First year: Algebra, grammar, punctuation, history of England,
composition, Latin grammar, Caesar.
Second year: Algebra (from quadratics), geometry, composition, Caesar
(Gallic War), Cicero (Orations), Allen and Greenough's _Latin
Grammar_, Myer's _General History_, Goodwin's _Greek Grammar_
(optional), Xenophon's _Anabasis_ (optional).
Third year: Olney's or Loomis's _Plane and Spherical Trigonometry_,
Loomis's _Analytical Geometry_ (optional), Orton's _Zoology_, Gray's
_Botany_, Remsen's _Chemistry_, laboratory practice, Virgil's
_Aeneid_, Homer's _Iliad_ (optional), Meiklejohn's _History of English
Literature and Language_ (two books), Maertz's _English Literature_,
Hadley's _History_, original composition.
Fourth year: Loomis's _Calculus_ (optional), Dana's _Mechanics_,
Gage's _Natural Philosophy_, Young's _Astronomy_, laboratory practice,
qualitative analysis, Steel's Hygienic _Physiology_, Edgren's _French
Grammar_, Super's _French Reader, Demosthenes on the Crown_
(optional), Hart's _Composition and Rhetoric_, original composition,
Hill's-Jevon's _Elementary Logic_.
Fifth year: Arnold's _Manual of English Literature_, Maertz's _English
Literature_, original composition, Guizot's _History of Civilization_,
Sheldon's _German Grammar_, Joynes's _German Reader_, LeConte's
_Geology_, Guyot's _Earth and Man_, Hill's _Elements of Psychology_,
Haven's _Moral Philosophy_, Butler's _Analogy_, Bascom's _Elements of
Beauty_, Perry's _Political Economy_, Gallaudet's _International Law_.
Even in 1893 we were told that of the graduates of the college
"fifty-seven have been engaged in teaching, four have entered the
ministry; three have become editors and publishers of newspapers;
three others have taken positions connected with journalism; fifteen
have entered the civil service of the government,--one of these, who
had risen rapidly to a high and responsible position, resigned to
enter upon the practice of law in patent cases, in Cincinnati and
Chicago, and has been admitted to practise in the Supreme Court of the
United States; one is the official botanist of a state, who has
correspondents in several countries of Europe who have repeatedly
purchased his collections, and he has written papers upon seed tests
and related subjects which have been published and circulated by the
agricultural department; one, while filling a position as instructor
in a western institution, has rendered important service to the coast
survey as a microscopist, and one is engaged as an engraver in the
chief office of the survey; of three who became draughtsmen in
architects' offices, one is in successful practice as an architect on
his own account, which is also true of another, who completed his
preparation by a course of study in Europe; one has been repeatedly
elected recorder of deeds in a southern city, and two others are
recorders' clerks in the west; one was elected and still sits as a
city councilman; another has been elected city treasurer and is at
present cashier of a national bank; one has become eminent as a
practical chemist and assayer; two are members of the faculty of the
college, and two others are rendering valuable service as instructors
therein; some have gone into mercantile and other offices; some have
undertaken business on their own account; while not a few have chosen
agricultural and mechanical pursuits, in which the advantages of
thorough mental training will give them a superiority over those not
so well educated. Of those alluded to as having engaged in teaching,
one has been the principal of a flourishing institution in
Pennsylvania; one is now in his second year as principal of the Ohio
institution; one has been at the head of a day school in Cincinnati,
and later of the Colorado institution; a third has had charge of the
Oregon institution; a fourth is at the head of a day school in St
Louis; three others have respectively founded and are now at the head
of schools in New Mexico, North Dakota, and Evansville, Indiana, and
others have done pioneer work in establishing schools in Florida and
in Utah."
Later years would unfold a similar tale of subsequent students; in
1907 there were 134 in the college and 59 in the Kendall School.
There is a normal department attached to the college, to which are
admitted six hearing young men and women for one year who are
recommended as being anxious to study methods of teaching the deaf and
likely to profit thereby. Their course of study for 1898-1899 included
careful training in the oral method, instruction in Bell's _Visible
Speech_, instruction in the anatomy of the vocal organs, lectures on
sound, observation of methods, oral and manual, in Kendall School,
lectures on various subjects connected with the deaf and their
education, lectures on pedagogy, lessons in the language of signs,
practical work with classes in Kendall School under the direction of
the teachers, correction of essays of the introductory class, &c. But
the greatest advantage of the year's course is that the half-dozen
hearing students live in the college, have their meals with the
hundred deaf, and mix with them all day long--if they wish it--in
social intercourse and recreation. We are very far indeed from saying
that one such year is sufficient to make a hearing man a qualified
teacher of the deaf, but the arrangement is based on the right
principle, and it sets his feet on the right path to learn how to
teach--so far as this art can be learned. The recent regulation of the
board of education in England, prohibiting hearing pupil teachers in
schools for the deaf, is deplorable, retrograde and inimical to the
best interests of the deaf. It shows a complete ignorance of their
needs. The younger a teacher begins to mix with that class the better
he will teach them.
