet appeared to shed light upon its
principles, or to gratify the public  curiosity with regard to its
processes.  Hardly has, here and there, a feeble attempt been
made to  prepare a series of the  simplest  elementary school
exercises ; and nowhere do we  find even the shadow of a  sys-
tematic  course of instruction, or of a nomenclature reduced" to
logical method, having its foundation in the connexion between
derivative ideas, and the primitive ones  of which they are
composed, or from which they are  abstracted. 
4
  But if, in this respect, our own country be  still deficient,
the labors  of foreign writers have  been so assiduous  and  so
well directed, as to  leave  nothing, at least in  mere theory, to
be desired.  Prolific Germany has produced her fifty writers
on this single subject, considered in one or another of its as-
pects.   France has more than retrieved the ground which she
had lost;  and from apathy, has  passed almost  to enthusiasm.
Her rapid advances have left all  competition  far behind, and
placed her  decidedly at the head  of the  science and of the
art.  To her we owe the work of Degerando,  the only com-
plete treatise which the world has yet seen, on the education
of the deaf and dumb,—a treatise, which, however particular
systems may vary from it in their practical details, embraces
those great fundamental principles, which, having their origin
in the  very nature of things, must lie at the foundation of all.
Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Prussia, Switzerland, England,
have all contributed their share to the common stock of im-
provement.
  Still, though we have  in this country done nothing toward
perfecting the theory of this noble art,  and little  toward re-
ducing to system the details of its practice, we have done that
which, to the eye of philanthropy, may seem of much higher
importance.  We  have shown ourselves not insensible to  the
claim, which this remarkable  portion  of  the human  family
have upon  our sympathy  and  liberality.   We have  estab-
lished institutions,  which, though  of less than twenty years'
standing,  occupy  an elevated rank  as well in character as
in number.  And though, in our extended  country, the num-
ber of the deaf and dumb is great, and their wants inadequately
supplied by the existing provision for their education, still the
heart of the philanthropist is gladdened, whether he contem-
plates what has already been effected, or the disposition which
manifests  itself among  our countrymen, to prosecute  to  its
accomplishment whatever yet remains undone.
  In order fully to comprehend the extent of the evils resulting
to the unfortunate deaf and dumb, from the privation  under
which  they labor,  we should examine, with  some degree of
minuteness, the nature of that  assistance, which the signs of
written and spoken languages afford to the operations  of the
intellect.   Such an examination, though  strictly connected
with the subject of the present  article, is, nevertheless, not
necessary to an understanding of the processes,  which this 
5
branch of education exacts, or of the principles on which those
processes rest.  No instructer should fail to peruse with atten-
tion the eighth chapter of the first part of Degerando's great
work.   To attempt an  analysis  of it in this place, would be
unjust at once to the subject and to the author.
   Lamentable as the natural condition of the deaf and dumb ev-
idently is, we have no satisfactory evidence, that, so lately as the
commencement of the sixteenth century, the idea had ever oc-
curred to any individual in any country, that this condition might
be ameliorated by education. To impart instruction to a person
affected by constitutional deafness, seemed  an  undertaking so
palpably impossible, that its practicability was never even  pro-
posed  as  a  problem,  much less was  it made a subject of
examination and discussion.  The  speaking  world had all
acquired language through the medium of sound, and  know-
ledge  through the  medium of language.  The belief  was
therefore  universally prevalent,  that language could only be
acquired through the ear, and was, consequently, in the nature
of things, beyond the reach of the deaf and dumb.  This  per-
nicious prejudice had its  origin  in the  highest  antiquity.  It
has the express sanction of Aristotle, who, at a stroke of the
pen, condemns the  deaf  and dumb to total and irremediable
ignorance.
   Prejudices still more severe than this, of a kind, too, to bring
down upon the heads of their unfortunate objects evils, which
nature, unindulgent as in their sad case  she evidently is, would
have spared  them,  have extensively  prevailed at   different
times and in  different places;  nor are  we  permitted to  say,
that they  are  even  yet entirely  dissipated.  Among  some na-
tions of antiquity, the deaf and dumb were regarded as beings
laboring  under the curse of Heaven.   By the Romans, they
were considered,  if not as  affected by positive idiocy, as at
least deficient in intellect; and  were,  consequently, by  the
code of Justinian, abridged of their  civil  rights.  The Abbe
de l'Epee* asserts that, in some barbarous  countries,  the deaf
and  dumb are even now regarded  as  monsters, and put to
death at three years old or later, probably  as soon as the  fact
of their calamity can be  satisfactorily ascertained.  The  be-
nevolent Abbe further tells us, that very respectable ecclesias-
tics of his own time openly condemned his undertaking ;  and
* Institution des sourds et muets.  Paris, 1776. 
6
that, too, on theological grounds.  Parents, he remarks again,
hold themselves  disgraced  by the fact of having a deaf and
dumb  child,  and therefore  conceal  it with  care  from  the
eyes of the world, and  confine  it in some obscure  retreat.
Condillac denies to the deaf and dumb the faculty of memory,
and, as a  necessary consequence, the  power of  reasoning.
Even among ourselves, how often do we observe a species of
contempt for this unhappy portion of our brethren, or an abso-
lute aversion towards them, which neither philosophy will war-
rant, nor enlightened benevolence approve !
  It is certainly remarkable, that the deaf and dumb should have
been almost universally regarded,in every age, as beings placed,
in respect to mental endowments, somewhere between man and
the brute  creation.  Deafness, in itself, implies no deficiency
of intellect.   A man of education may become deaf;  still his
powers  of  mind will  lose nothing of their vigor or  activity.
Blindness, in like manner, may supervene, without  impairing,
in the  slightest  degree,  the mental  faculties.   The nerves
which subserve these  senses, and the mechanical  apparatus
with which they are connected, constitute  only certain means
of communication between the external world,  and the intelli-
gence  within.  They form no  part of the intelligence itself.
Let them be destroyed or paralyzed, and the  communication
is indeed cut off, or rendered imperfect;  but the  soul, the re-
cipient  of information  through  the channel of the  sense im-
paired,  suffers, in consequence,  a merely negative loss,—a loss
which consists in  the failure, from that  time forward, on the
part of  the  sense  impaired, to continue  its usual observation
upon external things, and to convey their results to the mind.
To be deaf from  birth, therefore, is not  necessarily to belong
to a class of beings of an inferior order of intellect, but only to
be deficient in that species of information, which  it is the  pro-
vince of the ear to collect without effort.   It is to be ignorant,
not weak, stupid,  or  savage.   It is, indeed,  to be ignorant
in a very high and even fearful degree,—to be ignorant of
history  in its widest sense, of science, and of morality, save in
its first  instinctive glimmerings ; to be ignorant of language, the
great store-house of knowledge ;  and, above all, to be ignorant
of religion,—to be, literally and strictly, ' without God in  the
world.'   We are too  apt to attribute ignorance to  natural in-
feriority of intellect,  even when  the cause is palpable,—at
least  we too  often  associate  these  two  accidents together. 
7
Thus have the deaf and  dumb been judged deficient in intel-
lect, because they were  found to be so in  that amount of in-
formation, which, in their circumstances, could only have been
acquired by a miracle.
   Still more surprising is the circumstance, that the education
of these ignorant minds should so long have been regarded as
a self-evident impossibility.   To account for this, we must re-
fer to another propensity of our nature,  which is  to believe,
that things  cannot easily exist  otherwise  than as we have
known them.   That  order of events to which we have been
long accustomed, or which, within our  individual observation,
has been  invariably the same, seems at length to become the
necessary order, and assumes the character and importance of
a law, a departure from which would  excite in us no less sur-
prise, than to behold the sun rising in the west.   Through the
ear we have ourselves acquired our mother tongue.  Through
the ear we have  learned the use of those  visible  characters,
representing sounds, by means of which speech is depicted  to
the eye.   Thus, through the ear, we have become possessed
of all our means of accumulating knowledge, or  of communi-
cating with our fellow-men.   And thus we  conclude, that the
ear must always be the channel,  through which the mind is to
acquire that species of knowledge, which this organ has been
the means of conveying to us.  But. we conclude hastily.
   Let us  suppose society in its  infancy, possessed of no lan-
guage whatever.   The eye and the ear equally present them-
selves, as  instruments, through which a communication may be
established between man and man.  In the first  instance, the
eye  offers the only means  of intelligible  intercourse.   It  is
through the medium of signs addressed to  this organ, that the
value of other signs,  more  convenient in  use, but infinitely
more arbitrary, having sound as their basis,  and addressing the
intelligence through the eye, is  gradually determined.   This,
which must necessarily take  place in the  circumstances sup-
posed, is what doqs actually occur in the history of every in-
fant, who  learns his mother tongue, as is commonly supposed,
entirely through  the ear.  It is  what must take place  in the
case of a voyager, unexpectedly cast upon an unknown coast,
and compelled to hold intercourse with a people, speaking an
unknown language.  For him articulate sounds assume their
real character; they appear as the mere conventional repre-
sentatives of ideas : and whether  he desire to make known his 
8
wants, to recount the history of his misfortunes, to awaken
compassion, to implore relief and  protection, or to deprecate
cruelty, he finds  himself compelled to abandon signs which
are merely arbitrary, and to resort to those which are the sug-
gestion of nature,—to become, for the time being, dumb, and,
with whatever art he may possess, to address the understand-
ings of those whom he desires to influence, through the  eye
alone.
   Ideas, then, may obviously  associate themselves  directly
with visible signs, without regard to spoken language, —without
regard,  in   short,  to articulate and  audible  sounds.    This
principle needs only to be carried through, to show that artificial
language may itself be acquired otherwise than through the
ear, and that it may be both  understood and  written by those
who can neither speak nor  hear.   Words  and sentences, writ-
ten or printed, may thus become  the original representatives
of thought, instead of being the mere copies of another sys-
tem of signs, equally arbitrary.   It is thus that  the writing of
the Chinese at the present day is principally ideographic, and
that the hieroglyphics  of the Egyptians, though shown by
Champollion to  be, to a great extent, alphabetic characters,
are still in  part the  immediate pictures of thought.
   But there have been those, who, without denying  that ideas
might be immediately associated with visible  signs, affirm that
there is a remarkable distinction between  spoken and  written
language.   The former, in their estimation, is the suggestion
of nature; the latter, the  creation of art.  In the utterance,
thought appears warm and  living,—upon  paper,  inanimate
and frigid.   Without speech, they say, the operations of the
intellect cannot proceed.  Thus have  they made the human
soul,  with  all its faculties, a helpless thing, dependent upon an
accident of its physical condition for the ability to escape  from
a state of imbecility, and to awaken its powers into action and
use.  They  have even seemed to recognize something of the
divine essence in speech;  and referring to  the Scriptures, have
imagined, that in the figurative language there employed, and
in  the  application  of the  word  \oyos  to our Saviour,  they
could discover an argument in  favor of their singular views.
   These notions are the natural consequence of the vast util-
ity of speech to man.  The  only wonder respecting them is,
that they  should ever have been entertained and defended by
philosophic  minds.  For if  to speech belong properties so 
9
remarkable,—properties so  essential to intellectual  existence
(for what is existence without action), we should imagine that
they would be an early subject of investigation; and that it would
at least be inquired how  extensively  they  belong to sounds
generated by the human  voice.   To  ascribe such virtues  to
speech in general, is to say nothing, or nothing to the purpose.
It must belong to all sounds  emitted from the larynx, or  only
to a  portion.   But we  know that it is practicable to utter a
vast multitude of sounds, to which we can attach no definite
idea.   The  divine essence,  then, the living thought, is not to
be found in all articulate sounds.   It belongs only to  a portion
of those which it is practicable to utter,—in short, to a partic-
ular  language.   Is this  language dead  or living ?  Not a dead
language certainly, for, without speaking, or even understand-
ing such a tongue, we can still think, and reason, and commu-
nicate with our fellows.  Nor yet a living one ;  for whole na-
tions, without comprehending each other's modes of speech, still
think, reason and  communicate in their own.   There is  no-
thing in a specific sound, to render it the peculiar representa-
tive  of  a  specific idea.  And, moreover, no  system of sign*
can be devised, more absolutely arbitrary,  or  more absolutely
independent  of analogy with the  ideas which they represent.
than  the spoken language, which enthusiastic  theorists have
denominated the expression of thought in  the garb  of nature
and  of life.
   Adverse to the prevalence of a belief that the deaf and dumb
were susceptible of education, was also the  opinion of certain
philosophers, respecting the origin of language.  Language
they consider to have  been originally the gift of God to man, and
not only so in fact, but also of necessity.  To institute a lan-
guage ab  origine, is, in their estimation, an achievement above
the  human  capacity.  In  the words of  Rousseau, ' speech
could only have been  instituted by a series  of conventions;
but how shall these conventions be established, unless the par-
ties are already in  possession of  a language, through  which to
communicate, and mutually to understand each  other?'   It is
certainly remarkable that none of those, to whom  this reason-
ing has appeared conclusive, should ever have taken the trou-
ble to inquire how  they themselves came to be possessed of
this  celestial gift.  Strange, that it should have occurred to
no one of them, that either this laborious series of conventions
(tacit, it is true) must take place in the instance of every in- 
10
fant, who learns his mother tongue by the ordinary processes,
or the miracle must be repeated in each individual case!   No
common language, if these speculators are believed, exists  be-
tween the nurse and the child.   And yet the child arrives at
an understanding of the words,  which the nurse utters in its
presence.  The reasoning  is radically false.   There is in  na-
ture a language, to which intelligent beings, in default of other
means of communication, instinctively resort; a  language  ad-
dressing itself to the  eye,  and amply sufficient for the estab-
lishment of those first conventions, necessary to the institution
of an artificial  medium of  intercourse.  The word  come,  ad-
dressed to a child, is a sound without meaning;  but  the sign
of invitation simultaneous with the word,  the encouraging  ex-
pression of countenance, and the extension of the arms have
their meaning; and this is gradually associated with the artic-
ulate sound by which  they are  invariably accompanied.  In
this way strictly, are acquired the first rudiments of a language ;
and these will  afterwards themselves assist  in extending  the
limits of the learner's vocabulary.  Still he will be, for a long
time, principally  dependent  upon signs,  or  at least upon  ob-
servation made through the eye,  for his advancement in knowl-
edge.   His means of divining the significations of words, will
continue to be  chiefly attitudes  and  gestures, expressions of
the countenance and their variations, along with the particular
circumstances of time, place and surrounding objects, the  ac-
tions preceding and following the discourse, and  the recollec-
tion, which he  may preserve, of some event to which the con-
versation  relates.   He will, still further, be assisted  by  the
recurrence of words which he already understands ;  and which
reappear,  accompanied by others yet  unknown.   But, other-
wise, the  ear can afford him only that slight assistance arising
from difference of intonation and  inflection ;  an  assistance of
little value, except as it  serves to explain or correct the  no-
tions acquired through the principal organ, the eye.
   Baron Degerando developes, in a very luminous  manner,
the particulars  of that interesting process,  by which  ordinary
children arrive at an  acquaintance with their mother tongue.
From the observation of this process, much light maybe thrown
upon the  subject  which at present occupies us.  In fact,  the
most successful modes of initiating the deaf and dumb into the
knowledge of language, are those which most strictly follow
the course, which nature  herself has thus  pointed out.  This 
11
course, nevertheless, affords  but the outline of a  plan,  into
which many modifications must be introduced, to meet the
exigencies of that class of persons, for whose benefit it is in-
tended.   In the incipient steps of infant education, it is too fre-
quently the case, that every  thing is left to chance.   Words
are often used loosely in the  presence of a child.  He learns
to associate them with  significations, which their next recur-
rence will prove erroneous.   Thus he is constantly rejecting
preconceived notions, to substitute others in their places, which
time  may show to be  equally wide of the truth.   How much
labor is thus fruitlessly spent!   In many cases, after repeated
corrections and modifications, be  may, after all, perhaps, at-
tain only a vague and confused notion, at best but an approxi-
mation to the true idea.  How many words can  we ourselves
recollect, of which our notions are far  from being distinct and
precise !
   The child  suffers, further, from the inattention of others to
the thousand queries,  which  his uninformed curiosity is con-
tinually suggesting.   A reply, made at random, he receives as
containing the true solution of the difficulty which perplexes
him.   He treasures up falsehood  for truth, and is long, per-
haps, without being undeceived.   Not unfrequently will there
be found  persons capable of  sporting with  his  simplicity, and
purposely leading him to the  formation of erroneous opinions.
And  even when, in good faith, we lend our attention  to the
trifling interrogatories  of childhood, with the purpose of ren-
dering a just and intelligible  reply, how often  do  we  fail in
adapting our language or our illustrations to the capacity of the
little  inquirer; and, thus, though  he come to us thirsting for
knowledge, send him empty  away !  For all  these evils, the
child  possessed of hearing has one  great though simple cor-
rective,—repetition.   Words  are constantly uttered in his pre-
sence, and he  becomes an  involuntary  listener.   True it is,
that to repeat  a word is not  to  explain it; and  that, conse-
quently, repetition,  in  itself considered, affords  no  aid to the
learner of language.  But the circumstances, attendant on the
use of the word, constitute its definition,—a definition addressing
itself  to the eye.  It is thus that we learn  to  attach precise
and accurate ideas to a multitude of words,  which we cannot,
without reflection, transform into equivalent verbal expressions;
which we cannot, in short, define, but which we are, neverthe-
less, in the daily habit of employing, and employing correctly. 
12
  But the deaf and dumb person can derive no benefit from a
conversation  in which he does not participate.  This circum-
stance, joined to that of the comparative slowness of all processes
for depicting language to the eye, renders the repeated use of
words, in his situation, a feeble auxiliary toward acquiring their
signification.   The  necessity, therefore, of  reducing  to sys-
tem  that which, in the ordinary  education of infancy, is left
to hazard, becomes, in his  case, imperious.  Examples must
be selected with discrimination ;  they must be such that the
word to be illustrated shall  occupy a prominent place, and be
as much as possible  disconnected  from  such as are not yet
familiar.
  And since, in teaching the words of a vocabulary, it is obvi-
ously inexpedient to wait until suitable occasions for their use
shall present themselves in the ordinary occurrences of life, it
becomes necessary by means of that expressive language com-
mon to the instructer and pupil,  viz. the language of action, to
create around  us an ideal world;  to call into being the particu-
lar circumstance under which each  word may be properly em-
ployed ; and to point out in each living picture thus portrayed,
that which constitutes the  essence  of the idea, of which the
word is thenceforward to be  the  representative.   But we are
anticipating our subject.
  To him who purposes assuming the interesting responsibili-
ties of an instructer  of the  deaf  and dumb, it is a matter of
high importance, to determine the intellectual and moral condi-
tion, previously to all instruction, of those to whom his labors are
devoted.  This, indeed, seems absolutely  necessary, that  he
may acquaint himself with the magnitude of his task, and ascer-
tain the point at which his labors are to commence.  The nat-
ural history of the deaf and dumb has, accordingly, occupied
the  attention, to a greater  or less  degree, of every instructer.
The  conclusions to which  the  investigations of different men
have led them, have,  nevertheless, exhibited nothing like uni-
formity ; and, in many instances, nothing like justice toward the
unhappy objects upon which they were exercised.   So severe,
indeed, are the judgments  emanating  from  men who rank
among the most able, intelligent and humane of those who have
devoted their lives  to this  subject, so humiliating  a picture do
they present us in their delineations of a being, possessing cer-
tainly a soul,  if not a language, and so little do we find in our
own observations to justify their opinions and statements, that 
13
we are led  with astonishment to set them in contrast with the
ordinary acuteness displayed by their authors, and to inquire if
it be possible that such sentiments can proceed from such men.
The Abbe de l'Epee, whose name is synonymous with benev-
olence, ranks uneducated deaf and dumb persons with the brutes
that perish.*  The Abbe Sicard, his illustrious successor, de-
clares that a ' deaf and dumb person is  a  perfect cypher in so-
ciety, a living automaton, a statue, such as Condillac and Bon-
net have represented him.   He possesses  not  even that sure
instinct, by which the animal creation are guided.  He is alone
in nature, with no possible exercise of his intellectual faculties,
which remain without  action, without life.   As  to morals, he
does not even suspect their existence.  The moral world  has
no being for him, and virtues and vices  are without reality.'!
   It would be an  unprofitable  labor, in this place, to cite the
numerous  conflicting opinions,  which  the  history of the art
abundantly  supplies.   We  quote a few by way of  specimen.
