With the Author’6 Compliments. 
Practical Hints to Parents 
CONCERNING THE 
PRELIMINARY HOME-TRAINING 
OF 
Young Deaf Children. 
BY 
JOSEPH C. GORDON. 
WASHINGTON : 
Gibson Bros., Printers and Bookbinders. 
1886. PRACTICAL HINTS 
TO 
Parents of Young Deaf Children 
CONCERNING 
■ PRELIMINARY HOME-TRAINING. 
BY 
v/ 
JOSEPH C. GORDON, M. A. 
Professor of Mathematics, etc., in the National College for the Deaf j 
Washington, D. C. 
Reprinted from the American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb /or October, iS8j : 
Revised and enlarged, with a Supplement. 
WASHINGTON : 
Gibson Bros., Printfrs and Bookbinders, 
i886. TO 
THE 
MEMORY 
OF 
FRANCIS GREEN, M. A.,_, 
Author of “ Vox Oculis Subjecta.” London, 1783. 
Born in Boston, 1742: Died in Medford, Mass., 1809. 
He urged the EDUCATION OF THE DEAF upon citizens of NEW-YORK, in 
1781. 
He published a plan and pleaded fob the organization of a FREE-SCHOOL fob 
the Deaf in LONDON, in 1783. 
He secured the first CENSUS of the Deaf (in Massachusetts) in 1803-4. 
Throughout these tears his leisure was employed in “ propagating the 
KNOWLEDGE OF THE PRACTICABILITY OF THIS EXTRAORDINARY ART ” BY 
MEANS OF LETTERS, BOOKS, TRANSLATIONS, AND CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO THE PUBLIC PRINTS OF THE DAY. 
Familiar with the methods of Amman, of Braidwood, and of De l’Epee, he 
favored a COMPREHENSIVE SYSTEM of instruction for the deaf, 
WHICH WELCOMED ALL KNOWN METHODS AND DISCARDED NONE. 
To THIS FIRST PROMOTER OF THE EDUCATION OF THE DEAF IN AMERICA, WHO 
PLOWED THAT OTHERS MIGHT SOW AND OTHERS STILL MIGHT REAP, 
THIS PAGE IS DEDICATED. PREFA CE. 
These pages have been prepared from the notes of an informal lec- 
ture, given in fune last, upon invitation of Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, 
before the “parents' class ” in Mr. Bell's school. Through the liberality 
of Dr. Bell this lecture is to have a much -wider circulation than -would 
have been otherwise possible. The original form has been retained for 
convenience, though this revision embraces considerable additions to the 
lecture as printed in The American Annals, besides a Supplement. 
For the views expressed the writer alone is responsible, though he has 
been careful to make no suggestions which are unsupported by weighty 
reasons or by the authority of professional experts. In fact, the Hints 
are justifiedfor the most part by observedfacts in detail, and experienced 
educators will perceive underneath the suggestions imperfect outlines 
of the principles of modern pcedagogics in their special application to 
the training of the deaf. 
Though addressed primarily to intelligent parents, these outlines may 
prove useful to teachers charged with the first steps in the educatio7i 
of deaf children whose preliminary home-training has been neglected. 
Questions and suggestions from various quarters, since the first pub- 
lication of the Hints, led to the addition of the Supplement, portions of 
which the writer trusts will be found not destitute of value to many of 
his professional fellow-workers. 
References to authorities in detail are not practicable, but the author 
is under special obligations to the Abbe Tarra, President of the Milan 
Convention, the lamented Padre Marchio, Dr. E. Seguin, Dr. Hirsch 
of Rotterdam, and Professor Goguillot of Paris, as well as to those 
whose natnes appear in place upon the following pages. 
Kendall Green, 
Dec. 10, 1883. 
y. c. g. Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf 
Children Concerning Preliminary 
Home-Training. 
However decided our individual preferences may be for favor- 
ite solutions of the problems which confront us as educators 
of the deaf, it is a happy omen that in'America, at least, there 
is no recognized shibboleth, and all thoughtful instructors 
earnestly unite in the prayer for “more light,” while they con- 
tinue to “seek a more excellent way.” 
Gratifying, promising, and suggestive as individual experi- 
ments are which have passed under my observation or come to 
my knowledge, it seems most fitting that I should confine these 
remarks, so far as practicable, to buds which have fulfilled their 
promise in the rich fruitage of matured culture and character. 
We generally agree that much may be done at home for very 
young deaf children in the way of preliminary instruction, and 
that this home-training is for the most part sadly neglected, 
though it must be said that increasing numbers of deaf children 
are receiving home instruction before entering the special 
schools, and the effect of this course is, in general, both a proof 
of its value and an encouragement to all intelligent parents to 
the performance of duty. 
As soon as deafness in a child is discovered there is need for 
the development of dormant powers, not so much, at first, 
those of the child as those of the parents. They find them- 
selves called to duties before undreamed of, and from which they 
may naturally shrink, but great will be the reward if they de- 
vote themselves courageously to the work before them. To 
this end it is well to acquire a general knowledge of the current 
literature pertaining to deaf-mute instruction. This may be 
found in the educational quarterly entitled The American 
5 6 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
Annals of the Deaf and Dumb * It is well, also, to procure 
copies of the primary books in language used in our schools 
for the deaf.f Every one of these little books has merits of 
its own, and parents can find many helpful suggestions in the 
authors’ introductions. To become familiar with the extreme 
simplicity of expression to be cultivated when the use of alpha- 
betic language is attempted, such books as these should be 
studied with care; and further to familiarize one with “ simple 
truths simply stated,” such papers for the school-room as The 
Helper, a weekly printed at the Jacksonville (Ills.) Institution, 
may be read with advantage. 
In addition to this special literature, the charming pages of 
Rousseau’s Emile and Pestalozzi’s Leonard and Gertrude, as 
published recently in abridged English translations, may be 
read with profit. Parents will find also suggestive and helpful 
matter in Miss Patridge’s Quincy Methods, and in Col. Francis 
W. Parker’s sprightly journal, The Practical Teacher. 
Many of our older institutions used to print, in their reports, 
instructions to parents,—the Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New 
* For articles of special value in this connection see extracts from D. 
Hirsch’s Advice to Parents, etc., Annals, xxii, 93-103; Early Home 
Training of Deaf-Mute Children, translated from report of the Royal 
Wiirtemberg Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb for I8i.9, xxiv, 9-26 ; 
Padre Marchib on Respiration, etc., quoted by D. Greenberger, xxvi, 
112-125; Upon a Method of Teaching Language to a very young Congen- 
itally Deaf Child, by Dr. Alexander Graham Bell, xxviii, 124-138. 
t Jacobs's Learning to Spell, to Read, to Write, to Compose—all at the 
same Time. D. Appleton & Co., New York. 
Keep’s First Lessons. Case, Lockwood & Co., Hartford, Conn. 
Kinsey’s Exercises in Articulation [with language lessons] for Deaf 
Children. W. H. Allen Co., London. 
Latham’s First Lessons. Van Antwerp, Bragg & Co., Cincinnati, Ohio. 
I. L. Peet’s Language Lessons. [Action and Object-Writing.] Baker 
& Taylor, New York. 
Van Praagh’s Lessons for the Instruction of Deaf and Dumb Children 
in Speaking, Lip-Reading, Reading and Writing. Trlibner & Co., London. 
Stainer's Hill’s Object Lessons and Language Book for Deaf Children, 
for use with Hill’s Colored Illustrations. [Hill’s Object Pictures, 24 
plates, 384 Colored Illustrations mounted on boards, or in book-form, on 
cloth.] A. N. Myers & Co., London. 
Stainer’s Sounds, Syllables, and Words—4 sheets. Deaf Children’s 
Home, 80, Pentonville Road, London. 
Miss Sweet’s First Lessons. American Asylum, Hartford, Conn. Concerning Preliminary Home-Training. 
7 
York being especially full,—and it is to be regretted that this 
practice lias not been followed more generally. 
[The speaker here exhibited a manuscript copy of the Ken- 
tucky instructions, a recent circular of instructions to parents, 
guardians, etc., prepared by Mr. Crouter, principal of the Penn- 
sylvania Institution, and the 27th Report of the New-York 
Institution, 1846, from which he read copious extracts.] 
Many of the suggestions just read, if faithfully put into 
practice, would be of far greater value than anything I can 
say, but I may add here a few words in regard to the use of 
signs or gestures, with particular reference to children born 
deaf or deaf from early infancy. While, for others, the circum- 
stances of each case decide the course to be pursued, for these, 
the sign-language, in the hands of its masters, is, in my opinion, 
an invaluable means of instruction, especially in the early stages 
of their education. By means of it, the skilful teacher annihil- 
ates obstacles of time and space, and history becomes a living 
panorama, every quarter of the globe is transported to his school- 
room and becomes a present reality to his pupils, the stories so 
delightful to infancy become a part of their heritage, and the long 
line of Bible stories, with their sublime lessons, is woven in fade- 
less colors into their very being. To arouse dormant powers, to 
convey facts, to interpret relations, to stimulate the imagination, 
to appeal to the emotions, to regulate the passions, I know of 
no satisfactory substitute for the gesture language ; and thrice 
fort mate do I count those deaf children whose youthful minds 
are developed under the inspiration of the able master whose 
hands pluck the stars from their courses, who brings the rolling 
sea to his feet, whose arms become trees, and in whose fingers 
the budding flowers burst into bloom. 
The highest interests of the deaf demand, however, intelli- 
gent recognition of the fact that this powerful instrument of 
instruction is liable to be used to their serious detriment by 
hindering assiduous practice in the use of alphabetic and spoken 
language, the language of the people among whom the deaf are 
to live, and instructors well may heed the words of the dis- 
tinguished Canon Carton, who said, in 1845, that “ the results 
obtained in all institutions which have not adopted the pro- 
longed use of signs testify, in a peremptory manner, against 
the necessity of their prolonged use.” 
Still more pointed are the utterances of Dr. E. M. Gallaudet, 8 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
who, holding that the sign-language has an essential and by no 
means narrow place in any broad and sound scheme of educa- 
cation for the deaf, at the same time warns instructors against 
the use of signs, except in those cases where it is absolutely es- 
sential and best for the mastery of our language, as a danger- 
ous thing, and would have pupils in our institutions use the 
sign-language under rigorous restrictions. Dr. Gallaudet says : 
“ if we want the children of our institutions for the deaf and dumb 
to master the English language, what have we to do with the sign-lan- 
guage ? I answer, as little as possible. I would not be misunderstood ; 
there are uses to which the sign-language is put that are invaluable, and 
while I say that the education of the deaf and dumb child may be con- 
ducted witnout the sign-language, I do not say that it can be best done 
without the aid of the sign-language.”* 
This admitted tendency to the unnecessary and pernicious 
use of signs, which needs to be so jealously guarded against 
especialty by teachers who are adepts in the sign-language— 
whose chief business should be the teaching of the national 
language as a means, and not as an accomplishment, or an end, 
—should not deter any intelligent parent from using signs in 
this early and preliminary stage of the child’s education. 
