Klaproth. 10.60 24.20 7.80 24.580 42.60 75.420 57.40 100.000 100.000 The first of the above analyses is given in Poggendorff's Annalen, of a sample of the water procured from the north end of the sea, near the mouth of the Jordan. DEAF AND DUMB, persons who can neither hear nor speak. That such have existed in all ages is evident from the not infrequent allusions to them both in sacred and profane writings. The idea of attempting the restoration of the lost faculties, or of repairing the loss by education, seems never to have occurred to the ancients. In many instances the authorities connived at, if they did not openly approve of, the destruction of such children, who it was thought could be of no benefit to the state. Among the Hindoos, in the "Ordination of the Pundits," or code of Gentoo laws, it was decreed that whoever was "deaf from his mother's womb," or whoever was dumb, should be classed among persons incapable of inheritance. But, though excluded from inheriting, they were not left without provision; for the person who superseded them in the inheritance was bound to support them in the language of the ordinance, to allow them clothes and victuals. The code of Justinian, promulgated in the 6th century A. D., assumes throughout that deaf mutes from birth are incapable of managing their own affairs; placing them in this respect on a footing with the insane, idiots, and those suffering from permanent and incurable disease, in requiring guardianship. The same code also provides that they should only buy and sell by the aid of a curator or guardian; that they should not have the power of altering the descent of property, or of making a gift, even with the assistance of a curator. They could not make a will, or a codicil, or create a trust estate, or make a donation contingent on the death of the donor, or emancipate a slave. A singular provision of the code deserves notice. Justinian allows to those who are deaf from birth, but yet able to speak, the privileges of which deaf mutes had been deprived. Pliny, more than 400 years earlier, had said: "There is no person deaf from birth who is not also dumb." The feudal governments of western Europe, making the code of Justinian the basis of their laws, placed the deaf mute under similar disabilities. Pitiable indeed was the fate of these children of silence during the long ages of ignorance and darkness. If the advent of Christianity had prevented their murder as useless incumbrances to society, they were still left as fit companions for the idiot and the maniac. Without instruction, or any means of acquiring it, they knew nothing of the earth on which they trod or the heavens above them; if their powers of imitation enabled them to acquire some facility in the mechanic arts, this might suffice to supply the craving of the body for employment, but what should satisfy the longings of the restless spirit? Some with outstretched hands sought the alms they could not ask; others, grovelling in indolence, sank to the level of the idiots with whom alone they could associate. Yet even in the early ages of the Christian era there were not wanting those who, with infinite pains, sought to communicate instruction to the deaf mute, although the law had pronounced him incompetent to receive it. The venerable Bede relates that, in 690, John, bishop of Hagulstad, taught a deaf mute to speak, and to repeat after him words and sentences. In 1442 Rodolphus Agricola of Groningen, in his De Inventione Dialectica, speaks of having seen a deaf and dumb person who had learned to understand and practise writing. About 1550, Pedro Ponce de Leon undertook, and with considerable success, the instruction of the deaf and dumb in Spain. His labors seem to have been confined mainly to teaching reading and articulation. He relates, as instances of the successful results of his teaching, that one of his pupils received ordination as a priest, and performed his parish duties acceptably, and that another became a military officer and distinguished himself in martial exercises. In 1560 Joachim Pascha, chaplain of the elector Joachim II. of Brandenburg, instructed his own deaf-mute daughter, by means of pictures, mimic signs, and other methods of his own devising. Not far from the same time Girolimo Cardan, the eccentric Italian philosopher, detailed, in an essay which he published, the principles of deaf-mute instruction, though he never reduced them to practice. In 1620, about 36 years after the death of Ponce de Leon, Juan Paulo Bonet, a Benedictine monk of Spain, published a treatise entitled Reduccion de las letras y artes para enseñar a hablar los mudos ("Reduction of Letters and Arts for Teaching the Dumb to Speak"). In this treatise he represents himself as the inventor of the processes he describes, viz., mimic signs, dactylology, the oral alphabet, and writing. His work contains the first engraving of the single-hand alphabet, so generally in use throughout Christendom, and he is believed