The causes of deafness are both ante-natal and post-natal. Ante-natal causes produce not merely congenital deafness, but also gradual decay of hearing, or a weakness in the organ predisposing it to yield to a slight attack. The most obvious and incontestable of these are the consanguinity of parents and hereditary transmission. Dr. Bemiss of Louisville, Ky., on investigating 833 consanguineous marriages, found that of the 3,942 offspring 1,134 were defective, of whom 145 were deaf and dumb; and estimated that 10 per cent, of the deaf in the United States sprang from kindred parents. Dr. Buxton of Liverpool found the same percentage in Great Britain, and met with as many as eight deaf children from such a union. The prevalence of deafness as well as of idiocy, cretinism, and goitre, in mountainous districts (the deaf amounting at one time to 1 per cent, of the total population in part of the canton of Vaud, Switzerland), must be partly due to the intermarriages in a secluded and stationary population; and the less proportion of congenital to adventitious cases in the United States than in Europe, to the free intermixture of races here. Hereditary transmission is less common than is often believed.

According to the computations of Dr. H. P. Peet of New York, the probability of deafness occurring in the offspring of parents who are deaf from adventitious causes is 1 in 1,600, or in the same proportion as when both parents are hearing; but when one parent is congenitally deaf, the chances in the offspring are as 1 to 130; and when both parents are congenitally deaf, the chances are that 1 in 10 of the offspring will be deaf. Influences acting on the imagination of the mother are often assigned as causes of deafness; but inquiry seldom fails to reveal other and adequate ones. Congenital deafness occurs among all ranks and nationalities. The most prominent post-natal causes are scarlet fever, scrofulous and syphilitic affections, and spotted fever or cerebro-spinal meningitis. In the United States, scarlet fever has since 1830 been most fruitful, producing 20 to 25 per cent, of the total cases; spotted fever, after subsiding for a period, has within the past ten years commenced an era of fresh virulence, especially in the western states; scrofulous traces have been observed in from 30 to 75 per cent, of the inmates of various institutions. Added to these causes from disease are those produced by mechanical injury.

The following table is compiled from the statistics of the New York, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, and Minnesota institutions, generally embracing the whole period of their existence:

Causes Of Deafness

I. Affections acting locally on the organ of hearing.

Scarlet fever.......

460

Measles.................

92

Smallpox.........

4

Other exanthemata........

18

Diseases of the ear......

10

Diseases of the throat and lungs......

38

Scrofula and rickets....

32

Glandular diseases....

111

765

Fever spotted.........

149

Fever, typhus and typhoid .................

82

Fever, intermittent........

32

Fever, bilious and gastric

15

Fever, yellow......

1

Fever, not specified....

116

Falls....................

36

Quinine and mercury....

16

830

II. Affections acting on the brain and nervous system.

Brain fever, inflammation, and congestion........

219

8pinal and nervous diseases.....

21

Fright and convulsions ..

48

Whooping cough........

56

Teething................

14

Dropsy of the brain...........

25

III. Doubtful.

Colds and rheumatism...

89

Cholera, dysentery, etc...

15

Various diseases.....

27

Various accidents.........

57

Sickness or accident not specified....

198

Gradual decay....

2

388

Total............

1,983

Deafness is generally incurable. When it comes on gradually, it may be arrested by prompt surgical care, and assiduous cultivation of the habits of attention to sounds and of speech, which are liable to decay; but the most distinguished aurists unite in acknowledging its higher degrees to be beyond their art. Attention should rather be directed to its prevention. Congenital deafness, when the result of consanguinity in the parents, is often associated with other bodily and mental infirmities; and the maladies or accidents causing adventitious deafness often leave serious effects on the general system. But the mortality among the deaf does not appear to be appreciably greater than among others; on the contrary, the health record of the American institutions is in general remarkably fair. - History of Deaf-Mute Education. In the earliest ages mention is made of the deaf, but they were considered incapable of receiving education. The Mosaic law merely protected them from wanton insult; the ordinances of the pundits excluded them from inheritance, but imposed their support on the next heir.

At Rome a distinction is found in various laws in favor of those who were not congenitally deaf, and who could write; these were allowed full civil rights, from which all other deaf persons were in a measure excluded. This principle was retained in the code of Justinian, which placed the latter class under guardianship and deprived them of all power to alienate their property. The governments founded on the ruins of the Boman empire preserved its regulations. The very nature of the feudal system made necessary the disqualification of the deaf from inheritance. As late as the time of Elizabeth, Bichard, eldest son of the viscount Buttevant in Ireland, was excluded from the succession by reason of his being deaf and dumb. As Sir William Hamilton says, "The dictum of Aristotle, that of all the senses hearing contributes the most to intelligence and knowledge, was alleged to prove that the deaf are wholly incapable of intellectual instruction." St. Augustine, in the 4th century, declared that deafness made faith impossible, since he who was born deaf could not learn the letters by reading which he might acquire faith. Yet Pliny mentions that Quintus Pedius, a relative of Augustus, though deaf from birth, attained to great proficiency in painting.

The next attempt to educate the deaf and dumb is that recorded by the Venerable Bede (died 735) of his contemporary, St. John of Beverley, bishop of Hagulstadt (now Hexham), in Northumberland, who taught a dumb man to speak by making the sign of the cross over him. Bede also described a manual alphabet in his De Loquela per Gestum Digitorum, first printed at Ratis-bon in 1532, the plates in which are probably the earliest illustrations of dactylology extant. Rudolph us Agricola, of Heidelberg (died 1485), in his Be Inventione Dialecticae, said he had seen an individual deaf from birth who could converse in writing. This was called in question 50 years later by L. Vives, a Spaniard, but only on the ground of its inherent impossibility. Platerus mentioned a deaf man at Basel about 1530, who could do the same, and attended the preaching of the reformer OEco-lampadius, following the motions of his lips. The impulse given to literary and scientific research about this time led to investigation not only of the philosophy of thought and language, but also of the mechanism of hearing and speech, and the classification and mode of formation of sounds.

One of the most brilliant and versatile minds of the age, Jerome Cardan of Pavia (1501-'76), turned his attention to the condition of the deaf, and enunciated this most important principle: "Writing is associated with speech, and speech with thought; but written characters and ideas may be connected together without the intervention of words;" and thence declared that "the instruction of the deaf and dumb is difficult, but it is possible." The first systematic attempt to teach the deaf and dumb was made by Pedro Ponce (died 1584), a Benedictine monk of Sahagun in Spain. He taught the two sons of De Velasco, a Castilian noble, and several others, to read and write Spanish and Latin, and to understand Greek and Italian. One of his pupils, he says, received the order of priesthood, possessed a benefice, and performed the duties of his office in reciting his breviary. A contemporary medical writer records that Ponce "employed no other means than first instructing them to write, then pointing out to them the objects signified by the written characters, and finally exercising them in the repetition by the vocal organs of the utterances which correspond to the characters;" and Morales says his pupils could both speak and read on the lips with fluency.