All authorities of recognized prominence in the world per- 
mit, if they do not commend, the use of signs at this stage 
adapted to the degree of the child’s mental development. 
Thus the Abbe Tarra, the foremost authority upon il metodo 
orale-percettioo-puro, in his exposition of this method, says of 
the period before the mechanism of speech has been mastered: 
“It is permitted, however, during this preparatory period, to 
the deaf-mute remaining in his natural ignorance, to serve him- 
self, for his restricted physical and moral needs, with the signs 
and indications which he originates, guarding, however, care- 
fully against furnishing him with occasions for increasing their 
number and forming them into a language.”! 
But what signs are available for the parent who is not, and 
cannot be expected to be, a master of the language of gesture ? 
I would suggest: 
1st The facial signs and the gestures which mothers use 
* Proceedings 7th Convention of American Instructors, 1870, pp. 25, 
60-67. 
t Cenni Storici e Gompendiosa Esposizione, 1880, p. 14; French tr., 
1883, p. 18. Concerning Preliminary Home-Training. 
9 
almost unconsciously, and which all children read, expressive of 
pleasure, pain, approval, disapproval, fear, fatigue, desire, etc. 
2d. Gestures descriptive of things and suggestive of actions, 
often made by persons of demonstrative habits and commonly 
understood by all men. 
3d. Such signs as persons having no common language might 
resort to in trying to make themselves understood. 
4th. Any decorous signs used by the child or understood by 
him which serve to recall an idea with ease and rapidity. 
I have purposely omitted all reference to the sign classifica- 
tions which have done duty in many a wordy battle and are of 
interest chiefly to metaphysicians. For our purpose the prin- 
cipal requirement is that the sign shall designate a known 
idea with reasonable clearness, and that it shall be composed 
of so few elements as to serve the purpose of rapid recall. 
Trained intellects require formulae and symbols, as in mathe- 
matics, chemistry, and music, to convey thought through the 
eye in a condensed form. Ideas which could hardly be conve3red 
at all by alphabetic language»wlien thus expressed are seized 
readily and rapidly. Very much in the same way and for the 
same reason the little deaf child requires signs as symbols in 
the apprehension and expression of related thought. 
The deaf child sees and feels as other children do, and imagines, 
remembers, compares, forms judgments, etc., but upon very im- 
perfect data; hence it is important to cultivate and enlarge his 
means of communication, to encourage his mental activity, and 
to pursue a course which will give us an intelligent child to deal 
with when we alvance to conventional and alphabetic language. 
No parent need fear that the knowledge and even extensive 
use of gestures must of necessity prevent the acquisition of our 
vernacular. There are living examples of deaf-born persons, 
largely pupils of early American instructors, who habitually 
express their thoughts by writing or finger-spelling in idiom- 
atic English, of which no man need be ashamed. And under 
favorable conditions with the super-added advantages of oral 
training, we may expect even greater attainments by greater 
numbers. It is a well-known principle that the knowledge of 
one language does not prevent the mastery of another, provided 
the latter is persistently used ; and just as Celtic or Gaelic or 
German spoken by children at home yields to English taught 
and spoken in the schools, so may the language of gesture be 10 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
made to yield to our vernacular, when, realizing the importance 
of it, teachers and pupils resolutely work to accomplish this end. 
Having, then, a means of communication which you may feel 
free to use, let no time be lost before you begin the moral train- 
ing of the child. As he is a keen observer of outward actions 
around him, there is special need on the part of the family to 
set him a good example. Deal with him firmly, gently, and 
lovingly, granting him no improper desire. The child’s sense 
of right and wrong requires judicious training. It is closely 
allied with his sense of giving pleasure or pain, and this affords 
the clue to its proper development. The idea of ownership is 
usually manifested very early. Respect the property rights of 
the child, and train him to respect other persons’ property. 
Train him to confess his faults manfully, and to avoid evasion 
and concealment, so often born of fear. In this, example may 
prove very effective, especially if there are brothers and sisters 
in the family. Prompt obedience is to be aimed at, but your 
point of view may be so very different from the child’s that often 
the end may be best gained by patiently waiting for compliance. 
If correction or punishment must be resorted to, let the case 
be clear to the child, the penalty equitable, and administered in 
private so far as possible, and with a loving heart. 
Absolute seclusion of the child as a punishment should be 
avoided. The risk of harm is great, the benefit often doubtful, 
and the hardship, in the case of a deaf child, is especially se- 
vere. 
A busy boy is rarely a “ bad ” boy. He should have his round 
of daily duties, for occupation and for the moral stimulus aris- 
ing from the consciousness of being intrusted with responsi- 
bility. A share in the care of the household “ pets ” may be 
assigned him. 
The child’s sympathetic impulses should be cultivated 
through the influence of example, and he should be encouraged, 
by degrees, to share his possessions and to make little sacri- 
fices for the poor, the sick, etc. 
Habits of neatness and order should be carefully instilled. 
He should not be helped to do what he can do for himself. He 
should learn to dress and undress himself, for example. Social 
habits should be encouraged, and the whole family (together 
with such children as one may borrow) should devote a part of 
each day to little games in which all may take part. Concerning Preliminary IIome-Training. 
11 
It is well for him to visit churches aud art galleries for their 
paintings, and pictorial Bibles and selected illustrated papers 
may be placed in his hands. 
Janet Byrne’s Picture Teaching is excellent in its way, and 
may be used with profit in passing to printed language. 
The whole matter of picture-teaching is deserving of serious 
attention. It was probably the chief reliance of many of the 
early unrecorded teachers of the deaf. In using pictures it is 
important to supply action where intended, and to give correct 
ideas as to size, by means of gestures. 
The child is naturally full of activity, and the parents should 
take advantage of this for educational ends. In the early stages 
this “action work’’should be imitative. These imitative exercises 
may include standing up, sitting down, walking, running, hop- 
ping, jumping, bringing, taking, touching, pointing, looking, 
opening doors, windows, and books, and closing them; gym- 
nastics of the arms, head, hands, fingers: closing both eyes, 
closing one, alternate winking, etc. 
Before a long, narrow mirror, in which the child can see the 
lower part of your face and his own, mouth and tongue 
movements may be practised with great advantage. Open the 
mouth as wide as possible, and repeatedly. Decrease the open- 
ing. Practise various mouth movements, as in uttering simple 
syllables and elementary sounds. Extend the tongue as far as 
possible, retract it, try successive positions against the upper 
teeth, the lower teeth, etc , remembering that the tongue un- 
used for speech is a clumsy member. 
Go over these different classes of imitative exercises repeat- 
edly, slowly, rapidly, and irregularly, making of them a game 
or play for the child, who is to imitate closely all your move- 
ments. • 
Since ordinary children understand a hundred or more of 
words, and sometimes scores of sentences, long before they can 
talk, you may try spoken commands with the deaf child, to 
be caught from the visible movements of the mouth and adja- 
cent parts if possible, though in case of hesitation ges- 
tures may be used simultaneously. The commands should 
be so ax-ranged as to present great dissimilarity to the eye. 
You may try such orders as Shut the door, Open the window, 
Come to me, Stand up, Bring me the newspaper, Sit down, 
Touch your lip,—thumb,—face,—tooth,—foot,—nose, etc., etc. 12 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
These little commands may and should be repeated thousands 
of times, and explained, when necessary, by action, or by 
gestures. 
It will greatly facilitate these first steps if a hearing child 
or group of hearing children can act the part of leader or 
leaders in imitating your actions and in obeying your orders. 
By imitation first, and afterward in response to commands, 
the hands should be trained to their wonderful movements, 
remembering that although the hand is not the brain nor the 
brain the mind, yet hand-training is brain-training and brain- 
training is mind training. These manual exercises should in- 
clude holding passively and taking hold actively, lifting, grasping, 
throwing, catching, collecting, compressing, breaking, modelling, 
grouping, connecting, fastening, separating, dividing, cutting 
with knife, scissors, and saw, using a hammer, pulling up, pulling 
down, pulling away, delineating, using the pen, etc. Each of 
these term3 might be expanded into a chapter. The influence 
of these exercises upon the mind has been admirably set forth 
by Dr. E. Seguin. Their intellectual value is beyond all computa- 
tion. If the child passes through the series easily the acquired 
accomplishments are a sufficient compensation for the time spent 
upon them; if he advances slowly and awkwardly there is special 
need of all the mental training to be obtained in this way. This 
hand-training, leading to useful activities and mental develop- 
ment, points toward many of the occupations which have been 
elaborated in Kindergarten, though originally employed as 
educational expedients in schools for deaf children. 
The deaf child should have his flower pots, or better still, 
his garden spot, where he may dig, plant seeds, and watch 
their growth. Secure fragrant flowers for him, and let him 
learn t8 distinguish their odors. 
In the course laid down the eye has had training, but this 
should be extended to specific exercises in identifying forms, 
matching colors, comparing lengths, sizes, etc., and should be 
continued until the perception of minute and almost microscopic 
forms and movements has become habitual. 
When the eye has been well trained to habits of observation 
the attention may be directed to the respiration. The breath- 
ing of deaf-mute adults is generally very defective, ranging from 
24 to 28, where normal respiration is from 14 to 20 times per 
minute. In deaf children, slow and deep breathing may be made Concerning Preliminary Home-Training. 
13 
habitual by the frequent repetition of very carefully graduated 
exercises, and by cultivating a suitable carriage of the shoulders, 
which should be habitually held up and somewhat thrown back. 
The slow inflation of little silk or toy balloons is an attractive 
and useful exercise, and the blowing out of lighted candles, which 
is an invaluable exercise, should be practised at various distan- 
ces until the child can extinguish the light at a distance of at 
least 40 or 50 centimeters—15 or 20 inches—from the mouth. 
The sense of touch or muscular feeling must assist the sight 
in securing a good respiration. The child’s hands should be 
placed upon your thorax and upon his own, until he notices 
and successfully imitates the play of your lungs. 
You can readily devise exercises in breathing through the 
mouth alone, the nose alone, in alternation, and in reversing 
the inspirations and expirations through these channels. The 
exercises may be dii'ected by movements of the hand, and may 
be slow or rapid, gentle or forcible, continuous or interrupted, 
uniform or variable, but must never be violent. 
