Remarks upon the education of deaf mutes : in defence of the doctrines of the second annual report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities and in reply to the charges of the Rev. Collins Stone.

  • Samuel Gridley Howe
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks upon the education of deaf mutes : in defence of the doctrines of the second annual report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities and in reply to the charges of the Rev. Collins Stone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    denial of it would be a denial of the importance of the great senses. The morbid tendencies, however, are not strong— certainly not irresistible—at least with the blind. They are educable, like all tendencies and dispositions, and by skilful management may be turned to advantage. Certainly, how- ever, they ought to be lessened, not strengthened, by educa- tion. Now, they are lessened, and their morbid effects 1 corrected in each individual, by intimate intercourse with : persons of sound and normal condition—that is, by general society; while they are strengthened hy associating closely i and persistently with others having the like infirmity. They, I themselves, seem to have an instinctive perception of this, and the most delicate of them feel the morbid tendency which may segregate them from ordinary people, and put them in a special class. Some of them struggle against it in a touching manner, as the fabled nymph resisted meta- morphosis into a lower foi'm of life. They seem to cling to ordinary persons, as if fearing segregation, and strive to conform themselves to their habits, manners, and even appearance. They wish to look, to act, to be, as much like others as is possible, and to be con- sidered as belonging to ordinary society, and not to a special class. It is generally supposed that this feeling, especially in the blind, arises only from the fact that blindness and poverty are associated together, and that poverty calls forth contempt, lightened, in their case, by pity. But the feeling has a deeper source. It is very strong in those of delicate and sensitive natures, and it ought always to be respected iand encouraged. Our principle in treating them should be ithat of separation and diffusion, not congregation. We are I 8
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