The learned and  estimable instructer,  Mr. T. Guyot of  Gro-
ningen, assures us that the deaf and dumb are by nature cut off
from  the exercise  of reason ; that they are in  every respect
like infants, and if left to themselves will be so  always:  only
that they possess greater strength, and that their passions, unre-
strained by rule or law, are more violent; assimilating them
rather to beasts than man.' %  M. Eschke of Berlin says, ' The
deaf and  dumb live only for themselves; they acknowledge
no  social bond ;  they have no  notion  of virtue.  Whatever
they  may do, we can impute their conduct to them neither for
good  nor for evil.'§  M. Caesar of Leipsic remarks, that the
' deaf and dumb indeed possess  the human  form,  but this  is
almost all, which they have in common with other men.   The
perpetual sport of impressions  made upon them by external
things, and of the  passions which spring up  in their own souls,
they  comprehend  neither law nor duty, neither justice  nor in-
justice, neither good nor evil; virtue  and vice are to them as
if they were not.' ||

  * La veritable maniere d'instruire les sourds et muets.  Paris, 1784.
  f Cours d'instruction oVun sourd-muet de naissance. 2d edition, Paris,
1803.
  f Cited by the Abbe Montaigne, in his Recherches sur les connois-
sances ntellectuelles des sourds-muets: Sfc.  Paris, 1829.
  § Recherches sur les connoissances intellectuelles des sourds-muets, fyc.
  || Ibid. 
14
   Unfortunate as the condition  of a deaf and dumb person
without  education obviously is, it is  hard to suppose him so
utterly degraded in the scale of being, as these  extracts would
warrant  us  in believing.   We should  hardly  know how to
estimate the  opinions so confidently, in many  instances so
dogmatically,  expressed, did we  not  bear  in  mind,  that the
world is  not yet free from the disposition, first to theorize, and
afterwards to compel facts into an  accordance, however un-
warranted, with a priori views.   Nor can we forget, that moss
of these instructers have brought to their task  the prejudices,
which we have already enumerated as once  universal, and not
yet extinct.    Nor can  we overlook the tendency, inherent in
human nature, to magnify the achievements of personal exertion,
especially when a trivial coloring may impart to those achieve-
ments the character  of the  marvellous ; when the world is
sufficiently disposed  to receive any statement,  however ex-
travagant ; and when the known incompetency of the multi-
tude to  call such statement  in question, renders the careful
choice  of expression  a matter of  little consequence.   It is
gratifying to observe  that all have  not yielded to this natural
and seducing tendency, nor  suffered  themselves to be blinded
by prejudice or deluded  by speculative inquiry.   M. Bebian,
an accomplished colleague of Sicard,  has given us his opinion
in the following words: ' deaf  and  dumb persons only differ
from other men in the privation of  a single sense.   They judge,
they reason, they reflect.  And if education exhibits them to
us, in   the  full  exercise of  intelligence,  it  is  because the
instructer has received  them at the hands of nature, endowed
with all the  intellectual faculties.' *   M. Piroux, the accom-
plished  teacher, now at the  head  of the institution at Nancy,
in France, and formerly of the Royal  Institution,  expresses
himself thus ;  ' Let us guard against believing, that the sole
privation  of speech  deprives  the  deaf and dumb  of every
prerogative of moral life.   Judgment and reason, memory and
imagination, are faculties  which spring up and form themselves
by a natural impulse.   The  distinction of good and  evil, and
the moral sentiments, are a necessary consequence of the social
relations.' f   Peter Desloges, a deaf and dumb  person, who
  * Journal de Vinstruction des sourds-muets, et des aveugles.  No. 1.
Paris, 1826.
 ^ t Institut de sourds-muets des deux sexes, etabli h Nancy, fyc.—Adver-
tisement. 
15
lost his hearing at the age of seven years,  having previously
learned to read, asserts, with something perhaps of hyperbole,
of the uninstructed deaf and dumb of his  acquaintance, that
' there passes no  event at  Paris, in  France,  or  in  the four
quarters  of the globe, which does not  afford matter of ordi-
nary  conversation among them.'  Baron  Degerando, whose
conclusions  are the result  equally of philosophic inquiry, of
personal  observation, and of extensive intercourse and corres-
pondence with practical  men,  uses  the  following language.
' The deaf and dumb, coming into the world with the intellectual
faculties  common to all men, though  deprived of a sense and
an organ, are capable of attention, of reflection, of imagination,
of judgment and  of memory.'   Of the writers who  have so
greatly exaggerated a calamity, already sufficiently deplorable,
he observes, ' It is worthy of remark  that no one  among them
has cited a single fact in support of his opinion.'   He supposes
many of these  writers to have been influenced by the  notions
of the Abbe Sicard, which he cannot contemplate  without
extreme  surprise ; but which he attributes to the  exalted idea
which the worthy Abbe had formed of his own success,—an
idea,  which rendered  him  desirous of making  the  contrast
between  the educated  and the ignorant dumb  as wide  as pos-
sible.
   We shall see, however, that the  views of Sicard underwent
a remarkable change.  In the  advertisement to his Theorie des
Signes*  be says, ' It will be observed that I  have somewhat
exaggerated the sad condition of the  deaf  and dumb in their
primitive state, when  I assert that virtue and vice are to them
without reality.   I was conducted to these assertions, by the
fact, that I had  not yet  possessed the means of interrogat-
ing them upon  the ideas which they had before  their  educa-
tion ;  or  that they were not sufficiently instructed to  under-
stand, and reply  to my questions.  I have always taught that
the law of nature is engraved, by the creating hand, upon the
soul of man ; that this law  is anterior to all sensible impres-
sions, which our organs receive ; that it is  nothing else than
the light  divine, which teaches man his duties  ; which  awards
him the  meeds of approbation  and happiness when he is faith-
ful, and  punishes him when he transgresses its dictates.'
  * Thtorie des Signes, pour servir ^introduction a VUude des langues,
gfc, 2 vols.  Paris, 18J8. 
16
  Regarding, therefore, the deaf and dumb as beings possessed
of an intelligence not wholly inactive ; beings, not entirely shut
out from communication with their fellows; not entirely with-
out interest in that which is passing before them ;  not wholly
unaccustomed  to reason  and  to  reflect; and  not absolutely
without ideas, appertaining to the intellectual and moral worlds :
it becomes important to examine,  how  great a degree of de-
velopment their mental powers are capable of attaining,  and
how far the circle of their  ideas  naturally extends.   This
inquiry  has  relation, of course, only to those dumb  persons
who have been  deaf from birth.  In every case in which deaf-
ness has  supervened  at  a later  period, the faculties  of the
mind may have  received considerable cultivation  before that
event.   Even language may have been  preserved, as  in  the
case of Desloges, after  the power of utterance is gone.  Cases
of this  kind are,  evidently,  widely different from that of an
individual, who, never having heard a sound,  has of course
never attempted to articulate, and for whom language, whether
written  or spoken, has  ever been a sealed book.
  It is not to be supposed,  that  the intellectual  faculties of
the deaf and dumb will as frequently be called into exercise
as those  of other persons ;  it is not,  indeed, possible that
they should be.  The development of those  faculties will,
therefore, be much less  rapid ; on account, at  once,  of this
want  of exercise, and of the greater labor requisite to con-
duct mental operations by the direct intuition of ideas, than
by  means of  the signs  which artificial languages  afford to
represent them.   It is a consequence, also, of their calamity,
that they are cut off from all that species of traditional know-
ledge, which naturally  flows  from  generation to  generation ;
which is imparted  almost unconsciously, and treasured in the
memory almost  without effort.   The experience of the human
race in  each succeeding age is constantly adding something to
the floating  wealth of mind ;  but of all this the  unfortunate
deaf and dumb know, and  can know nothing,—nothing, at
least, in comparison with the world which is to be known.  In
fact, it  is, in their case,  strictly true, as  is remarked  by  M.
Bebian, that ' the world, so  to speak, commences with them.
Still the very calamity  which shuts them out even from the pale
of that knowledge which is  open to infancy, and familiar to
the child of half a dozen years, is not without its favorable in-
fluence upon the originality of their conceptions,  and  the ac- 
17
 tivity of their intellect.   Their attainments, however humble,
 are at least the fruit  of their own labor; and their opinions,
 however at  times erroneous, are still  the  result  of their own
 independent reasoning upon such data as are within their reach.
 Their ingenuity is continually awake, to supply the deficiency
 of their information, and to break down, or at least to weaken,
 the barrier between themselves and the speaking world.'
    From the scantiness of their intellectual  treasures,  result
 habits of minute observation, which render them singularly alive
 to the impressions of the moment;  the more so, as they  lack,
 in a great degree, the foresight which glances from the present
 to the future, and regards what is immediately passing without
 emotion, in calculating that which is to follow.  The possession
 of such a foresight presumes a more intimate acquaintance with
 past experience, than can fall  to the lot of the deaf and dumb.
 Its absence is not without an unfavorable influence  upon  their
 character.  They are unsettled  in  their purposes; little ac-
 customed  to  control their passions, which acquire strength  by
 indulgence ; improvident;  and easily biassed in their opinions.
    The terrible sentence of exclusion, which shuts them out of
 society and makes their life desolate, renders them peculiarly
 sensible to kindness and attention.  Their ardent affections are
 easily awakened and easily fixed.  A gentle  course of treat-
 ment on the part of another, seldom fails to establish over them
 an almost unlimited influence.  Still, when we consider the neg-
 lect with which they are often treated, the difficulty which  they
 sometimes find in making known their desires, and their conse-
 quent failure to receive from others the good offices which  they
 may consider their due, we cannot be surprised that they should
 occasionally be  less  free to impart similar services in turn ;
 that their disposition, in short, should become selfish.   Nor is it
 wonderful, that perceiving  themselves to be often the subject
 of the conversations which take place in their  presence, they
 should learn to repose their confidence in others, less unreserved-
 ly than those  who hear.  These circumstances, nevertheless,
 combine to throw them more entirely upon their own  resources,
 and, hence, to call forth individual exertion in a higher degree.
  Children in  knowledge, they display many of the characteris-
tics of childhood in their dispositions.   Among the most striking
of these are extreme fondness of personal ornament, delight  in
novel or brilliant spectacles, fickleness of opinion, infirmity  of
purpose, sudden and violent alternations of feeling. 
18
  The limited circle of purely intellectual ideas, in possession
of the deaf and dumb, is a natural consequence of their limited
intercourse with those around them.  In fact, almost their whole
communication with the world is of their own seeking.   Their
conversations turn principally upon their personal wants, at least
upon subjects belonging to the material world.  Were they even
anxious to extend them further, the imperfection of their lan-
guage would constantly interpose an obstacle to their progress.
To this however, they are neither stimulated by necessity, nor
provoked by the advances of their fellow-men.  But there ex-
ists no greater disposition in the mind than in the body, to act
without an exciting cause ;  and without action there can be no
improvement.  For ideas will not present themselves  sponta-
neously to the intellect.  They are its creations and its recol-
lections, on  the one hand;  its inferences and the results of re-
flection upon its own phenomena, on the other.  We  cannot,
then, wonder  at the trifling stock of ideas possessed  by the
deaf and dumb not directly connected with that world of sense
in which they live,  and move, and have their being.
  The ear seems to have been created, not so much to  enlarge
our means of directly observing  nature, as to open a channel
for easy and rapid communication among mankind.   In fulfill-
ing this design, its influence upon  intellectual  expansion and
the accumulation of intellectual  wealth  is  immense, for  it
places  within our reach the  experience of ages ;  it enables us
to observe with the eyes of others, and  to concentrate  the en-
ergies of many minds upon a single point.   ' Hearing,' says
M.  Bebian,* ' is like a canal, of  which the waters contribute
nothing  directly to the fertility  of a country;  but  which
is nevertheless a source of wealth and  prosperity, by  causing
the products of other  lands  to  flow into its  bosom.'  In
the absence of this sense, the  attention  becomes strongly
concentered in that of sight; nor will it be liable to distraction
by that multitude of sounds, which so often seriously obstruct
mental  application.   From this circumstance, from the fact,
too, that, in the case of the dumb, the eye  is required to dis-
charge a two-fold office, they will be very likely to surpass us
in that species of knowledge, derived from the direct exercise
of the senses upon  surrounding objects.  For such knowledge
we are but  slightly  indebted to the ear ; while to the sight and
Journal de VInstruction, &c. 
19
 the touch, we owe a mass of information of vast extent and va-
 riety.  And these senses, in the deaf and dumb, imperceptibly
 attain a very high degree of delicacy.  They learn to look upon
 every scene with a painter's eye, which seems with almost in-
 tuitive accuracy to estimate the relative situations, distances, and
 dimensions of objects ; while it collects, at a single glance, those
 minute features of the landscape, which, though individually
 insignificant, combine to determine  its character.
   A strong inducement with the  deaf and  dumb to become
 close observers, is found in the  nature of their language.   This
 beautiful language is their own creation, and is a visible testi-
 mony to the activity of their intellect.   It is a language of ac-
 tion,  full  of  force, full  of animation,  full of figurative ex-
 pression, often full of grace.  In the  province of pantomime
 they are themselves  the  masters, and  those  who hold inter-
 course with them,  must be  content to receive  the instrument
 at their hands.   The elements of this language, the words, so
 to speak, which  compose it, consisting,  within the  domain of
 sense, strictly of imitations, whether of objects  or of actions,
 and beyond  that limit, first of those universally intelligible
 signs, by which the mind  involuntarily betrays  its emotions,
 and secondly  of metaphoric expressions,  founded  upon the
 analogies which exist between objects and  actions in the phy-
 sical world  and intellectual and moral notions, require an ac-
 curate eye, and a constant exercise  of ingenuity on the part of
 its inventor.
   A language, the work of a single individual,  and that  one
 laboring under the painful  privation  to  which  the deaf and
 dumb are subject, must  necessarily suffer in comparison with
 those, which,  in the  lapse  of  ages, have  been  approaching
 perfection, and  on which a  multitude of minds  have  left the
 traces of their labors.  Still, imperfect  as  it is, it has its ad-
 vantages ; it employs no  expletives merely to fill a place ;  its
 signs are not rendered uncertain by  being made to represent a
 multiplicity of ideas ; it is unencumbered by the forms of arti-
 ficial grammar, with their exceptions and anomalies;  and,
 above  all, resting upon analogy and description  as its  basis, it
interprets itself.  If, therefore, it is less the language of philoso-
phy, it is more that of nature.   Its copiousness is found to
vary with different individuals, and with different ages.   Those
deaf and dumb persons, on  whom  particular  attention  is be-
stowed by their parents and friends, who have been, in short, 
20
willing learners, will prove themselves ready inventors, and de-
lighted teachers.   Those, on the contrary, who are neglected
and thrust out of society, will hardly extend their dictionary of
signs beyond the limit to which their physical  wants compel
them.   Still it would be unjust to conclude that this is likewise
the limit of their ideas.   Signs are primarily  instituted, what-
ever uses  they may afterwards subserve,  as instruments of
communication.  He, with whom  none will hold intercourse,
will  hardly busy himself  in perfecting a  language,  which he
will  never  have occasion to  use.   This is not, however, to
suppose him without ideas, wherever signs are wanting.  It is
only to  suppose, that the mind employs itself  with  ideas, di-
rectly, rather than with their representatives.   In like manner
as a draughtsman, in copying a design, fixes  in his  mind the
image of a particular line, which he is about to transfer into his
work, without being conscious of giving it a name ; so the deaf
and dumb conceive ideas, for which they have no visible rep-
resentative.
   To persons not familiar  with the language of action, it  will
hardly be found comprehensible, in its present state.  How-
ever accurate originally may be its imitations, however striking
its analogies, it invariably undergoes, in the hands of the dumb,
a species of abbreviation, which leaves it little title to the char-
acter which has been  claimed for it, of constituting a natural
and  universal language.    Thought continually  outstrips  the
slowness of pantomime ;  and the mind, impatient of delay, re-
jects the details of  description, and seizing the  characteristic,
which, in each object, stands  most  prominently forth, substi-
tutes it, at once, for the  object itself.  The same  is true of
ideas purely intellectual.   The metaphor which supplies them
with a visible representative, is reduced to a single sign;  which,
to be intelligible, must presuppose  a knowledge of the subor-
dinate  portion  of the picture, and  which is, consequently, al-
ways more or less  arbitrary.   By the  institution  of  these ab-
breviated signs, usually denominated signs  of reduction, the
language of action becomes singularly elliptical, as well as fig-
urative.   The  ellipses will readily  be supplied by one in fre-
quent intercourse with the deaf and dumb, even  when  they
occur in cases entirely new.   But to a stranger, it will be ne-
cessary to  exhibit the  language as it  is in  its infancy, before
the process of reduction has commenced;  and to  sacrifice
rapidity  for  the sake  of clearness.   This necessity  will be 
21
 instantly perceived by the dumb, and cheerfully complied with.
 And if one  form  of expression is found  to fail,  another and
 another will be supplied, with an almost exhaustless fertility of
 invention.   Here will be apparent the fruit of that minute ob-
 servation, which omits to treasure up no  circumstance, likely
 afterwards to be of use in recounting past events,  in describing
 absent objects, or in assisting those inquiries, by which the ob-
 server desires to obtain information from others.
   The natural consequence of this disposition to abbreviate,
 is the tendency to institute purely arbitrary signs ;  but, with the
 uneducated dumb, the number of these is very limited.  They
 will have their application, first, to individual objects, which it
 is desirable to distinguish from the rest of their class ; and will
 correspond, therefore, to the proper names of spoken language.
   Signs denoting persons are, usually, derived from some trifling
 peculiarities of physical  conformation, of manner or of dress,
 which arrest the attention of the deaf and dumb at  first sight.
 These peculiarities may be purely transient, but the sign is  re-
 tained, after the circumstance in which it originated has passed
 away.   The deaf and dumb are particularly expert in detecting
 distinctive circumstances, which would escape ordinary obser-
 vation.  When President Monroe visited the Asylum at Hart-
 ford, he wore a cocked hat of the old fashion ; and it was  by
 reference to this article of dress, that he was ever after desig-
 nated among the pupils.   The same  sign has since become
 generalized;  and is now  indiscriminately applied to all presi-
 dents, whether their functions be political or otherwise.  Dr.
 Spurzheim,  on  the  occasion  of a similar visit,  in  taking a
 survey of the  pupils assembled for  prayers,  placed his hand
 for a moment- over his  eyes to screen  them  from  the light.
 The  imitation of this action afterwards constituted his distinc-
 tive sign.  M. Arnemann, of Berlin, remarks, that one of his
 pupils was accustomed  to designate  him  by placing the left
 hand on the  hip ; 'a position,' he adds, < not at all peculiar to
 me, but which, nevertheless, I may have, on some single occa-
 sion,  unconsciously assumed.'
   But, as the acquaintance of the deaf and dumb  is enlarged,
 the necessity of fixing upon a distinct sign for every individual,
 creates a tendency to conventions ;  which, commencing here,
 sometimes extends itself into the language of conversation.
 This  is the case particularly in a community of the dumb.
Indeed, in such circumstances, the  combined  ingenuity of a 
22
 number is occasionally exercised in creating a language almost
 wholly arbitrary, that they may  baffle the curiosity of those
 who overlook their conversation.   This fact  is observable in
 the New York Institution  at  the present time.  Degerando
 mentions  that the pupils in the school of Paris adopt the same
 practice,  that the masters may not  penetrate their meaning,
 when they  desire to carry on a private conversation.
   From the nature of the sign-language, as we have represent-
 ed it, reduced from  that fulness and minuteness of description,
 which assimilate it, in its  early  stages, rather  to painting than
 to speech,  it will be evident,  that, if two  deaf and  dumb
 persons  are brought up from infancy at a distance from
 each  other, their  signs  will  very essentially differ.   In the
 words of Mr. Eschke of  Berlin,  ' The dialects  of pantomime
 are as  numerous  as the individuals  who  employ it.'  This
 is easily  accounted for  by observing,  that,  while  each  se-
 lects,  from  among  the elements  of a complex  sign, that
 which appears to  him most  striking and  distinctive,  as  a
 sign  of reduction,  the  same circumstances will be differently
 viewed  by  different minds.  We  should, moreover,  observe,
 that  a deaf and dumb person, so far from being  guided, in the
 construction of his nomenclature, by logical method, which he
 can neither understand nor appreciate, seizes  as readily  upon
 some  circumstance entirely casual, and liable to change or dis-
 appear, as upon that which is really distinctive in the nature of
 an object.  But however wide may be  the difference existing in
 the case supposed, let the two individuals be brought together,
 and it will speedily disappear.   Instead of an effort, on the part
 of either,  to learn the entire language of the other, the accumu-
 lated stores of both will  be poured  into the common stock, and,
 in an  incredibly brief space, the  two languages will  become
 blended into one.   Where a  number are collected together,
 as in our institutions, a common language will speedily be  es-
 tablished, more copious, of course, than the unassisted creation
 of a single individual can possibly be.  The increased facility
 of communication  afforded by  such a  medium, and the oppor-
 tunity existing in  such  a community for more  uninterrupted
 intercourse  than its members can have previously  enjoyed
 with the world, will extend the circle  of their ideas, and awak-
 en a new  activity of intellect;  both which circumstances will
 re-act directly to swell the language itself.