When the intelligence has been well developed, the child will 
be apt to manifest a strong desire to know something of con- 
ventional language, and he is in a condition to begin to acquire 
our vernacular. To accomplish this thoroughly in its written 
and spoken forms requires the skilful and patient use of all 
the resources at the command of experienced special teachers 
of the deaf. Though correct language and perfect speech 
require the scientific specialist, the rudiments of intelligible 
language and intelligible speech may be imparted generally by 
any patient, painstaking, and intelligent parent. Every deaf 
child may not succeed in acquiring speech, but the instances in 
which even backward and unpromising pupils have succeeded 
finally should encourage parents to persevere in the earlier 
stages of voice and speech development. If the preliminary 
course outlined in these notes has been faithfully followed, 
many little sentences and phrases accompanying present objects, 
actions, and qualities have been repeated to the deaf child many 
thousands of times, they have been largely comprehended, 
and he has made a little progress in the art of speech-read- 
ing, or “lip’’-reading, as it is sometimes, misleadingly, called. 
Outlines of syllables, words, and sentences have been photo- 
graphed upon his memory, and he is prepared to begin to 
utter syllables, elements, and words. 
Optical images of definite muscular movements, associated 14 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
with sensations of internal touch and with an appreciable con- 
trol of the current of air passing from the lungs, form a three- 
fold cord which binds in memory the deaf child’s conception of 
syllables. By imitative efforts before a mirror, by chance, or 
by careful adjustment of organs, the child with some experience 
in speech-reading will be apt to utter syllables. These should be 
noted at once, and repeated till fixed in the child’s memory; 
others will follow, and finally speech may be built up. By this 
method the elements are obtained chiefly from syllables. The 
older and still prevalent custom is to secure eleme7its first, to 
be combined afterwards into syllables and words. 
Recognizing the importance of written language in itself and 
as a means of instruction, and the great convenience of manual 
alphabets for the rapid expression of our vernacular, I yet hesi- 
tate to recommend their introduction, or extetided use at least, 
until considerable progress has been made in speech-reading. 
From theoretical considerations I place speech-reading first in 
time, oral speech second, and written language third, and this 
is the course pursued with striking success by the veteran 
Hirsch in Holland, practised in Italy, and undergoing the test 
of encouraging experiment in certain schools in America. 
The need for alphabetic language is so great, the temptation 
to begin its use is so strong, and the progress in it is so appa- 
rent, that parents will be apt to introduce it earlier than, in my 
opinion, is expedient. If this course is decided upon, very 
encouraging results* may be secured by connecting simple 
written language directly with designated objects and actions, 
as in the directive action-work before outlined. 
* The following case is cited as an example of what a parent has done 
in the face of discouragements which need not be related here. Dr. F. L. 
Radcliffe, now residing in Washington, is the father of two bright 
and interesting little ones, who have never heard. Though unfamiliar 
with deaf-mute instruction, he decided to begin teaching written language 
to the elder child, using largely for this purpose cards or paper slips. I 
take pleasure in recording an almost complete list of the verbal contents 
of this deaf child’s mind, though I regret that I cannot give the order of 
acquisition. Dr. Radcliffe, guided by his experience and present knowl- 
edge, would probably now pursue a more fruitful course, but I have been 
unable to find any record of greater verbal attainments by a deaf-born 
child of the same age. This list was mastered by a little boy four years old: 
Aunt Libbie, Aunt Sadie, Fannie, Grandpa, Grandma, Papa, Pierson, 
Reba, Baby. Arm, ass, ball, bath, bed, bib, bird, book, bowl, bread, 
broom, brush, butter, cat, chair, clock, coat, comb, cow, cup, cuspidore, Concerning Preliminary Home-Traininy. 
15 
Parallel with written language, some form of manual alpha- 
bet may be introduced. A singular, yet wide-spread misappre- 
hension in regard to the manual alphabet leads me to remark 
that finger-spelling is merely one way of writing our language 
without pen, ink, or paper. Finger-spelled* English has in its 
favor, as compared with writing, convenience, legibility, and 
rapidity, hence it is a very useful adjunct to spoken English. 
Practice in finger-spelling is practice in English. 
dog, door, drink, ear, eye, face, floor, foot, fork, goat, hair, hand, head, 
lieu, horse, ink, kiss, knife, leg, lie, milk, mouth, mucilage, nose, pants, 
parasol, pen, pencil, pig. plate, rooster, scissors, sheep, shirt, shoe, sit, 
slate, sleep, spoon, stand, stockings, table, towel, tree, turtle, velocipede, 
wagon, walk, wash, water, window. Large ball, small ball, large table, 
small table, large chair, small chair. 
Papa’s bed,—chair,—hat,—shoe. Pierson’s bed,—chair,—coat,—face,— 
hat,—shoe. Baby’s bed,—chair,—coat,—face,—hat,—Bhoe. 
Shut the door, Open the door, Go down stairs, Go upstairs, Open the 
book, Shut the book, Sit on the floor,—chair,—bed, Walk to the large 
table,—small table. 
Bring me a large ball,—a small ball, Give Baby a large chair,—a small 
chair, Bring me the scissors, Kiss Baby,—Grandma,—Grandpa,—Fannie, 
Go to bed. 
* The highly satisfactory results obtained by David E. Bartlett, of fragrant 
memory, who opened a private “ family school ” in 1852 to demonstrate 
the advantage of the early instruction of deaf children, make Mr. Bart- 
lett’s methods -worthy of investigation and thoughtful consideration. Mr. 
Bartlett, though using the language of pantomime with extraordinary 
power himself, was ardent and enthusiastic in promoting the use of man- 
ual spelling and writing by his pupils, many of whom eventually gained 
an unusual command of English. A few have even won distinction in 
the higher walks of life. 
Mr. Bartlett received into his school, incidentally, a number of young, 
hearing children, generally relatives of his deaf pupils, who became pro- 
ficient in the use of the language of signs, thus making “ genuine com- 
radeship ” practicable. Mr. Bartlett said of this feature of his school: 
“ We find this beneficial to both classes—to the deaf-mutes in enlarging 
their scope of thought by bringing their minds into contact with those of 
their more favored companions; beneficial yet more variously to those 
who hear and speak, quickening their perception, and improving their 
mental development by presenting to their minds language under en- 
tirely new forms; by the use of the manual alphabet in spelling words ; 
and also by the by no means inconsiderable advantage of improved ease 
and expressiveness of manner, induced by practice in the use of gesture 
language ” It is a matter of regret that the details of this experiment 
have not been recorded, and it is hoped that this note may call out useful 
reminiscences from certain of Mr. Bartlett’s pupils. 16 
Practical Hints to Parents of Young Deaf Children 
In any case, and at every stage, talk and chatter and bab- 
ble (and, if you prefer, also write or spell manually) to the child 
without ceasing and with endless repetition; but time is 
too precious for you to do this at random. Limit yourself to 
a very small and carefully-chosen vocabulary, which should, of 
course, be noted down in a convenient form for ready reference. 
After the child has acquired facility in observation and can 
express his ideas by means of gesture, modelling in clay or w'ith 
molding sand, drawing, and oral or written language, the parent 
may introduce “ number-work,” using for the purpose a great 
variety of objects, such as blocks, sticks, beans, marbles, small 
coins, and all objects used in teaching form. The forms should 
be painted so that groups of various colors may be used. The 
first year’s work in number should be limited to teaching num- 
bers from one to ten. Col. F. W. Parker remarks in reference to 
number-teaching in the public schools: How long it takes to 
teach ten I cannot yet tell. I have yet to know of an instance 
of ten being thoroughly taught during the first school year.” 
However trite and trivial on the one hand, or novel and diffi- 
cult on the other, these suggestions may appear, I am fully 
persuaded of the importance of the underlying principles, and 
in the absence of a more thorough exposition I would urge 
upon intelligent parents a rigorous application of these hints. 
If two hours cannot be set apart to this duty every day, take 
one hour. If this is impossible, surely one-half hour may be 
devoted to the work, even by very busy parents. It is best to 
divide the time into five or ten-minute exercises throughout the 
day, if it is practicable to do so. These exercises should be 
briskly conducted and invariably made a source of pleasure to 
the child. 
Do not be anxious over-much for speedy results, but in all 
things “ let patience have her perfect work.” 
In giving specific directions, or even defining a course of 
procedure, I have gone outside my province, but I cannot too 
strongly remind you of your duty to your deaf child, of the 
almost criminal neglect too often practised, the strong encour- 
agement you have to hope for gratifying progress, and the 
incalculable value of this home training preliminary to the 
ordinary course in the special schools. 
In recapitulation and conclusion let me call your attention to 
these points: Concerning Preliminary Home-Training. 
17 
1st. As soon as deafness in a child is discovered, the parents 
should familiarize themselves with the literature of deaf-mute 
instruction, they should study infantile thought and infantile 
expression, and prepare themselves to enter, con amove, into the 
little child’s world. 
2d. They should cultivate their powers of gestural and pan- 
tomimic expression, and encourage the child in his little attempts 
at communication. 
3d. The deaf child is to be thoughtfully included in the social 
life of the family, and to receive careful moral training. Occu- 
pations, games, etc., are to be carefully sought out in which he 
may take a part and feel a responsibility. 
4th. Pictures, explained when necessary by pantomime or 
gestures, are to be extensively used, to recall ideas and to enlarge 
the child’s horizon of knowledge. Real things, however, should 
be presented before and in preference to pictures, wrhen practi- 
cable. 
5th. Imitative exercises in great variety are to be assiduously 
and repeatedly gone through for occupation, development of 
functioils, and training of faculties. 
6th. Action-work in response to commands is to be thoroughly 
practised as leading to higher mental development, and this is 
to be extended till the deaf child’s organs respond readily to 
mental stimulus. 
7th. Our language is to be introduced by the unceasing 
repetition of simple sentences, phrases, and words, in the pre- 
sence of objects and actions, and is to be finally seized by the 
sight, comprehended, and remembered by the child. 
8th. The child is to be encouraged to utter and repeat, by 
syllables rather than by elements in the first instance, little 
words, from which his speech may ultimately be built up. 
9th. The physical welfare of the deaf child should by no 
means be neglected, but no parent should be satisfied to let his 
deaf child simply vegetate until he is old enough to enter a 
special institution. 
10th. The application of these principles in a systematic 
manner will aid in rescuing deaf children from the isolation to 
which they are too often condemned at home, and will virtually 
add from one to five years to their intellectual life, besides 
broadening and deepening the foundation upon which the work 
of the special school is to be built. SUPPLEMENT. 
I. 
The foregoiug pages relate chiefly, but not exclusively, to 
children born deaf, or deaf from early infancy, but careful 
investigations indicate that more than two-thirds of the pupils 
now in our special schools were not deaf-born,* and that a very 
large proportion acquired speech before the loss of hearing. 