to have been its inventor. In Italy, at this time, a number of eminent philosophers were turning their attention to the subject. Affinate published an essay about the commencement of the 17th century on teaching the deaf to speak. Giovanni Bonifacio wrote a treatise on the language of action in 1616; Fabrizio di Acquapendente wrote upon the phenomena of vision, voice, and hearing, and on speech and its instruments. In 1629, Ramirez de Carion instructed the prince of Carignan, a deaf mute. Some authorities say that Ramirez himself was deaf and dumb, but had acquired sufficient education to be capable of teaching others. Some few years later, Pietro di Castro, chief physician to the duke of Mantua, instruct or. His ed the son of Thomas, prince of Savoy, who plete with sound principles and important sugwas a deaf mute. Castro died in 1663. In gestions of practical value, that it ought to be Holland, Peter Montanus published a work on familiarly known to every instructor." In 1690, the instruction of the deaf and dumb in 1635. John Conrad Amman, a Swiss physician, residIn 1644, John Bulwer, a philanthropic Englishing at Haarlem, undertook the instruction of a physician, published his "Chirologia, or Natural girl deaf and dumb from birth. His methods Language of the Hand," and in 1648, "Philo- were founded on articulation. His success cophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend." was decisive; but it was not until his essay In the latter work he refers to the account he giving an account of his processes, and enhad received from his friend Sir Kenelm Digby titled Surdus Loquens (the "Speaking Deaf of Pedro Ponce's success in the instruction of Man"), was passing through the press, that the deaf and dumb. Camerarius and Gaspard he learned what others had done in this field, Schott had, in the early part of the 17th century, and commenced a correspondence with Wallis. published works in Germany, on the instruction He subsequently published an enlarged ediof the deaf and dumb. In 1653, Dr. John tion of his treatise, under the title of DisserWallis, mathematical professor at Oxford, men- tatio de Loquela. In 1679 a deaf mute from tions, in the preface to the 5th edition of his birth in France, named Guibal, made his will in Grammatica Linguæ Anglicana, that he had writing; it is not known who was his instructinstructed two deaf mutes to articulate distinct- In 1667 F. M. Van Helmont published a ly, adding that he had also taught them (an small tract in Holland, entitled Alphabetum entirely different matter, he observes) to under- Natura, in which he explained the process of stand the meaning of language, and thus to use reading on the lip, or learning what another it in speaking, reading, and writing. The num- person says by watching the motions of his lips ber of pupils under his care was never large, in speaking. About the commencement of the but he seems to have continued to instruct deaf 18th century, the instruction of deaf mutes bemutes for nearly half a century; for in 1698 he gan to attract the attention of scientific men was still engaged in the business, and gave a throughout Europe. In 1704 Kerger published detail of the plan he was pursuing in a letter to a narrative of the results of his efforts. Thomas Beverley. He deserves the credit of sister was associated with him in the work of being the first practical instructor of the deaf instruction. The means he used were drawing, and dumb in England; and in a paper published pantomime, articulation, and writing. He does in the "Philosophical Transactions" in 1670, he not seem to have employed dactylology, but he distinctly enunciates the fundamental principle had cultivated the language of signs with sucof De l'Épée and Sicard, that we may form con- cess. Contemporary with Kerger was the pasceptions in written as well as in spoken language, tor Georg Raphel of Lüneburg, of whose 6 and states that in the work of deaf-mute in children 3 were deaf and dumb. Paternal affecstruction he proceeded from certain actions and tion had inspired him with zeal and skill in their gestures, which have a natural signification, to instruction, and in 1718 he published, for the convey ideas not already understood. The pri- benefit of others, the result of his labors. A few ority of his invention was disputed by Dr. Wil- years later, Otho Benjamin Lasius gave to the liam Holder, rector of Bletchington, who as- world the narrative of his process of instruction serted that he had, in the first instance, taught of a deaf and dumb pupil. He had taught articPopham, one of Dr. Wallis's pupils, to speak. ulation and writing, and at the end of 2 years Dr. Holder published in 1669 "Elements of his pupil could answer important questions on Speech, with an Appendix concerning Persons religious subjects. The pastor Arnoldi was a Deaf and Dumb." In 1670, George Sibscota contemporary of Lasius; he gave instruction to published a little work entitled the "Deaf and the deaf and