A consideration of the welfare of deaf children and the duty of the medical profession / by Charles Smith Turnbull.

  • Turnbull, Charles Smith, 1847-1932.
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A consideration of the welfare of deaf children and the duty of the medical profession / by Charles Smith Turnbull. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    guage difficulty had been solved for the deaf, and natural everyday speech given, that they should be transferred to ordinary schools for the purposes of education proper, very kindly invited a number of her old pupils to meet me at supper next evening. The boy who sat next to me was at a grammar school, and he told me he was intending to be an engineer. They were all doing exceedingly well at school, as their reports plainly showed, and as I could readily understand from their fluency and accuracy in the use of everyday speech. I had the pleasure of giving them a short lesson after supper on some birds’ eggs, which some of them had brought. They were easy to teach, and, what is very unusual with many of the orally-taught deaf, the work could proceed quite rapid- ly- One of the secrets of this success is no doubt due to the fact that the children never go home for holidays during the first six years of instruction, which means that the continuity of speech training is unbroken. I have no doubt the ad- vantage of that is quite clear to all teachers, who have experi- enced the disastrous results of a long holiday away from school, often in a wretched home, where the influences are entirely opposed to all that goes on in school. This is one of Miss Garrett’s strong points, and it shows with what per- tinacity she has carried out her ideas and fought the question through in order to secure her ends, both in legislation, with the parents, and, unfortunately, with teachers. I believe that the influence of this one school in America will count for much in the future. It is already beginning to tell, and there are signs in many of the larger schools that fresh ideas and new thoughts are in the air in regard to the teaching of the deaf. What strikes me, is that with the present attitude of the “powers that be” in our own country, it would be impossible to drop a lump of leaven like this into our midst at the expense of the State. This elasticity applies not only to Miss Garrett’s school in America, but to all schools that I saw. Freedom to teach is given to the school by the State, and freedom to invent, and adopt, and try new methods, is given to the teachers in the schools. Mistakes are made, but the general gain is greater than the loss, and the deaf schools in America in this respect honestly reflect the general national spirit which allows the apprentice at the
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