In 1886 a royal commission investigated the condition and education of
the deaf in Great Britain, and in 1889 issued its report. Some of the
recommendations most worthy of notice were that deaf children from seven
to sixteen years of age should be compelled to attend a day school or
institution, part, or the whole, of the expense being borne by the local
school authority; that technical instruction should be given, and that
all the children should be taught to speak and lip-read on the "pure"
oral method unless physically or mentally disqualified, those who had
partial hearing or remains of speech being entirely educated by that
method. To the last mentioned recommendation--concerning the method to
be adopted--two of the commissioners took exception, and another stated
his recognition of some advantage in the manual method.
As a result of the report of the royal commission a bill was passed in
1893 making it compulsory for all deaf children to be educated. This was
to be done by the local education authority, either by providing day
classes or an institution for them, or by sending them to an already
existing institution, parents having the choice, within reasonable
limits, of the school to which the child should go. School-board classes
came into existence in almost every large town where there was no
institution, and sometimes where one existed. Those who uphold the
day-school system advance the arguments that the pupils are not, under
it, cut off from the influence of home life as they are in institutions;
that such influences are of great advantage; that this system permits
the deaf to mix freely with their hearing brethren, &c. The objections,
however, to this arrangement outweigh its possible advantages. The
latter, indeed, amount to little; for home influences in many cases,
especially in the poorer parts of the large cities, are not the best,
and communication with the hearing children who attend some of the day
schools may not be an unmixed blessing, nor is freedom to run wild on
the streets between school hours. But it may be urged further that it is
difficult, except in very large towns, to obtain a sufficient number of
deaf children attending a day school to classify them according to their
status, while it is more than one teacher can do to give sufficient
attention to several children, each at a different stage of instruction
from any other. Moreover, the deaf need more than mere school work; they
need training in morals and manners, and receive much less of it from
their parents than their hearing brothers and sisters. This can only be
given in an institution wherein they board and lodge as well as attend
classes. The existing institutions were from 1893 placed, by the act of
that date, either partly or wholly under the control of the school
board. They were put under the inspection of the government, and as long
as they fulfilled the requirements of the inspectors as regards
education, manual and physical training, outdoor recreation and suitable
class-room and dormitory accommodation, they might remain in the hands
of a committee who collected, or otherwise provided, one-third of the
total expenditure, and received two-thirds from public sources. Or else,
the institution might be surrendered entirely to the management of the
public school authority, and then the whole of the expenditure was to be
borne by that body. Extra government grants of five guineas per pupil
are now given for class work and manual or technical training. Such is
the state of things at the present day, except, of course, that the
school board has given place to the county council as local authority.
Some teachers have asked for the children to be sent to school at the
age of five instead of seven. This savours of another confession that
the "pure" oral method had not done what was expected of it at first.
First, the demand was for the method itself; then came requests for
more teachers, so that, the classes being smaller, each pupil should
receive more attention; this meant more money, and so this was asked
for; then day schools would remedy the failure by giving the pupils
opportunities of talking with the public in general; then we were told
the teachers were unskilful; finally, more time is needed. And yet the
_language_ of the pupils is no better to-day than it was in 1881, even
though they were at school only four or five years then as opposed to
nine or ten now.
Foreign schools.