There is, therefore, a much larger group requiring special 
training than has had especial consideration in the preceding 
paper, and, in response to requests, it is proposed to add a few 
hints relating more especially to this very important group. 
When deafness follows acute disease, months and sometimes 
years intervene before health is re-established, and before all 
inflammatory action in the region of the ears disappears. 
This period of convalescence calls for very great devotion, 
ingenuity, and perseverance in the parents, who should plan, and 
begin without delay, simultaneous courses of exercises in 
speech and speech-reading, and a parallel course of physical 
training. Parental neglect in the early stages of this period 
can be atoned for rarely, if ever, in after years, even under the 
most skilful training 
Thoughtful parents will use their utmost ingenuity from the 
very beginning of the child’s convalescence in calling into con- 
stant exercise the child’s speech,! which should be regarded as 
* “ This proportion of about one-third of deaf-born to those whose deaf- 
ness is due to subsequent accident exists almost everywhere,” says the 
Abbe Tarra in his Opening Address, May 31, 1881. 
The following statistics are partly from institution reports and partly 
from the Am. Annals for April, 1885. Examples of relative number of 
pupils reported as deaf-born to the total number of admissions :— 
20 out of 241 admitted to West. N. Y. Institution since 1876. 
123 “ 461 “ Ohio Institution, in 7 years. 
157 “ 521 “ Penn. Institution, in 9 years. 
88 “ 272 “ six Institutions in 1873. 
t Parents engaged in building up voice and speech without any special 
training themselves will find helpful suggestions in Miss L. Moffatt’s 
Voice, Alphabetics, and Language; Am. Annals, xxx, 111-120; 251-259. 
19 20 
Practical Hints. 
the basis and chief instrument of his further education. This 
practice is not merely invaluable as tending to preserve voice 
and speech, but the safety of life may depend upon the ability 
to shout or call out in emergencies. The child should be induced 
to use his voice as much as possible in speaking, in calling to 
persons at a distance, in singing, in laughing, and in imitating 
sounds made by animals and other remembered sounds. 
The impress upon the 1c>rain and influence upon the mind 
due to having heard and understood speech is, in the writer’s 
opinion, rarely, if ever, completely obliterated, but there is 
great danger of the convalescent child's forgetting very quickly 
the muscular adjustments for uttering words. This is the 
reason that it is so important to induce him to practice speech 
at once, and incessantly, until the recollection of spoken words 
can be impressed upon the mind as connected with tactile and 
muscular sensations of the vocal organs. 
If, after speech has been acquired, the hearing is impaired or 
destroyed without further privation of faculty or function, too 
great importance cannot be attached to early and persistent 
practice in speech-reading. This may be entered upon by 
repeating to the speaking deaf child any little sentences, 
rhymes, short stories, etc., with which he may be already 
somewhat familiar, and having him repeat the words after you. 
Take the sentences he catches best and transpose or substitute 
familiar words in them. Gradually separate the speech-reading 
into practice upon familiar syllables in familiar words. From 
recognizing syllables after a great deal of practice upon them, 
the recognition may be carried to the visible appearance of 
separate elementary sounds. Meanwhile, depend upon speech- 
reading for the names of familiar articles of food and of dress, 
the names of members of the family, etc. At the very outset 
imitative action-work may be practised as heretofore outlined, 
but the transition to action-work in response to spoken com- 
mands should be made as soon as possible for the sake of exer- 
cise in speech-reading. 
The large number of cases in which an invaluable degree of 
speech-reading has been acquired through care and practice, at 
home, justifies all the attention that parents can be induced to 
give to this important subject. 
Much has been done, but more might be accomplished, es- 
j/pecially in the cajte of speaking deaf children, if they were Supplement. 
21 
led to devote as much time and interested attention to speech- 
reading as, for instance, thousands of hearing children are re- 
quired to devote, daily, to practice in music. 
The mental power to be cultivated, upon which success in 
speech-reading depends to a large extent, is the icicle grasp of 
the attention in its transition over a number of fleeting details 
rather than that of great power of concentration. And this is 
in accord with the mental habits of versatile childhood. 
To aid the child, speech should be addressed to him con- 
stantly by the household and by visiting friends. Incorrect, 
careless, and slovenly pronunciation should be avoided. Words 
should not be “ mouthed,” but the lips should move freely and 
the teeth should be separated whenever possible. The face of 
the speaker should be in a good light, so that the muscular 
movements from the eyes to the neck may be seen, while the 
mouth is the special object of scrutiny. 
The Abbe de l’Epee, in his treatise for parents upon speech 
and speech-reading forming the second part * of his True 
Method, etc., published in 1784, remarks : “ 1. It almost always 
suffices an intelligent deaf-mute scholar to perceive part of the 
syllables of a word, and then a phrase, to enable him to 
make out the rest. 2. Continual practice with their friends at 
home very much facilitates their being understood. 3. If the 
deaf and dumb do not understand as much as they might, it is 
not their own fault, but rather that of the persons speaking 
before them, who do not take the measures they might to make 
themselves understood. ”f 
Professor Bell who has devoted much careful investigation 
to the subject of speech-reading, remarks: 
“ I have lately made an examination of the visibility of all the 
words in our language contained in a small pocket dictionary, 
and the result has assured me that there are glorious possibili- 
ties in the way of teaching speech-reading to the deaf if teachers 
will give special attention to the subject. 
“ One of the results of my investigation has been that the am- 
biguities of speech are confined to the little words, chiefly to 
monosyllables. The longer words are nearly all clearly intelli- 
gible. The reason is obvious, for the greater number of elements 
* Francis Greene’s trans., reprinted in Am. Annals, xii, pp. 61-83. 
t La Veritable maniere, etc., p. 215. 22 
Pi'actical Hints. 
there are in a word the less likelihood is there that another word 
can be found that presents exactly the same outline to the eye. 
We need never be afraid, therefore, of using long words to 
a deaf child if they are within his comprehension. We are apt to 
have the idea that short words will be simpler, and we some- 
times try to compose sentences consisting as much as possible 
of monosyllabic words, under the impression that such words 
are easy for the pupil to pronounce and read from the mouth. 
It is more common, therefore, to present such sentences to be- 
ginners than to more advanced pupils. Now, I do not mean to 
say that these sentences may not be easier for a child to pro- 
nounce, but the words used are the most ambiguous to the eye 
Such a simple word as ‘ man,’ for instance, is homophenous 
with no less than thirteen other words.” * 
When a word or syllable is not caught correctly by the eye, do 
not dwell too long upon it, as it may so* closely resemble other 
forms as to be peculiarly difficult. Do not resort to any sub- 
stitute for speech-reading in communication except in case of 
absolute necessity. If the child has learned to read, let him 
read occasionally a paragraph without committing it to mem- 
ory, and then have him repeat it from “ seeing the words upon 
your lips.” If he can write, he should make a list of words 
which appear alike to him as spoken, and if any of these finally 
prove easy of recognition they may be checked off his list. 
Gradually, unknown words and syllables may be introduced, 
and by proceeding carefully from the known to the unknown 
by almost imperceptible advances, using speech always, and re- 
sorting, in addition, to writing or to finger-spelling only in case 
of absolute necessity, speech-reading may become the habit 
and the chief dependence of the speaking deaf person.f 
If the speaking deaf child cannot read print, he may make 
a beginning by using Mrs. Rebecca D. Rickoff’s fascinating 
chart-primer and then using a number of other primers, such as 
Monroe’s, Swinton’s, and Butler’s, before passing to any “ first ” 
reader. If he can read, it is desirable to give him practise in 
pronunciation, making use of pronouncing spelling-books for 
* Fallacies Concerning the Deaf,\ Alexander Graham Bell, Ph. D., Am. 
Annals, xxix, pp. 40, 41. 
t For an interesting article showing the value of speech and the great 
utility of even inexpert speech-reading, see a paper by Professor Hotch- 
kiss, of the National College, in the Annals, xv, pp. 139-141. Supplement. 
23 
the purpose. Reading-books, printed in type slightly modified 
to indicate the pronunciation, as in the Leigh system, may be 
used with profit, but the transition to the use of a dictionary 
with the ordinary diacritical marks should be made very early. 
The parallel course of physical training to re-establish and 
maintain health of body and of mind should be insisted upon. 
In general, regular, daily, and somewhat brisk out-door exer- 
cise of not less than three-quarters of an hour should be 
required unless prohibited by a physician. Sensible in-door 
gymnastics should be practised regularly and systematically. 
Mr. William Blaikie’s little book, Sound Bodies for our Boys 
and Girls, may be recommended safely as a capital guide. The 
exercises are free from risk, not over-severe, easily learned, and 
quite inexpensive. 
Diseased and discharging ears require careful attention, 
which should be given under the advice of an aurist of estab- 
lished reputation when practicable. 
The hearing, also, in all cases of deafness, should be tested 
with care from time to time. Total deafness among “ deaf- 
mutes ” is rare. A very slight degree of hearing is of some use, 
and a much less degree than aurists generally suppose to be of 
any educational value often proves a great help in acquiring 
or retaining speech.* 
If the child turns at the ringing of a hand-bell concealed a 
foot or more behind him, or if, blindfolded, he can distinguish 
any vowel sounds, cautious and diligent use should be made of 
a flexible, conical ear-tube. Experiments should also be made 
in speaking into the open mouth through a funnel-shaped in- 
strument, or horn, as was practised with success in some cases 
a century or more ago.| It is hardly necessary to caution sensi- 
ble parents against buying any “aid to hearing” before careful 
* See “ The Aural System for the Semi-Deafa condensed historj’ of 
the course pursued and system developed, from early in the year 1880, in 
the Nebraska Institution, under Mr. J. A. Gillespie, Annals, xxix, 185-190 ; 
also, Preliminary Report of Committee on the Hearing of the Deaf, 
Annals, xxx, 59-69 ; Tests of Hearing, by F. D. Clarke, Annals, xxx, 
149-155; Aural Development at the N. Y. Institution, by E. H. Currier, 
Annals, xxx, 131-134. 
+ Pietro de Castro’s Moyen de rendre la Parole et I'ouie aux muets et au 
sourds, Avec des Observations sur ce sujet, par Philip Jac. Sachs de Lew- 
enhi imb, [sfc,] in M. Eidous’s Memoires LitUraires, 1750, p. 173. 24 
Practical Hints. 
and satisfactory trial. In fact, almost all kinds of “ aids ” 
should be tried, as something may be found adapted to the 
particular case. 