  A deaf and dumb person is  little prone to generalize; yet it
would be a great mistake to suppose his language inadequate to 
23
the purpose of communication, on subjects involving this process.
Qualities,  relations, states of being, he will perceive to  exist
in particular connections, though  it may never  occur to him
to consider them separately.   He is perhaps unable clearly to
distinguish the line of division between that which is universal in
its nature and that which is special.  He will, accordingly, sup-
ply the want of a collective  term, by enumerating  a sufficient
number of particulars to give a clue to his  idea, and annexing
an et cetera.   Still his language is not  entirely without  gene-
ral terms.  Man, bird, fish,  tree, flower,  these are examples
of real generalization.    Animal occupies a higher  step in  the
scale, and is usually without its sign.  A  remarkable circum-
stance is here discoverable.   Generalizations of most common
occurrence, and, therefore, most  imperiously  demanded  for
facility of communication, have  their representatives in  the
sign-language.   These signs  are  usually the radicals of  those
employed to designate the individuals which they embrace ; and
they reappear, with some addition, whenever it is necessary to
descend to particulars.   Thus the rose is the flower of thorns,
and  the  oak the  tree of acorns.   Here  is established a pro-
gression the reverse of the above, signs  becoming  more  com-
plex as the idea becomes more simple.   The purposes of ab-
straction are  accomplished by presenting  particular cases in-
volving the idea to be  detached from its concomitant circum-
stances.   It is not to be presumed that the naked  abstraction
is, for any length of time, directly contemplated.  In enumera-
ting particular instances, the deaf and dumb have  a confused  no-
tion  that any one of these, indiscriminately, may apply to  the
subject of conversation.   Thus height is an abstraction, but they
will convey the idea of  a certain  indeterminate height with
little difficulty.   Particular heights, rapidly presented, with an
expression of uncertainty, are  sufficient  to communicate their
meaning.   The extent,  to  which the uninstructed deaf and
dumb will be able to communicate in this manner, is  necessarily
limited.   Yet we must  not suppose,  that the frequent occur-
rence  of  abstract terms, in written or spoken language, is de-
monstrative that real abstraction is,  in every case, necessary.
It is  with   particulars that we have immediately to do, in the
ordinary events of  life,  yet the minds, especially of the better
educated class of society, experience a constant tendency to
contemplate things upon a comprehensive scale,  and to indulge
in comprehensive propositions. 
24
   As, on the one hand, the dialects  invented  by  deaf and
 dumb persons, living separately, are seldom extensively similar ;
'so, on the other, they are rarely, if ever, without some resem-
 blance.   But that which they have in common is but a small
 portion  of  the  whole.  Degerando remarks, that  the  signs
 which usually  differ are those  denoting  the  very  numerous
 class of  material objects;  while those which  indicate the af-
 fections of the soul, the few intellectual ideas  in possession of
 the individuals,  the common wants and ordinary usages of life,
 and objects of immediate personal use, are often identical.
   Arithmetical calculations  being independent of language, are
 easily conducted by the deaf and dumb pupil, after he has been
 put in possession of some method of registering his successive
 results.   But his  unassisted ingenuity fails to devise  a regular
 system of computation, and  he is dependent, for the means of
 counting, almost wholly on  his fingers.
   It cannot be doubted, that, under ordinary circumstances,
 the  uninstructed deaf and  dumb  possess a certain  power  of
 discrimination on moral subjects.   They are certainly capable
 of distinguishing between good and evil, justice and  injustice,
 for they spontaneously express  their indignation  against the
 perpetrator  of any enormity, though by  no  means  affecting
 them directly or indirectly.   They are conscious of possessing
 certain rights, and they cannot but infer the existence of such
 rights in others.  Thus, they have a notion  of the  right  of
 property, which is  not the less real, that it does  not always
 prevent them from invading that  right.   What is there won-
 derful in  this ?  How many,  with the light of revelation to guide
 them, and with the denunciations of the civil  and the divine
 laws equally hanging over  their heads, are guilty of similar
 violence  to their consciences !  But it would  little  avail the
 culprit to plead  his crime  in  extenuation of his  criminality.
 We moreover believe that  the deaf and  dumb have, in this
 respect,  been severely judged.   When M. Paulmier,  a gentle-
 man associated with Sicard, asserts that newly arrived pupils
 usually plunder  each other,  he says that, which our  own ob-
 servation, at least, will not bear him out in asserting.
   The deaf and dumb are,  also, sensible of their obligation to
 speak the truth, and are conscious of the criminality of falsehood.
 Lenoir, a deaf and dumb person, and an instructer in the school
 of Paris,  assured the Baron Degerando, that in his state of igno-
 rance, ' he understood the distinction of meum and tuum; that he 
25
 was sensible that he ought not to take the property of another;
 that he was equally sensible that obedience to parents was a duty,
 and falsehood a fault.'   Berthier, a fellow-laborer with Lenoir,
 and his companion in misfortune, says,' an uneducated deaf and
 dumb  person cannot be ignorant that he ought not to deprive
 another  of that which belongs to him.   The  deaf and dumb
 have a profound contempt for a thief.'  To this testimony, M.
 Degerando adds the result of his own direct observation, in an
 individual  case, entirely corroborative of the above, and even
 more conclusive.
   In this matter  of curious  inquiry, we have ourselves ex-
 amined many deaf and dumb persons respecting their intellect-
 ual and moral condition, before the commencement of their ed-
 ucation.   Their replies have, invariably, been such as to leave
 no doubt upon our own  mind, that  the  sentiment, at least, of
 good and evil was early familiar to them.
   That the notions of every  individual should  attain,  without
 instruction, the same degree  of distinctness, is not to be  sup-
 posed.   Much depends upon the early situation of the dumb,
 within the family or social circle.  Some are indeed alone in
 the world, neglected and  despised by all around them ; others
 are regarded  as  objects  of  high interest,  not only by their
 connexions,  but  also by  all  the  intelligent and  the humane
 in their vicinity.   These  latter partake, in some  degree, the
 blessings  of social  intercourse,  and  experience  its beneficial
 effects in the multiplication of their  ideas, and the expansion
 of  their  minds.   Hence  may arise a diversity  almost  infinite.
 Cases  may, doubtless,  occur, in  which the mental  faculties
 will remain buried in a  deathlike slumber for years.  If, as
 the Abbe de l'Epee asserts, ' some parents, holding themselves
 disgraced by the  birth  of  a deaf child, confine it in a cloister,'
 what can we expect of such a being, but that he should strictly
 correspond to  Sicard's description,—that  he should,  in  fact,
 remain for life ' a living automaton, a walking statue ?'
   Two things  seem to be necessary  to intellectual develop-
 ment,  viz.  the observation of objects,  actions,  facts  and phe-
nomena, and the  intercourse of mind with mind.  If neither of
these  conditions  exist,   the   human  being remains  a mere
animal.  To the  truth of this position,  we have  the  melan-
choly testimony  of  experiment,  in  the case  of the  injured
Caspar Hauser.  If either exist singly, the expansion of the
mind will  proceed  but slowly.   Thus, we shall deceive our
                      -1 
26
selves, if, from  the  absence or the  obtuseness  of the moral
sense, in the case of a dumb person who has, all his life, been
treated like a brute, and has, therefore, been dependent almost
wholly upon observation and solitary reflection  for  the  ideas
he  possesses,  we  hastily infer  a similar deficiency in all his
companions  in misfortune.
  The view here  taken of this  question, is far  from having
received the unanimous suffrage of those, who have published
their opinions regarding it to the world.  The  Abbe Mon-
taigne,  a French  ecclesiastic,  formerly connected with  the
school at Paris  in the capacity of chaplain, has endeavored to
establish a  contrary  position; as well  by  argument, as by
collecting the testimony  of  eminent teachers.*   The Abbe
seems  fully to  have  entered into the  views of his  favorite
author, M. de Bonald,  ' that language is the necessary instru-
ment of every  intellectual operation, and the means of every
moral existence ;'  and that, ' to  consider moral notions, words
are indispensable.'  The conclusions of such a writer need not
be detailed.   They are discoverable in bis premises.
  The particular reference of the Abbe Montaigne's inquiry
is to the subject of Religion.  In this respect,  his  views are
not widely different from our own.  But when,  in  his  argu-
ment, he includes the whole field of morals, we are compelled
to enter our dissent.  And when, in his array of testimony,
he cites the names  of Sicard, Bebian,  and Berthier,  we  are
forced  to believe, that excess of zeal has blinded him, either
to the meaning of language, or to the exercise of candor.   We
have already cited the explicit recantation, made by the first of
these men, of his early views.  The second affords us so many
instances of opposition to  the positions of Montaigne, that it is
hardly worth our  while to quote.  The opinion of the third,
being that of one dumb from birth, deserves attention ; and we
accordingly give it  a place.   It relates to the religious notions
of the  deaf and dumb.  ' It is possible,' he says, ' that some deaf
and dumb persons may attribute certain effects, as storms, wind
and hail, to a certain cause ; and may figure to themselves one
or more extraordinary beings commanding the rain, the lightning
and other natural phenomena ;  but  a deaf and dumb person,

  * Recherches  sur les connoissances intellectuelles des sourds-
muets, consideres par rapport a l'administration des sacremens.  Paris,
1829. 
27
 without instruction, will never have a notion, even vague and
 confused,  of a superior existence, whom it is his duty to love,
 revere and obey, and to whom he must give an account of his
 thoughts, and  of  his actions.'   Such is our own belief.   We
 are acquainted with no instance of a deaf and  dumb  person,
 who has arrived, without instruction,  at  the  idea  of a  God.
 Nor can we believe with Degerando, that a mind possessing
 so few resources, can ever attain, by its unaided reflections, to
 a notion of a supreme power, possessing a right to our worship
 and gratitude.   Yet we are very far from  believing language,
 whether written or  spoken,  necessary  to  communicate  this
 notion ; and we know, in fact, that, in all our American Insti-
 tutions,  religious knowledge is, to a great extent, imparted to
 the pupils,  through the medium of signs of action, long before
 words are  available to them as an instrument of communica-
 tion.
   But to assume that the absence of religious knowledge, im-
 plies, also, that  of every  moral  sentiment, is  sophistical.
 ' Where no law is, there is no transgression,'* says Montaigne,
 ' and, therefore, he who knows not, in any manner, the exist-
 ence of a Supreme Being, to whom he owes obedience, rever-
 ence and love, has no moral notion of good and evil.'  It is idle
 to spend time in controverting a conclusion, which has no sup-
 port in its premises.  The deaf and dumb man is conscious, at
 least, of his own existence.  He knows that others have it in their
 power to affect his happinesss, either for good or evil.  How
 can he avoid the inference, that  his own actions may in like
 manner  affect  theirs ?   How can he, then, be  ignorant, that
 certain actions are right and certain others wrong ?  M. Bebian
 has recorded an amusing case,f  in which an officer  of justice,
 accompanied by two  assistants, proceeded to the cottage of a
 peasant having a deaf and dumb son, to  make an attachment of
 his property. While the principal officer was engaged in making
 an inventory of the goods, the father attempted to drive away
 a heifer  into a place of concealment.  Being discovered, he
 was overpowered by the two  assistants, and dragged back by
 one, while  the other drove  away the spoil.   The son  per-
ceiving, as  he  supposed, the right of property invaded, fell
 upon the aggressors, and put all three to rout; remaining sole
* Romans, iv. 15.
t Journal, &c.  No. 1. tome I. p. 39. 
28
master of the field.   He was conducted to a court of justice,
where  he bore  himself as one  who was  to receive great ap-
plause for his achievement;  and was acquitted on the ground,
that, being  ignorant of the  processes of the civil law, he had
done no more than to defend the first rights of nature.
  In  another case, recorded also by Bebian, in  which a deaf
and dumb man was convicted of theft, a  different philosophy
prevailed, and the culprit was discharged,' as not being a moral
agent.
  To the correctness/of the views which we have advanced,
we  have a  new and very convincing  species of evidence, in
the case of the thrice miserable deaf, dumb and  blind.   Of
this unhappy class, but few examples, if we except that cited
in scripture,* have been known to exist; in only  two of which
were the privations congenital.   The first  is that of Hannah
Lamb, mentioned by Dr. Watson,f who was born in London,
and who was accidentally burned to death at the age of nine
years.   Of  her we  know  nothing further.   But  of James
Mitchell, a similar case mentioned by  the  same  author, and
one which has occupied the attention of many writers,  among
whom we find the  distinguished metaphysician, Dugald Stew-
art, we are  assured, that ' he distinguished  between good and
evil, was sensible of his faults and indignant at injustice.'
  Julia Brace, at present in the Asylum  at Hartford,  was de-
prived at once of hearing and of sight  at the early age  of four
years.   She bore her calamity, at first, with little resignation ;
but  her disposition,  at  length,  became  remarkably  serene.
The  accomplished  pen of our American Hemans, Mrs. Sig-
ourney, an early benefactress of this  unfortunate female, has
already given her  story to  the public ; to the  correctness of
which we take pleasure in here recording our testimony.  We
do this the  rather,  that since  the  publication of that article,
many  persons, induced  by its  statements  to  visit Julia, have
found in her a less interesting object than  they had anticipated.
This poor girl is not now, in fact, what she was.  It is painful
to observe,  that, as her monotonous years roll away, the same
docility, the same uniform  placidity of temper, the same will-
ingness to meet the advances of strangers, and the same readi-
ness to exhibit proofs  of  her  manual  dexterity, and of her
* Matthew xii. 22.
t Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, p. 63. 
29
wonderful sagacity in  distinguishing individuals, and  the arti-
cles belonging to them, are not always apparent.   But in Julia
Brace, notwithstanding her  absolute exclusion from society,
the existence of the moral sense is strikingly manifest.  With
her the right of property is sacred.   An article committed to
her for examination or for keeping she will deliver to no indi-
vidual but the  owner, to whom she  will resign  it without
hesitation, and  with an appearance of satisfaction.   Should
the  owner neglect  to receive  it, she will even force it upon
him, and  having satisfied herself that  it is once in his hand,
will immediately  relinquish  her  hold.   She  selects her  own
articles of clothing from among those of all the female pupils,
and never, in any instance, has been known to appropriate the
property of another.
   There  remains the case of Victorine  Morisseau  at Paris.
Having become deaf at an early age, and blind at twelve, she
was, nevertheless, during her life, as Degerando assures us,  a
singular monument of the power of true religion ;  enjoying, in
the midst of all her calamities, that inward solace, which the
world can neither give  nor take  away.   Deaf,  dumb, blind,
and abandoned  by her natural protectors, there is something so
affecting  in her history, that, though aside from our purpose,
we interrupt ourselves, for a moment, to present it here.  We
translate  from  M. Bebian.  ' Hardly can  the pained imagina-
tion conceive a calamity more  severe  than that of this unfor-
tunate girl.   She has known the blessings of which she is de-
prived, and her memory cannot but cherish  regret  for  their
loss.   In a body subject  to so many privations, she bears still
a sensitive heart.   But alas !  sensibility is a gift, often deadly,
and one  which almost  always subjects  its  possessor to the
deepest pains.   This young  girl, whose lot is so touching, and
whose life is circumscribed in  a circle so  narrow, has afforded
a proof how far considerations of interest can harden the heart.
In those  who  owed her  tenderness, care, protection, she has
found nothing but severity, neglect and privation.   A mother,
will it be believed ? a mother, in the bosom of opulence, aban-
dons to the charity of strangers, a  daughter, deaf, dumb, and
blind.  •
   Having become deaf at a tender age, Victorine Morisseau lost,
by degrees, also.the use of speech..  Nevertheless, when first
placed in an institution for the deaf and dumb, she still pronoun-
ced some words, and preserved a remnant of the sense of hear- 
30
ing, which slowly  disappeared, notwithstanding the attention
of Doctor  Itard.   Soon, a thick cataract  spread a veil over
her right eye.  Two charitable ladies, alarmed at the misfor-
tune which menaced her, had recourse to an able oculist.  He
could only predict that the same calamity  would speedily be-
fal  the  left;  and, in fact, at the age of twelve  she became
completely blind.
   Still Victorine continued to understand her companions, who
with a truly touching solicitude, informed her of every subject
of their conversation.   She spoke to them in the  language of
action, and they replied in the same way; while she placed her
hand  upon the  arm of the  gesticulator, and  followed  all its
movements.
  The tuition of Mademoiselle Morisseau, which was regular-
ly paid during the first years of her residence in the institu-
tion,  suddenly ceased.   Letters were  written to the family
without reply.  For four or five years, applications were re-
newed with similar success.   Information was sought from the
civil authorities of the place, where the mother of this misera-
ble girl was living in circumstances of the  greatest  ease.   It
was ascertained  that her father, at  his death, had left her a
comfortable fortune ; and we were apprised that she possessed
a right of indemnity, for losses in the colonies of St. Domingo.
After obtaining this  information, the administration of the in-
stitution  ordered new  applications to  the  mother, informing
her that her child had remained beyond the period allowed to
indigent pupils, and that she must either remove or provide for
her.
  It is difficult to  understand how so  many advances should
have  been ineffectual.   The family, we  are  informed, is of
high character.  But what character can silence law, or close
the eye of justice ?  It was determined that the  unfortunate
girl should  be placed in a hospital.   No one had the courage
to prepare her for her journey.  She went away, as she thought,
on an excursion of pleasure.  On her arrival at the great gate
of the hospital,  she experienced a  convulsive sensation, like
that of terror.   She seized in alarm the hand  of her protec-
tress,  and seemed to seek, in her bosom, an asylum from  the
calamity which menaced her.
  Victorine  was apprised of her  destination,  by the  atmos-
phere into  which she entered.   'It is a hospital,' she said in
her language  of signs;  and to her, a hospital  was associated 
31
with all the  ills that flesh is heir to.  She felt  herself cut off
from those with whom she  could communicate, and gave her-
self  up to inconsolable grief.   We  cannot  at greater  length
exhibit her history here.   In the second  number of the jour-
nal,  appear  some  papers, intended to present the  conduct of
the mother in a more favorable light.  But we cannot perceive
that  they very essentially  affect the state of the  case as M.
Bebian has represented it.
   If the examples  which we have presented seem to exhibit
the testimony of fact in  support of our  own views, we must
admit, on the other hand, a very strong  case, cited by Mon-
taigne, as having occurred at Chartres, and having been origi-
nally published in   the Memoires de VAcadimie des Sciences.
A young man, deaf and dumb from birth, at the  age of twenty-
three or twenty-four  years, began, on a sudden, to speak, to
the great astonishment of the whole town.  A few  months be-
fore, he  had begun to hear the sound of bells.   At length,
after an aqueous discharge from  the left ear, he recovered the
hearing of both.   For three or four months, he listened with-
out speaking ; but,  at length, believing himself  sufficiently ac-
quainted with language, he broke silence.  Being immediately
interrogated by able theologians, with respect to his past moral
condition, he seemed  absolutely without notions of good and
evil.   He had  previously been  taught to take  a part  in reli-
gious ceremonies,  but declared that he had practiced them
without  an  object.   We present  the case  without particular
comment; yet  we  cannot  forbear to remark, that the report
would  have  been  much more  satisfactory, had  it contained a
statement of the particular  questions  addressed  to the young
man, and of the language of his replies.
   From this sketch of the natural condition  of the deaf and
dumb, we pass to consider  the means, by which they may be
relieved.  The first essential to all instruction is, evidently, that
a medium of reciprocal communication shall exist between the
instructer and  the  instructed.   To  the former,  we suppose
pantomime a novel language.    He is incapable of holding a
connected conversation with his  pupil;  for he can  neither un-
derstand nor can  he  make himself understood.  The  parties
must, therefore, for the time, change places.  The first requi-
site to  his own instruction, must  be supplied by the pupil him-
self.   He must give lessons, and the master must become  the
learner. 
32
  A short time will suffice for the establishment of a common
language, sufficiently extensive for the first exigencies of  the
teacher's task.  But this extent will  soon  be found  too  re-
stricted.  Yet it can hardly be enlarged, except as the circle
of ideas, common to the teacher and the pupil, expands itself.
For, beside identity of signs, a second condition is essential to
intelligent intercourse, viz. identity of ideas.
  When two natives of different  countries meet, each unac-
quainted with the language of the other, they find themselves
possessed of  a vast multitude of ideas in common,  while  the
audible or written signs, representing those ideas, differ, for the
two, as widely as caprice can make them.  These two indivi-
duals fulfil the second condition,  but  not the first,—they  pos-
sess identity of ideas without identity of signs.  Between them,
the establishment of a common language resolves itself into a
series of conventions.
