Papers on deaf-mutism / by James Kerr Love.

  • Love, James Kerr, 1858-1942
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Papers on deaf-mutism / by James Kerr Love. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    settled it in a very ofF-hand way, and drowned those born deaf. Amongst the Spartans, Greeks, and Romans, no attempt was made to educate them, or in any way to ameliorate their condition. They were considered a misfortune, and even a disgrace, both to the family and the nation. The problem of their education was never faced, and they perished with less consideration than the brutes. These latter days have been marked by great activity in settling the difficulty. The duty of educating our deaf is never now questioned. We know that most of the deaf can be made useful and intelligent citizens. Tremendous energy has been expended in bringing about this happy result. Rival systems have sprung up for its production, and the question before us is not— whether it is to be done or not, but how we may best do it. On this question debates have been held, congresses have sat, books have been written—and I need not add that over it many people have lost their temper,—and it is not settled yet. The bone of contention is this—Shall we try to make our deaf use articulate speech or not 1 Shall we give them a system of easy readable signs, natural and artificial, by which they can rapidly communicate with each other, but which hearing people, as a rule, know nothing about, and care less j or shall we try to make their eyes do the duty of ears, picking up from our lips what we say; and by a close imitation of what our mouths and lips do, shall we try to make the muscles of articulation in the deaf produce articulate speech ? In other words—Shall we use the oral or the .finger language 1 Now, if I were to rehearse the arguments used by oralists and manualists, I would not reach the special part of my work to-night, and Mr. Addison would not have a hearing at all. Opinions differ as widely as the poles. Many persons hold that the oral system is all a mistake, that the time spent on it is lost time, that all the orally trained find this system inadequate, and that they ultimately turn to the*finger language. The other side—the pure oralists—are just as loud in their advocacy of the oral system as the manualists are in its denunciation. Two years ago, Mr. Van Praagh, of the London Oral Association, wrote me as follows :— Every deaf child can be educated on the oral system except the idiot and the blind. What I would like to show you is, that both of these state- ments are wrong; nay, that they must be wrong. I will give you a 2yriori reasons for holding that all the deaf cannot be educated properly on any one system. The attempt to train ail the deaf
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