To Addison's _Report on a Visit to some Continental Schools for the
Deaf_ (1904-1905) we are indebted for the following information. The
new school at Frankfort-on-Maine, accommodating forty or fifty
children at a cost of L40 to L50 per head, is modelled on the plan of
a family home. The main objects are to obtain good speech and
lip-reading and to use these colloquially; the work is very thorough
and the teaching very skilful. At Munich those of the hundred pupils
who have some hearing are separated from the others and taught by ear
as well as eye. At Vienna (Royal Institution) a small proportion of
the pupils are day scholars, as they are at Munich, and the teaching
is, of course, carried on by the oral method, as it is all over
Germany. Here, however, the teachers "think it impossible to educate
fully all deaf-mutes by the oral method only." In the Jews' Home at
Vienna the semi-deaf are taught by the acoustic method, and are not
allowed to see the teacher's lips at all. At Dresden, a large school
of 240 pupils, the director favours smaller institutions than his own,
considers the oral method possible for all but the "weak-minded deaf,"
and divides his pupils into A, B and C divisions, according to
intellect. In the first division good speech is obtained. Saxony
boasts a home for deaf homeless women, grants premiums for deaf
apprentices, and trains its teachers of the deaf in the institution
itself--a good record and plan. In the royal institution at Berlin
Addison saw good lip-reading and thorough work, though the deaf in the
city--as in most of the schools--signed. The men in Berlin "like the
adult deaf generally, were all in favour of a combination of methods,
and condemned the pure oral theory as impracticable." At Hamburg,
again, "hand signs" were used at least for Sunday service. Schleswig
has two schools. Pupils are admitted first to the residential
institution, where they are instructed for a year, and are then
divided into A, B and C classes, "according to intellect." The lowest
class (C) remain at this institution for the rest of the eight years,
and a "certain amount of signing" is allowed in their instruction. A
and B classes are boarded out in the town and attend classes at a day
school specially built for them, being taught orally exclusively.
In Denmark Addison saw what impressed him most. All the children of
school age go to Fredericia and remain for a year in the boarding
institution. They are then examined and the semi-deaf--29% of the
whole--are sent to Nyborg. The rest--all the totally deaf--remain
another year at Fredericia and are then divided into the A, B and C
divisions before mentioned, and on the same criterion--intellect.
Those in C--the lowest class, 28% of the totally deaf--are sent to
Copenhagen, where they are taught by the manual method, no oral work
being attempted. Those in B class, numbering 19% of the deaf, remain
in the residential institution in Fredericia and are taught orally,
while the best pupils--A class--are boarded out in the town and attend
a special day school. These form 26% of the deaf, and those with whom
they live encourage them to speak when out of as well as when in
school. The buildings and equipment generally are excellent. "Hand
signs" are used at Nyborg, indicating the position of the vocal organs
when speaking, and, as might be expected, the "lip"-reading is 90%
more correct when these symbols--infinitely more visible than most of
the movements of the vocal organs and face when speaking--are used at
the same time. The idea of these hand signs, by the way, corresponds
to that of Graham Bell's _Visible Speech_, in which a written symbol
is used to indicate the position of the vocal organs when uttering
each sound; it is a kind of phonetic writing which is to a slight
extent illustrative at the same time. We find natural signs of the
utmost value when teaching articulation, to describe the position of
the vocal organs. We give these details from Mr Addison's notes
because it is to Germany that so many look for guidance to-day, and it
is the home of the so-called "pure" oral method; while the system of
classification in Denmark into the four schools which are controlled
by one authority, struck him very favourably and so is given rather
fully.
In France most of the schools are supported by charity, and the only
three government institutions are those at Paris for boys, with 263
pupils lately, at Bordeaux for girls, having 225 inmates, and at
Chambery with 86 boys and 38 girls. In the great majority the method
of instruction is professedly pure oral. "But," said Henri Gaillard
(_Report, World's Congress of the Deaf_, Missouri, 1904), "this is
only in appearance. In reality all of the schools use the combined
method; only they are not willing to admit it, because the oral method
is the official method, imposed by the inspectors of the minister of
the interior."
In Italy, again, we are told that the teachers sign in most of the
schools, which are professedly pure oral.
In Sweden, schools for the deaf have ceased to depend, as they did up
to 1891, upon private benevolence. The system is generally the
combined, and in schools where the oral method is adopted the pupils
are divided into A, B and C divisions, as in Denmark and Dresden, in
the two latter divisions of which signs are allowed. In Norway the
method is the oral.
_Methods of Teaching._--There have always been two principal methods of
teaching the deaf, and all education at the present time is carried on
by means of one or other or both of these. Where there is sufficient
hearing to be utilized, instruction is sometimes given thereby as well,
though this auricular method does not seem to make much headway, and
experience is not in favour of believing that the sense of hearing,
where a little exists, can be "cultivated" to any marked degree. It is
really impossible to draw hard and fast lines between these means of
instruction. One merges into another, and this other into the next; and
no two teachers will, or can, adopt exactly the same lines. It is not
desirable that they should, for much must be left to individuality.
Orders, rules, methods, should not be absolute laws. Observe them
generally, but dispense with them as circumstances, the pupil and
opportunity may require. Strong individuality, sympathy, enthusiasm,
long intercourse with the deaf, are needed in the teacher, and it is
surely obvious that every teacher should have a full command of all the
primary means of instruction to begin with, and not of one only.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.--The Manual Alphabet. (One-handed.)