  Vastly different is the case with the  deaf and dumb,  and
their instructers ;  where the number of common ideas is small,
and even those not presenting themselves always  under  the
same aspect to the minds of both.  Between the ignorant  and
the learned in any country, there certainly exists a wide differ-
ence, as  respects their habits of reflection, and the extent of
their information ; and  consequently  as respects the number
of well-defined ideas which they possess.  But this difference
is not greater, than that which  divides  uneducated deaf  and
dumb persons even  from the  inferior order  of  those  who
speak.
  So far as there is an actual community of ideas between the
deaf and dumb and their instructers, the value  of words may be
communicated by the simple process of translation. But this lim-
it must soon be passed, and we must then enter upon that labor,
which constitutes, whatever be the particular system pursued,
the real peculiarity,  and, it may  be added, the  real difficulty
of the art, viz. that of leading the pupil, by judicious methods,
to the formation of a system  of ideas, corresponding  with the
words of spoken language.  Here, indeed, is  a task of no tri-
fling magnitude.   But the  learner, though not yet possessed
of the ideas themselves, possesses, nevertheless, the materials
of which they are to be  formed.   The whole circle of ideas,
which make  up the sum of human knowledge, pertain, of ne-
cessity, to the world of  matter, or to that of mind.   The one
lies open before the  deaf and dumb,-  if is our part only to 
33
teach  him system in conducting  his observations.  For the
other, he possesses the same faculties as we, and it is only ne-
cessary to bring them into operation.
   We  should remember, that it is no creative  power, which
we are called upon to exercise.   We neither fabricate  minds,
nor the material on which they are to be employed.   We can-
not even be said to impart ideas, according to the vulgar no-
tion of such a process.   What is more common than  the re-
mark, that while there seems to be nothing wonderful or mys-
terious in the fact that the deaf and dumb may be taught the
nomenclature of visible objects, it is impossible to  conceive
how notions, purely abstract, can, for the first time, be commu-
nicated to them ?  The difficulty, however, is in a great degree
created by the manner of considering it.   It is, indeed,  hard
to imagine, how, by means  of any a  priori description,  such
an idea as that  to which we apply the name justice, could be
conveyed to an intelligence, to which it should be new.  It is
not  by such means that it is conveyed.  Nor has it been by
such means, that we ourselves have learned  to  associate this
and similar words  with their corresponding ideas.  The deaf
and  dumb are not to be placed on the pinnacle of the  temple
of science in a day.  They cannot plant  their feet  upon  the
last step of the ascent, but by  passing the intermediate  points.
There is no great gulf fixed  between the extremes of simplici-
ty and difficulty in  language, which it  is necessary  with  one
mighty effort to overleap, or to abandon  in despair the hope
of those advantages, which  artificial nomenclatures afford to
mankind.   From the highest to the lowest  point, the chain of
association is unbroken, and, if strictly  followed, will lead,
through every maze, into the clear light of day.
  From the  remarks just made,  result  the four propositions
(with the exception of the last of which the reason is obvious.)
which follow ; and which  may be  regarded  as fundamental in
the instruction of the deaf and dumb.
  I. Instruction should commence, with  borrowing from the
deaf and dumb themselves their own natural language of pan-
tomime, in its full extent.
  II.  The instructer should carefully  ascertain how far the
ideas of his pupils extend  before instruction, and how far they
are just: he should know the extent,  that he may build upon
it, and the limit, that he may not  exceed it.
  III.  He should avail himself of those materials, possessed
                     5 
34
by the deaf and dumb in common with us, to aid in the forma-
tion of a system of ideas, corresponding to that represented by
the words of our language.
  IV.  He must present to the eye of his  pupil, language un-
der a visible form, and under this form must teach him to as-
sociate its terms directly with their corresponding  ideas.
  To  restore  language merely to the deaf and dumb, is not
however, the teacher's only task.   Language, as written, must
be made to subserve, for him, all  the  purposes which speech
fulfils in the case of other men.   It is the office of spoken lan-
guage, not only to afford.an easy and universal means of com-
munication among men, but also to aid  the  conception and
arrangement of ideas;  and to facilitate the operations of the
intellect.  Every instrument, it is true, which shall answer the
first of these ends, must, necessarily, at least to some extent,
assist the exercise of the intelligence.  But it is  not equally
true, that whatever instrument shall supply the intellect with
the means of activity, shall  also enable the individual  who
employs it, freely to hold intercourse with other men : since
the teacher may devise a  language, whether of action or of
writing, which may be intelligible only to  himself and his pu-
pil.  In the present case, indeed, he might easily create one,
much more easy of acquisition, than any which actually exists.
Yet, as this would but partially fulfil the purposes of his edu-
cation, the deaf and dumb must be content to take language
as it is, encumbered with all its difficulties, its anomalies,  its
phrases and its idioms.  Hence, in the words of Degerando,
' It is necessary to put the deaf and dumb in possession of the
common language of his country, in  so  effectual  a manner, that
he may, first, find in this instrument the means of obtaining, in
the highest possible degree,  the  intellectual culture, in which
he is  deficient; and, secondly, that  it may afford him  the
means of communication, the most  constant and general, with
his fellow-men.  Whence it follows, that to enable him to use
this language,  we must afford him the  material  means, which
is, itself, of most universal and familiar use.'
   Here are presented two different species of labor in the field
of instruction; the one relating simply to the material or me-
chanical means, by which language is to be employed in prac-
tice ;  the  other, to the value of language itself.   Thus early
does the art begin to ramify ; and, from this point,  the systems
of instruction, most widely differing, date their divergence. 
35
   By adopting the  material form  under which language  ap-
 pears to the deaf and dumb most  simple, and under which it
 may be most easily acquired by one incapable of distinguishing
 between articulate sounds, time is gained for the more  accu-
 rate  study  of language itself; while, as respects ease  and
 rapidity of communication with the world, something is neces-
 sarily lost.   By cultivating, on the other hand, a  more rapid
 means of communication, time is wasted in an employment al-
 most wholly mechanical;  while the  ease of  intercourse, con-
 sequent on  such  an attainment,  will  render  it  a valuable
 auxiliary  to the pupil, in  rectifying  his knowledge  of words,
 and of the  forms of speech  in ordinary  use among his  more
 favored fellow beings.
   The material instrument which first suggests itself, as adapt-
 ed to the wants of the deaf and dumb, is writing.   Being al-
 ready in use,  and generally  understood  in society, it affords
 all the means  absolutely necessary to the purposes of com-
 munication  between man and man.   Still   it is  a  process
 always laborious, often exceedingly inconvenient; it  exacts
 a  great consumption of time, and requires him who  is depen-
 dent on it  to be always furnished with the materials which its
 employment renders indispensable.   It is, therefore, certainly
 desirable, that the deaf and dumb should acquire,  if such an
 acquisition be possible, some method more rapid than this, for
 the purposes of colloquial intercourse.  Still, the nature of things
 confines our choice within narrow limits.   Writing and artificial
 articulation  are the only  means which  present themselves,
 available to the deaf and dumb, and, at the same time, univer-
 sally intelligible among men.
   The field is less  circumscribed, when we address ourselves
 to the second part of our task, which  is  that  of teaching lan-
 guage itself.   We may here  pursue the course, which nature
 has made necessary  in ordinary education; to give the learner,
 first a praotical knowledge of language, and afterwards method-
 ical  instruction in its principles ; or we  may combine these two
 branches of instruction  into one.  The latter  is evidently  the
 most cumbrous method, and the most tardy in its results ;  yet
 it  is the plan of Sicard in his  Cours d'Instruction, and it has
 the authority of other respectable names.
   Either plan subdivides itself into two branches, of which the
 one is logical, the other grammatical.  It  will  be the province
of the  former to acquaint the pupil with the value of language
in  discourse, and of the other to develope its principles. 
36
   Each of these ramifications will have  two subordinate  divi-
 sions :  the former  embracing  the significations of  isolated
 words, and the  consideration of  their combined value in pro-
 positions ;  the latter, the elements  of  language on the one
 hand, and  the principles of  construction on the other.   Thus
 in this  second, and more difficult part of the undertaking, four
 distinct objects present themselves.
   Whichever route, of those distinguished above, it is deter-
 mined  to pursue, the teacher will be more or less at liberty to
 make his selection from among all the different combinations of
 means, which have received  the name of methods of  instruc-
 tion.   He  should not, however, forget the influence of methods
 upon the development of the intellectual faculties ; but,  bear-
 ing in mind that it will  belong to him, as much to supply the
 pupil with  means for self-education, after he is removed  from
 the eye of the master, as to convey positive  knowledge to his
 mind, he should rather choose those  methods, which call the
 mental faculties into most active, continued and beneficial ex-
 ercise.
   There is one other consideration, to which,  in our country,
 hardly  sufficient attention seems  yet to be paid,—the adapta-
 tion of instruction to  the particular circumstances in which in-
 dividual pupils  are to be placed in the  world.   To a certain
 extent, indeed, the  education  of all  should  be the same.
 Morals and religion acknowledge no distinction of circumstan-
 ces.   Language is equally necessary  everywhere..  But there
 are certain  usages of  language,  peculiar to certain occupations
 or to certain localities, which require explanation ; and  there
 are certain duties, growing out  of particular relations, which
 ought not to pass unnoticed.   For determining  the species  of
 individual instruction, desirable in each case, we have facilities,
 not common to every description of school ;  since we educate
 not merely the  minds of the deaf and dumb,  but  also  their
 hands.   We   restore  them to society, not merely capable  of
 becoming useful by a second mechanical education ; but already
 finished mechanics.   We have, therefore, a knowledge of their
 destination  in life, that  may guide us in  communicating a vast
 amount of  useful information,  which they would  be  long  in
acquiring by chance.   The difficulty, in a large institution,  of
occupying much time in individual instruction, without injus-
tice to the body  of the pupils, is  indeed  an obstacle ; but it is
not insurmountable :  and the  immense advantages which such 
37
institutions possess over those which are limited in their num-
bers,  and consequently circumscribed in their  means, might
afford an indemnification, were it otherwise.   The attention of
instructers in America is especially called to this circumstance ;
and it cannot be doubted, that many opportunities will present
themselves, for imparting  individual instruction of this impor-
tant nature, without interrupting those exercises from which all
may equally profit.   In  this respect, a  system of  nomencla-
ture, on  a plan presented  to the  institution at Paris  by M.
Valade, one of its instructers, to whom the subject was com-
mitted, might prove  eminently beneficial.  It consists in con-
structing as  many vocabularies as  there  exist subjects  of hu-
man  knowledge, or occupations in life, arranging in each the
terms peculiar to itself, according to a logical method.
  We have now, in  general terms, stated that which is  to be
accomplished in the education of the deaf and dumb.   Meth-
ods must next occupy our attention, together with the material
instruments  which  they employ, and  by the  combination of
which they are distinguished from one another.  Since, however,
all methods  equally propose to teach, or rather to create for the
deaf and dumb a language, we will first present some prelim-
inary considerations, peculiar to no  individual system.
  ' There is,' says Degerando, ' in the operations of the human
mind, a primitive and principal phenomenon, to  which all oth-
ers attach themselves, and  upon which  the creation and the
use of our languages exercise a considerable  influence.   This
phenomenon, which we will denominate intuition, is properly
the act  by which  the  mind beholds the objects of its  know-
ledge.   Intuition is, to the  human  intelligence, the sole foun-
tain of all light.'
  Intuition is of two kinds, distinguished by Degerando as real,
and rational.  The mind, by means of the former, immediate-
ly and directly perceives whatever actually exists.   This is the
intuition of things and their  images.   The other is the percep-
tion of conditions and  relations, which subsist among notions
previously formed.  It is the intuition of reflection and reason-
ing.   It is the immediate  act of  judging.  The objects of real
intuition  pertain alike to the physical, the intellectual and the
moral worlds.   It is by rational intuition that we seize the re-
sults of comparison, perceive the  connexion between truths,
and foresee consequences in principles.   It presides, therefore,
in every mental operation, 
38
   The  exercise of rational intuition  implies the  presence of
objects, with respect to which it may be exerted.   Wherever
real intuition exists, rational intuition follows as a consequence.
It is involuntary ; and  were we able, by a single effort, to grasp
every subject of thought in all its minute particulars, could we
hold them up  at once to the immediate vision of the mind,
truths, which are  now the  deductions of laborious reasoning,
would become  axioms.  But the power which we possess, of
thus directly contemplating objects, is  inadequate to such an
effort.   It is restricted in its operation within a narrow com-
pass : and were the  total of our knowledge  limited  to  that
which is  strictly intuitive,  we should be  condemned  to a la-
mentable  degree of intellectual  poverty.   It is by the aid of
the signs which language affords, that we are enabled to exer-
cise rational  intuition,  when the real view of its objects is no
longer possible.
   To obtain  a clear idea of a new  and  complicated  machine,
we observe  carefully all its parts.   When we recall the same
machine to mind, we rapidly retrace the image, not at once of
the whole, but  of the individual parts successively.  The  idea
of this machine cannot be perfect, until the detail of particulars
is  filled  up.   This, which is the process of real intuition, is  at
once tardy and  laborious.  Were it necessary that the elements
of every complex idea  should be thus set in array before the
mind, as often as that idea is recalled, it is evident that no room
would remain for the  exercise of rational  intuition ; in short,
that our reasonings must sink under their own weight, and that
the extension of our sphere of knowledge, beyond the list of
truths which receive the name of axioms, would be impossible.
But happily  this is not necessary.   A single brief sign takes
the place  of  a load of  details, and,  like  the light and portable
representative of a metallic currency, enables us to use our
wealth,  without being encumbered by its weight.
  Names,  further, enable us not merely to dispense with this mass
of particulars ;  but they afford us the means,  also, of operating
upon objects, which cannot be submitted to real intuition.  Take,
for example, the word  man.  To form a general idea of man,
embracing all those properties, whether of mind or of body, in
which the individuals of the human race constantly resemble each
other, and rejecting every particular, not appertaining to the
whole family, is an acknowledged impossibility.   Considering
man as a collective, rather than an abstract term, the difficulty is 
39
equally great.  It is too high an effort for the mind, really and
at once to conceive a clear and distinct image of the  various
races, ages and sexes, which go to make up the world of man-
kind.   Thus we  perceive,  that, though the terms of our lan-
guage may not always be  the names of images, which the
mind can directly and immediately behold, they  still represent
objects of positive knowledge.
  Signs, from  their  simplicity, may be  immediately contem-
plated.   The conditions, which were obscured by a  mass of
details, so long as real objects  were kept laboriously in view,
now stand prominently forth.   The mind employs  itself with
signs simply, it is true;  but in so doing,  in  effect,  it operates
upon   the   ideas themselves.  In  this  manner it  advances
gradually to the formation of notions,  which, like the example
above, are beyond the limit of real intuition.
  To pursue this subject  farther,  would draw us  aside from
our main design, which is to introduce  the  principle,  that in-
struction in  language should be founded  upon the observation
and  study  of real  objects,—that  words should only  appear,
when the real acquisition of knowledge renders them necessary.
This principle is a simple one, but its  reason lies deeper than
would at first be imagined.   It is, that from this very primitive
observation, by refinements more or less extended, have sprung
all the terms of language.   They are the landmarks established
by the mind, to note its  progress, and assist  in  directing its
course, as it advances beyond the boundary of real intuition.
As  ideas  without  words are a possession of little  value ; so
words without  ideas  are worse than  useless, yet how many
words do children acquire by rote, which, because they utter,
they are presumed  to understand.
  A method of instruction, resting strictly upon the principle
of intuition,  is by no means as easy  in practice, as it appears
in theory.   There is so great a tendency in the human mind to
overleap details, especially when they are familiar and simple,
that the teacher will often find himself involuntarily leading his
pupil, by strides too rapid for his unpractised steps.
  But, much more frequently, this  principle  fails  to  receive
due attention in the school-room, from ignorance or wilful ne-
glect.   It is  to restore  it to its  rightful  preeminence, and to
compel a universal  and practical acknowledgement of its para-
mount importance,  that the  efforts  of modern reformers' in
education are chiefly  exerted. 
40
   In applying the principle  of intuition to the instruction  of
 the deaf and dumb, we perceive at  once the importance, the
 necessity even, of some system of nomenclature,  which shall
 follow, as  nearly  as  possible, the  genealogical succession of
 ideas ;  that  order, in which each  idea naturally suggests its
 succession, and hence, also,  of  course, explains it.   To say
 nothing of the clearness, which such an  arrangement is adapted
 to create in the ideas of the  learner, the labor of instruction,
 by means  of it, is  very materially economized.  We have a
 measure of the pupil's attainments  in  the  number of words
 which he has acquired ; and  thus we know where to avoid the
 repetition of details, which have  already been  made  familiar.
 The words, which the learner successively adds to his vocabu-
 lary, constitute a kind of mechanical power, to aid in extend-
 ing  the circle of his knowledge.   It is far  otherwise, where
 words  are taught  as chance may  direct.  The  same  series of
 particulars  must be actually presented to the mind in repeated
 instances, and without the pauses and  points of repose,  pre-
 sented by the successive steps of a judiciously arranged system.
 The mind is, in  consequence, encumbered by its burthen ;
 its ultimate ideas  are indistinct and  vague; and it can hardly
 be said to possess the knowledge  which  it has acquired, since,
 in too  many instances,  it will be diffident  of the  truth of its
 conceptions.   Still, a system of nomenclature, arranged on the
 principle above suggested, is perhaps  an impracticable creation ;
 at  least if it is designed to embrace the great  body of words,
 which  compose a language.   It is an ideal perfection, to which
 we can only approximate.  Particular sciences afford an illustra-
 tion of the  desideratum ; but  it is perhaps too much to expect
 that this can  ever be attained  in  that  portion  of a language,
 which  does not admit of the exactness of mathematical defini-
 tion.
  The  processes  which may be employed to explain the sig-
 nification of  words are various.   They are classified by De-
 gerando under the heads of familiar and philosophic.
  Of the first class, the most simple  and the most  certain is
 the indication of the object itself.  This is applicable  only to
 sensible objects, and only to the small number of these, which
 may chance to be  present.   It is the process with which it is
 expedient to commence instruction  ; since it exacts the least
 effort on the  part of the pupil, and may  best serve  to give him
a notion of the nature of artificial nomenclature. 
41
  The second method is description, second in simplicit)r, and,
consequently, in facility of comprehension.   This is still con-
fined to the material world.   It requires careful attention, on
the part of the instructer, to the characteristic  qualities of
objects, and skill in so exhibiting them, as to recall the image
of the object intended, with certainty and distinctness.
  But when intellectual or moral  notions are the subject of
instruction, it becomes a more difficult task,  either to recall a
familiar idea, or to  lead the  mind to the conception of one
which  is  new.   The  process  of comparison with  objects
pertaining to the physical world here  presents itself.   To this
process mankind are compelled to resort, whenever the dearth
of language  denies to thought a  representative  universally
understood.  Thus, it  has been observed  of language in its
infancy, that it abounds in metaphor,  and constantly resorts to
the world of sense for illustrations, in default of names.   Such
comparison is, however, a mode of  explanation little to be
relied on ;  since it affords, at best, but a clue to the idea ; and
leaves  so much to the imagination, that it may mislead, almost
as often as it proves a faithful  guide.
  Another, and, when well directed, much more certain method,
is that of examples.  But this fails, in many  instances, to limit
the idea with neatness and precision.   Examples, while they
involve the notion  which they are intended to illustrate, are
encumbered  also with  circumstances, which  it is important to
suppress.   They must be multiplied  in such  a  way, that their
comparison may clearly distinguish whatever  is accidental, and
leave the mind to fasten only upon that which is  peculiar to
the idea to  be  communicated.  The difficulty of so  selecting
examples,  as completely to fulfil these conditions, renders this
method often as uncertain, as  it is evidently laborious.
   Of  philosophic methods, the first  which  presents itself is
definition  a priori.   It  is the  nature of such  a  definition to
present the genus to which an idea  may be  referred,  along
with the specific  characteristics which limit  its extent.  This
species of definition is inapplicable to the case of the  deaf and
dumb.  It is the method of synthesis, which, however  well
adapted to systematize and classify knowledge already acquir-
ed, is by no means suited to the circumstances of a learner.
  The same objection is not applicable to that kind of defini-
tion  denominated indirect.  This  method  consists in deter-
mining an idea by those which circumscribe  it, or by  its con- 
12
trasts.   The latter is the  means of indirect definition,  most
extensively  applicable.   Still,  this method  supposes some-
thing already known ; and can only be employed where such
a condition exists.