It often happens that there is, with use, a decided improve- 
ment in the capacity to distinguish sounds, and sometimes 
favorable changes occur in the hearing apparatus itself. These 
facts have led to patient experiments in “ aural training,” and 
in certain of our institutions a few pupils are now graduated as 
simply “hard-of-hearing” speaking persons who would have been 
sent forth a few years ago as “ deaf and dumb.” Indeed, Miss 
Mary McCowen, an efficient assistant in Mr. Gillespie’s early 
experiments, has now a private school in Chicago, Illinois, 
reported to be in successful operation, devoted chiefly to the 
special training of very deaf children. The need of appropriate 
special training by experienced instructors, in case the hearing 
is impaired in both ears to any considerable extent, is as great 
as if the deafness were total. In many cases of this kind the 
intellectual training proceeds more slowly at first than with the 
stone-deaf. 
Parents should have the eyes of deaf children examined by 
an oculist, as deafness is frequently accompanied by unsus- 
pected defective vision, which may be remedied, or by weak- 
ness of the eyes, which may be treated with success. As the 
eyes of the deaf have to do double duty, too great precautions 
cannot be taken to guard them from injury in ordinary use. Supplement, 
25 
II. 
To encourage parents who ma}7 not feel competent to pursue 
the somewhat exacting course indicated in the preceding pages, 
and to incite them to do what is clearly within their power, as 
well as to supplement many deficiencies in the hints heretofore 
given, the following extracts from publications or from corres- 
pondence are submitted. 
The Report of the New-York Institution for 1845, to which 
allusion has been made, devotes fifteen pages to very explicit 
suggestions to parents. Dr. Harvey Prindle Peet, who should 
be held in grateful remembrance among the first and greatest 
of American instructors of the deaf, was the President of the 
Institution, and, doubtless, the author of this valuable Report. 
In his introductory remarks, designed to encourage and stimu- 
late parents, Dr. Peet says : 
It is very important that deaf-mute children should receive, in the ten- 
der years of infancy and childhood, a share of that family instruction 
from which they are now to a melancholy extent excluded. It is this ex- 
clusion to which they are condemned, far more from the ignorance of 
their relatives of the proper means of communicating with the deaf 
than from the inability of the latter to hear the words of instruction and 
admonition addressed to their brothers and sisters, that makes their lot so 
peculiarly desolate, and that must be regarded as the main cause of the 
intellectual inferiority of so many educated deaf-mutes as compared with 
well-educated persons, whose progress in the acquisition of language 
and of knowledge through language dates from the cradle. 
Mr. John A. Jacobs, “ the De l’Epee of Kentucky,” in one of 
his early reports, prefaces his Instructions to Parents by 
saying : 
There is no mystery nor any great difficulty in beginning the education 
of deaf-mutes, as is commonly supposed; the difficulty lies in the after 
progress. The first steps are simple and easy enough, and within the 
ability of almost any person who will attempt to master them. 
Mr. D. E. Bartlett, the pioneer in the work of instructing 
very young deaf children, speaking from experience, says : 
The progress of deaf-mute children in mental development and in 
the acquisition of knowledge, even of those endowed with the best nat- 
ural powers, is greatly retarded by their isolated condition at home, al- 
though surrounded by the most intelligent, well educated, and affection- 
ate parents, brothers, sisters, and friends. They have no intelligible 
medium of communication with those whom they most love and most de- 
sire to communicate with. They have no language by means of which to 
mingle their thoughts and feelings with the dear members of the family 26 
Practical Hints. 
circle. Thus they remain in a measure strangers in the bosom of their 
family! Thus they remain till their childhood is well-nigh past, 
NEEDLESSLY IGNORANT OF THE SIMPLEST ELEMENTS OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE ; 
QUITE UNINFORMED OF THE CONDITION OF THE WORLD BEYOND THE SCOPE OF 
THEIR IMMEDIATE OBSERVATION ; UNPRACTISED IN A THOUSAND LITTLE EXER- 
CISES OF MENTAL IMPROVEMENT ADAPTED TO THEIR YEARS, AND IN WHICH, AS 
WELL AS ORDINARY CHILDREN OF THEIR AGE ARE, THEY MIGHT BE ADVANTAGE- 
OUSLY INSTRUCTED. 
Now, all this ought to be changed. Let the little deaf-mute be in- 
structed in the use of letters in the formation of words. Let the brothers 
and sisters acquire, as soon as practicable, a knowledge of gesticular lan- 
guage, so as to be able to communicate with him, and to explain the 
meaning of words as fast as he can learn them, and thus put him in the 
way of acquiring a language by which he may express his thoughts, 
begin to understand books, and prepare for future more extended im- 
provement. 
Professor Paul Binner, the principal of an oral school for 
deaf children in Milwaukee, Wis., in a paper upon the Home, 
Training of Deaf-Mute Children, in considering the duty 
of parents to the deaf child, makes a number of very practical 
suggestions, and in unmistakable terms expresses his apprecia- 
tion of the invaluable importance of gesture language within 
certain limits. Mr. Binner says : 
Unpleasant habits, which necessarily follow the want of hearing, 
should be prevented or overcome, such as a slouchy, noisy gait, audible 
breathing, groaning, excessive screaming, handling chairs and other ar- 
ticles in a boisterous manner, slamming the door, smacking the lips 
while eating, etc. The deaf-mute cannot hear the noise he makes, there- 
fore the parents must draw his attention to it and make him conscious of 
the unpleasant nature of such habits. 
In order to accomplish this, a means of communication is necessary. 
Through the ear the child cannot be reached ; the eye is the only chan- 
nel through which communication is possible. In the same manner, as 
we say everything to the hearing child, we must show everything to the 
deaf child; therefore we communicate with him by means of signs and 
gestures. As soon as the intellectual faculties awaken in the deaf-mute, 
the eye carries the images of things and actions to the brain, where they 
are shaped into ideas; but these ideas are not produced as in the hearing 
child, which associates words with the conceptions, for the deaf-mute 
thinks only in images and pictures. We reach the intellect of the hear- 
ing child, while it is yet unable to speak or to understand language, by 
means of signs and gestures, using the hands, arms, the head, and facial 
expressions for the purpose, and the child uses the same means of ex- 
pressing ideas. It motions toward the door when it wishes to be taken 
out, claps its little hands to show delight, etc. The same means must be 
adopted for the deaf child, and its gesture language cultivated, enlarged Supplement. 
27 
improved, for it is the only means of reaching and developing the intel- 
lect. As the child grows older and its understanding better, these signs 
and gestures will be improved upon by the child and new ones added. Such 
changes and additions should be carefully noted by the parents, in order 
to be able to meet the intellectual advancement of the child. The more a 
deaf child is treated like a hearing child the more it will grow intellectu- 
ally. We play with the hearing child, sing to it, talk with it. Do the same 
with the deaf child. The fact that the child cannot hear should not ex- 
clude the little one from pleasant and instructive pastimes ; they are not 
practised in vain, for the deaf-child can see, and that is the key to its brain. 
The actions which the child sees, the daily routine work of parents, 
brothers, and sisters, watching the latter at play, and, when old enough, 
participating with them, the use of building blocks, pictures drawn on a 
slate or paper, be they ever so crude ; in short, all that we would do to 
interest a hearing child tends to awaken the intellect, cultivates the per- 
ceptive power, and trains the muscles. All these prepare the child for the 
future school education. But the most important part of home training, 
in connection with gesture and other means, is the constant use of spoken 
language. The infant will not be able to imitate the movements of the 
lips, but as physical and mental development progresses, the child will 
become conscious of and familiar with the action of the lips and tongue, 
and in time learn to imitate what it has seen so often, and gradually get 
an idea of spoken language. This idea of spoken language, of sound 
emitted during the movements of lips and tongue, can be best brought to 
the consciousness of the child by frequently placing its hand against the 
throat of the speaker, where the vibration caused by speaking will be 
plainly felt; placing the other hand on the child’s throat will be apt to 
cause it to imitate the action. In cases where a deaf child uses the 
voice but very little, the opportunity should be made use of, and when it 
cries, laughs, or utters any kind of sound, its hand brought in contact 
with the vibrating parts, and in this manner a voluntary use of the voice 
may be established. This of course applies only to children over two 
years of age. Many a hearing child does not begin to speak before that 
time. Words and short sentences which occur so often every day, for 
instance, the names of members of the household, such words as 
“ papa,” “ mama,” “ come,” “ go,” “ go out,” “ good-by,” etc., may not 
only be recognized but also imitated by the child, and this imitation, be it 
ever so imperfect, is of the greatest value when it enters school. * * * 
When a child has been fortunate enough to learn to speak a few words, 
the gestures or signs for the objects or ideas must be abandoned, and the 
child taught to use the spoken word only. We must always bear in mind 
that gestures and signs are merely the means to attain the use of speech 
and language. 
Mr. A. L. E. Crouter, principal of the Pennsylvania In- 
stitution, issued last year, by the authority of the board of 
directors of that Institution, a circular of instructions to pa- 28 
Practical Hints. 
rents and guardians, the effect of which is already becoming 
apparent. 
Mr. Crouter writes: 
We see the benefits of home instruction among our new pupils. Many 
of them can write nicely the names of many objects, some of them can 
work addition, and I feel that this field can be made productive of much 
greater good if properly and persistently looked after. 
Mr. Crouter, quoting from his circular, adds : 
There is no mystery, nor is there any great difficulty in beginning 
the education of deaf children either by articulation or by signs. The 
steps to be taken are simple and can be easily understood and put into 
practice by almost any one who will make the attempt. 
Where children have learned to speak before losing their hearing, do 
not on any account allow them to give up their habit of talking. Often- 
times. after they have become deaf, as it is more trouble to make them 
understand, those around them fall into the habit of holding less and less 
intercourse with them, and day by day the children talk less, until finally 
they lose their speech altogether. Although this may be done without 
any intention of unkindness on the part of the deaf child’s relatives, they 
could not, if they tried, do him a gi’eater or more lasting injury. Talk to 
the child constantly and make him talk to you. Speak every word clearly 
and distinctly, so clearly that the child may be able to see the words 
from the motion of your lips, and, although he cannot hear you, he will 
gradually learn to know a great many words as you speak them. And 
his habit of talking to you will keep up his own speech. When a hearing 
child begins to talk, his mother, and sisters, and brothers talk to him all 
the time and try to make him imitate the words spoken, repeating the 
same word again and again. Do the same with the deaf child, only do 
not talk baby-talk. Speak every word and every syllable slowly and dis- 
tinctly, at the same time showing the object or performing the action of 
which you speak. Some of the best talkers and lip-readers among the 
deaf have been taught in this way at home. 