Contemporary was a second deaf artist, Juan Fernandez Na-varrete, surnamed El Mudo, and called "the Titian of Spain," a title which the anecdotes of him show was well merited. Half a century later another monk, Juan Pablo Bonet, secretary to the constable of Castile, taught a brother of his patron, who had become deaf at the age of two. This young man was introduced to Charles I. of England, during his trip in Spain while prince of Wales, in 1623. Sir Kenelm Digby, who attended the prince, declared that he could speak as distinctly as any man whatever, and understand a whole day's conversation, even though the speaker were at a considerable distance; and also that he imitated correctly the pronunciation of words in strange languages, Irish and Welsh, on merely seeing them uttered. Bonet wrote the first formal treatise on the instruction of the deaf, Reduccion de las letras y artes para enseflar d hablar a los mudos (Madrid, 1620). He gives clear rules for teaching articulation, but considers lip-reading an accomplishment depending entirely on the pupil's quickness of sight.

He relied on gestures to explain the meaning of such words as were not the names of visible objects, and made much use of a manual alphabet, engraved in his book, almost precisely the single-hand alphabet now in use. His views on teaching language are sound and philosophical. Another Spaniard, E. E. de Carrion, in the early part of the 17th century, taught among others Emanuel Philibert, prince of Carignan, to write and speak four languages. The honor of the first three practical teachers of the deaf thus belongs to Spain. About 1604 St. Francis de Sales took into his house a deaf-mute youth, and taught him the doctrines of the church; he died of grief shortly after his benefactor's decease. In Italy great attention was paid to the anatomy of the ear, the physiology of speech, and phonology, especially by Eustachius (1563) and Fabricius of Padua, the latter of whom is said, in addition to preparing various scientific treatises (1600-'13), to have practised the instruction of the deaf. Treatises on the language of gesture also appeared, but without particular reference to the deaf.

The padre Lana Terzi, in his Arte maestra (1670), maintained the possibility of educating both the blind and the deaf, "since the privation of one sense gives to the others a keenness entirely new and extraordinary," and sketched a graduated course for teaching the latter first articulation and then the meaning of words. - In England, Sir Kenelm Digby gave an account of Bonet's pupil in his "Treatise on the Nature of Bodies" (1646), which was copied in Dr. John Bulwer's Philocophus (1648). Bulwer maintained that " a man born deaf and dumb may be taught to hear the sound of words with his eye, and thence learn to speak with his tongue." He had in his "Chironomia, or the Natural Language of the Hand" (1644), mentioned a gentleman in Essex who, becoming deaf by sickness, devised an "arthrologie, or alphabet contrived on the joints of his fingers;" but he did not perceive its applicability in education, nor does he appear ever to have reduced speculation to practice. The first man in England who did this was John Wallis, D. D., professor of geometry at Oxford, and a correspondent of Digby. He began in January, 1661, to teach a youth named Whaley, who became deaf at about five years of age, "to speak and to understand a language." The boy was exhibited before the royal society in May, 1662, and was found able to express himself, "though not elegantly, yet so as to be understood." Wallis afterward took other pupils, one of whom, Popham, having previously received some instruction from the Rev. W. Holder, as related in his "Elements of Speech" (1669), occasioned a controversy, in 1678, as to the credit due to each.

Wallis's system is detailed in two letters in the "Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society," one to Boyle, dated March, 1662, published July, 1670, and the. other to Beverly, dated Sept. 30, published in October, 1698; and in one to Amman, 1699.

It is also mentioned in the preface to the Trac-tatus de Loquela prefixed to his Grammatica Linguae Anglicanm, beginning with the 4th edition (1674). He considered articulation and understanding language as very different parts of the task, and the former as really the less difficult and wonderful, and useless without the latter. With his later pupils he did not attempt articulation. As to lip-reading, he agreed with Bonet, and declared that "there is nothing in the nature of the thing itself why letters and characters might not as properly be applied to represent immediately, as by intervention of sounds, what our conceptions are." The letter to Beverly gives his classification and order of teaching a vocabulary. Among Wallis's literary friends was George Dalgarno of Aberdeen, master of a grammar school at Oxford, who published in 1661 Ars Signo-rum, an essay on a universal language, containing the germs of Wilkins's "Real Character;" and in 1680 "DidascalocopJius, or the Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor." Both lay in undeserved neglect till 1834, when the encomiums of Dugald Stewart led to their reprint by the Maitland club of Edinburgh. Stewart and Sir William Hamilton thought Wallis was indebted to Dalgarno for much in his later statements of his system; but the main features are detailed in the earlier with sufficient precision to leave the question of originality at least doubtful.

There can be no doubt as to the merits of Dalgarno's work. It displays a just appreciation of the condition of the deaf, and great sagacity in dealing with it. The manual alphabet devised by Dalgarno is the basis of the present two-hand British alphabet. Wallis, however, was alone the guide of the subsequent British laborers. His method was first popularly made known in Defoe's "Life of Duncan Campbell" (1720), a Scotch adventurer, who represented himself as having become deaf at an early age, and having been educated by an acquaintance of Wallis; and whose pretensions to the gift of second sight are mentioned in the "Tatler" and "Spectator." Defoe's son-in-law, Henry Baker, the microscopist, taught a considerable number of deaf mutes, belonging to the highest families, to speak and read on the lips, but he never published his method. Dr. Johnson alludes to Baker in a notice of a visit to the establishment of Thomas Braidwood, at Dumbiedikes, near Edinburgh. This was the first regular school for deaf mutes in Great Britain. From it are descended in unbroken succession the existing British public institutions, the oldest and largest of which, that at London, has from the first taken its principal from Braidwood's family.

Braidwood, who had an establishment for the cure of stammering, in 1760 undertook to carry into effect with a deaf youth the plan given by Wallis in the "Philosophical Transactions." His success attracted other pupils, but he never had a larger number than could receive constant individual attention from himself or the members of his family whom he had trained to assist him; and he would disclose his methods to no one else, except on very exorbitant terms, a policy which was adhered to by his family. From scattered notices it has been gleaned that articulation and lip-reading were his main objects, and the manual alphabet was employed; but no trace is found of his using signs. He was a diligent student of previous writers, and a remarkably skilful and devoted teacher. The fullest account of his school is Vox Oculis Suojecta (London, 1783), by Francis Green, of Boston, Mass., who had a son there. This work abounds in quotations from Amman, Holder, Wallis, and others. It was written to promote the establishment of a national institution in London, whither Braidwood had just removed; but the project failed. After Braid-wood's death, his school was continued by his widow and grandchildren till 1816, when the familv were scattered.