   There is  another method, denominated by Degerando, that
of expositions, or definitions a posteriori.  It is  a  process of
analysis, by which an idea is traced from its origin; the ele-
ments  of a  complex notion enumerated ;  the objects  from
which an abstraction is  detached, assembled and compared ;
or the terms of a  relation  brought  distinctly to  view,  disen-
cumbered of extraneous circumstances.
   There remains a fourth method, which is that of induction.
It is distinguished from the preceding, in  that, here, the  pupil
is led to act for himself.   Instead of receiving from the instruc-
ter, the exposition  of an idea, he is placed in a situation, in
which  the several  steps of that  process are the  result of his
own reflection.   The art of the master  is exercised,  not in
conveying a meaning, but in calling forth the independent ac-
tion of the pupil, and guiding him indirectly in  the right  path.
   These are the means  which, either singly or in combination,
the instructer of the deaf  and dumb must  adopt,  whatever
may be the particular system to which  he has attached him-
self, in imparting to his pupils a knowledge of language.
   Systems classify themselves according to the different de-
grees of importance which  they  attach, respectively, to the
different instruments, which may  be made to fulfil the  office
of speech.   These instruments are five  in number; viz. de-
sign, the language  of action, dactylology, alphabetic writing.
and the labial alphabet, accompanied by artificial pronunciation.
The principle of classification will be more  readily compre-
hended, after a brief examination of each of these particulars,
and of the extent to which  it can be beneficially employed.
   A radical distinction  must here  be noticed, according to
which the instruments,  just enumerated, arrange themselves
under two heads ;  to wit, those  which more properly repre-
sent ideas, and those which represent  words merely.  To the
former description belong design and the language of action ; to
the latter, writing, dactylology, and the oral and labial alphabets.
   The utility of design  would, at first view,  seem  to be con-
fined to the simple interpretation of the nomenclature of visible
objects.  A little consideration will  show, however, that the
resources, which it offers to the  teacher, are much  more ex- 
43
tended.  Actions, conditions, qualities, relations, are all capa-
ble of being depicted ; and hence  verbs, adjectives and pre-
positions are within its province.
   M. Bebian has availed himself of its facilities to explain the
use of the articles, the formation of abstract  nouns,  and the
degrees of comparison.   It is easily applicable to  the  exhibi-
tion of passions and  emotions, by imitating the traces of their
effects in the countenance and  attitude.  By means of alle-
gory, it may be applied to the illustration of notions still more
refined.  There exists no subject, however removed from the
domain of sense, to the elucidation of which  its aid  may not
be invoked.   Systems have been built upon the  use of this
instrument alone.  It has been made the basis even  of reli-
gious instruction.   It  was by means of pictures and diagrams,
that Father  Vanin,  an instructer  at Paris before the time
of De l'Epee, attempted even to expound the mysterious doc-
trines of the Incarnation, and of a Triune God.  The  result of
his efforts was, however, very unsatisfactory.   M. Saboureux
de Fontenay, one of his pupils, afterwards highly distinguished
under the tutelage of Pereire, speaks thus of the effect pro-
duced upon his own mind.  ' I believed  that God  the Father
was a venerable old man, residing  in the  heavens ;  that the
Holy Ghost was a dove, surrounded with light; that the Devil
was a hideous monster, dwelling in the  depths of the earth,
&tc.  Thus I possessed sensible, material, mechanical ideas of
religion.'
   Such a recital might shake  our  faith in the utility of em-
blematic explanations, as applied to moral or religious notions,
did we not perceive that the result in this case was the natural
consequence of the original  error, which  made design the great
instrument of instruction.  A proper distinction must be observed
in the mode of its use ; according to the  nature of the subject,
with regard to which it is employed.   Whatever is material may
be directly  explained by  design;  and this  instrument may,
here, be implicitly relied on with security.   That which per-
tains to the intellectual and moral world, can only  be  illustrat-
ed by visible metaphorical representations;  which though lia-
ble to mislead when made the  principal  dependence, impart,
nevertheless, a  very  happy  light to difficult notions,  when
used as accessory to other more certain means.
   The great utility of design consists in  the economy of time,
which it introduces into the system of instruction; and in the 
44
certainty and precision, which (whenever employed not in an
emblematic, but an absolute sense) it imparts to the ideas con-
veyed.   A picture is not necessarily limited to the definition
of a single word.   It may  represent  a proposition.   It  may
be made to explain the different usages of language ; and here
is one of the great advantages, which this instrument possesses,
for the instructer.
  Design may even be  employed in the  construction  of  a
symbolical language, which,  judiciously  used, may become of
great utility.   It may undergo the reductions, which we have
explained as taking  place, in the  living design of pantomime.
It will thus, indeed, lose its character for exact imitation ;  and
possibly, more or less approach an arbitrary form.   Still  the
reductions will take place under the eye of the pupil;  and the
resulting  figures will continue to be intelligible,  even  though
every trace  of analogy  should vanish.  It is thus that hiero-
glyphic and symbolic writing of every kind originates.   Never-
theless, analogy may be preserved, so far as it is  consistent
with rapidity of execution.   A  language of this nature, how-
ever, must be sparingly used.  It should, if employed at all,
be employed  only as one additional means of explaining  that
of speech, which it is all-important for the pupil to acquire.
  The use of design in  the education  of the deaf and dumb,
is a subject  which has not yet received  from teachers the at-
tention which it merits.   The resources,  afforded by  this in-
strument, have not been fully developed, nor well understood,
even  by those who have employed it most in practice.*  The  «
Abbe de l'Epee rejected it entirely.  In this  country it has
been  principally employed, in defining  the nomenclature of
visible objects.   A system  of designs, judiciously chosen and
judiciously arranged, is  exceedingly to be desired.  The  task

  * In these remarks we have, perhaps, done injustice to M. Piroux,
the able director of the Institution at Nancy.  A series of designs has
been projected by.that gentleman, intended to exhibit objects  qualities,
relations, actions and states of being;  and to afford visible illustrations
of formulas of language, considerably involved.  Thus, sentences like
the following are explained by  single pictures: ' A woman who  is
caiTying a child in her arms,'' A dog, which is chasing a hare across a
plain.'  The object of M. Piroux is, chiefly, to diminish the expense of
education, by furnishing the means for primary instruction, in the com-
mon   schools  or within the  family  circle, before  admission into  a
special institution.  He would have his books universally distributed,
at the public expense.  But one number, we believe, has yet appeared. 
45
  of preparing such a series, is not indeed one of small magnitude.
  Of  all the  attempts  which have  been  made, and the plans
  which have been proposed  in  Europe, no one seems to have
  met with  universal approbation.   Hardly has  any one found
  an advocate beyond the original proposer.  Still an  imperfect
  system is better  than none, and we cannot refrain, here, from
  recommending  to  the instructers  in  America  an  effort in
  concert, to supply  the deficiency.
    The language of action  is  of essential importance  in the
  education  of the deaf and dumb.  No system can  dispense
  with the employment  of this instrument.  Its necessity, as a
  first means of communication, between  the master and the
  pupil, is an axiom ; and is the substance of the first fundament-
  al principle  of the  art.  Still no question  has been more vigo-
  rously discussed, than  that of  the  extent to which this means
  should be employed in instruction,  and of the degree of devel-
  opment which should  be given to it as a language.
    That the language of action is capable of  being reduced to
  system, and advanced to  the  perfection  of spoken language,
  is a truth self-evident, at least to those, who  have been accus-
  tomed to  its use.
    No one can doubt,  that,  were a whole people of  deaf and
  dumb persons to exist together from generation to generation,
  they would construct  a visible language,  equally copious, and
  equally perfect with the languages  now in use ; nor that they
  would add  to  this  a corresponding system  of ideographic
•  writing.   But this  perfection could only exist in a state of high
  intellectual cultivation.  Language being simply the nomencla-
  ture of ideas, its copiousness must  always be the measure of
  their multiplication.   Supposing the language of action, there-
  fore, to have attained  an extent comparable to  that of speech;
  we  must  suppose  also a  corresponding development of in-
  tellect, and a corresponding  accumulation of knowledge in
  those with whom it originates.
    Such a  language would, of course, be far from being adapted
  to the circumstances of the deaf and dumb as they exist.   Its
  signs, to  them, would be  without  meaning; except so far as
  the  limited circle of their ideas extends.   It was, nevertheless,
  the  notion of De l'Epee, a notion adopted  by his  illustrious
  successor, that  to  extend the vocabulary of signs, until it is
  made to correspond with that of spoken language, is all that is
  wanting,  to  reduce the labor of instruction to a mere process 
46
of translation.   He conceived that the deaf and dumb might
acquire a first language, by the same process which enables us
to acquire a second and a third.   But in this view  of the sub-
ject, plausible as it appears, there is a radical error.  We have
already seen, that what is  peculiar in this art consists, not in
the imposition of signs upon ideas, but in conducting the pupil
to the formation of the ideas themselves.   A language of action
may be, indeed, devised and taught, which, in conformity with
the views of De l'Epee and Sicard, shall strictly  correspond,
even in its grammatical forms, with that of speech.   This lan-
guage may be translated into that of speech or writing; yet, after
all, the process may prove  merely mechanical;  and  we shall
have  accomplished nothing toward the removal of the real
difficulty.   From  personal  observation, we can, in fact, bear
witness to the possibility of dictating to deaf and  dumb per-
sons complicated sentences, embracing  the most serious gram-
matical difficulties, and  of obtaining from them  the corres-
ponding words, properly arranged ; while they, themselves,
are utterly incapable of comprehending  that which they have
produced.
   Let us look at this subject in the  light of reason.  The deaf
and dumb present  themselves before us, with a stock of ideas
comprised  within  narrow  limits ;   and for these they have
usually corresponding  signs.  Our  task is to multiply  these
ideas.   It will  not  suffice  merely to extend the  vocabulary.
Each  addition to the list of signs must represent some reality,
now, for the first time, made a part of the pupil's  knowledge.
Let us suppose  our efforts successful in extending the circle of
that knowledge but a single step.   We  have  communicated
one notion, to which the learner was previously a stranger.  It
remains to impose a sign upon this notion.   Whether this sign
shall be a word or an action is for us to choose.  If an action,
then translation must follow.  Why this circuitous route ?  Is
any thing gained by it ?  On the contrary, is there not some-
thing lost ?   We desire to  make our own  language the medi-
um, to the deaf and dumb, not only of communication but of
thought.  This is among our fundamental  principles.  How
can  we more  successfully attain   this  end, than by giving
him but a single sign for each  new idea ;  and  that  sign, one
appertaining to the class which we desire him to adopt ?
   But, again, the imposition of signs upon words, if the prin-
ciple of the  Abbe de l'Epee  be adopted, must take place, in 
47
many instances, without a careful determination of the corres-
ponding idea.   Otherwise there can be no translation, worthy
of the name ; but  only a double imposition of signs upon the
same idea, constituting  a load  cumbrous to  the memory, and
dividing the attention between synonymous terms.  If signs of
action on the other hand be instituted, which are in themselves
insignificant, they may be productive of very bad consequences.
The deaf and dumb person is accustomed to recognise nothing
in his language which has not meaning.   He does not, and he
cannot, suspect insignificancy in any sign.   To that, therefore,
which is intended to represent an idea above his  capacity, he
attaches an idea of his own ; an idea in the nature of things
erroneous.   By giving, then, to his language  the degree of
development aimed at by De l'Epee, the master is sure to en-
cumber him with a mass, either of useless, or of unintelligible
signs,—useless, in  the first  instance, when we consider that it
is in words, and not in pantomime, that we desire him to think;
unintelligible, in the second, when we remember that these
signs are imposed  upon  no real basis.  In the one  case, we
thwart our own principal  design;  in the other,  we, at  best,
bewilder the learner.
  Signs, established in the manner considered above, have re-
ceived the appellation methodical.   It was the favorite labor
of Sicard  to systematize  and perfect them.  In spite of the
disadvantage inseparable from  their use, pupils, distinguished
for  their attainments, have been produced by the  masters who
have employed them ; but this circumstance 'serves only to
demonstrate the ability of the masters themselves.
  In determining how far the language of action may be really
useful  in  facilitating instruction, we must consider it  in  the
several stages in which it is intelligible to  the pupil; in which,
in fact, it is his own work ; guided, it may be, by  the teacher;
but  not reduced, as the theory of methodical signs presumes,
to conformity with a language, which must be understood be-
fore the  conformity can be comprehended.  Great imperfec-
tion must be expected in the signs which are  the creation of
the  deaf  and  dumb person  himself.  These  signs  may be
submitted  to the  correction of the master.  In fact, in an
institution  where  numbers  are collected together, a  more
philosophical  system, the joint production of teachers   and
pupils  will be early established;  and will be adopted by  each
pupil on his arrival.  It is hardly possible, with every individ- 
48
ual, to follow out a  series of lessons, by  which  he  may be
guided, from a  more  accurate understanding of things,  to a
more correct mode of expression concerning them.   He aban-
dons his own signs for those which he finds actually in  use, not
because they appear to him more  appropriate, but  because
they are  universally intelligible.   Still  his  own  individual
signs will be carefully observed  by the instructer;  since they
afford a valuable means of penetrating the extent of his know-
ledge,  of discovering how far  his ideas of things are just, of de-
termining the degree of his  intellectual development, and of
ascertaining the  limit  of his capacity.
  The language of action, rectified as above by the  care of the
teacher, will be useful to a  certain  extent, as  affording the
means  of instruction by translation.  But,  by  the freedom
of communication  which it establishes,  it will also  render the
pupil, in a  measure, the architect of  his own intellectual edi-
fice ; for it will enable him to profit by his own independent
reflection.   He possesses the means of interrogating his mas-
ter,—a means which  he will  not fail to employ.
  Still this language has its disadvantages, which, so long as it
aspires to  the  character of  a self-interpreting  instrument of
thought,  are inseparable from  the  nature  of  its  elements.
These  elements are  threefold ; consisting, first, in  the copies
of those  spontaneous expressions, by which the emotions of
the soul manifest themselves to sight; secondly, in  imitations
of external  nature,  whether of  objects or of  actions ; and,
thirdly, in  that  species  of figurative descriptions, by which,
alone, that which  is ideal can be made to assume a material
form.   These will evidently be  intelligible, in  the  order in
which they are here arranged.  With regard to the first, there
can be no mistake.   The second, less  self-explanatory, may
still be rendered sufficiently complete to  be  comprehended.
The third, however, are liable to  greater uncertainty ; and, in
more cases than one, when in practice  they introduce no ob-
scurity, may be  presumed to borrow something of their signifi-
cancy from tacit convention.
  An  important use of signs in  the  explication of language,
consists in a species of definition, corresponding to circumlocu-
tion in speech.   This will find its place, where direct  transla-
tion is  impossible; a case, which  the  poverty of the language
of action, in those signs which  directly correspond to ideas,
will render of frequent occurrence.   The Theorie des Signes 
49
of the Abbe Sicard is  almost  wholly composed  of such cir-
cumlocutions.   In this respect, a reference to that work may
be  occasionally useful to the instructer; since it  contains the
most happy combinations of signs, to which the experience of
that distinguished master had led him.   Still, in the construc-
tion of this species of definition, there is room for great variety.
In the employment of it, the teacher must  avoid  a servile de-
pendence upon  any  guide, however  able.  He must  stand
ready to seize the advantages, which accident may throw in his
way; and  which,  though they  exist but  for a moment, are
often more valuable than the results of laborious study.
  The importance of the sign language has perhaps been es-
timated equally above and below its merits.  While, on the one
hand, its  encomiasts have spared no term in its praise;  those
on the other, who  discountenance its use, have been quite as
unqualified in  pronouncing the  sentence of its condemnation.
The controversies which  have, in consequence, arisen, have
been  sustained with a pertinacity, not, perhaps,  the  less de-
termined, that, in more  than one instance, neither party has
fully understood the other.   Among the advocates of the sign
language, the impression has been very general, that their op-
ponents were disposed absolutely to reject pantomime in  every
form.  Against  such a  rejection,  reason and common  sense
alike protest.  The  opposite  party, on the contrary,  have
spent  their strength  in combating the system of methodical
signs ; and have  fallen  into the natural error, of confounding
with this  system those  signs which  are merely the result of
reduction.   The division is sufficiently wide, even when right-
ly understood, but erroneous views have rendered it still wider.
   It is in conformity with our  first  fundamental  principle, to
employ,  for purposes of instruction, the entire language of the
deaf  and dumb; embracing all  signs whatever, which have a
meaning for him, and which, whether natural or not, may  be
denominated colloquial.   Still  it is  the  suggestion of reason,
that, when these have fulfilled  their purpose, and have  found,
by  translation, their equivalents  in spoken language, they should
thenceforth yield  their places  to words.   To continue their
use is  practically to deny another of our fundamental princi-
ples,  and  one of the highest importance,  viz. that language
should be made to the deaf and  dumb what it is to other men,
—the instrument of thought; for it is to render language sub-
ordinate to pantomime, to make it the  representative of  a rep- 
50
resentative,  and cause  it to remain for the dumb what the
learned languages  are to us.   In that  case  he will continue,
perhaps forlife, tobe a mere translator, whether in conversation
he occupy the place of the speaker, or of the person addressed.
If we would, in any case, admit a departure from the strictness
of the rule  here laid down, it should  be  only in the applica-
tion of signs to the exercises of religious worship ; which, in a
large institution, cannot otherwise be rendered universally in-
telligible.
  Before leaving the subject of signs, we take occasion to al-
lude to an attempt, not  altogether unsuccessful, of the accom-
plished Professor,  M. Bebian of Paris, to reduce  the language
of action to  writing.*  The  almost infinite  variety of gesture
and expression of which this language is composed, might seem
to defy any  effort  to resolve it into elements, corresponding,
even remotely, in point of simplicity, to the alphabetic charac-
ters of  ordinary writing.  M. Bebian  has,  however, at least
demonstrated  the  practicability of such a resolution.   He has
devised  a set of characters  to indicate the  members of the
body, another  set to represent the varieties of motion, and a
third, denominated physiognomic points, to denote expression.
The whole  may be acquired in a brief space, and, in conse-
quence of the analogies according to which they are construct-
ed, without  imposing a very  severe  burthen upon the memory.
The utility  of this  system  must depend, however, very much
upon the prominence which is assigned to the  language of ac-
tion, as an instrument of  instruction ;  and, accordingly, if the
views  which  we  have expressed  be  correct, will  be very
limited.
   Mimography might, nevertheless, be  advantageously employ-
ed in the correspondence of instructers, when  communicating
on the subject of signs which ordinary language  would fail to
describe with sufficient  precision.   It might thus  afford a
means of comparison between the signs in use in different in-
stitutions ;  and hence  become  the means  of  contributing  to
their  perfection,  and introducing  general  uniformity among
 them.   The  want of uniformity, which at present exists in the
different schools, is indeed remarkable.   Experienced  teachers,
in passing from one to another,  find themselves frequently un-

  * Mimographie, ou essai d'icriture mimique, propre  a rigula riser le
langage des sourds-muets.  Paris, 1825. 
51
able to comprehend the novel dialect to which they are intro-
duced.  This, indeed, is not  the  case in America, where all
the existing schools may be considered shoots from the Royal
Institution at Paris ;  and where the signs in use may be traced,
in the instance of each, to that source.  We are informed by
M. Vaysse, formerly an instructer in  that celebrated  school,
and at present connected  with the  institution at New York,
that as little difference is perceptible between the sign  dialects
of New York and Paris, as between those of Hartford and
New York.   The case is very different  in Europe.  M. Re-
coing informs us, that, observing  some  pupils at  the Royal
Institution reciting a prayer, he requested of their teacher an
interpretation.  ' I do not understand it,' was  the  reply.  < It
is a prayer taught them by  M. Gondelin.'   M. Gondelin had
been a few months at the head of  the establishment, and had,
thus, it seems, employed a system of signs, unintelligible  even
to his associates.   But if the language of signs be regarded
merely as a temporary expedient, designed  to give place, as
speedily as possible, to another means of  communication, the
advantage of uniformity is  hardly  appreciable.  Intelligibility
is the all-important condition, and any system of signs, fulfill-
ing this condition, without  violating  propriety, is of as much
advantage as any other.
   Of the class of instruments, the office of which is merely to
exhibit words under  a material  form, writing first demands
consideration;  since this is indispensable,  and this, alone, is
sufficient to fulfil all  the purposes for which such  an instru-
ment is desired.  From the latter  part of the proposition here
laid down, however, many  respectable instructers have with-
held their assent.  Written  language, in their estimation,  must
always occupy a secondary  rank.   It  must constitute  the re-
presentative of some more privileged instrument,  standing be-
tween it and the ideas, with which it is presumed unsuited to
be directly associated.   This instrument is found  in methodi-
cal signs, or artificial pronunciation and the labial alphabet, ac-
cording to the peculiar notions of the instructer.