In the case of those deaf children who have never spoken, try to 
teach them to recognize words by the motion of your lips. Always be care- 
ful to place yourself so that the child can have a good view of your mouth, 
and be sure that he knows what you are saying. For example, show him 
an object, such as a ball, a top, or a cup, and repeat the word many times, 
giving him to understand that such a movement of your lips means that 
thing. Although, possibly, he may never speak, yet the ability to under- 
stand those who speak to him will be an immense advantage to him. Do 
not be discouraged if you do not succeed at once, but keep on trying. 
Patience is the thing most needed. 
In the case of a child who cannot speak, encourage him to use signs 
at as early an age as possible. When he is pleased with anything, invent 
a sign for the thing, and repeat the sign many times afterward. Distin- Supplement. 
29 
guish different persons by signs, suggested by a mole, the beard, or any 
little peculiarity which the person may possess. Learn to form the let- 
ters of the manual alphabet, and teach them to the child. Hold the 
hand before you with the palm from you, and form each letter clearly 
without turning the hand or throwing it about much. Any intelligent 
person can take an object, as a hat, pick out the letters, h, a, t, from the 
manual alphabet, and learn to place the fingers in the true position for 
each letter. No matter how slowly it is done. Have the child imitate 
until he can make the letters of the word in order without assistance, and 
at the same time show him the object. Do this very often until the child 
has learned to spell the word when the hat is presented to him, or to go 
and bring the hat when the word is spelled to him. Then take another 
object, as a pin, and go through the same process until by frequent repe- 
tition it is thoroughly learned. Do the same with other familiar objects, 
such as, dog, cat, chair, table, etc., etc. The following ten short words, 
the names of common objects, contain every letter of the alphabet, viz : 
adz, fan, map, cow, box, jar, sky, hat, quill, and glove. 
The child may be taught also quite early to write the names of things 
on a slate. To know how to write will be a great help to the child on 
entering school and will make his progress much more rapid. Have him 
imitate the form of the letters for one word, as hat, and repeat it many 
times, until he can write it as readily as spell it on his fingers. Do the 
same with other words. Point to each letter and require the child to 
make a sign for the letter on his fingers. By doing this very often the 
child will learn to write the names of many things and to form all the 
letters of the alphabet. It is best to have him make the letters as round 
as possible and not take off the pencil until the word is completed. After 
the child has learned to write many single words, begin to put them to- 
gether in easy sentences. But be sure that he fully understands the 
meaning of each word as he writes it. Let him write his name with a 
verb, as John sees. Explain carefully the meaning of the word sees, and 
let him write after the verb the name of an object which he 
does see, as John sees a table, John sees a chair, and let him cover his 
slate with similar sentences, bringing in the names of the different objects 
in sight. Help him to objects out of the house as well as in. Encourage 
him to write as many as he can. All this may be the work of months, and 
the child’s improvement may seem to you very slow, but persevere and 
do not be discouraged. The advantage to the child cannot be over-esti- 
mated. A little attention thus given, each day, will greatly help his 
mental development and make his progress more rapid upon entering the 
special school 
What has been said concerning the instruction of your child in lan- 
guage, whether spoken or written, applies with equal force to the study 
of numbers. Teach him simple numbers as soon as he is able to write. 
In doing so, make use of objects. Marbles are very convenient. With 
these teach him to count orally, in signs, or in writing, up to twenty. 
Treat each number by itself, counting out the number of marbles each 30 
Practiced Hints. 
time. Then let your child count them out, or let him pick out a number 
for you to count. You may next teach him to add, being careful to use 
only the smallest numbers at first, as, one and one, two and two, three and 
one, three and two, etc. Use the marbles till he understands the process, 
and then let him add mentally. After he has been made thoroughly fa- 
miliar with small combinations, it will be safe to try larger ones. Do 
not force the child under any circumstances ; rather than do so, make 
no attempt in this direction at all, for it will only end in his conceiving a 
distaste for numbers which it will be very hard to overcome. 
[Brief descriptions of many useful signs here follow in the circular.] 
In conclusion, remember, if the child can speak at all, to make him 
speak always. Let him make known all his wants by speech. Do not let 
him depend upon signs when he can make himself understood otherwise. 
Always speak to him if he can understand you, and only make signs for 
what he cannot otherwise understand. 
If the child cannot speak and cannot read the lips of others, write to 
him and have him write to you whenever possible, rather than make signs. 
Miss Caroline A. Yale, associate principal of the Clarke In- 
stitution, sends an interesting communication in response to 
a request for suggestions and assistance in the preparation 
of this paper, from which the following extracts are taken: 
Clarke Institution for Deaf-Mutes, Round Hill. 
Northampton, Mass., October 17, 1885. 
* * * * Experience has led me to believe that a parent may culti- 
vate the use of signs to so great an extent during the early years of a 
child’s life that he will fail of sufficient self-control to lay them aside 
later. Indeed, the child is often readier than the parent to substitute 
spelling or speech for signs. 
Would it not be well to cite some instances of speech-reading as acquired 
before entering school ? A case in point is that of a boy who came to us 
three years ago. He lost hearing and speech at two years. He had been 
talked to constantly until he came to us at eleven. He then understood 
all simple, common language from the lips—even had some notion of the 
“ political talk ” of the family, and knew something of geography. He 
attempted to talk a little in a very imperfect way. In three years, in 
school, he did the work which often occupies a child six. He learned to 
talk readily and plainly. He seemed always to feel that speech and 
speech-reading were his natural means of communication. He was, no 
doubt, a bright boy. 
Another instance illustrates the possibilities of lip-reading on the part 
of the child, and at the same time of misdirected labor on the part of the 
family. This boy was made deaf by “spotted fever” at two years and 
nine months, and is said to have retained about twenty words—or at least 
to have known only that number after his recovery. He came to us at Supplement. 
31 
fourteen. Iu his attempts to speak he invented strange words* which his 
older sister learned and used, he reading them from her lips. Their 
communication was quite sufficient for all actual need, but was unintelli- 
gible to others except their mother, who also used this peculiar speech to 
some extent. The later speech and lip-reading of the boy were unusually 
good. 
It ought to be a very rare occurrence that a child losing hearing at four 
should lose all speech; but we find it frequently the case. There are 
cases, too, of the ‘ ‘ semi deaf,” where care to let the little one hear and see at 
the same time would take awajT the need of any unusual mode of commu- 
nication—the hearing would be so educated that the child would be simply 
“ hard of hearing.” * * * Yours, very truly, 
CAKOLINE A. YALE. 
* Miss Yale, since the above was written, has kindly made a thorough 
investigation of this interesting case, and has obtained this boy’s vocabu- 
lary, so far as remembered by the family, after the lapse of ten years. 
Indistinct remembrance of sounds and imperfect speech-reading may 
account for the words supposed to have been “made \ip ” by the child. 
The “ made-up ” words, so far as remembered, were lala for water, biddy - 
biddy for cat, too-too for any fowl, puf'er for singing or for church, himmy- 
himmy for come or come here, bobo-bobo for clothing, (accompanied by a 
stroking movement on his jacket front,) meemy for baby, cfiuchu for 
chair or sit down, feller-feller for fire, cho-cho for walk, werwu for write 
or read, boof (prolonged, with a gesture forward) for run, choo-choo for 
hat, go law for “ go ’long,” shooa for shoe. The words were more indis- 
tinct than the spelling indicates. 
“His vocabulary included also words spoken with some degree of 
plainness: horse, dog, papa, mama, mother, stop, more, water, I shant, 
fall, man, no sir, whoap for whoa, nassy for nasty, o dog for old dog. 
“ Eeshil and Soma were the names by which he called his sister Lizzie 
and his half-sister Saloma before his deafness. These he retained still 
more imperfectly. 
“ Certain words were after a time taught him with care—the numbers 
up to thirty and sofa ; no others could be recalled. 
“ These words he put together in sentences after this fashion—horse 
whoap more for ‘ ride more.’ I imagine that my spelling indicates too 
perfect speech. I judge that haw whoap mo would probably be more ac- 
curate. 
“ For animals he attempted to imitate the noises he saw them make. 
For cars he made a noise such as the vibration would suggest to him. 
He often tried to sing by watching his sister’s throat. 
“ For words for which he had no name he used a sign, but usually ac- 
companied it with a noise. A slight moan, with his hand on his stomach, 
indicated sickness. Water water, with a sign for fall, indicated rain.” 32 
Pt'actical Hints. 
III. 
The utility of speech-reading and the practicability of its 
acquisition under favorable conditions has been sufficiently in- 
timated, but justice to the deaf requires a recognition of the 
fact that speech-reading has its limitations. Certain English 
words, chiefly short ones, are practically alike to the speech- 
reader and the context may fail sometimes to give a clue. It is 
necessary, at times, in communicating with even expert speech- 
readers, to have recourse to writing Jor names 
of persons, places, technical terms, etc., not in common use. 
Moreover, it is convenient to have accurate and rapid means of 
conversation under unfavorable conditions as to light and dis- 
tance, or when from any cause the deaf person’s voice can not 
be heard. 
Writing is slow, inconvenient, and often impossible. Writ- 
ing upon the palm of the hand was proposed by the Abbe 
Deschamps in 1778 as utilizing the sense of touch, and was 
used in darkness by him as a substitute for speech, but it is 
neither accurate nor rapid. Writing in the air* with the fin- 
ger is also slow and uncertain, while the action is unpleasantly 
conspicuous. 
Finger-spelling would appear to be a far more convenient, 
easy, rapid, and accurate adjunct to speech or substitute for it 
than writing. 
It is a common error to consider the ordinary manual 
alphabets as deaf-mute alphabets and finger-spelling as the 
sign-language of the deaf. Finger-spelling is, to the deaf, a 
borrowed art. It is used by mauy of the educated deaf and 
their friends as a substitute for the sign-language, and it enables 
them also to supply the deficiencies of the sign-language by 
incorporating words from written language. Scagliotti, of 
Turin, devised a system of initial signs! which begin with let- 
ters of the manual alphabet, and Dr. Isaac Lewis Peet, of 
New York, has made a similar application of manual letters to 
* The brilliant but wily Sicard, whose “ show” pupils were accustomed 
to honoring drafts at sight in appropriate responses to all sorts of ques- 
tions, acting upon the motto, Mundus vult dectpi, ergo decipiatur, schooled 
Massieu and Clerc in deciphering writing in the air and was thus pre- 
pared, in emergencies at his public exhibitions, to convey intimations of 
the answers, while supposed to be using “ signs ” in putting questions. 
t Quatrikme Girculaire, &c., Paris, 1836, p. 16. Carton’s Memoire, 184"», 
p. 73. Supplement. 
33 
signs to suggest words of our written language to tlie initiated 
deaf. But it should not be forgotten that practise in finger- 
spelling is practise in our language. 