The Braidwoods re-ceived a few indigent pupils gratuitously, but their terms were generally high; and the establishment of the first free public school was due to an entirely different and independent agency. The benevolent and public-spirited Eev. John Townsend (also one of the founders of the London missionary society, and of the British and foreign Bible society), having his sympathies excited by some deaf children in the crowd coming to his door for charity, made inquiries which resulted in the discovery of so many similarly afflicted, that ho set about the establishment of a school for them. To enlist aid, he travelled thousands of miles in England, and in 1792 opened a school in Bermondsey, Surrey, which in 1807 was removed to its present site on the Old Kent road, assuming the name of the London asylum. Its first head master was a nephew of Braidwood, Joseph Watson, who received the degree of LL. D. from the university of Glasgow in recognition of the value of his treatise, "The Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb," and his illustrated "Vocabulary" (1809-'10). His son and grandson succeeded in turn to his position. The London asylum has always been open to pupils from all parts; but it soon proved inadequate.

A grandson and namesake of Braidwood was in 1810 invited to Edinburgh to start a school, but within a year it was placed in charge of Mr. Kinniburgh, who had been trained by the Braidwoods. At Birmingham an institution was established in 1812, through the efforts of Dr. De Lys; and one at Dublin in 1816, by Dr. 0. H. Orpen. Others soon followed. - In Germany, the first efforts made were by a contemporary of Ponce, Joachim Pasch of Brandenburg, who taught his own daughter by means of pictures and signs. Early in the 17th century Camerarius and Schott allude to deaf mutes having been educated, but they were mostly such as had become deaf late in life. Much attention, as in Italy, was early paid to the theory and mechanism of speech; translations of Fabricius, Bulwer, and Holder appeared, and were followed by many original philosophical and medical essays; but very few actually attempted the education of the deaf, and each taught only a very limited number. In Holland, Peter Montanus published in 1635 a treatise on phonetics, remarkable for accuracy and minuteness; and in 1660 A. Deusing of Groningen issued an essay, De Surdis ad Ortu, entirely occupied with reasoning and theories, which ten years later was translated into English under the title, "The Deaf and Dumb Man's Discourse," by George Sibscota. In 1667 F. M. van Helmont, brother of the celebrated chemist, published Alphdbeti Naturalis Delineatio, an attempt to prove that Hebrew was the natural and divinely given language of mankind, by showing that the Hebrew characters bore an exact resemblance to the positions of the vocal organs in uttering the corresponding sounds. • He maintained that in this language a deaf mute could not only read on the lips, but could even teach himself the exact pronunciation, simply from study of the characters.

The man usually considered the founder of the German system was Johann Konrad Amman, a Swiss physician at Haarlem. Meeting a girl deaf from birth, he taught her articulation, and published an account of the process, under the title Surdus Loquens (1692). Not until seven years after did he hear of Wallis's efforts. An appreciative letter was addressed him by the Englishman, and was prefixed, with his reply, to the second edition of his work, which was enlarged and renamed Dissertatio de Loquela (1700). His writings were translated into English, German, and French, and long exerted a very powerful influence, though few if any now hold his mystical view of the divine efficacy and absolute essentialness of speech. Next was Kerger, a Silesian (1704), who, while disclaiming originality in his methods, was the first on the continent to make articulation subordinate to signs. O. B. Lasius (1715), in teaching several deaf mutes, sought to reduce the art to the utmost simplicity, and to establish a direct association of ideas with written words. He used neither articulation, signs, nor dactylology. G. Raphel of Luneburg (1718) taught his three deaf daughters, following Amman except in giving the highest place to writing.

Arnoldi (1777) used freely such signs as his pupils devised, but did not invent any himself. Simultaneously with the opening of Braidwood's school commenced the labors of Samuel Heinicke (1729-90), founder of the first public institution in Germany. While a private soldier at Dresden (1754), he became interested in a deaf and dumb boy, whom he attempted to instruct. After receiving his discharge, and studying at Jena, he went to Hamburg, where in 1758 he found another deaf child, whom he likewise began to teach, and gradually others came to him. About 20 years later the reports of his success induced the elector of Saxony to invite him to Leipsic, and install him as the head of the first public school ever established open to all classes and supported by the government. The ignorance of the friends of his first pupils made writing unavailable as a means of communication, and Amman's book falling into his hands, he eagerly adopted its principles. Holding that thought is impossible save through the medium of spoken words, he declared that all means of instruction besides articulation were utterly insufficient for mental culture; and he carried on a controversy with De l'fipee, the originator of the French system.

His native talents and force of character insured him eminent success, though his mode of operation was not materially different from that employed by his predecessors. One of his sons-in-law, Reich, succeeded him at Leipsic; another, Eschke, established the school at Berlin, and his own son one at Crefeld. The great majority of teachers in Germany being trained in his system, it long reigned almost supreme in that country. - France was the last of the leading European nations to engage in this work. As late as the commencement of the 17th century a Pere Dumoulin denied its possibility. But in 1679 a decree of the parliament of Toulouse declared valid the will of one Guibal, a congenital deaf mute, written by his own hand. No traces of his instructor have been found; and of several persons alleged to have taught the deaf, little has come down besides names and places. The first to attract public attention was Jacob Rodriguez Pereira, a Portuguese Jew, grandfather of the eminent financiers. He began teaching in 1743, and gave exhibitions before the academy of sciences in Paris in June, 1749, and January, 1751; but even the flattering reports made by committees of the academy failed to obtain from the government the liberal payment he demanded for making public his method, which he kept a profound secret, excluding even his family from all knowledge of it.

Not till long after his death was it divulged by his pupil Saboreux de Fontenai. The first 12 or 15 months were devoted to acquiring a correct pronunciation, the meaning of only a few simple expressions being given; this once attained, he proceeded to impart a general command of language. He made great use of a syllabic dactylology based on 30 fundamental positions of the fingers, designed to indicate the position of the vocal organs in uttering the sounds. This formed a very rapid means of communication. The sense of words was impressed by frequent repetition in different connections, signs being used only at the very first. Ernaud (1762) appears to have been a mere imitator of Pereira, and less successful. The Abbe Deschamps of Orleans, who in 1779 published a Cows d'education, devoted his whole life and fortune to the deaf and dumb, receiving indigent pupils gratuitously. His preference for articulation defeated all efforts to induce him to unite with De l'Epee. Thus far articulation had been with all the chief object of instruction, and with some the chief means.