   The reasoning intended to  depreciate  writing as  an instru-
ment of thought, seems  hardly to afford anything sufficiently
tangible to merit  a very labored reply.  It is nothing to say,
that we ourselves are  unaccustomed to employ the images of
written signs, in conducting mental  operations.   We employ
such signs as habit has rendered familiar;  but they are signs, 
;32
of which the deaf and dumb can never avail themselves.   For
we must remember, that, with whatever  labor and success we
may bring the deaf and dumb to imitate sounds, and read the
fleeting characters which appear in succession upon the lips of
a speaker, speech, to them, can never be what speech is to
us.  Hearing is not  restored with  articulation, or  with the
power of reading on the lips.  The deaf and dumb, then, can
never possess that species of signs, intermediate between  ideas
and written words, with which our ideas  are associated.   The
movements  of the lips are to them  visible, not audible signs ;
and written  words are  nothing more.   But argument is unne-
cessary, where the evidence of facts is at hand.
   The  ideographic portion  of the Chinese writing is a case
in point.  And it  is matter of daily observation, that deaf and
dumb persons associate ideas with words for  which they  have
no  determinate sign.   For  them writing is truly ideographic.
   In the controversy  which arose between the  champion of
articulation, Heinicke, on the one  hand, and  the Abbe de
l'Epee, on the other, when  the latter appealed to the learned
societies of  Europe, an objection was raised by  the former,
the most serious, perhaps, that  can be suggested, to disprove
the practicability of rendering written language the direct re-
presentative of thought, and  the  instrument of intellectual op-
erations.  Starting from the  acknowledged truth,  that simpli-
city is  essential  to the utility of signs; a  principle  already
illustrated in the remarks which we have made on the subject
of intuition; Heinicke proceeded to the  conclusion, that, as
written  words, being  composed of  alphabetic characters, are
devoid of this quality, a less complex system is  necessary to
be interposed between them  and  ideas.  This is, however, to
make an assumption, contradicted  by the observation, which
we are able  to make, upon the phenomena of our own minds.
Persons, edifices, numberless objects, distinguished from  one
another by a variety of particulars, present themselves as units
to our recollection.   Words,  even  of many  syllables, a case
perfectly parallel to that under consideration, have for us no
troublesome multiplicity of parts.  We recognise in them but
a single sign.  They  float along the current  of  our thoughts,
without obscuring its clearness, or arresting its progress.  Thus
alphabetic characters combine, to produce, for  the deaf  and
dumb, signs, which have,  for him, the character of unity.
Words are remembered as words, and not as groups of letters 
53
 which it is necessary individually to retrace; just as  a house
 is to us a house, and not a heap of bricks.
   Alphabetic writing is, indeed, sufficiently ill adapted to the
 wants of the unfortunate deaf and dumb.   Constructed origi-
 nally for a purpose altogether aside from their instruction, and
 without regard to their  convenience,—founded on no analogy,
 which they can comprehend,—it imposes a severe burthen upon
 their memory.   Still it is the sole instrument, common to them
 with other men, which presents itself to both parties, under the
 same aspect.
   It has  the  advantage over  articulation,  of requiring little
 effort for its acquisition, and of being  immediately available  in
 the earliest stages of instruction.   The language of the visible
 alphabet is also the language of study.   It is the store-house  of
 all human knowledge.  It  may be  perused,  and it may be
 composed with  deliberation.  It affords room for the mind  to
 rest, to resume its train of thought, to modify, to correct and
 to improve.  If it interpose inconvenience in the way of fami-
 liar conversation,  it will, for  the  same reason,  retrench su-
 perfluities, compel  conciseness and  precision of expression,
 and force the dumb to  think with  greater clearness, that they
 may express themselves with greater accuracy.
   In fine, it may be suggested, that in the case of the deaf and
 dumb, the ordinary insignificant copies, placed before children
 beginning to write, should be dispensed with.   From the com-
 mencement, he should be taught to look upon writing as the
 representative of thought;  nor should  he be suffered to waste
 his valuable time, upon that which has for him no meaning.
   From  the importance of writing in  this art, has resulted  a
 wish, almost, if not entirely, universal, that some means might
 be devised to diminish the labor, which  its employment exacts;
 and  to render it  a more rapid  instrument  of communica-
 tion.   He who shall devise a system of stenography, applica-
 ble to  the circumstances of the deaf and dumb, will confer
 upon them an inappreciable benefit.   Space  will not permit
 us, here, to  point out at length the  principles,  which might
serve as guides in the construction of such a system.  It is,
nevertheless, sufficiently evident, that  the  stenography of re-
 porters, in our courts and public  assemblies, will  not answer
the purpose.  To the deaf and dumb, there are neither vowels,
consonants, nor  silent letters.  If  articulation  be taught, the
 principles of syllabification may profitably receive attention ; 
54
but if otherwise, these may be neglected.   We are aware but
of a single attempt to adapt a  system especially to the use of
deaf and dumb  persons, that of M. Recoing, author of " Le
sourd-muet entendant par les yeux."*  We are not aware that
this system, which  is intended to accompany articulation  and
syllabic dactylology, has ever been  tested in  practice.   The
stenography of M. Recoing, being adapted to the French lan-
guage, could  not,  of course, be  transplanted into  ours.   It
remains for  the  ingenuity of instructers in  our own  country,
to devise a plan  fitted to our circumstances; and we cannot
but hope that this ingenuity will be called  into  speedy  and
successful exercise.
   Dactylology,  or  the manual alphabet,  has, with hardly an
exception, been  admitted as an auxiliary  in  the instruction of
the deaf and dumb.  It consists in a  set  of  signs, formed by
the fingers, in partial imitation  of  alphabetic characters ; and
it is employed simply  as a  means  of spelling words.   As an
instrument of  instruction, common  consent has  assigned  it a
subordinate rank; but as a means of communication with soci-
ety, or at least with those  persons who will devote half an
hour to its acquisition, it is  very  useful.   The rapidity with
which deaf and  dumb persons employ it in their mutual con-
versations, and the readiness with which they will often seize
a word, even from its initial  letter, are astonishing.
   Under the  head  of dactylology may be  classed alphabetic
signs, executed with one or  with two hands, syllabic signs, and
writing in the  air.   The two-handed alphabet is peculiar to
England.  Syllabic signs have been employed only by parti-
cular instructers.  It is here that  there remains a chasm,  yet
to be  supplied.   M. Recoing,  by  means  of a system of his
own invention, was able to  interpret  to his  son  a continued
discourse, as a sermon  or an oration, as rapidly as it was pro-
nounced.  Much of the success of the celebrated Pereire, is
supposed to have been due to a system of syllabic dactylology
which he refused to divulge, and which  perished with him.
In proportion as the manual alphabet is made to represent syl-
lables, the number of its signs is, of necessity, multiplied.  The
advantage, therefore, which  it  thus gains,  is accompanied by

  * Le sourd-muet entendant par les yeux, ou triple moyen de com-
munication avec ces  infortunes, par des  procedes abreviatifs de l'e-
criture;  suivi d'un projet d'imprimerie syllabique;  par le  pere d'un
sourd-muet.—Paris, 1829. 
55
an inconvenience ;—an inconvenience, however, not serious, if
the abbreviation be not extended too far.  Stenography and syl-
labic dactylology seem naturally  to  associate themselves to-
gether.   He who shall devote his attention to the one, may
with propriety make both the  subject of his  labors.   Should
the pupil, however,  acquire a facility of articulation and read-
ing on the lips, he may dispense with dactylology altogether.
   A question now presents itself, of the  highest  moment in
the practice of this  art; and one on which the opinions of in-
structers have been most  widely at  variance.  This  question
relates to the expediency of making the oral and labial alpha-
bets a prominent part of the instruction of deaf and dumb per-
sons.   Entire systems derive their character from the view
which is taken of this subject in detail.
   Before entering  upon  the discussion of the question, two
propositions may be laid  down,  with regard  to which there
can be  no possibility of dispute.  It is evident from what has
already been said, that the  instrument we are now consider-
ing is not  essential  in the instruction of the deaf and dumb.
Articulation is not necessary to  the operations of the intellect,
nor to the purposes  of communication  with society.   On the
other hand, it affords facilities, in the latter respect, too important
to be disregarded.  Hence  results the  second principle, that,
if its acquisition be really practicable, no consideration should
induce us to neglect it.
   The first  of these positions has indeed been  controverted,
by those who claim  for speech the  exclusive  prerogative of
constituting  the immediate representative of thought.  But the
advocates of this opinion seem to  have shut their eyes to the
immediate consequence of their own doctrine, which  is abso-
lutely to deny  the possibility of replacing to the deaf and dumb
the privation under  which he  labors.   Speech,  as we have
seen, can never be to  him what speech is to us.   He cannot,
like his more highly gifted brethren, associate ideas with sound.
If the prerogative of speech, then, be as exclusive as it is re-
presented, how can we, by  any  effort of ingenuity, contrive an
instrument to  supply its place ?  There are, indeed, certain
privileges belonging  to speech, which, as they result from the
very nature  of sound, must forever  remain unknown  to him
whose misfortune cuts him off from this entire class of percep-
tions.   The delights of harmony and  of rhythm,  whether in
music or in poetry, are to him  a sealed book.   Certain asso- 
56
ciations, likewise, of signs  with each other,  and consequently
of the ideas  which  they represent, having their basis in the
similarity or in the contrast of sounds, are lost to him.   The
memory is thus deprived of an important auxiliary, and is left
more exclusively dependent upon positive  effort.   With how
much greater facility do we recall scraps of poetry, or even en-
tire passages, than  others  of corresponding length in prose !
This is  a power, which wre derive wholly  from the  adaptation
of the ear to discriminate harmonious combinations.
  We cannot, therefore, it must be granted, make good to the
deaf and  dumb, every privilege  of which he is  deprived.
Happily, however, the more important uses of speech are
available to  him.   It is a trite remark, that, with the privation
of one sense, those which remain  acquire a greater degree of
delicacy and acuteness.   The blind distinguish  colors  by the
touch.   The celebrated Professor Saunderson is said to  have
recognised  localities,  which  he  had but once visited,  with
unerring accuracy;  and to have been conscious of the vicinity
of large and prominent bodies, from their effect in determining
the state of the atmosphere.   Julia Brace distinguishes persons
by the sense of smell, and at the table, refuses the cup of
another, when sent  to her by mistake.   James Mitchell recog-
nised individuals  at a distance by  similar means.  With  deaf
and dumb persons, the sense  of sight acquires  a  corresponding
perspicuity.  To them, the labial alphabet  presents a system
of signs, possessing a  distinctness,  to which we  must presume
ourselves strangers.
   We must be careful to  remark, nevertheless, an important
distinction among deaf and dumb persons,  which  renders the
instrument we are considering, much more easy of  acquisition
to one class than to another.   With those, who in early age
have been  possessed of hearing, who have become dumb after
possessing  the faculty of speech,  this faculty may be revived,
more  easily than it can be created in others.    Certain remi-
niscences of articulate sounds will remain,  long  after their use
has been discontinued.  The power will not always be wholly
lost, of supplying in the sentence, as  pronounced, those sub-
ordinate parts which  may not be distinctly observed.   This is
not, however,  to deny to the deaf and dumb from birth, the
power of acquiring the oral and labial alphabets.   Experience
has demonstrated the practicability of such an acquisition, in a
multitude of instances.  A person who is deaf and dumb from 
57
birth is dumb only because he is deaf. For him, indeed, the oral
alphabet has no basis, either in the perception, or the  recol-
lection of sounds.  Its foundation, its material, is in the sense
of touch alone.   His sole dependence is upon a circumstance,
so entirely accidental to speech, that we ourselves only perceive
its existence, by a special effort of attention.   Heinicke, it is
true, pretended to have discovered an auxiliary in the sense of
taste.  But between this sense and articulation, no connexion
exists in nature;  nor can we perceive how it can be created
by  art.   Yet, under all these  disadvantages, articulation  is
certainly available to the deaf and dumb.
  Another circumstance  here demands attention.  To us, the
language of utterance and that of hearing are identical.  They
are  the language of sound.   We give no attention to the play
of our vocal organs,  nor to the movements which  accompany
articulation  in  others.   Whether we  speak,  or whether  we
listen, we recognise but a single instrument of communication.
It is otherwise with the deaf and dumb.   To them the labial
alphabet presents a system of signs, addressing itself to  sight;
a system having its parallel in dactylology or in writing.  Ar-
ticulation, or the guttural  alphabet,  as it is denominated by
Degerando, on the other hand, employs a different sense.   Its
elements are sensations of contact, resembling, remotely, those
which  the  blind  experience when  they  pass their  fingers
over the raised letters, which afford them the means of read-
ing.   There consequently exists for  the deaf and dumb  in
conversation, the necessity of making an abrupt transition from
one instrument to another; a necessity, which renders, for them,
the employment  of  the oral and labial alphabets  less  simple
than speech is to us.
  To the disadvantages already enumerated, others still remain
to be  added.   The labial alphabet exacts  proximity,  and
usually a direct view of the countenance.   In darkness  its use
is entirely lost.   It distracts the attention of the observer from
his employment.  One or other of these evils, however, is com-
mon to it with writing, with dactylology, or with the language
of action.  To say that they exist, therefore, is only to say, that
they must exist for the deaf and dumb, under all circumstances.
  But further, both  the oral and labial alphabets require time
and labor for their acquisition.  They exhaust a vast portion
of the space allotted to instruction ; and take the place of those
exercises, which have  for their object the cultivation of the
                    8 
58
intellectual  powers, and jhe enlargement  of the sphere of
knowledge.   Worse than  all,  they exact  individual lessons,
and thus compel the instructer of a class to  neglect the many
while he occupies himself with a few.  It must finally be said,
that there are those, who,  by reason of  early neglect, or the
late period at which their education commences, do not possess
the docility or flexibility of muscle, requisite  for the attain-
ment of artificial speech.
  An important question here  presents  itself,  which has not
yet found a solution,—at what  age  the  culture of the vocal
organs should commence.  While, on the one hand, the phy-
sical system of childhood  possesses, if  we may so speak, a
plasticity denied to riper age,  the importance of associating
ideas with articulate signs, from the very  beginning, renders it
desirable that our lessons should not commence until the infant
intellect has acquired some strength and expansion.
  Under all these  disadvantages, is it desirable, that the deaf
and dumb pupil should be taught  to speak, and to read upon
the lips ?  Most unquestionably it is.   What labor, what study,
what patient and unremitted exercise of  the attention, can be
weighed in the balance  with the immense benefit  which these
instruments  afford, in  restoring  him, absolutely  and really,
to the ordinary intercourse of society !   How broad a channel
do they lay open, for the expansion of his views, the develop-
ment of his  intellect, the  increase of his actual  knowledge!
What an amount of information purely traditional, information
in possession of all who hear, but  nowhere  to  be found in
books,  will thus be placed within his reach!  How will his
moral perceptions be refined, his affections  purified,  his char-
acter, as a whole, exalted !   How will his acquaintance with
language be extended !  What  a variety of phrases, idioms,
proverbial  and colloquial  expressions, will  be added to the
treasury of his knowledge !  With how much greater certainty
will that important end  of  his education be  answered, which
requires that he shall be weaned from his favorite  language of
pantomime, and induced to adopt words as  the instruments of
his intellectual  operations!
  Degerando informs us, that, though he has frequently made
inquiry of the  pupils  in  the Royal Institution, he has found
that they invariably employ signs in their private meditations.
How far were those pupils  from enjoying  the full benefit of
articulate language!  Since the publication of his work, that
institution has adopted  the  use of the oral and  labial alphabets. 
69
   Articulation is  an instrument available  under all  circum-
stances, and with all classes of persons.   It exacts not even an
acquaintance with writing in those with  whom the deaf  and
dumb may be associated.   It will serve the  purposes  of com-
munication, on one part, at least,  in  darkness.  This instru-
ment has  received the  united  suffrage of the great  body of
teachers, in all countries.   Even  De l'Epee  and Sicard, the
very authors of that system, which has led, in  many instances,
to the exclusion  of the oral and labial alphabets, have testified
in favor of their  use, both in precept  and practice.   The  for-
mer has given to  the  world,  as a part of his work  entitled
' La veritable maniere  dHnstruire les sourds-muets,'' a treatise
on the means of restoring articulation to deaf and dumb persons,
which, so late as the year 1819,  was  republished at Paris,
with a preface by the latter.  In the  course of this  preface,
the Abbe Sicard thus expresses himself.   ' The deaf and dumb
man is  not completely  restored to  society,  until he has been
taught to express himself viva voce, and to read  speech in the
movement  of the lips.   It is only then that we can  say  that
his education is entirely finished !'
   The number of institutions in which articulation is taught,
constitutes  a great majority of  the whole.   Among them we
are  able  to include none now  existing  in  America.   We
cannot doubt that a change will  in this  respect take place,
before many years have elapsed.   We  believe we may even
state that such a change is now in contemplation  in the institu-
tion at New York,  at  least so far as to embrace  such of its
pupils,  as  retain,  in some  degree,  the power of  hearing,
and perhaps of utterance.
   We have now  passed in review  every species  of  material
instrument, commonly  employed  in  the  instruction of  the
deaf and dumb.   It is  not, however, to be presumed that we
have exhausted the fountain of resources ;—that we have ex-
plored the  entire  field  of possibility.  There are classes of
signs peculiar to particular branches of knowledge, to which
we have not alluded.   Such are those of arithmetic, geometry,
algebra and the calculus.   These are all available to the  deaf
and dumb ; but being ideographic,  require no particular con-
sideration.
   We may, however, profitably inquire, whether  systems of
signs, in some respects parallel  to these, may not.be devised, to
serve as  auxiliary  to instruction  in other subjects of know- 
60
ledge.   Such  a subject is  Grammar.  If we mistake not, the
Abbe Sicard wras in the habit of employing certain characters,
distinctive of the parts of speech.  But we are not aware, that
these characters were modified by him, in such a manner as to
indicate grammatical inflexions.  There is at present  in use
in the New  York Institution, a set of symbols,  expressive of
all the varieties of form under which  words present themselves,
in undergoing the changes  exacted by the  rules of grammar.
These symbols are found practically useful, not merely in the
methodical  teaching of language, but in enabling  the pupil
to acquire a sufficient practical  acquaintance with  its forms, to
render it the means of communication, and the instrument of
thought.   Being founded,  at  least  remotely, upon  analogy,
they afford a support to the mind  in unravelling the mazes of
construction, and distinguishing the office which each word ful-
fils in the sentence.
   Of these symbols it is true, as of the language of action, that
no particular system can be said to constitute the nee plus ultra
of perfection.   Still there are principles which should preside
at their formation, on the due observance of which their utility
will materially depend.   Symbols may be resolved into  two
species of elements, radical and auxiliary.  The former repre-
sent simply the  parts  of speech.   Their prominent charac-
teristic should be simplicity, yet  some  principle of analogy
should prevail in their  construction.   Corresponding  with  the
inflexions of language, the radical signs should re-appear, modi-
fied by the addition of auxiliaries.  In the perfection of these
auxiliary signs, the ingenuity of the inventor has room for ex-
ercise.   Two  principles may be here laid down.   In the first
place, as the auxiliary symbols are designed not  merely to
represent inflexions, but to facilitate their acquisition, nothing
is gained by rendering these symbols  entirely arbitrary.   In
the second place, since no  absolute  resemblance  exists in  na-
ture, between the forms of grammar and any species of visible
characters;  since every analogy to which we can  resort will
fail to be really self-explanatory, we must endeavor to render
the necessary conventions  as  few and as simple as possible.
To this end we must seize the principles, on which  inflexions
rest, and so  construct our svmbols, that the intelligence of any
individual one  shall elucidate the whole class to  which it  be-
longs.   In our language, the verb is the only element which
presents  an  extensive variety of inflexion.  In the case of this 
61
 element, our auxiliary symbols must  respect the nature of the
 verb itself, its modes and its tenses.   Let us consider tense by
 way of example.   If we establish a character denoting time,  it
 should be suited to exhibit a tense not  absolutely merely, but
 with relation to other tenses, whether present, past  or future.
 It is not to be  presumed that the signs employed in the New
 York Institution are incapable of improvement; yet advan-
 tage has been found in their use, and this  is sufficient to re-
 commend the subject to the attention of instructers.
   We are now in a situation to consider  the distinctive char-
 acteristics of different systems, and to determine, if we please,
 that which appears, to the eye of reason, the most  judicious.
 One essential difference  we have already  remarked,  viz. that
 which exists  between the instructers,  who have chosen to se-
 parate practical and methodical, or, to use  the  words of De-
 gerando, ordinary and  classical  instruction, and those,  who
 prefer to unite  these two branches into one.   This  principle
 of distinction by no means interferes with  another,  which  we
 are about to lay down.