dumb, using for the purpose all Dumb Man's Discourse." The work is mainly the methods previously employed-articulation, theoretical, and he, like Wallis and Bulwer, had drawing, dactylology, writing, and the natural derived most of his ideas indirectly from Pedro signs. Samuel Heinicke was, however, by far Ponce. The same year the Padre Lana-Terzi, the most distinguished of the early teachers of a Jesuit of Brescia, published a treatise on the the deaf and dumb in Germany. He had beeducation of the deaf and dumb and the blind. come interested in the instruction of a deaf and In 1680, George Dalgarno, a Scotchman, but dumb child as early as 1754. In 1772 he had then the preceptor of a grammar school at Ox- 4 deaf-mute pupils, to whom several others were ford, published a work called "Didascaloco- afterward added. In that year he removed to phus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor," in Leipsic at the invitation of the elector of Saxwhich he expresses a preference for written ony, and opened a school for the deaf and dumb language and a manual alphabet over articula- there with 9 pupils, the first ever established tion and reading from the lip. He was the in- or supported by the civil government, and which ventor of the two-handed alphabet now in is to this day in existence and prosperity. His general use in Great Britain. The "Didasca- method of instruction was by articulation and locophus" was republished in the "American reading on the lip. His success was very conAnnals of the Deaf and Dumb" for Jan. 1857. siderable, and his noble and generous character The editor, Prof. Porter, remarks of it: "It is endeared him greatly to the people of Germany. a work of such preeminent ability, and so re- In a controversy with the abbé de l'Épée on the merits of their respective modes of instruction, he appears to less advantage than in any other part of his career.-In France, Father Vanin or Farnin, a member of the order of Christian brothers, attempted the instruction of deaf mutes toward the middle of the century by means of pictures and sensible objects. The ideas thus conveyed seem to have been very crude and imperfect. Rousset of Nimes also made some efforts for their instruction about the same time. A more remarkable and successful teacher of these unfortunates was Jacob Rodriguez Pereira, a Spaniard of Jewish extraction, who commenced their instruction in 1743, and in 1749 exhibited some of his pupils before the academy of sciences at Paris. From the report of that committee it appears that his success had been extraordinary for that period; it would even be considered creditable to any of our institutions at the present day. "The pupils," say the committee, 66 were able to understand whatever was said to them, whether by signs or by writing, and replied either viva voce or by writing; they could read and pronounce distinctly all sorts of French expressions; they gave very sensible replies to all questions proposed to them; they understood grammar and its applications; they knew the rules of arithmetic, and performed exercises in geography; and it appeared that Pereira had given them, with speech, the faculty of acquiring abstract ideas." Pereira carefully concealed, even from his own family, the methods he employed in the instruction of the deaf and dumb, though he offered to impart them to the government for a large sum, which was refused. It was his intention to leave them, it is said, as an heirloom to his family, but a fire which occurred soon after his death destroyed all his papers, and thus prevented their being benefited by them. He himself had attained position and wealth by his instruction of the children of some noble families, and by the address with which he followed up his advantages. Saboreux de Fontenai, one of his most distinguished pupils, published after his death an account of the means adopted by his teacher for the instruction of the deaf and dumb. From this we learn that, beside the ordinary methods of articulation, reading from the lip, and the manual alphabet, he had invented a syllabic dactylology, by the use of which he could communicate very rapidly with his pupils, and having thus supplied them in a short time with an extensive vocabulary, he was able to conduct their further education with little more difficulty than would be experienced in instructing speaking pupils. Ernaud appeared a few years later before the academy of sciences, to solicit their attention to his efforts in behalf of the deaf and dumb. His pupils do not seem to have made great advancement in education, but he had been successful in restoring hearing to several who were congenitally deaf. The abbé Deschamps of Orleans is deserving of credit for his philanthropy, at least. Commiserating the condition of the deaf mutes, he devoted his life and fortune to the work of teaching them, but unfortunately adopted the system of articulation, and met with but indifferent success. In 1779 he published his Cours