Very little use had been made of the gestures by which the uneducated deaf naturally express their desires and feelings. Diderot's Let-tre 8ur les sourds et muets (1751), indeed, eulogized pantomime as a means of communication; but to test its capabilities fully and practically was reserved for the abbe de l'Epee. In 1755, while living in Paris a life of literary leisure, this benevolent ecclesiastic chanced upon two deaf young women. Their education had been begun by Pere Vanin, who had been the instructor of Pereira's favorite pupil De Fontenai; but his death left it barely commenced. Their deplorable condition strongly excited the compassion of De l'Epee, and he undertook to become their preceptor. Discovering others of the class, he devoted himself to the work, confining his attention to the poor. Like Deschamps, he gave his whole fortune to his pupils. He welcomed public notice and the visits of distinguished personages, for the sake of winning friends for the deaf; and unlike most previous teachers, who had made a mystery and a monopoly of their art, he desired nothing more earnestly than to train up suitable persons to extend and continue the work. Joseph II. of Austria offered him the revenues of an estate; he besought instead that he would establish a school for the deaf.

De l'Epee at first followed Vanin in teaching by means of pictures, but soon found that they produced extremely incorrect impressions. He next tried articulation, but was disheartened by the slow and unsatisfactory progress made. Suddenly bethinking himself that the connection between ideas and spoken words was purely arbitrary, he surmised that an association could be equally well established between ideas and written words. He observed also that the deaf possessed already a means of communication in gestures, and considered that to teach them one of our conventional languages would be merely a process of translation from this natural language, when it had been philosophically improved and expanded into an exact correspondence with the other. Upon these principles he proceeded, and successfully. De l'Epee died in 1789, and was succeeded by the abbe Sicard, then at the head of the school at Bordeaux. Sicard was a man of less philanthropic and disinterested character than his master, but of keener and more philosophical intellect, and better fitted to push the claims of his establishment for adoption by the government, which it received in 1791. During the revolution his priestly character placed him in great peril; and during Napoleon's hundred days his Bourbon sympathies made it expedient for him to repair to England, where the performances of his favorite pupils and assistants, Massieu and Clerc, excited the greatest astonishment.

Sicard, while preserving in the main the system of De l'Epee, improved it in many important respects. By an analytical system of visible illustration he made the principles of grammar familiar. His Cours d'instruction, under the guise of an account of his method with Massieu, develops his principles and processes; it reads like a philosophical romance. He was the "painter of syntax and the poet of grammar." His Theorie des signes is an ideological vocabulary, with descriptions of pantomime ingeniously devised to express the full sense of each word, sometimes accompanied by less tedious abridgments for common use. Since his death, in 1822, the Paris institution has suffered at times from directors utterly ignorant of the art, but has preserved much of its prestige. Its physicians, Itard, Meniere, and Blanchet, have done much for aural surgery. The first named founded in 1838 a classe de perfectionne-ment for the higher education of select pupils, which was the first step made in any institution beyond the primary branches.

The baron de Gerando, a member of its council of administration, was the author of a valuable history of the art and of a sketch of methods, entitled De d'education des sourds-muets (1827). The introduction of deaf-mute education into the other countries of Europe was in general effected by persons trained by Heinicke or De l'E-pee, or by their disciples, and presents little of general interest. - In America, as early as 1793, appeared an essay " On Teaching the Deaf to Speak," by Dr. W. Thornton of Philadelphia. In 1811 one of Braidwood's grandsons attempted to establish a school, first at New York and then in Virginia; but he was unsuccessful. Finally, an inquiry into the number of the deaf and dumb in Connecticut was made by Dr. M. F. Cogswell of Hartford, whose daughter having become deaf, he was hesitating whether to send her abroad. Discovering an unexpectedly large number, he enlisted the cooperation of several other gentlemen of Hartford in the project of establishing a school there. One of these, the Rev. T. H. Gallaudet, seemed pointed out for the active initiation of the work by his rare talent, force of character, tact, and amiability, and deep religious feeling. Accepting the duty, he embarked on May 25, 1815, for England, to acquire the art of instruction.

Both at London and at Edinburgh the exorbitant terms imposed by the Braid wood-Watson family repelled him; and having met Sicard and his pupils in London, he finally accepted their invitation to Paris. Here he received every facility and assistance; and on his return in August, 1816, he prevailed upon Laurent Clerc, one of Sicard's most distinguished pupils and most valued associates, to accompany him. On April 15,1817, the Connecticut asylum was opened at Hartford with seven pupils, and within a year had 33. Congress soon made it a donation of a township of wild land, the proceeds of which now form a fund of $339,000; in acknowledgment, the name of the school was changed to the American asylum, it being expected that it would suffice for the whole country for a long period. But other schools were soon called for, and the asylum has long been practically limited to the New England states. Gallaudet remained at its head for many years, and when he was compelled by ill health to retire his warm interest and influence were felt until his death in 1851. A monument was erected to his memory by contributions of the deaf and dumb throughout the country, and from designs by the deaf-mute artists, Newsam and Carlin. Two of his sons have devoted themselves to the same work, the Rev. T. Gallaudet, D. D., of New York, and E. M. Gallaudet, LL. D., of Washington. The New York institution was chartered on the very day the Hartford asylum was opened.

At first Watson's book was taken as the guide, and articulation was taught, but with such unsatisfactory results that in 1830 a thorough reorganization was effected, and two teachers were obtained from Paris and Hartford to introduce the French system. The French teacher, M. Leon Valsse, after four years returned to Paris; the other, Harvey P. Peet, LL. D., served as principal from 1831 to 1867, and built up the institution into the largest and one of the most efficient in the world. His name is worthily borne by his son and successor, Isaac Lewis Peet, LL. D. This institution has had among its professors many men since eminent in other walks of life. The Pennsylvania institution was started in 1820 by Joseph Seixas, but its system was soon remodelled by Clerc. The Kentucky institution was established in 1823 by J. A. Jacobs, who devoted to it a life of rare benevolence. Other schools rapidly followed. In the United States, the deaf mute is regarded as entitled to a share in the free school system, as fully as his hearing brothers and sisters. The state, finding it neither economical nor convenient to educate him, as it does them, in the nearest public school, sends him to a special institution adapted to his necessities; but he is not therefore to be considered a charity pupil.

Provision for the education of the deaf is made by legislative enactment in every state except perhaps Nevada, and by the general government in the District of Columbia, and in behalf of those whose fathers are in the army and navy. Most of the institutions are controlled by trustees appointed by the state; a few are private corporations, mostly, however, deriving their entire income from annual legislative appropriations. The term of instruction allowed is very generally seven years; and high classes have been established, beginning at Hartford and New York in 1852, and now existing also in the Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and District of Columbia institutions. The Columbia institution at Washington in 1864 obtained from congress a collegiate charter, and has graduated 19 young men with the degree of B. A. and 1 with that of B. S. In Canada, the first school was opened at Montreal in 1848, by the Roman Catholics; there are now five schools, of which that at Belleville, Ontario, is under government control. - In nearly all the American institutions an improved French or manual system is employed; most give more or less instruction in articulation, a special teacher being employed in some.