   We have noticed a classification  of the instruments,  em-
 ployed to replace  speech.   We have seen  that it is the pro-
 vince of one  of these classes, more directly to represent ideas ;
 of the other, words.  The superior prominence which different
 systems assign, in practice, to one or the other of these classes,
 constitutes the  basis of  their widest differences.  On the one
 side, therefore,  stand the advocates of methodical signs; on
 the other, those of articulation.
   Two other species of systems remain, of  which the one re-
jects both the above  instruments, and  presents, in the use of
 writing alone, the  simplest form of the  art; the  other, adopt-
 ing both, the  most complex.
   After what we have said, it is hardly necessary to declare
 our preference.   In adopting  the views of those who are in fa-
 vor of articulation, however, we are admonished, by the extent
 to which our remarks have been protracted, that it is impossi-
 ble in this place to discuss the  merits, or even unfold all the
 peculiarities  of  the different  systems.  A brief recapitulation
 will nevertheless  show, that  the difference of opinion,  pre-
 sumed to exist among instructers, is vastly wider in imagination
 than in reality.   The controversies, in which De l'Epee was
 engaged, have had their effect in magnifying the distinctions,
 which really  exist.   They have created parties among men 
62
who should have been united in the inquiry after truth.   Had
our notions of the art been derived from the writings and the
experiments of those  who preceded that distinguished phil-
anthropist  in  the same field, we  should  have avoided  those
prejudices,  under the influence of which we have acquired the
information we possess ;  and we should have learned to regard
all  instructers of the deaf and dumb, rather as our  coadjutors,
than our opponents.  In what respect are the opinions of dif-
ferent masters really  at variance ?  In questions  merely  of
secondary   importance.  Perfect  unanimity  prevails  in  the
employment of writing.  No individual is  so absurd as  to re-
ject the language  of action.  No  one will deny the utility
of design.   Hardly a school rejects the manual alphabet.    None
question the expediency of employing the  oral  and labial al-
phabets, if  it be  practicable; and  few deny its practicability,
at least in many cases, where deafness is  not profound.   Me-
thodical  signs are  continually losing ground.  Minor  differ-
ences of opinion are continually vanishing, before the light of
knowledge.  Systems  are  amalgamating;  and the time may
be anticipated, as not far distant, when this art shall, like other
arts, upon  which  the light  of reason has been permitted  freely
to play, possess the character of unity which belongs to  them.
Why should the  views of  instructers differ ?  Truth is  every
where the  same.   Experience is every where multiplying its
results.  Whether we live  to witness the happy consummation,
or whether it shall be reserved for  another generation, perfect
unanimity will, nay, must  ultimately  prevail.
  To this  result, the  plan of correspondence,  established a
few years  since  by the Institution at  Paris, will  materially
contribute.  The  object of this  correspondence is to  bring
about an interchange of views among instructers, by the pub-
lication of their letters, either in full or in substance, in a bien-
nial circular.  But three publications of this nature have yet
appeared, of which  we  have affixed the  title of the third to
this article.   It is drawn up, we understand, as  was also the
second, by the able  Professor Morel, and  embraces memoirs
from various instructers, among which we  look in vain  for any
from an American hand.   In a country, which embraces with-
in its  limits at least three  institutions, in  numbers  surpassing
any three  in  any other,  we cannot view this circumstance
without mortification.  It would seem that a moral obligation
should be felt  among all those, who have  devoted themselves 
63
to this enterprise, to contribute, if it be but their mite, to  the
common stock of improvement.
   Little, in truth we may say almost nothing, is known of us in
Europe.   The following remark is taken from a memoir, pub-
lished by the Abbe Jamet,  instructer at  Caen, in the year
1S24.   ' In the United States, Clerc, a deaf and dumb person
of the school of Sicard, is at the head of the largest establish-
ment which has ever  been formed.'   To this  remark  is  ap-
pended a note, in  which the  number  of pupils  under Mr.
Clerc, at Hartford, is  stated at 600.  Errors so  gross as these,
would hardly find their way  into a similar paper in France, at
the present day; yet  we have  evidence enough, from  every
source, that information with respect to our establishments is
but scantily diffused,  and that whatever has been collected
abroad concerning  them, has been gathered  principally from
accidental sources.—We cannot but hope, that the instructers
of our country, impressed with a sense of their responsibilities,
as well to the world, as to the deaf and dumb  persons within
our own limits, will exert  themselves to  promote, as much as
in them lies, the design which the Institution at Paris has so
wisely planned.
   It is inquired why,  after so many years of practice, unanimi-
ty is not yet found to exist.   The causes are  various.   One
has been already signalized, and others may be easily assigned.
A great number of instructers have undertaken  their task, un-
der  the  influence  of the pernicious  prejudices particularly
specified in the commencement of this article.  We  have  had
occasion to observe the variety of views, which have been
taken of the intellectual condition of the  deaf  and dumb, be-
fore instruction.  These, too, have exercised an  injurious in-
fluence upon the  perfection of the art.   Another cause may
be found in the isolation of different instructers.   They have
failed to profit by common experience.   Another, still, in the
fact, that the  public at large have known nothing of the pro-
cesses employed in the schools.   The art has  been confined,
almost exclusively, within the circle of its  professors.   But
the cause, considered by  Degerando  as the most  important,
consists in the fact, that, to use his own words,  ' The art of in-
structing deaf and dumb  persons  has not  yet  mounted to its
true source, the study of psychology, and of general  grammar.
These two sciences are indeed the torches of the art.   It is
from their aid that it awaits the  views  destined to perfect its 
64
theory.  It is from the rank  of their adepts, that the instruc-
ters of deaf and dumb persons should go forth.   It is the suf-
frage of their masters, which should pronounce upon the merit
of its methods.'
   We cannot here  suppress  the  remark, which  the above
quotation suggests, that, in this country,  the employment  of
instructing  the deaf and dumb occupies a lower rank  in public
estimation, than in Europe.   And  to this cause we may attri-
bute, more than to any other, the supineness of those, who,
among us, have enlisted in its ranks.
   Cursory  as is the view which we have taken  of our subject,
it is exceedingly incomplete.  To those, who  would pursue
inquiries  respecting it with greater minuteness, we recommend
a careful  perusal of the work of Degerando ;  a work,  of which
we do  not pretend,  here, to  have offered even an imperfect
analysis.   What we have further to say, relates to the history
of the art.
   This history, for the sake of convenience, is divided by De-
gerando into two distinct  periods;  of which the first extends
from the earliest essays attempted  in  the instruction of the
deaf and  dumb, to the time of De l'Epee ; the  second,  com-
mencing  from that era, reaches our own  time.  The first pe-
riod comprehends a space of nearly two centuries,—the second,
little more than sixty years.   During the first, instructers were
few and scattered;  in the  second, comparatively numerous,
contemporaneous, and frequently  uniting their  efforts in the
same field of labor.   The first is the period of invention ; the
second of improvement.  The instructers of the first period
were occupied, chiefly, upon the mechanical means of replac-
ing speech;  those of the second, upon  the  logical  teaching
of language, and the cultivation of the intellect.  During the
first, the  oral and labial alphabets  were  the  instruments most
generally employed ; with the second, methodical signs make
their appearance, to the exclusion, in some instances, of artic-
ulation.  The first period is that, in which instruction is prin-
cipally individual; the  second is  the period of institutions.
During the first, the art seems to have constituted a species  of
masonry  ; its processes were a mystery, and each instructer
seems  to have guarded his secret knowledge  with  peculiar
jealousy.  Since the commencement of the second,  the veil
has been torn away,  systems  have been  opened to the light,
and the discussion of their merits invited.  The early instruc- 
65
ters generally followed their art as an instrument of gain.   The
later,  have,  in  many instances, pursued it at great personal
sacrifice.   They have regarded the  education of the deaf and
dumb  as  a part of  the  great  cause of  humanity; and have
been stimulated  to  put forth  exertion,  by a sense of duty.
The former seem, in most  instances, to have been ignorant
that others were, or  had been, laboring in the same field ;  they
have known little or nothing of their predecessors or contem-
poraries.   The  same processes have,  therefore,  been a first
and a second time invented ; and the art has, consequently, for
years,  made  little progress.   It is the  endeavor of modern
times to promote improvement by a union of effort, and, for
this purpose, to render the intercourse of instructers as frequent
and as  familiar as possible.   The first period may, consequent-
ly, afford more interest  to the curious inquirer; the second to
the professor, who is eager for practical information.
  We  have  asserted that, up  to  the commencement of the
sixteenth century, there existed no instructer  of the deaf and
dumb.   Rodolphus  Agricola,  a native  of Groningen,  who
first introduced into Germany the study of  Greek, asserts, in-
deed, as early as the latter half of the fifteenth century, that
he had  met a person,  deaf  and dumb from birth, capable  of
holding communication in writing.   We know not how impli-
citly this statement may be relied on.  Jerome Cardan, a dis-
tinguished mathematician of Pavia, born in 1501, throws out
some hasty observations, on the practicability of giving  deaf
and dumb persons a knowledge of language.   ' The  enterprise
is doubtless difficult,' he says, ' but it is possible.   Writing as-
sociates itself with speech, and, through speech, with thought:
but it may directly retrace thought  itself,  without the interven-
tion of speech ; as is seen in hieroglyphics,  of which the char-
acter is entirely ideographic'
  Spain may be called the cradle of this art. The first instruct-
er, of whom we have any authentic account, is Peter Ponce, a
monk of the order of St. Benedict at Ofia.   He published no
account of  his methods, and left behind  him  no  manuscript.
Our knowledge  of him is principally derived from the brief
notices of Francis Valles, and Ambrose Morales, two of his
contemporaries.   From these, we learn that he taught his pu-
pils to  speak ; and it is added by the former (what is very im-
probable) that, for this purpose, he employed only indicative
signs.   Another  writer tells us that, in  the  archives of the
                 9 
66
convent at Ona, is found a paper which attests, that the pu-
pils of Ponce ' spoke,  wrote, prayed  aloud, attended mass,
confessed, spoke Greek, Latin, Italian, (as well as Spanish) and
reasoned remarkably well upon physics and astronomy.' ' They
were,' said Ponce himself,' so distinguished in the sciences, that
they would have passed for men of talent, in the eyes of Aris-
totle.'   If this extravagant use of the hyperbole excite a smile,
it still affords evidence that Ponce was decidedly successful.
  Second in point of time, and the earliest  author of a practi-
cal  treatise  on the art, was  a countryman of the last, John
Paul  Bonet.   Urged, as  he says, by sentiments of  personal
affection, he undertook to  instruct  the brother of an officer of
state, to  whom he was secretary.   He seems to have  been
ignorant of what his  predecessor had  accomplished ; though,
with little reason, he  has been accused of borrowing his pro-
cesses and exhibiting  them as his own.  Bonet employed the
language of action, writing, dactylology and  the  oral alphabet.
His work  presents  the hasty outlines of a philosophic system.
The labial alphabet  appeared to him  an unavailable instru-
ment ; one, at least, which could not  be taught according to
any fixed method.
  After the publication of his work, however, in 1620, he ap-
pears to have successfully incorporated this  part of instruction
into his practice.   The chevalier Kenelm Digby, cited by De-
gerando, remarks of a deaf and dumb person, whom he  saw
in Spain, evidently a pupil of Bonet,  that ' though insensible
to the report of a cannon, he could distinguish, by sight alone,
the  words of others, and had himself learned to pronounce dis-
tinctly.   This person  was the younger brother of the consta-
ble of Castile.   Physicians and surgeons had  exhausted upon
him, in  vain, every species of  remedy.  A priest offered to
instruct him.   In the  beginning, none  would confide in him.
When he had succeeded, they cried out, a miracle! '   By
way of experiment, words were pronounced in presence of this
young man, both in French and English.   He repeated them
exactly.
  We are told of another  Spaniard, deaf and  dumb himself
from birth, but how instructed  Ave know not, by name Rami-
rez  de Carion, who taught one of his pupils, a person of rank,
to speak and write four languages.
  Beside Jerome  Cardan, other  writers of Italy early found
their attention arrested  by the  art, which at present occupies 
67
 us.   Among these, we find the names of Affinate, the author
 of a treatise not remarkable for its merit, ofFabrizio d'Aqua-
 pendente, and  of the  father Lana-Terzi, a Jesuit of Brescia.
 The latter, being occupied with a variety of curious questions,
 such  as the art of flying, the quadrature  of the circle, and the
 philosopher's  stone; of writing  in cypher, of the means of
 teaching the blind to read and write, and of telegraphic com-
 munication, fell naturally upon the" inquiry which forms the
 subject of this article.  He examined the mechanism of speech,
 and  the art of instructing the  deaf in the knowledge of lan-
 guage.
   Still, Italy affords us no early example, worthy of attention,
 of one who actually devoted himself to the task of instruction.
 The instance of Peter Castro, who is said  to have  educated
 the son of Thomas, Prince of Savoy, is  isolated.  In  1616,
 however, a work  appeared, which, from  the account we have
 of it, cannot but be of interest  to the  teacher  of fhe deaf
 and dumb.   Its subject is  the language of action, which its au-
 thor, John Boniface, has examined in a most voluminous trea-
 tise, in all its elements and all its applications.
   Degerando remarks, with a natural surprise, that, of all the
 writers, who, during this  period, have labored upon symbolic
 writing and secret  cyphers, no one seems to have recollected
 a most direct application of  those arts, to wit, the instruction
 of the deaf and  dumb.   He  instances  the example of Al-
 phonso Costodeau, who, in the course of twelve  volumes,
 treating of'the principal signs which are used in the represent-
ation of thought and the commerce of minds,' appears not even
 to have suspected the existence of those, created  by the deaf
 and dumb.
   England, in the  seventeenth century, presents  us with the
 names of Bulwer, Wallis, Holder, Dalgarno and  Sibscota, all
 of whom directed  their attention either to the theory or the
 practice of this art.
   The work of Bulwer saw the light as  early as 1648.   Not
 an instructer himself, he endeavors to be  useful in pointing out
 the path  to others.   Giving no attention to articulation, though
 including in his plan the labial  alphabet,  he is the first to pro-
 pose a system  of instruction  by means  of  signs.   Dalgarno,
 also, confined  himself to theory.   His system dispenses  with
the oral and labial  alphabets, and presents  the art in its sim-
 plest form. 
68
  Wallis, by common consent, seems to occupy the first rank
among the early English  instructers.   He was the author of a
treatise on speech, and of other occasional  papers, relating to
our present subject.  In a few instances he took the trouble to
teach articulation;  but  this  instrument he  afterwards aban-
doned ; not, however, because his views  of its  utility were
altered.  He avowed himself to be, as he believed, the  origi-
nal inventor of the art; a claim  which was  disputed by Wil-
liam Holder of Blechington.  Holder had, in fact, taught ar-
ticulation  to  a single  deaf and  dumb  person,  who, having
afterwards  lost the faculty, attained  it a second  time under
Wallis.  But  of him little is known, except  that his views
were rather superficial than otherwise.
  In passing to Holland, we  meet with  the name of Peter
Montans, who is said to have  offered some  remarks upon the
subject of teaching the deaf and dumb.    Those,  however,
whose  opinions are  best known, and most remarkable, are
Mercure  Van  Helmont  and John Conrad Amman.  These
men, both distinguished for the singularity of their views, ap-
pear,  notwithstanding the wildness of their notions, to  have
been moved by a spirit of philanthropy.   They agree in attri-
buting  to language a divine  origin ; in supposing  the original
language  of man to have  possessed properties, for which we
search in vain in the  degenerate dialects  of modern  days.
They beheld in speech, not merely a conventional instrument
of thought, but one possessing privileges,  high,  mysterious,
inexplicable.   Van  Helmont  held the opinion, that  there ex-
ists a  language natural to man ;—a language more  simple in
its construction and  in its pronunciation, than any now in use;
that this language is the Hebrew, in the characters of which he
seems to  discover a  resemblance  to the positions of the  vocal
organs, requisite to  give them utterance.   The  boldness of
these assumptions is a little remarkable, when we recollect that
the pronunciation of Hebrew is forever lost.   < Van Helmont,'
says Degerando,  ' pretended, in  three weeks, to have  put a
deaf and  dumb person in a condition  to answer, (by articula-
tion) questions addressed to him.'  This person, if we believe
Van Helmont, learned afterwards, in very brief space, the He-
brew  language, by his unaided efforts, in comparing the He-
brew  text  with a German translation of the Bible.   Of the
probability of this statement we leave teachers to judge.
  Conrad Amman  undertook the education of the deaf and 
69
 dumb,  without being aware  that  others  had preceded him,
 He became  afterwards acquainted with their works, and en-
 gaged in a  correspondence with Wallis.  We cannot  better
 convey an idea of his peculiar  notions respecting the human
 voice, than  by quoting his  own words.  ' There is in us,' he
 says,  < no faculty, which more strikingly bears the character of
 life, than speech.  I  repeat it, the voice is a living  emanation
 of that immortal spirit, which God  breathes into the body of
 man at his  creation.   Among the  immense  number of gifts
 from God to man, it  is speech, in which eminently shines the
 imprint of Divinity.   In like manner as the Almighty created
 all things by his word, so he gave to man, not only, in an ap-
 propriate language, to celebrate worthily his Author ; but,
 farther, to  produce  by speech  whatever he  desires, in con-
 formity with  the laws of his existence.   This  divine mode of
 speaking almost disappeared  from the  earth, along with so
 many  other  perfections,  at that  unhappy  epoch, the fall.
 Hardly, in the long course of ages since  elapsed, has the pre-
 cious  prerogative been accorded to a few privileged  individu-
 als.  These were no other than  souls, sanctified and united to
 God by fervent  and  continual prayer ; who, interrogating the
 very essences of things, have been  endowed with  the  gift of
 miracles.  These holy personages have exhibited to the view
 of other men traces  of  an  empire,  once common  to all, but
 which most have suffered to escape.' *
   If such notions excite  surprise, we cannot but smile, when
 we find the same writer gravely questioning, whether the apos-
 tles, on the day of Pentecost1, really spoke in different tongues  ;
 or attained  by immediate  inspiration that  efficacious speech,
by means of  which the  well disposed of every  kindred and
 people and tongue and nation, simultaneously comprehended
their thoughts.
  Amman  did  not,  like  Van Helmont, pretend to restore
speech to deaf  and dumb persons in a moment.  He tells us
that he found infinite  and almost incredible  pains, continued
during a whole  year, more or less, required to instruct a single
individual.   Yet, in one instance, he  pretends to  have met
with  signal  success in the  space of three months.  Amman
troubled himself little  with the philosophical instruction of lan-

  * Dissertation sur la Parole, &c. a  translation, printed at the close of
the volume of Deschamps.  Paris, 1779. 
70
guage.  It may be said both of him and of Van Helmont, that,
admitting the truth of all their narrations, their pupils doubt-
less  used  words with very imperfect knowledge of their sig-
nification.
  In Holland, as in Spain and England, the art fell during a
long period into total disuse,  after the time of its first invent-
ors.   Our attention  is next attracted to Germany.   Names
here begin  to  multiply.  We  are presented with  those of
Kerger, Ettmuller, Wild, Niederoff, Raphel, Pascha, Pasch,
Schulze,  Conradi,  Solrig, Lasius,  Arnoldi, - and Heinicke.
Among such a multitude we can notice only individuals.
  It is asserted,  we may first remark, by  Father  Gaspar
Schott, in a  work, published in  1642, that he had  personally
seen or ascertained the existence of many deaf and dumb per-
sons, who had learned to read upon the lips.
  Kerger, assisted by his sister, undertook the task of instruc-
tion  at Liegnitz in Silesia, early in  the  eighteenth  century.
He availed  himself at once of  design, of pantomime, of the
oral and labial alphabets, and of writing.   Of dactylology he
makes no  mention ; but of the utility of the language of ac-
tion, he expresses himself in the highest  terms ;  entertaining,
in this respect, views materially  resembling those of De l'Epee
at a later period.
   Contemporary  with   Kerger, was George Raphel,  the
father of three  deaf and dumb  children.  Led first by paren-
tal affection  to become an instructer, and having subsequently
succeeded even beyond his  hopes, he committed to paper an
account of his  method, for the information of others.   This
work was first published at Lunenburg, in the year 1718.
  Lasius confined himself to the teaching of language under
a visible form.  He made use neither of the manual  alphabet
nor of design.   Arnoldi, on the other hand, gave to this latter
instrument considerable expansion, and taught the use of the
oral and labial alphabets.  He employed  also pantomime, but
only so far as it is the work of the deaf and dumb themselves.
   Samuel Heinicke was the director of the first institution for
the  deaf  and  dumb, established under  the patronage  of a
government. This institution was founded at Leipzig in 1778.