élémentaire d'éducation des sourds-muets. The man, however, to whom the deaf and dumb of the world are more indebted for the means of education than any other, is the abbé de l'Épée. His natural disposition, habits, early training, and education, had fitted him for a philanthropist, and when two young deaf-mute girls were thrown in his way under such circumstances as to call forth his sympathies, he entered upon the work of their instruction with a zeal which knew no abatement to the day of his death. His first pupils were gathered in 1755, and entirely from the indigent deaf and dumb. To them alone did he devote himself, refusing the children of the rich, and expending with the most judicious prudence the income of his little patrimony for their support and education. At the commencement of his labors he had read nothing on the subject of the instruction of deaf mutes, and it was not till the second year of his teaching that he saw a copy of Bonet's treatise, and still later that of Amman. He tried at first the method of articulation, but the number of his pupils increasing he became dissatisfied with the result; and remembering the principle which he had learned in youth, that "there is no more natural and necessary connection between abstract ideas and the articulate sounds which strike the ear, than there is between the same ideas and the written characters which strike the eye," he sought for some medium other than articulate sounds by which to represent to the minds of these deaf-mute children the ideas which he wished to convey to them. This medium he found in the language of signs, that natural method of communication by which the most savage tribes of different languages and countries are able to converse to a certain extent with each other. He found this existing to a considerable degree among the uneducated deaf and dumb, as being the only means by which they could make known their physical wants. he amplified, improved, and systematized, with the intention of making it an equivalent of ordinary language, so that the process of instruction should be a mere translation of the ideas of written language into the language of signs. It is alleged, and with some truth, that he forgot in this process that the minds on which he was at work possessed but few ideas, and that to make a sign to them of whose meaning they had no conception, and then to show them that that sign was equivalent to a word of whose meaning they were also ignorant, was but to use an algebraic formula-to tell them that x=. That the good abbé too often mistook signs for ideas is probably true; yet there is abundant evidence that his pupils comprehended very clearly much of what he communicated to them. The full advantages of the sign language, and its This language capacity for full and free intercourse, and for more ready, complete, and extensive expressions of thought and feeling than any written language, seem not to have been appreciated by him, at least not to the same extent as by his successor; but to the abbé de l'Epée belongs without question the honor of having demonstrated the capability of the natural language of signs for the instruction of the deaf and dumb, when collected in masses; and also of having been the first to collect together indigent deaf mutes in any considerable number for education. In 1760, 5 years after the opening of De l'Epée's school in Paris, Thomas Braidwood of Edinburgh advertised that at his academy in that city he taught the dumb to speak, and also cured impediments in the speech. Articulation was taught, and little or no attention given to the language of signs. At a period a few years earlier, Henry Baker, the naturalist and microscopist, had given some attention to the instruction of deaf mutes in articulation. Both Baker and Braidwood kept their processes secret, and Braidwood succeeded in monopolizing in his own family and near relatives the business of the instruction of the deaf and dumb for 60 years. In 1783 Braidwood removed his school to Hackney, near London, where he died in 1806. His widow, assisted by her grandchildren, maintained the school till 1816, when it was given up. Thomas, the elder of the two grandsons, took charge of a new institution at Edgebaston, near Birmingham; and John, the younger, went at first to Edinburgh, and after a year or two to Virginia, where he attempted the establishment of an institution for deaf mutes; but though warmly seconded by several gentlemen of wealth and influence, he was so addicted to habits of intemperance, that he was under the necessity of giving it up. The processes of the Braidwoods, though guarded from the public with such jealous care, seem to have differed in no important respect from those of Wallis and Dalgarno. Their success, according to the testimony of impartial observers, was not equal to that of the abbé de l'Épée, and was very far inferior to that of Sicard; and though highly commended in a work published in 1783 by an American gentleman whose child had been educated there, under the title of Vox Oculis Subjecta, yet in the majority of instances their system made the pupils mere parrots rather than intelligent, thinking, educated men and women. Dr. Watson, a nephew of the elder Braidwood, who acquired his knowledge of the art of instructing the deaf and dumb from his uncle, and afterward practised it at the asylum in Kent road, London, made many improvements in his processes, and, mingling judiciously the use of natural signs with articulation, succeeded in giving to his pupils a much better education than Mr. Braidwood had ever imparted.