Several of those lately established make articulation a specialty, viz., those at Northampton and Boston, the New York institution for improved instruction, and Whipple's private school. The controversy as to the relative value of the two systems was opened in 1844 by Horace Mann and Dr. S. G. Howe, and has been carried on ever since. It has occasioned numerous visits to and reports on the leading European schools. The most important reports are those by Lewis Weld (1844), the Rev. G. E. Day (1844 and 1859), H. P. Peet (1851), the Rev. E. Ryerson (1867), E. M. Gallaudet (1867), and Miss H. B. Rogers (1872). Both boys and girls are trained to habits of industry by assisting in household duties. Wherever the resources permit, instruction is given in mechanical arts. The following table gives statistics for the year 1872:

Institutions for The Deaf And Dumb In The United States And Canada

NAME.

LOCATION.

Date of opening.

PUPILS.

TEACHERS.

TRADES.

Total.

Male.

Female.

Stmi-mute.

Total.

Male.

Female.

Deaf-mute.

Semi-mute.

American asylum......

Hartford, Conn.....

1817

290

179

111

17

17

10

7

8

2

Cabinet m., shoe m., tailoring.

New York institution.........

New York, N. Y....

1818

588

349

239

42

30

19

11

7

9

Cabinet m., shoe m., tailoring, painting, glazing, gardening.

Pennsylvania institution.....

Philadelphia, Pa.....

1820

262

137

125

82

14

11

3

8

Shoe making, tailoring.

Kentucky " .............

Danville, ky........

1823

87

47

40

6

Gardening.

Ohio "...............

Columbus O..........

1829

388

225

163

80

22

8

14

9

3

Shoe m., printing, book bind'g.

Virginia " ..............

Staunton,Va..........

1830

89

47

42

5

7

1

8

1

Cabinet m., shoe m., tailoring, printing in raised letters for the blind, book binding.

Indiana " ................

Indianapolis, Ind___

1844

304

167

137

14

8

6

8

8

Cabinet m., shoe m., tailoring.

Tennessee school............

Knoxville,Tenn........

1845

103

59

44

9

8

8

2

1

None.

North Carolina institution......

Raleigh, N. C........

1845

119

67

52

8

9

7

2

3

1

Shoe making.

Illinois " .... ....

Jacksonville,Ill......

1846

309

165

144

25

16

9

7

3

2

Cabinet m., wood turning, painting, glazing, shoe m., printing, farming.

Georgia " ....

Cave Spring,Ga........

1846

61

27

34

8

5

4

1

1

1

Shoe making.

South Carolina " ....

Cedar Spring, S. C...

1849

22

11

11

3

3

2

1

2

Carpentering, shoe making.

Fulton,Mo........

1851

186

90

96

14

8

4

4

8

None.

Louisiana institution........

Baton Rouge, La___

1852

54

34

20

4

4

4

1

1

Printing.

Wisconsin " ..............

Delavan,Wis.........

1852

164

92

72!

5

10

8

2

2

1

Cabinet making, 6hoe making.

Michigan ".........

Flint, Mich..........

1854

159

87

72

25

11

9

2

6

2

Cabinet making, shoe making.

Iowa " ...............

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

1855

131

72

59

14

7

5

2

3

None.

Mississippi " ...............

Jackson, Miss........

1856

42

25

17

5

3

3

1

1

Not reported.

Texas " ..................

Austin,Texas........

1857

30

20

10

8

2

1

..

..

None.

Columbia inst. (primary dep).

Washington. D. C...

1857

50

34

16

3

3

2

1

1

1

Cabinet making, gardening.

Alabama institution.........

Telladega,Ala........

1858

59

19

40

4

8

1

3

..

None.

California " ..................

Oakland, Cal........

1860

60

85

25

5

4

4

, ,

1

1

Cabinet m., shoe m., gardening.

St. Bridget's inst. (Rom. Cath).

St.Louis,Mo........

1860

11

11

2

2

1

..

Dress making.

Kansas institution...........

Olathe, Kansas......

1862

69

43

26

9

5

4

1

1

..

None.

St.Mary's asylum (Rom.Cath).

Buffalo, N. Y........

1862

58

27

81

4

6

1

5

2

••

Carpentering, gardening, cane work, dress making, knitting.

Minnesota institution........

Faribault,Minn......

1863

60

86

24

7

5

3

2

1

..

Cooperage, farming.

Inst, for improved instruct'n.

New York, N. Y....

1867

80

88

42

22

7

1

6

..

None.

Clarke institution..........

Northampton, Mass.

1867

60

82

28

20

5

..

5

. .

. .

None.

Arkansas " ....................

Little Rock,Ark......

1867

68

37

81

5

5

2

3

2

. .

Shoe making, gardening.

Maryland " .....................

Frederick City, Md..

1868

102

65

37

..

9

5

4

2

2

Shoe making.

Nebraska " ....................

Omaha,Neb.......

1869

26

12

14

4

3

1

2

1

Printing.

Pittsburgh day school.........

Pittsburgh, Pa......

1869

43

28

20

7

2

1

1

1

None.

Boston " ..................

Boston,Mass........

1869

55

22

33

10

4

..

4

..

..

None.

Whipple's home school........

Mystic,Conn.........

1869

4

2

2

1

2

1

1

..

..

None.

West Virginia institution......

Romney, West Va...

1870

56

35

21

9

4

2

2

1

..

None.

Oregon " ___.........

Salem,Oregon........

1870

24

13

11

6

2

1

1

1

..

None.

National deaf-mute college...

Washington, D. C. ..

1864

67

67

..

20

8

8

..

..

2

None.

Total in 36 institutions in the

United States.....

.....................

......

4340

2440

1900

378

277

167

104

72

85

Montreal R. C. inst., male___

Montreal, Quebec ...

1848

75

75

..

..

9

9

..

3

..

Cabinet m., shoe m., printing, book binding, farming.

" " " female...

" " ........

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

..

Halifax institution...........

Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1857

46

80

16

2

3

3

, .

1

, ,

Gardening.

Ontario " ..........

Belleville, Ontario....

1870

149

97

52

13

8

6

2

2

. .

Cabinet m., carpentering.

Montreal Protestant inst........

Montreal, Quebec ...

1870

22

18

4

2

2

1

1

. .

. .

Carpentering, gardening.

Total in 4 institutions in

Canada..........

.............

......

292

220

72

17

22

19

3

6

..

Total in 40 institutions............

....

.....

4632

2660

1972

395

299

186

107

78

..