Heinicke  had,  before this  time, announced in the public pa-
pers, that, in  the course  of six weeks, he had taught  a deaf
and  dumb  person  to  answer, by  writing, whatever ques-
tions were proposed to him.  Arnoldi, says Degerando, could 
71
 not but declare, that such a result seemed to  him incompre-
 hensible.  Still,  Heinicke was a man of no common  ability ;
 and his success is attested by the reputation, which  obtained
 for him the direction of a-public institution.  But  he was, at
 the same time, a man of immeasurable self-conceit, irritable in
 his temper, rude, coarse and overbearing in his manners.  In
 consequence of the existence  of such traits in his character,
 though his pupils were the  principal sufferers,  all who had
 to  do with him  were  subject  to  more or less  annoyance.
 He attributed to himself the honor of invention, but  so far as
 his processes have come to  the light, they  afford no justifica-
 tion of his claim.   In some trifling  particulars,  his  methods
 were indeed peculiar.   He placed instruments in the mouths
 of his pupils, to regulate the positions  of the vocal organs in
 emitting sounds.  And  he asserted (what is very improbable,)
 that he had made particular sensations of  taste to correspond
 to particular articulations.   Heinicke  was  a believer in the
 exclusive prerogative of the voice  to serve as an instrument of
 thought.   Otherwise, his views were  eminently in accordance
 with sound philosophy.
   Intuition was the basis of his methods.   Those, indeed, who
 read the  article in the  Encyclopcedia Americana, may be led
 to suppose it something peculiar  to him.   But such a suppo-
 sition would be unjust to others.   Heinicke was not  alone in
 believing, that ideas should  precede  names ;  though, to the
 due observance of this  principle,  his success is very much to
 be attributed.   After the death  of Heinicke, his widow con-
 tinued to direct his  institution.   From this school  sprang M.
 Eschke, afterwards director of the  institution at  Berlin.
  France seems not only to have been behind other European
 nations in her efforts  for  the education  of  the deaf and
 dumb, but even in  the knowledge of what had been accom-
 plished abroad.   Hence , when at length she saw the advo-
 cates  of  this unfortunate class spring up within her limits, she
 opposed to them  all those prejudices, which had  elsewhere
 found their refutation in actual experiment.   Still there exists
testimony, that the  practice of the art had not been  wholly
unknown, even in France,  before the time of Pereire and
Ernaud.   In 1769, a man deaf and  dumb  from birth, named
 Guibal, is recorded to have made his will in writing; and from
 the evidence of his knowledge produced in  court, the will was
confirmed.  We  have  also some further  evidence that the 
72
 deaf and dumb were instructed ;  but nothing satisfactory until
 the time of  Father Vanin,  who  rested  instruction, as we
 have seen, principally upon the use of design.
   After him  sprung up  Pereire, a Portuguese.   Two of his
 pupils, whom he exhibited, at different times, before the Acad-
 emy  of Sciences,  were  remarkable  for their  attainments.
 These were Saboureux de Fontenay, and D'Azy d'Etavigny.
 Pereire made a secret of his processes.  He offered to disclose
 them for a suitable consideration ; but this  consideration being
 withheld, they perished with him.  It is  even  said that he
 bound his pupils by an oath, not to  discover his modes of in-
 struction ; and made them a secret  even to his family.  We
 know, nevertheless, that  the grand  instrument  of his system
 was a method  of syllabic  dactylology ; which, by its  rapidity in
 exhibiting words,  enabled him, to a great extent, to rely on
 usage to explain their  meaning.   He was,  nevertheless, ap-
 prised of the advantage of a logical method, in the teaching of
 languages.   Few, if any, have  been more successful  than
 Pereire.  Of  his pupil  Fontenay,  De  l'Epee records,  that
 he translated foreign  works, and  himself composed a number
 of productions designed for the press.
  Ernaud, as well as Pereire, obtained the  approbation of the
 Academy of Sciences.   He employed himself very much  in
 reviving the sense of  hearing, where  it  was  partially  lost.
 He asserts,  indeed, that  he had met with no instance of en-
 tire deafness.  Articulation was, of course, his principal instru-
 ment.
  The  Abbe  Deschamps  published,  in  1779,  a  work on
 the instruction of the  deaf and  dumb.   To  this  branch  of
 education, he  devoted, in  practice, his fortune and  his life.
 Acknowledging the practicability of instructing by means  of
 signs, he still accorded the preference to articulation and the
 labial alphabet.  He refused,  therefore, though solicited,  to
 unite  himself  with the Abbe  de  l'Epee.   Shortly after the
 publication of his work, he was assailed by the deaf and dumb
 Desloges, who very  earnestly  vindicated the methods of De
l'Epee, and spoke, in the most enthusiastic terms, of the lan-
 guage of action.
  In glancing  at the second period of this history, we have  to
 regret that our notice of  it must be but a glance.   The Abbe
de l'Epee commented  the labor, to which  his entire life, and
the whole of his pecuniary means  were afterwards consecrated, 
73
with completing the  education of two twin sisters, who had
been  pupils  of Father  Vanin.   The  grand feature of his
system we have already  noticed.  It consisted in  giving to the
language of action the highest degree  of expansion, and  ren-
dering it, by means of methodical  signs, parallel to that of
speech.   He attempted also the task of teaching articulation ;
and, as  we have seen, was  the author of a treatise on this
branch of the art.   The actual success of the Abbe de l'Epee
was far from being equal to that of his successors, or even his
contemporaries.   In a letter to  Sicard,  written  in  1783, he
says,  ' Do not hope that your pupils can ever express  their
ideas by writing.   Let  it suffice that  they translate our lan-
guage into theirs, as we  ourselves translate  foreign languages,
without being able to think or to express ourselves  in those lan-
guages.'   He has  more  to the same  purpose.   With  the
evidence of Pereire's  success, in the case of Fontenay, under
his eyes,  these  views are  certainly  remarkable.   De  l'Epee
commenced the  preparation of a dictionary of signs, which was
never published.  He felt himself, from  time to  time, called
upon to defend  his views.  He  seems,  voluntarily, to have
thrown down the gauntlet to Pereire.   With Heinicke he held
a controversial correspondence of some  length, in which  that
instructer seems to have exhibited  very little courtesy.  A
third time he came into collision with Nicolai, an  academician
of Berlin.  The Abbe Storck, a disciple of De l'Epee, had
established a school in the latter city;  and  it was from the
exercises  of a  public exhibition, held  by  the  former,  that
Nicolai' took occasion to attack the system of instruction.   The
details of these controversies, though interesting,  are too ex-
tensive to be exhibited here.
   A few years after the  death of De l'Epee, was established
the Royal Institution of Paris, to the direction of which Sicard
was summoned.   It was the endeavor of this instructer, whose
title to our veneration is beyond dispute, to perfect the views
of his  immediate  predecessor  and master; and  to carry out
fully in practice  the theory, which  makes  the instruction of
the deaf and  dumb  a  process of  translation.   Of Sicard's
success, we have living evidence in  our own country, in the
case of M. Clerc at  Hartford ;  whose  acquaintance at once
with the French and the English languages leaves nothing to
be desired.  Massieu, also, whose education forms the subject
of an entire work from the  pen of his master, is an astonishing
                   10 
74
instance of the extent to which  the  intellectual  faculties of
deaf and dumb persons may be cultivated.  We cannot refrain,
in this place, from noticing  a few of the answers of these
pupils to questions,  of the nature  of  which they could have
had no previous intimation.
  When Clerc was asked if he loved the Abbe  Sicard,  he
replied in  the following  words.  ' Deprived at birth  of the
sense of hearing, and, by a necessary consequence, of speech,
the deaf and dumb were condemned to a most melancholy veg-
etation; the Abbe de l'Epee and  the Abbe Sicard were born,
and these  unfortunate persons,  confided to their regenerating
care, passed from the class of brutes to that of men:  whence
you  may  judge  how much I must  love  the  Abbe  Sicard.'
  Massieu, being once asked the difference between God and
nature,  replied,  ' God is the first Framer, the  Creator of all
things.   The  first beings all  sprang  from his divine bosom.
He said to  the first, ' you shall produce the second ;' his wishes
are laws,—these laws are nature.'
  ' Eternity,'  he said, ' is  a  day without yesterday or to-
morrow.'
  ' Hope  is the flower of happiness.'
  ' Gratitude is the memory of the heart.'
  In this second period of the history, it is impossible that we
should  proceed  further,  with  any thing like particularity.
Germany  affords us the names of  Neumann, Eschke,  Cassar,
Petschke,   Venus,  Wolke,  Daniel,  Stephani,  Ernsdorffer,
Scherr, Neumaier, Gaeger, Siemon, GrasshofF, and  a multitude
of others ; Switzerland those of Ulrich and Naef; Holland of
Peerlkamp  and  the  Messrs.  Guyot;  England   of Watson,
Arrowsmith, and Roget;  Scotland of Braidwood  and Kinni-
burgh ; Spain of D' Alea and Hernandez, and Italy of Scagliotti.
France also presents us  with  many names, among which we
notice those of Bebian, Piroux, Perier Jamet, Dudesert, Gon-
delin, Ordinaire, Valade,  and  Morel; to the  last,  we under-
stand, was intrusted, at the Royal Institution, the  preparation
of the second and third circulars.   It would afford  us pleasure,
here, to examine, specifically, such of the productions of these
individuals as have reached us; but our  own  country exacts
of us the space which yet remains.
  In April 1815, were taken the first steps toward the  erec-
tion of an institution for the deaf and dumb in America.  A
feeble beginning, in the establishment of a small private school, 
75
had been previously made in  Virginia.   But  of this nothing
was known, at least no account was taken in Hartford.   An
interesting girl, the daughter of a highly-respected physician
in that city, had lost her hearing at the age of two years.   The
Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, having  become interested in her case,
visited Paris, for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the
system, employed  in the Royal Institution.   Returning, he
brought with him M. Laurent Clerc, whose  name has been
already mentioned, and  with  whose assistance he laid  the
foundation  of the  Connecticut Asylum.   This  institution,
which, having since experienced the fostering care of the Fed-
eral  Government, has assumed the  more exclusive epithet
American, has always  maintained a very  high  reputation.   It
has produced, at least while under  the direction of Mr. Gal-
laudet, pupils remarkably distinguished for their attainments.
Of these, George H. Loring  of Boston, who was retained for
some years as an assistant instructer,  after the completion of
his education, acquired so  great a facility in  the use  of  the
French language, as to astonish native Frenchmen with whom
he conversed.  Articulation  never formed a part of Mr. Gal-
laudet's system.  He employed methodical  signs,  to a great
extent, in his practice, but not without a careful previous  de-
termination  of  their corresponding  ideas.    He  made it an
important part of his plan, to lead his pupils to the formation
of habits of reflection upon the operations of their own minds;
believing, very justly, that intellectual expansion will be more
rapid, as the  power of discrimination, between ideas having no
palpable representatives, is increased.  Mr. W. C. Woodbridge,
editor  of the American  Annals of Education, was  an early
associate of Mr. Gallaudet.   From this school, also, proceeded
Mr.  Peet,  principal of  the  institution   in the city of New
rork.
  The American Asylum likewise lent its aid to the establish-
ment  of the Pennsylvania  Institution upon  a  secure basis.
This school, first a private seminary commenced by David G.
Seixas, was erected into a public  institution, by an  act of the
State Legislature, passed in February, 1821.   Soon after,  Mr.
Seixas having been removed,  Mr.  Clerc spent some time at
Philadelphia, and  was succeeded,  on his return to Hartford,
by Mr. Lewis Weld, an instructer of the same school.   Mr.
Weld was,  in 1830, recalled to Hartford, to supply the place
of Mr. Gallaudet;  who, to the deep regret of every friend to 
76
the deaf and dumb, ceased, in the autumn of that year, to direct
the American  Asylum,  and retired  from the  employment.
The Pennsylvania Institution, under the direction of Mr. Abra-
ham B. Hutton, has from that time continued to proceed with
distinguished success.
   The first movements made  toward the establishment of an
institution  in  the  city of  New York, originated in  1816,
' in consequence,' as we  are informed by Dr.  Akerly, its first
director, ' of a letter written by a dumb person in Bordeaux,
offering to come to  this country to establish a school.'   In the
beginning of 1817, a public meeting was held on the  subject,
at which many gentlemen, believing that two institutions were
unnecessary, and could not be sustained, opposed the project.
A better acquaintance with the statistics  of our population soon
rendered the necessity of another establishment self-evident.
More  than sixty deaf and dumb persons were ascertained to
exist in the city of New York alone, and the returns were still
incomplete.  An act of incorporation was  obtained in April
1817.   Under this  act, a school was opened in the spring of
1818, which, struggling  against many difficulties,  principally
self-created, it is true, continued for years to languish  on, but
seemed to hold its  existence by a very uncertain tenure.  It
was the early error  of this institution,  to employ men entirely
inadequate to the task they had undertaken.   Its results were
consequently so  unsatisfactory  as to shake the confidence of
its friends,  and ultimately even of the Legislature, on which it
was dependent, in  the capacity of  its  conductors.   They
afforded also ample ground for the strictures which occasionally
appeared, aimed  directly or indirectly at the  institution,  and
which were believed at New York to originate in a spirit of
hostility  to  its  interests.   It was further believed, upon no
reasonable ground whatever, that this spirit was cherished in
the American  Asylum and industriously propagated by  its
friends.  The utmost forbearance  was  certainly exhibited by
that institution, under imputations the most uncharitable,  and
most directly suited to  excite indignant  feeling ; and  any one
who knows Mr. Gallaudet,  knows also that he is incapable of
being influenced, even  for a  moment, by any unworthy motive.
Something  like  a  controversy  seemed,  notwithstanding, to
spring up between the schools of New York  and Hartford.
We remark  with some  surprise, that  this controversy em-
braces very little that is essential, in the art of instruction. 
77
It seems to relate entirely to the language of  action ; and not
even here to involve the question commonly  agitated on  this
topic, viz. how far this  language should be employed in prac-
tice ; but only to concern the visible form of the signs used in
the two institutions.
  It is asserted in the Encyclopaedia Americana, that the New
York Institution originated its own system of instruction.  This
statement, here first made  in a standard work, is not indeed
novel, neither is it true.   The teachers at New York endeav-
ored, to  the  best of their ability, to walk in  the footsteps of
Sicard.   If, in the mere form of their signs of reduction, they
differed  from the  school  of Paris, nothing more  was true of
them, than is true of half the European institutions at the present
day.  Uniformity among many institutions, however desirable,
is not essential within the walls of one.
  It has been asserted that signs do not admit of description,
and that those employed by Sicard cannot be gathered from
his  works.   His  Theorie des Signes, it is true, is far from be-
ing a dictionary of such as  deserve  to  be called methodical;
or such  as were used by  him  to  abbreviate the  indication of
words in practice.   But this reasoning, as applied to the New
York Institution in its infancy, rests  upon a false basis.   The
pupil is  the book in which the teacher  must read.   He  brings
with him all the signs which are available to him, in the com-
mencement of his education.   The  number of these maybe
increased as the circle of his ideas expands ;  but their parti-
cular form is far from being  essential to  the  purposes  which
they are to fulfil.   The  Abbe Jamet, at Caen, has instituted
his  own  system of methodical signs, rejecting  those of Sicard.
In like manner, the instructers at New York had  theirs, many
of which are still held in recollection  among  the  pupils, and
are still  intelligible.
  But the real evils under  which the New  York Institution
labored,  the real points of  difference  between   it and the
institution at Hartford, were  the incompetency of its  teach-
ers, in  the artificial nature of the instrument on which they
chiefly  relied, or  their  neglect  to  avail themselves of any
thing like logical method in the teaching of language.  They
erred, in encumbering  the memory  of  the  pupil with isola-
ted words,  designated, each by  its  methodical  sign, while
the proper  use of  those words, in connected discourse, was
yet but imperfectly understood.   We  have had visible evi- 
78
dence,  in  a multitude  of instances, that their  pupils were
accustomed to regard written language, not as  a practical in-
strument of communication, available under all circumstances,
but as a possible means of exhibiting particular propositions.
  We must admit,  therefore, that the New  York Institution
did not  early fulfil the  purposes of its charitable founders.
The year 1830 was, however, the era of a radical reformation.
It was during this year that Mr. Vaysse, from the Institution
of Paris, entered upon his duties at New York ;  and that Mr.
Peet, the principal, previously for nine years an  instructer in
the  American Asylum, concluded  to  accept  the  situation,
which he  has since continued to fill.
  Mr. Vaysse and Mr.  Peet brought  with  them the methods
and the signs, in use at  Paris and at  Hartford.   As a natural
consequence,  the  institution at  once assumed a character,
which it had never before possessed ; and which immediately
won for it anew  the  confidence, which  had before been par-
tially withdrawn.  Uniformity, too,  in  the sign  language, if
that be  considered an advantage worth mentioning, was, by
means of this  revolution, rendered universal among American
institutions.  There now exists but a single sign dialect, in the
schools  for the deaf and dumb on this continent.
  The system of methodical signs, early, as we have seen,  in
use at New York, was, after the arrival of Mr. Vaysse, grad-
ually abandoned.   The advantages,  consequent upon  thus
shaking off the yoke of an artificial system, have been striking-
ly perceptible.  Thus France,  at whose  hands our country
first received the art, has furnished  us with its most decided
improvement here, in the correction  of her own great original
error.
  The New York Institution, on its new  basis, is now proceed-
ing  with remarkable success.  In addition to the methods al-
ready employed, it is  seriously considering the  expediency  of
introducing articulation ; the number of its pupils, capable  of
acquiring  such a means of communication in  some degree
through the ear, being sufficient to warrant the attempt.
   Beside  the establishments already noticed  as existing  in
America, there is a  school for  the  deaf and dumb  in  Ken-
tucky, another in Ohio,  a third at Canajoharie, New York, and
a fourth in Quebec.   All  these  have derived  their  methods
from  the  American  Asylum.   That  at Canajoharie, having
been established merely  for temporary purposes, by the Legis- 
79
lature of the State of New York, will probably be discontinued
in 1836.
   In reviewing the labors of American teachers, we cannot but
be surprised that so  little has been done by them towards the
preparation of books.   It is an admitted fact, that the deaf and
dumb need exercises, written  expressly for their use.   Yet,
among us, nothing has been  done, worthy of note.   Seixas
and Gallaudet published, indeed, some disjointed exercises, but
upon these, we presume, they did not desire to  stake  their
reputation.  In the year 1821, there appeared, at New York,
a course of lessons by Dr. Samuel Akerly, which from its ex-
tent might  seem to challenge  criticism.   Had the doctor, in
preparing  his work, fully understood the nature  of his under-
taking, we should have been disposed to meet the challenge.
To do so under existing circumstances,  however, since his
book has  neither  been found  practically useful in the New
York Institution, for which it was originally designed,  nor any
where else, would be a mere waste of words.
  The want of printed lessons is the disadvantage under which,
at present, American  institutions chiefly labor.   To  remedy
this  deficiency, along  with that of a systematic  series of de-
signs, is  the point,  toward which the labors of instructers
should, for the time, be principally directed.  Cannot a  con-
gress of teachers be established ? Cannot an union of effort be
attempted ?  Cannot a division of labor  be determined, which
shall  cause  its advantages to  be felt by the deaf and dumb
now existing ?   We  have, hitherto, had too little" concert.
We have been employed rather in  creating, than in perfecting
institutions.   We have been struggling, as we still are, against
pecuniary  embarrassments.   We have been laboring that the
patronage  of the Federal Government, already extended to
two  seminaries, might  foster   also our  undertakings.   We
have toiled,  not so much for celebrity, as for existence.  Con-
fident in the belief, that the claims of the deaf and dumb would
ultimately be acknowledged in their fullest extent, we have
sought to  establish  points, around which the public charity
might rally, and pour out,  upon  its objects, its blessings in
their most efficacious form.  For the Northern United States,
these points are determined.   For the Southern, they remain
to be designated.  Virginia owes it to her character, and to
the  numerous deaf and dumb persons within her limits, speedi- 
80
ly to create one.*   Another, or it may be  two, will be requi-
site for the South-western states.   Regarding the promptitude
of our countrymen to meet the calls of justice or of charity, in
whatever form presented, we cannot doubt that  the wants of
the deaf and dumb will soon be supplied ; and that the public
beneficence, already extended to a portion, will,  before  the
lapse of many years, be accorded to the whole.

  * By an act of the  Legislature of Virginia, passed during the ses-
sion of 1832-3, a charter was granted for an  Institution to be situated
at Staunton, a  position nearly central in the State.  This place  was
selected in compliance with the conditions of a very liberal donation,
said to have been made by one of its  inhabitants for the purposes con-
templated by the law.   It is not known that  any measures have yet
been taken to carry the provisions of the act into effect. 
o
*- 
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