--Meantime in France the abbé Sicard, a hearing pupil of De l'Épée, and at the time of his death at the head of an institution for deaf mutes at Bordeaux, had succeeded him at Paris. Though inferior to his Mr. master in philanthropy, he was intellectually his superior, and soon found opportunity to improve the methods of instruction in the institute, which was now under government patronage. He expanded and simplified the sign language, and no longer bound it to the conventional rules of written language. Surviving the reign of terror and the administration of Napoleon, in neither of which it had greatly prospered, the royal institution for deaf mutes, as it was called under the Bourbons, saw brighter days, and under the direction of Sicard and Bebian became the leading institution of its class in Europe.-In 1815 several gentlemen in Hartford, Conn., whose interest in the education of the deaf and dumb had been primarily awakened by the fact that the interesting and lovely daughter of one of their number, an eminent physician of the city, was a deaf mute, sent the Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudet, a young and highly educated clergyman, to Europe to qualify himself to become a teacher of the deaf and dumb. Gallaudet sailed, May 25, 1815, for Liverpool. Arrived in England, he immediately sought the accomplishment of the object of his mission; but found himself thwarted by the influence of the Braidwoods and their relatives, who refused to communicate to him their alleged secret processes, except on condition that he should remain 3 years under instruction, and then take one of Dr. Watson's assistants, or John Braidwood, then in America, into partnership with him. As the parties who had sent out Mr. Gallaudet had contemplated no such plan, and as it was not only unnecessary but illiberal, Mr. Gallaudet refused to enter into such an arrangement; and after attempting in vain to obtain the requisite instruction at Edinburgh, where Mr. Kinniburgh, a pupil of the Braidwoods, was teaching, he visited France, was cordially received and cheerfully instructed by the abbé Sicard, and after 3 months of careful investigation of the processes adopted by the abbé, returned to the United States, bringing with him M. Laurent Clerc, an educated deaf mute, and one of the abbé's most successful teachers. On April 15, 1817, the New England, or, as it was soon afterward named, the American asylum for the deaf and dumb, was opened at Hartford, with Mr. Gallaudet for principal, and M. Clerc as assistant teacher. It received a donation of $5,000 from the state, which was subsequently expended in the education of indigent deaf mutes, and in 1819 from congress the grant of a township of land in Alabama, which by careful management eventually produced a fund of nearly $300,000, the income of which is applied toward defraying the current expenses of the asylum. The other institutions for the deaf and dumb having been established at a later date, and adopting the same general system of instruction with the American asylum, the method in use in this country may properly be termed the American system.-It may aid in giving a clear idea of the instruction of the deaf and dumb, if we devote a little space to the consideration of the three systems which have been adopted in different countries. I. The system of Wallis, Pereira, Heinicke, and Braidwood proceeded on the theory that articulation is necessary to the clear comprehension of thought; that though signs may communicate vague ideas, there can be no precision of thought without words. This theory has been so utterly overthrown within a few years past that it is not probably main tained by any intelligent instructor of the deaf and dumb at the present day; but the system of instruction inaugurated under it is still practised to a considerable extent on the continent of Europe. Under this system the first 2 years of instruction were devoted to learning articulation almost exclusively; this was effected by placing before the pupil a written or printed word, which the teacher pronounced slowly and audibly, causing the pupil to place his hand upon his throat and to watch his lips as he did so. The pupil was then required to make the attempt to pronounce the word himself; and after repeated trials, if possessing good powers of imitation, he generally succeeded. Another