The origin of finger-spelling is not known. Barrois, a dis- 
tinguished orientalist, in his Dactylologie et Langage primitif * 
ingeniously traces evidences of finger-spelling, from the Assyr- 
ian antiquities down to the fifteenth century, upon monuments 
of art. 
The ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans were familiar with 
manual arithmetic and finger-numeration as John Bulwer 
shows by numerous citations in his quaint Chironomia. The 
earliest finger-alphabets extant appear to have been based upon 
finger-signs for numbers, as, for instance, that given by the 
venerable Bede (672-735) in his De Loquela per Gestmn Digi- 
torum sive Indigitatione, figured in the Ratisbon edition of 
1532.| Monks and others who had special reason to prize secret 
and silent modes of communication, beyond doubt, invented and 
used many forms of finger-alphabets as well as systems of 
manual signs.J The oldest plates in the library of the National 
Deaf-Mute College are found in the Thesaurus Artificiosae 
Memoriae of frater Cosmas P. Rossellius of Florence, printed 
in 1579, which gives thi'ee forms of one-hand alphabets. Bonet’s 
work§ of 1620 gives one form of the one-hand, Spanish manual 
alphabet, which contains forms identical with certain letters in 
the alphabets of 1579. This was introduced into France by 
Pereire and taught to the Abbe De l’Epee by Saboureux de 
* Barrois : Dactylologie et langage primitif, Paris, 1850, Firmin Didot 
freres. 
t The library of the New-York Institution contains a copy of this very 
rare edition bearing the title Abacus ntque vetustisxima Latinorum per 
digitos manusque numerandi (quinetiam loquendi) consuetudo, etc., Ratis- 
bonae, 1532. 
J For an exhaustive account of the gesture speech in Anglo-Saxon mon- 
asteries and of the Cistercian monks, who were under rigid vows of silence, 
see F. Kluge: Zur Oeschichte der Zeichensprache.—Angelmchsische indicia 
Monasterialia, in International Zeitsehrift fur AUgemeine Sprachwissen- 
schaft, II Band, I. Halfte. Leipzig, 1885. 
§ Reduccion de lax letras y arte para enseiiar d hablar lox mudos, 1620. 
The author is under obligations to Sr. Santos M. Robledo, of the Min- 
istry of Public Works and Education, for advance sheets of the reprint in 
beautiful fac-simile of this rare work ordered by the Spanish Govern- 
ment in 1881. 34 
Pt'actical Hints. 
Fontenay, the gifted pupil of Pereire. The good abbe however 
continued to use a French* two-hand alphabet which he had 
learned when a child and which he said all school-children knew. 
He mentions also a Spanish alphabet in part requiring both 
hands and remarks that different nations have different manual 
alphabets. The Abbe Deschamps, a rival of De l’Epee, made use 
of a finger-alphabet in teaching the deaf to speak which was not 
adapted to rapid use. John Bulwer in his Chirologia, or the 
Naturall Language of the hand, printed in 1644, figures five 
manual alphabets for secret communication. 
The first alphabet which appears to 
have been devised expressly for use in 
teaching the deaf is that of George Dal- 
garno, of Aberdeen, (1626-1687,) given in 
his remarkable philosophical treatise, Di- 
dascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb 
Man's Tutor, Oxford, 1680. By the cour- 
tesy of Mr. W. R. Cullingworth, of Phila- 
delphia, a reduced fac-simile of Dalgarno’s 
alphabet is here given from a plate for a 
projected illustrated history of the educa- 
tion of the deaf by Rev Henry Winter Syle, 
M. A. Words are spelled by touching 
with your finger the positions indicated, 
either upon your own hand or upon the 
hand of your interlocutor. An alphabet of 
the same character, however, was not un- 
known at an earlier date. For Bulwer in 
1648, says: “A pregnant example of the 
officious nature of the Touch in supplying the defect or tempo- 
rail incapacity of the other senses we have in one Master Bab- 
ington of Burntwood in the County of Essex, an ingenious 
Gentleman, who through some sicknesse becomming deaf, doth 
notwithstanding feele words, and as if he had an eye in his 
finger, sees signes in the darke; whose Wife discourseth very 
* The Abbe de l’Epee did not master the Spanish alphabet, and, attaching 
but little importance to manual spelling, he was unsparing in his criticism 
of Messieurs the dacti/lologists, but by “ the irony of fate ” this alphabet 
occupies a face of the pedestal of one statue to his memory, and in another 
statue the good Abbe is represented either as receiving this alphabet from 
the skies or as devoutly using it. Supplement. 
35 
perfectly with him by a strange way of Arthrologie or Alphabet 
contrived on the joynts of his Fingers ; who taking him by the 
hand in the night, can so discourse with him very exactly; for 
he feeling the joynts which she toucheth for letters, by them 
collected into words, very readily conceives what shee would 
suggest unto him. By which examples [referring to this case 
and to that of an abbot who became deaf\ dumb, and blind, 
who understood writing traced upon his naked arm,] you may 
see how ready upon any invitation of Art, the Tact is, to supply 
the defect, and to officiate for any or all of the other senses, as 
being the most faithfull sense to man, being both the Founder, 
and Vicar generall to all the rest.”* 
Dr. Alexander Graham Bell has modified the Dalgarno alpha- 
bet, and has made considerable use of it in its modified form 
as figured upon page 36. He esteems it highly for certain 
purposes, especially as employing touch to assist the sight 
or to release the sight for other employment, as in reading 
speech for instance. Here the touch-alphabet may be an effi- 
cient aid to the sight. An objection of Dr. Kitto to the two- 
hand alphabet so widely known by school-children and others 
in Great Britain and in this country would seem to apply with 
greater force to the Dalgarno alphabet: “ To hit the right 
digit on all occasions is by far the most difficult point to learn 
in the use of the [two-hand] manual alphabet, and it is hard 
to be sure which fingers have been touched.”! 
It is not the purpose of the writer to attempt even a cata- 
logue of the numerous finger-alphabets, common, tactile, pho- 
netic, “ phonomimic,” “ phonodactylologic,” and syllabic, which 
have been proposed for the special use of the deaf. 
*Philocopbus : or, THE DEAFE and Dumbe Mans Friend. Exhibiting the 
Philofophicall verity of that fubtile Art, which may inable one with an obfer-vant 
Eie, to Heare what any man fpeaks by the moving of his lips, upon the same 
Ground, with the advantage of an Hiftoricall Exemplification, apparently proving, 
That a Man borne Deafe and Dumbe, may be taught to Heare the found of words 
with his Eie, & thence learne to fpeake with his Tongue. By I. B. [John Bulwer] 
lirnamed the Chirofopher. London, 1648. pp 106, 107. 
fDr. Kitto remarks the following common mistakes in reading rapid, 
two-hand spelling : the confounding i with e or o ; d with p ; l with t; 
f with x; r with t and with one form of j ; n with v, and adds,—“ upon 
the whole the system is very defective and is capable of great improve- 
ment.”— The Lost Senses, p. 107. 36 
Practical Hints. 
[ZM Bell's “Dalgakno,” or Touch, Alphabet.] Supplement. 
37 
The one-hand alphabet used by Ponce and figured by Bonet, 
was common in Spanish almanacs hawked by ballad-mongers 
upon the streets of Madrid in the days of De l’Epee, and 
although rejected by him, it was adopted by his pupils. This 
with slight modifications became the French manual alphabet 
which was introduced at Hartford by Dr. Thomas Hopkins 
Gallaudet.* This alphabet is known in almost every hamlet in 
the land. Slight changes in the form of certain letters, or in the 
position of the hand, in the direction of greater perspicuity and 
capacity for rapid use, have taken place gradually, though there 
is no absolute uniformity of usage among instructors or pupils. 
This “American” alphabet as here presented on pages 39-41, 
through the liberality of Dr. A. Graham Bell, has been drawn 
and engraved from photographs, and represents typical posi- 
tions of the fingers, hand, and fore-arm from a uniform point 
of view in front of the person spelling, or as seen in a large 
mirror by the user himself. 
This alphabet can be learned in less than an hour, and many 
have learned it by extraordinary application in ten minutes. 
It is recommended that the arm be held in an easy position near 
the body, with the fore-arm as in the plates. Each letter should 
be mastered before leaving it. Speed will come with use; it 
should not be attempted nor permitted until the forms of the 
letters and the appropriate positions of the hand are thoroughly 
familiar. The forms as given are legible from the distant parts 
of a public hall. In colloquial use the fingers need not be 
so closely held, nor firmly flexed, as represented, but sprawling 
should be avoided. It is not necessary to move the arm, but 
a slight leverage at the elbow is conducive to ease and is per- 
missible, provided the hand delivers the letters steadily within 
an imaginary immovable ring of, say, ten inches in diameter.f 
* Bev. Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, LL. D., (1787-1851,) is held in 
loving remembrance, and a national committee, (of which T. A. Froelich, 
150 E. 75th st., New York, is Chairman, and Prof. A. G. Draper, of Kendall 
Green, Washington, D. C., is Treasurer,) representing the “deaf-mutes” 
of America and their friends, is receiving contributions for a bronze 
statue of this man of God who loved his fellow-men more than he loved 
himself. The centennial anniversary of Dr. T. H. Gallaudet’s birth will 
be fittingly commemorated by placing this statue in a quiet nook upon 
Kendall Green. 
fFor further useful directions in learning this alphabet see page 29. 38 
Practical Hints. 
This adjunct to speech-reading is recommended for its con- 
venience, clearness, rapidity, and ease in colloquial use, as well 
as for its value as an educational instrument in impressing 
words, phrases, and sentences in their spelled form upon the 
mind, in testing the comprehension of children, and in afford- 
ing by easy steps a substitute for the sign-language. 
In the simultaneous instruction of large classes not able to 
follow speech, finger-spelling “ may take the place of signs 
to a great extent in the definition, exifianation, and illustration 
of single words and phrases, and in questions and answers 
upon the lessons, and in communications of every kind to 
which the stock of language already acquired may be ad- 
equate.” 
All who have anything to do with the school-instruction of 
the deaf may well bear in mind the matured opinion and wise 
counsel of Professor Samuel Porter, of the National College, 
the Nestor of American instructors. In this connection, Pro- 
fessor Porter says : 
In short, let the gestural signs come in only as a last resort, 
or, so far as possible, merely as supplementary to icords, re- 
enforcing them in some instances, or employed as a test of the 
pupil's knowledge of words, but always, so far as possible, 
falling behind and taking a subordinate place. And let the 
pupils be required, in what they have to say to their teachers 
in the school-room or elsewhere, to employ the finger-alphabet 
instead of natural signs to the utmost possible extent, and this 
by complete sentences and not in a fragmentary way. M. Jorc^WAtH.tf.C. 