Taking the average annual cost of each pnpil as $325, the sum of $1,500,000 was expended in the education of the deaf and dumb in America during the year 1872. The buildings are generally commodious and well planned; those of the New York, Ohio, and California institutions are particularly fine, as will be those of the Washington college. The annual reports of the various institutions often contain matter of permanent value; a quarterly periodical, the "American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb," has appeared with some intermissions since 1847, and forms the most valuable collection of articles on this subject in the English language. Eight conventions of the principals and instructors have been held, beginning in 1850, at which papers of great interest have been read and discussed. Several periodicals have been published by deaf mutes themselves, but except when issued to afford work to pupils learning printing, they have generally had a very brief career. Religious services among deaf mutes who have left school have been conducted since 1850 by the Rev. Thomas Gal-laudet, D. D., eldest son of the founder of the Hartford asylum.

His headquarters are at St. Ann's church for deaf mutes (Episcopal), New York city, but services are conducted regularly or occasionally in many other places by himself or his assistants. Dr. Gallaudet has also recently established a home for aged and infirm deaf mutes, for the present located in New York, and under the care of the church mission to deaf mutes. Literary associations have been formed by the graduates residing in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. "The Elect Surds," founded in 1866, is an organization for mutual improvement and assistance, having members and lodges throughout the United States; its standard of admission is high, and its discipline rigid, and the good it has already done is very considerable. - In England, there are five schools for the deaf and dumb in London, viz.: London asylum, Old Kent road, with a branch for girls at Margate; Jewish; Mr. Van Asch's, private; Miss Hull's, private, South Kensington; and female, Clapton. There are also schools atEdgbaston, near Birmingham, Manchester (with infant department), Liverpool, Exeter, Doncaster, Newcastle, Brighton, Bristol, Bath, Hull day school, and Handsworth-Woodhouse, near Sheffield (Roman Catholic). In Wales, there are schools at Swansea and Llandaff; in Scotland, at Edinburgh two (one being a department of Donaldson's hospital), Glasgow, Aberdeen, and Dundee. In Ireland, there are four in Dublin, viz.: the Clare-mont; St. Joseph's, male, and St. Mary's, female, Roman Catholic; and a day school; and one (also for blind) at Belfast. The British schools receive no government assistance, except that the guardians of poor law unions are empowered to pay for indigent deaf children at such rates as are specified.

The London asylum has an income of £15,000, mostly from its fund; a few of the others have small investments, but the majority are almost entirely dependent on each year's subscriptions. The cost of each boarding pupil is about £20 a year. Owing to this scantiness of means, and the necessity of children leaving early to be apprenticed, the age for admission is from 8 to 12, and the course seldom extends beyond five years; no trades are taught, except printing at some. The Manchester institution has an infant department, for children under 12, and a few have been received as young as 3 years. The London asylum has 350 pupils, including those in the branch for girls at Margate; few of the rest have more than 100. At London articulation is attempted with all the pupils the first two years; the other British schools have discarded it entirely save for semi-mutes, except the Jewish school in London, and the Roman Catholic at Hands-worth-Woodhouse, near Sheffield. Valuable text books and essays have appeared from the pens of Charles Baker of Doncaster, D. Buxton of Liverpool, A. Patterson of Manchester, W. R. Scott of Exeter, the Rev. J. Kinghan of Belfast, and the late D. Anderson of Glasgow. The buildings at Manchester and Glasgow are considered the finest in Great Britain. Several of the British schools have funds to assist in apprenticing their graduates.

Religious services among the adults are sustained in London by the society in aid of the deaf and dumb, Oxford street, in Manchester by a similar society, and in other places by the principals of various institutions. - On the continent, as in the United States, while much has been done by private charity for the education of the deaf, it is provided for by the state as much as that of other classes of children. The course is more extended than in Great Britain, and workshops are attached to most of the schools. The number of establishments is so great that we can mention only a few of the most important. In France, those at Paris and Bordeaux are the oldest, and are supported by the state, and pursue precisely the same method; the latter has the most magnificent buildings of any in the world. At Paris, the male and female departments were separated in 1859, the girls being removed to a distant building under distinct management. The boys have a term of seven years, during the last three of which, while continuing their studies, they learn joinery, turning, wood carving, shoemaking, bookbinding, lithography, and gardening. The charge is 1,000 francs. Indigent pupils are supported by the state or their own department or commune.

The most eminent French instructors since Sicard have been Bebian, author of a manual which has been the model for many others in Europe; Morel, editor of the "Circulars of the Paris Institution," and of the Annates; Paulmier, Puybonnieux, and Valade-Gabel, able and voluminous writers; Berthier, a deaf mute, •biographer of De l'Epee; Pelis-sier, a semi-mute poet; Piroux of Nancy, an enthusiast for dactylology; and Recoing, who devised a syllabic dactylology for the instruction of his own son. In Belgium and Holland, the institutions are supported partly by the state and partly by religious communities and societies of subscribers. At Bruges the late Abbe Carton, and at Groningen the erudite brothers Guyot, formed the most complete collections ever made of works relative to the deaf; the latter issued in 1842 a Liste litteraire philo-cophe, or bibliography of whatever had been published concerning the deaf and dumb and the blind. At Brussels are two schools: one for girls, pursuing the manual method; the other for boys, using the labial method. At Rotterdam is an articulating school, directed by D. Hirsch, the leading living advocate of this system.

In Denmark a royal decree declares that "every deaf and dumb child born in this kingdom shall receive the education necessary to render him a useful member of society." There are two schools at Copenhagen, the royal institution and Keller's private articulating school. All pupils are first sent to the royal institution for a month, then examined by the heads of the two schools, and all who seem likely to attain success in articulation are removed to Keller's school, the state paying for them at the same rate as at the other. In Sweden, the Stockholm institution has the second finest edifice in Europe. In Russia, the St. Petersburg institution has two residences, one in the city, the other on an island in the river near by, occupied during the intense heat of summer. The German schools are numerous and well supported, but mostly small, and each teacher follows his own method, so that there is little unanimity. Nearly all admit that there is a large class who cannot profit by articulation, and permit the free use of natural gestures, though they reject both conventional signs and dactylology.

Germany has been prolific of writers on the deaf; Reich of Leipsic, GrashofFand Sagert of Berlin, Neumann of Konigsberg, Graser of Baireuth, Daniel of Zuffenhausen, and Kruse of Schleswig may be particularly mentioned. The Organ der Taubstummen- und Blindenan-stalten is a valuable periodical now published monthly at Friedberg in Hesse. In Austria, the system of De l'Epee was first used, but a combined method is now generally employed. The imperial institution at Vienna, successively under Stork, May, and M. and A. Venus (father and son), and that at Prague in Bohemia, have always stood high. At Vienna are two of the best articulating schools in Europe, one supported by the Jewish community, the other the private establishment of Herr Lehfeld. The Swiss and Italian schools mostly retain the French system. The works of Assarotti of Genoa, Pendola of Siena, and Scagliotti of Turin, are of high repute. At Milan are four schools, two of which, one for boys and the other for girls, are under the direction of Signor Tarra. The third is a small private school for the wealthy.

