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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    This boy [shown] illustrates oro-acoustic training. He repeats Andrew, John, Monday, and other well-defined words, when pronounced behind his back, but often fails at such words as Robert, &c. These latter he pronounces distinctly when they are spoken before his open eyes. Now, why should this boy's remaining speech and hearing not be used in teaching him. He is a little too deaf to be taught along with hearing children in an ordinary school, but his ears are still the best road to his brain. If he were blind to a similar degree, we would give him lenses to assist him, but we would never think of leaving his remaining vision unused. If he were lame to this extent, he would be provided with crutches. Why, then, is there no corresponding utilisation of the hearing of the semi-deaf? The deafness which has shut him out of the Board schools is only a little greater than that which makes some of the pupils in the Board schools appear stupid and backward. The difference is not in kind, it is only in degree, and not in great degree. And yet the gulf which separates the methods by which the two are educated is enormous. To ignore this boy's hearing, and especially to instruct him even partially on the finger system, is little short of a social crime. And this criipae is systematically committed in the Deaf and Dumb Institutions of this country . I am not here as the advocate of any one system for the education of the deaf as a class. I believe the oral system to be applicable to a large minority of the deaf. I would give every child the chance of succeeding on oral training, but, after a fair trial, varying from six months to two years, I would hand him over frankly and finally to the finger-teachers if he did not promise well. The finger method must, I think, be used in the education of at least a half of the deaf, perhaps even a larger proportion. Most of the totally deaf, all those with defective eyesight, all those markedly deficient in intelligence, the very few who have defective vocal arrangements, and all w^ho have failed under the' oral or oro-acoustic methods, must use the finger method. The heaviest indictment that I have against the finger method is, that under it the semi-deaf get deafer and soon totally dumb. This is a grave and serious assertion, made now, so far as I am aware, for the first time. I shall, therefore, proceed to prove it. Two years ago, when going over the children then in the Glasgow Institution,
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