[ The one-hand Alphabet in general use.—Front view.'] M. Jovct, Wash. D.C. 
[The one-hand Alphabet in general use.—Front view.'] [The one-hand Alphabet in general use.—Front view.'] INDEX 
A ction-Work, Imitative, 11, 12, 13, 17, 
20; Commanded, 11, 12 ; Object of, 17. 
Adjuncts to speech, 32. 
Alphabets, Manual, 32-41; illustrated, 34, 
36, 39-41. See “ Finger-Alphabets.” 
Annals, American, 5, 6, 19, 21, 22, 23. 
Antiquity of finger-spelling, 33. 
Attention, Kind of, in speech-reading, 21. 
Aural training, 23, 24. 
Authorities, see “Personal Mention.” 
grain, Permanent impress of speech 
upon, 20; Training of, 12. 
Breathing, Exercises in, 13; of the deaf 
often defective, 12. 
“ Busy-work,” 10-13. 
»<gandle-blowing ” an important exer- 
cise, 13. 
Capacity to distinguish sounds sometimes 
improves, 24; to read speech depends 
upon the wide grasp of the attention, 
rather than upon concentration, 21. 
Children often willing to substitute spell- 
ing or speech for signs, 30. 
Conception of syllables, 13, 14. 
Convalescence, Period of, 19; Outline of 
work for, 19-23. 
Conventional language, Period for, 13. 
D eafness, Effect of, upon minds, 9; rare- 
ly total, 23; sometimes diminishes, 24. 
Delay in beginning training a cause of 
dumbness, 19, 20, 28, 31. 
Defective vision, a frequent accompani- 
ment of deafness, 24. 
Discipline, 10. 
Diseased ears, 23. 
Drawing, a mode of expressing ideas, 16. 
gars, Care of, 23. 
Ease of acquisition of finger-spelling, 
37. 
Education, First steps in, not difficult, 
25, 28. 
Employments for child, 10, 11, 12. 
Exercise, Out-door, 23. 
Exercises, Five or ten-minute, 16. 
Expression of ideas by various means to 
be cultivated, 16. 
Eyes, to be examined, 24; to be guarded 
from injury, 24; to be trained, 11, 12. 
pacts, Observed, the basis of Hints, 
A 3,5. 
Finger-Alphabets, “American” or one- 
hand, 37, 39-41; Babington’s “ joynt ” 
or “ Touch,” 34; Bede’s, 33; Bell’s 
Dalgamo’s, or “ Touch,” 36,36; Bonet’s 
Ponce’s,33,37; Bulwer’s, 34; Dalgarno’s 
or “ Touch,” 34; Deschamps’, 34; Eng- 
lish two-hand, 35; French two-hand, 
34; Kosellius’s, 33; Spanish one-hand, 
33, 34,37 ; Spanish “ mixed,” 34; other 
varieties, 35. 
Finger-spelling, Antiquity of, 33; a bor- 
rowed art, 32; an adjunct to speech- 
reading, 32; compared with writing, 15, 
32; Colloquial value of, 38; Educa- 
tional uses and value of, 38. 
Flowers, 12. 
Qestures, a means, 27. 
Gesture speech of monks, 33. 
Gymnastics and mental development, 11, 
12. 
pjabits, 10, 11, 26. 
Hand-training, 12. 
Health, 17, 19. 23. 
Hearing, “Aids”to, 23; Defective, valua- 
ble, 23; improves sometimes, 23; 
should be tested, 23. 
Jdeas to precede words, 13. 
Illustrations: “American” alphabet, 
39-41; Bell’s “ Touch ” alphabet, 36; 
Dalgarno’s alphabet, 34. 
Imitative exercises, 11, 12, 13, 20; Ob- 
ject of, 17. 44 
Index, 
Impress of speech rarely, if ever, effaced 
from the mind, 20. 
Ignorance, Needless, of deaf children, 26. 
Intellectual inferiority often due to pa- 
rental neglect, 25. 
Intelligence, how developed, 7-13. 
Kind ergiirten employments, 12. 
associated with actions and 
objects, 14; how introduced, 17; Les- 
sons in, 6, 13; Value of early training 
in rudiments of spoken, 13, 27, 30. 
Limitations of speech-reading, 32. 
“ Lip-Reading,” amisnomer, 13. 
M astery of our vernacular, 9, 13. 
Mind-training, 12. 
Modelling and moulding, 16. 
Mirror, Use of, 11, 14. 
Moral training, 10. 
Mouth movements for mental training, 11. 
N umber of children receiving prelimi- 
nary instruction increasing, 5. 
Number-work, 16, 29, 30. 
Qbject-teaching, 14; Books for, 6. 
Occupations: Action-work, 11, 12; 
“ Busywork,” 10, 12 ; Kindergarten 
games, etc., 12; Number-work, 16. 
Optical images, associated with Touch 
and Muscular sensations in the recol- 
lection of speech, 13. 
Outlines of syllables, words, and sentences 
are received through the eye, (repeated 
by appropriate organs,) and impressed 
upon the mind, 13. 
parents, Duty of, to deaf speaking child, 
19 ; Duties of, summarized, 17 ; Signs 
available for, 8, 9 ; may use signs too 
freely, 30. 
Personal mention, Citations, etc. 
Babington, 34; Barrois, 33; Bartlett, 
D. E., 15, 25; Bede, 33; Bell, A. G., 
3, 6, 21, 22, 35. 37; Blaikie, W., 23; 
Binner, P., 26; Bulwer, J., 33,34,35; 
Byrne, Janet, 11; Carton, 7, 32; 
Clarke, F. D., 23; Crouter, A. L. E., 7, 
27,28; Currier, E. H., 23; Dalgaruo, G., 
34; De Castro, P., 23; De Fontenay, 
Sab., 34; De l’Epee, 21, 33, 34; Des- 
champs, 34; Gallaudet, E. M., 7,8; 
Gallaudet, T. H., 37; Gillespie, J. A., 
23, 24; Goguillot, L., 3; Greene, F., 
21; Hirsch, D., 3, 6, 14; Hotchkiss, 
J. B., 22; Jacobs, J. A., 6, 25; Keep, 
J. R., 6; Kinsey, A., 6; Kitto, J., 35; 
Latham, W. H., 6 ; McCowen, Miss, 24 ; 
MarchiO, 3,6; Moffatt, Mias, 19; Par- 
ker, F. W., 6, 16; Patridge, Mias, 6; 
Peatalozzi, 6; Pereire, 33; Peet, H. P., 
25 ; Peet, I. L., 6, 32; Porter, S., 38 ; 
Radcliffe, F. L., 14; Kickoff, Mra., 22; 
Robledo, S. M., 33; Roaaeliua, 33; 
Rouaaeau, 6; Sachs, P. J., 23; Scag- 
liotti, 32; Stainer, W., 6; Seguin, E., 
3, 12; Sioard, 32; Sweet, Miaa, 6; 
Tarra, J., 3, 8, 19; Van Praagh, W., 
6; Yale, Miaa, 30, 31. 
Physical training, for health, 13, 23; for 
mental development, 11, 12. 
Pictures and Picture-1 eaching, 11. 
Preliminary Home-Training, Results 
of, 17, 28. 
Proportion of the two groups of deaf 
children approximately stated, 19. 
Primers, 22. 
pleading, How to teach, 22. 
Respiration may be improved, 11,12. 
Rules, Simple, concerning using speech, 
21, 22. 
gafety of life may depend upon ability to 
use the voice, 20. 
Signs, Advantages of, for the deaf-born, 7, 
8, 9, 10, 26 ; adapted to capacity, per- 
mitted in first steps by all, 8 ; available 
for parents, 8, 9 ; educational value of, 
7, 26 ; Rationale of utility of, 9; Re- 
lation to thought explained, 9; Restric- 
tions to be observed in using the sign- 
language Binner, 27; Carton, 7; 
Crouter, 30; Gallaudet, 8; Porter, 38. 
Speech, Acquisition of, 14,17; the basis of 
education of deaf speaking child, 20; 
Effect of, probably never obliterated, 
20; Danger of forgetting muscular ad- 
justments of, 20 ; Imperfect, useful, 22 ; 
Perfect, requires the aid of scientific 
specialists, 13; Rudiments of, may be 
imparted by parents, 13; Unpromising 
pupils often succeed in, 13; Rationale 
of, 13, 14; retained by practice, 19. 
Speech-reading : Bell, 21; Crouter, 28 ; 
De l’Epde, 21; Miss Yale, 30 ; how ac- 
quired, 17, 20, 21; Importance of per- 
sistent practice in, 20; Limitations of, 
21,32 ; Rationale of, 21; Success in, fre- 
quently attained at home, 20, 28, 30; 
Value of even inexpert, 22. 
Simultaneous Courses in speech, speech- 
reading, and physical training, 19. 
Sounds, Making of, to be encouraged, 20. 
Symbols, Brief, required for related 
thought, 9. Index. 
45 
'J'ests of hearing, 23. 
Text-Books, 6. 
Touch utilized, 13, 32, 34, 35. 
Toy-balloons, 13. 
yalue of hand-training, 12; of even im- 
perfect speech-reading, 22. 
Vocabulary, to be carefully chosen, 16; 
of a deaf child four years old, 14; of a 
deaf boy who coined certain words, 31. 
Visibility of speech, Bell, 21, 22; De 
21 ; Mental power involved in, 
21. 
Vision, Defective, often unsuspected, 24. 
Voice, Vibrations of, 27; Value of, in 
emergencies, 20. 
w ords to deaf-born speaking persons, 
not simply optical images, 13, 14; 
through touch, 32, 34, 36. 
Writing, compared with finger-spelling, 
32; in the air, 32; on the arm or hand, 
32; Elements of, may be taught at 
home, 29; preferable to signs when 
practicable, 30. 
Written language, Mastery of, by deaf- 
born persons, 9 ; Course in, pursued by 
a parent, 14; to follow speech-reading 
and speech, 14. Vol. XXXI, 1886. 
The American Annals or the Deaf and Dumb is a quarterly publication, 
appearing in the months of January, April, July, and October. Each number con- 
tains at least sixty-four pages of matter, principally original. The subscription price 
is .<J'2.oo a year, payable in advance. For foreign subscribers the price, postage in- 
cluded, is 9 shillings or marken, (I I francs or lire,) which may be sent through 
the postal money-order office. Subscriptions and all other communications relating 
to the Annals should be addressed to the Editor, 
E. A. FAY, 
National Deaf-Mute College, 
Kendall Green, 
Washington, D. C.