The fourth, the royal institution, was in 1863 converted into a normal school; its beneficial effects are already evident, but much remains to be done before education will be within the reach of all the deaf of Italy. In Spain, its birthplace, the art has languished. De Alea and Ballesteros of Madrid have labored almost alone. Portugal has but one school, at Lisbon. Schools were started at Melbourne and Rio Janeiro about 1865. The want of recent and full statistics from most parts of Europe renders the following table of existing institutions only approximately correct:

United States..........

36

Canada...........

5

England and Wales..........

18

Scotland.........

5

Ireland............

6

France........

50

Belgium and Holland..........

10

Denmark, Sweden, and

Norway....

6

Russia.........

3

Prussia................

30

Other German states and Austria...............

50

Italy....................

15

Spain..........

2

Portugal..........

1

Australia.......

1

Brazil.........

1

238

These institutions probably have 1,000 teachers and 10,000 pupils, and cost over $3,000,000 per annum. - Psychical Condition and Methods of Education. The psychical condition of the uneducated deaf mute, born deaf or rendered so at an early age, is difficult for others to realize. It has often been compared to that of the blind, but there is no real resemblance. Blindness is almost purely a physical misfortune: it leaves open the most important avenues to the mind. Deafness, less severe as a physical affliction, is far more so in its repressive effects upon the intellectual and moral nature. Verbal language is with us the great means of informing and developing the mind. But "the deaf knows nothing, because he hears nothing." He has no language whereby to receive or convey ideas, except rude gestures. The great objects of education are, first, moral and mental development; and second, the acquisition of a ready and ample means of communication which may in some degree restore the sufferer to society. With regard to the means and manner of attaining these ends, there have been from the first two opposite theories, one maintaining the preeminent value of articulation, the other of signs; while not a few instructors have taken a middle course and combined both methods.

In writing the history of the art, the terms German, French, and early English are applied to these systems. But geographical boundaries have long ceased to divide them; all three are now to be found side by side in almost every country. We will therefore use the terms labial, manual, and combined. - The advocates of the labial method maintain that articulation is the only true bond between thought and words. Writing and dactylology are merely representatives of speech; and only on the presupposition of speech can they be proper vehicles of thought. Signs, though useful as a preliminary means of understanding between teacher and pupil, are not necessary links between ideas and words. They should be restricted to perfectly instinctive gestures, and even these can be discarded at a very early stage, and new words explained solely by means of words already familiar. The system of conventional signs first devised by De l'Epee is as arbitrary as any set of spoken or written symbols, and no more natural, no more readily apprehended even by the deaf.

Its continued use is highly objectionable, leading the mind away from words, and habituating it to think in a different order.

Granting that the process of intellectual advancement may be slower, speech is so great a boon as amply to compensate for the sacrifice, being the readiest and quickest mode of communication, and the only one that can completely restore a deaf mute to society. For the manual method it is claimed that the absence of hearing not merely prevents any relation between thought and speech, but even renders speech unnatural. Words are not the universal and absolute medium of thought. Nature can use, and in the deaf demands, visible forms for its embodiment. They instinctively express themselves in gestures, and apprehend new signs more readily than new words. Signs are addressed directly to the perceptive powers, and are thus the readiest and best means of promoting intellectual progress, even in the study of verbal language. The language of signs is also capable of conveying the highest and most abstract ideas. All its deficiencies are fully made up by writing and dactylology, which are superior to lip-reading in precision of conveying words. To articulation there are grave practical objections. It can be acquired so as to be rendered serviceable only by the semi-deaf, the semi-mute, and a very small proportion of deaf mutes.

Even these cannot control their voices, which are generally monotonous and often disagreeable, and unintelligible except to persons very familiar with them. To impart it requires much more time and labor, and an increased staff of teachers. Lip-reading is practicable only under very favorable conditions; the speaker must be very near, in a good light, and must enunciate slowly and distinctly; and even then it is little more than guesswork. It is becoming more and more the general opinion that, on the one hand, articulation is not merely practicable but desirable with a certain proportion, and that, on the other hand, with the rest signs may be used to greater advantage. Hence a combined method is now most in favor. But instructors differ greatly in their estimate of this proportion, and hence in the prominence they accord to one or the other method. Hirsch claims that 99 in 100 can acquire articulation to a serviceable extent. Hill estimates that 85 in 100 can converse with persons familiar with them, of whom 62 can do so easily, and 11 can converse readily with strangers on ordinary topics. Tarra considers only 30 per cent, likely to profit by instruction in articulation; and H. P. Peet, only 15 per cent.

The English and French languages have been found more difficult than German, Danish, and Swedish, and the Slavic languages. In teaching articulation, it is of prime importance that the pupil perceive the difference between his own silent and vocalized breath; this perception Amman styled "the hearing of the deaf," and to produce it, the first great mystery of his art. The elementary sounds are then taught, six weeks at least being usually devoted to drill upon them, singly and in simple combinations of two or three, without regard to their meaning or want of it. When a perfect command of the vocal organs has been obtained, longer combinations are taught, and finally sentences gradually increasing in length. The order in which sounds are introduced, and the time when meanings are associated with them, vary according to the peculiarities of the pupil and the theories of the teacher. It is important to have daily exercises, however short, and to keep the pupil fresh and interested. With the semi-deaf and semi-mute, the task is rather to correct the erroneous and indistinct enunciation they are liable to fall into.

The pupil has to rely much upon observation of the teacher's vocal movements; a little instrument, somewhat like a paper-folder, has been used by some to assist in bringing the tongue into the proper position; and diagrams and charts of the various positions of the vocal organs have been published by Baker of Don-caster and Vaisse of Paris, among others. A new and valuable auxiliary has been found in the system of "visible speech" or universal alphabetics, invented by A. M. Bell of London, now in Boston. This consists of a series of symbols representing in outline the position of the organs in uttering every possible sound. Any language whatever can thus be phonetically written in characters which indicate both the pronunciation and how to produce it. Though not originally devised for the benefit of the deaf, it was soon introduced into Miss Hull's private school in London, and is now in use in the institutions at Boston, Northampton, Hartford, Washington, and Jacksonville. Mr. Bell has also devised a system of notation to indicate pitch and tone, which, in the few cases where it has yet been tried, has proved capable of guiding to a correct and pleasing modulation. - The language of signs is based upon the gestures devised by uneducated deaf mutes, which have been found strikingly similar to those employed by various savage tribes.