word was then acquired in the same way, and so on. It must be obvious, however, that unless the idea of the meaning of the word was conveyed to the mind of the pupil by some other process, his repetition of these words must be like that of a parrot; and this can only be accomplished by signs of some sort. There is a marked difference in deaf mutes in regard to their ability to acquire the power of articulation so as to be able to speak intelligibly; those who have become deaf after having learned to speak, and those whose vocal organs are pliable, and who possess the imitative faculty in a high degree, acquire the power of articulation with great readiness; while those whose vocal organs are rigid, who are congenitally deaf and dumb, or who possess sluggish intellects, find great difficulty in acquiring the power of speech. Most deaf mutes who speak use a monotonous tone, and some a harsh and unpleasant one, while others modulate the voice without any reference to the sense. Occasionally, though rarely, one is found who, by thorough familiarity with the structure and action of the vocal muscles and long and patient practice, has acquired the art of speaking so well as to excite no suspicion of deafness. Probably no instructor in articulation ever taught it so successfully as Pereira. His pupils, Saboreux de Fontenai and D'Azy d'Etavigny, mingled freely in society, and were in the constant habit of conversing fluently; both were deaf mutes from birth, but there is abundant evidence that nothing in their tones of voice indicated that they were deaf. Seguin even affirms, in his life of Pereira, as a fact of which he was personally cognizant, and which was well known, that Pereira himself being a native of Spain, and speaking with a Spanish accent, all his pupils spoke with the same accent. The mechanical art of articulation and of reading on the lip being acquired, the pupil is thenceforth taught the meaning of words and the sciences in much the same way as a child who can speak. II. The system of the abbé de l'Epée, as improved by Sicard and Bebian, differs from the preceding in every respect. Starting with the principles that there is no necessary or inevitable connection between the word which is the arbitrary sign of a thing and the object for which it stands, and that every idea of which the human mind is capable may be expressed by one or more signs, signs too which even the uneducated can generally understand, the process first attempted was to fix in the mind of the pupil the signs which represented simple objects, and those which readily attracted his attention, such as clothing, food, drinks, parts of the body, the ground, water, grass, fruits, vegetables, domestic animals, men, women, &c.; next, the various relations and circumstances of themselves and others, such as the school, institution, college, officers, domestics, mechanics, laborers, merchants, &c. These attained, subjects more abstruse were represented by the same language of signs, such as the idea of God and spiritual beings, facts of history, science, philosophy, chemistry, numbers, measures, weight, time, &c.; then the organic qualities of man and animals, diseases, properties of matter, action of the body, of the mind, and finally of the moral nature. At an early period instruction in written language is commenced, and the pupil is required to write out narratives communicated to him in the sign language, or to relate by signs facts which he has been made to read. As he advances, he is exercised in the same way on abstract ideas. Having thus acquired two languages, that of signs and written language, his education progresses much in the same way as that of ordinary children, except in the mode of communicating knowledge. The sign language is the natural mode of expressing ideas between individuals who cannot speak the same language; and although the usage of different countries would of course cause differences of dialect, yet with such care have the signs in ordinary use beer selected, that the Rev. W. C. Woodbridge affirms that "he has employed it or seen it employed with success, in conversation with an American Indian, a Sandwich islander, a Chinese, and with deaf mutes in various parts of the United States, and in England, Scotland, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy." III. The American system may best be described in the words of one who took part in its development, and who had practised it for many years, the late Rev. W. C. Woodbridge: "Mr. Gallaudet has combined the fundamental principle of Heinicke, 'first ideas, then words,' with that of De l'Epée, that the natural language of signs must be elevated to as high a degree of excellence as possible, in order to serve as the medium for giving the ideas clearly, and explaining them accurately.' He has added another of no small importance, that as words describe rather the impressions or states of mind produced by external objects than those essential qualities |