They are: pointing to objects, expressions of real or simulated emotions, imitations of actions, and representation with the hands of the shape or use of articles. For convenience, the pantomime required fully to express a conception is often reduced to a single sign, by seizing upon some striking characteristic, such as the horns of a cow, or the feeling of the pulse by a physician. Such abridgments are often contrived by the deaf themselves. Ordinary objects, qualities, actions, and relations are readily represented; abstract ideas offer more difficulty. The simpler class are expressed by reference to some object having the quality intended; thus, touching the lips stands for redness. For a higher class recourse is had to rhetorical figures; thus, justice is represented by imitating with the hands a pair of scales evenly balanced. Many words are indicated by their initial letter in the manual alphabet, combined with some gesture; synonymes, which would otherwise have the same sign, are thus discriminated. Idiomatic phrases, such as "laughing in the sleeve," are transferred into one or two expressive gestures. The natural gesture language has neither inflections nor distinctions for different parts of speech from the same root, and the pronouns and particles are usually omitted.

The order is that which the person employing it judges most effective; the customary colloquial order is thought to resemble that of Latin. To establish a language of signs having an exact correspondence with our verbal languages was the aim of De l'Epee and Sicard. They invented signs for the inflections and particles, and prescribed the use of signs for every word, and in the exact order of the words. This system of methodical signs is of service in teaching languages, but is too stiff and cumbrous for general use in conversation by those imperfectly acquainted with words; and those who can use words fluently prefer the manual alphabet. A "Dictionary of Signs" has been repeatedly essayed; but the slightest attempt to frame a verbal description of a gesture, from which the gesture can be exactly reproduced by a reader of the description, will show the extreme difficulty of the task. Mimographies, or systems of arbitrary symbols for movements and positions, resembling those of phonography for sounds, have been proposed but not elaborated; the plan of the late G. Hutton of Halifax, N. S., appears most feasible. Signs at present can be accurately learned only from the living teacher and by constant practice. Two manual alphabets are in use.

That re:

Causes Of Deafness 0500401

It imitates the forms of the Roman capital letters, except the vowels; the distinction of these from the consonants, and the somewhat greater ease of learning the system, are certainly advantages, but not sufficient to counterbalance its inconveniences. The other requires only one hand, and imitates the forms of the small letters; it dates back to Bonet, and is used everywhere except in Great Britain, and even there it is gaining ground. The illustration shows the American usage; the letters q and t are slightly different in Europe. The j and z are completed by motions describing the curve of the one and the angles of the other. There are positions of the fingers for the numerals, used only in America. - In the like that of hearing children, with only a change from the ear to the eye as the avenue of communication with the mind. With the former, the mind must he awakened to activity, as well as furnished with methods of communication; the unconscious acquisitions of hearing children are almost totally lacking; and the teacher's great difficulty is to realize how very low is the point of departure. Heinicke laid down the maxim, "First ideas, then words," and Jacotot added that difficulties must be graduated and presented singly.

Accepting these principles, teachers differ greatly in their application. Some teach the alphabet first, others words as units, others complete sentences as single conceptions. Some begin with a copious vocabulary; others frame sentences as soon as a few words have been learned; others begin with sentences and deduce the component words. Names of visible objects, their obvious properties, numerals, personal pronouns, and verbs of action are most readily apprehended. The adjectives first taught are usually those of size and color; the prepositions, those of locality. The simple tenses are exemplified by calling attention to a succession of actions. Much use is made of contrast. A considerable step has been taken when the pupil can unite two sentences or clauses, and another when he comprehends the variation of mood and voice. A child of ordinary intelligence, beginning at the age of 10 or 12, will learn in one year to write simple sentences concerning every-day affairs. During the first two or three years, works prepared expressly for the deaf and dumb are used principally; after that, text books prepared for hearing children are taken. Want of means is the only reason why so few advanced works for the deaf and dumb are published.

Elementary manuals have been published in America by H. B. Peet, Jacobs, Keep, and J. S. Hutton, and in England by Baker, Hopper, Scott, Patterson, and others. Peet's and Jacobs's are the most extensive and popular. In most of the United States the legal term of attendance is seven years, but the actual average is five. In this time, however, the pupil usually acquires a command of written language and acquaintance with the common school branches sufficient for the ordinary demands of life. The higher classes pursue the studies usually taught in high schools; Latin, French, geometry, and surveying are taught to those who exhibit special aptitude. The college at Washington is designed to afford a course equivalent to that pursued in other colleges; and one object of it is to qualify deaf mutes better to be themselves teachers of the deaf and dumb. The chief modification of the course is in giving more time to English and less to classics and mathematics. It has been objected to special institutions for both the deaf and the blind, that their peculiarities are intensified by aggregation. Arrowsmith in England, in 1817, Graser in Germany, about 1830, and more recently Blanchet of Paris, proposed to educate the deaf and dumb in common schools, along with their hearing brothers and sisters.

The experiment has been tried in Ireland, Prussia, France, and Belgium; everywhere it has been found that its inconveniences and disadvantages far counterbalance any attending the other system. This, however, was in the elementary instruction. In a few recent cases deaf persons have with benefit and credit attended the higher schools for the hearing. - The legal status of the deaf and dumb who were unable to read and write was, under the Roman law and the codes founded upon it, practically that of the insane and the idiotic. The English common law early recognized that intelligence sufficient for the enjoyment of all civil rights, and for credibility and accountability in courts of law, might be manifested otherwise than by the use of verbal language. The principle is now settled by numerous precedents, both in England and in the United States, that the degree of intelligence in a deaf mute is to be decided as a matter of fact, and any means whereby he can express himself intelligibly, directly or through an interpreter, is admissible. A will made by a deaf and dumb lady, at an advanced age, and after she had become blind, was lately declared valid in England. It is only in the case of the totally uneducated that there is any question of accountability.

The most exhaustive essays on this subject are by 0. Guyot of Gro-ningen, and H. P. Peet and his son I. L. Peet of New York. Berthier of Paris is editing the Code Napoleon with reference to the wants of the deaf and dumb. - The number of the deaf and dumb who have attained eminence is very small, and all or nearly all have been semi-mutes. Q. Pedius and Navarrete, Mas-sieu and Clerc, Pelissier, Berthier, and Kruse have already been mentioned. In Great Britain we note Walter Geikie, S. R. A. (1795-1837), called "the Teniers of Scotland;" John Kitto, D. D. (1804-'54), editor of the "Biblical Cyclopaedia" and author of "Daily Bible Illustrations;" and Mr. Lowe, a conveyancer and chamber counsel in London. In France, Baron Eugene de Montbret (1785-1847) was distinguished as a linguist. In America, James Nack has published several volumes of poems; John R. Burnet has written many contributions to periodicals of a high class; the late Albert New-sam was a leading lithographic artist; John Carlin is known both as a miniature painter and as a writer; and Francis McDonnell has attained some reputation as a sculptor.

Mrs. Mary Toles Peet has written numerous fugitive poems, and Miss Laura 0. Redden has made her nom de plume of "Howard Glyndon" familiar to magazine readers.

Single hand Alphabet.

Single-hand Alphabet.