him talked of by the passengers in the stage, I was startled by the
circumstance into a speculation on the varieties of methods and degrees
in which eminent authors are revealed to their fellow-men. There is, to
be sure, the old rule, "by their fruits ye shall know them;" but the
whole harvest of fruits is in some cases so long in coming in, that the
knowledge remains for the present very imperfect. As a general rule,
earnest writers show their best selves in their books; in the series of
calm thoughts which they record in the passionless though genial
stillness of their retirement, whence the things of the world are seen
to range themselves in their right proportions, in their justest aspect;
and where the glow of piety and benevolence is not damped by, but rather
consumes fears and cares which relate to self, and discouragement
arising from the faults of others. In such cases a close inspection of
the life impairs, more or less, the impression produced by the writings.
In other cases there is a pretty exact agreement between the two modes
of action, by living and writing. This is a rarer case than the other;
and it happens either when the principles of action are so thoroughly
fixed and familiarized as to rule the whole being, or when the faults of
the mind are so intimately connected with its powers as to be kept in
action by the exercise of those powers in solitude, as they are by
temptations in the world.
There is another case rarer still; when an earnest writer, gifted and
popular, still falls below himself, conveying an impression of faults
which he has not, or not in the degree in which they seem to appear. In
such an instance a casual acquaintance may leave the impression what it
was, while a closer inspection cannot but be most grateful to the
observer. In my opinion, this is Dr. Channing's case. His writings are
powerful and popular abroad and at home, and have caused him to be
revered wherever they are known; but revered as an exalted personage, a
clerical teacher, conscious of his high station, and endeavouring to do
the duties of it. A slight acquaintance with him must alter this
impression, without, perhaps, improving it. When he becomes a companion,
the change is remarkable and exhilarating. He drops glorious thoughts as
richly as in his pages, while humble and gentle feelings shine out, and
eclipse the idea of teaching and preaching. The ear listens for his
steps and his voice, and the eye watches for the appearance of more of
his writings, not as for a sermon or a lesson, but as a new hint of the
direction which that intellect and those affections are taking which are
primarily employed in watching over the rights and tendencies, and
ameliorating the experience of those who occupy his daily regards.
MUTES AND BLIND.
"Another noble response to the battle-cry of the Prince of Peace,
summoning his hosts to the conquest of suffering and the rescue of
humanity."
--_Rationale of Religious Inquiry._
"Vicaria linguae manus."
"Protected, say enlightened, by the ear."
WORDSWORTH.
Some weeping philosophers of the present day are fond of complaining of
the mercenary spirit of the age, and insist that men are valued (and
treated accordingly), not as men, but as producers of wealth; that the
age is so mechanical, that individuals who cannot act as parts of a
machine for creating material comforts and luxuries are cast aside to be
out of the way of the rest. What do such complainers make of the lot of
the helpless in these days? How do they contrive to overlook or evade
the fact that misery is recognised as a claim to protection and solace,
not only in individual cases, which strike upon the sympathies of a
single mind, but by wholesale; unfortunates, as a class, being cared
for on the ground of their misfortunes? Are deformed and deficient
children now cast out into the wastes to perish? Is any one found in
this age who is of Aristotle's opinion, that the deaf and dumb must
remain wholly brutish? Does any one approve the clause of the code of
Justinian by which deaf-mutes are deprived of their civil rights? Will
any one now agree with Condillac, that the deaf and dumb have no memory,
and, consequently, are without reasoning power? If every one living is
wiser than to believe these things, he owes his wisdom to the benevolent
investigation which has been made into the condition of these isolated
and helpless beings; an investigation purely benevolent, as it proceeded
on the supposition that they were irremediably deficient. The testimony
of their best benefactors goes to prove this. The Abbé de l'Epée,
Sicard, Guyot of Groningen, Eschke of Berlin, Cæsar of Leipsic, all
began their labours in behalf of the deaf and dumb with the lowest
notion of the capabilities of the objects of their care, and the
humblest expectations as to what could be done for them. Sicard
acknowledged a change of views when his experience had become enlarged.
He says, "It will be observed that I have somewhat exaggerated the sad
condition of the deaf and dumb in their primitive state, when I assert
that virtue and vice are to them without reality. I was conducted to
these assertions by the fact that I had not yet possessed the means of
interrogating them upon the ideas which they had before their education;
or that they were not sufficiently instructed to understand and reply to
my questions."[9] It should be remembered, to Sicard's honour, and that
of other benefactors of the deaf and dumb, that their labours were
undertaken more in pity than in hope, in benevolence which did not look
for, though it found reward. None were more astonished than they at the
revelation which took place of the minds of the dumb when the power of
expression was given them; when, for instance, one of them, Peter
Desloges, declared, with regard to his deaf and dumb acquaintance,
"There passes no event at Paris, in France, or in the four quarters of
the globe, which does not afford matter of ordinary conversation among
them." The deaf and dumb are prone to hyperbolical expression, of which
the above sentence may be taken as an instance; but it is founded in
fact.
Footnote 9: "Théorie des Signes, pour servir d'introduction à l'étude
des langues." Avertissement.
The benevolence which undertook the care of this class of unfortunates,
when their condition was esteemed hopeless, has, in many cases, through
a very natural delight at its own success, passed over into a new and
opposite error, particularly in America, where the popular philosophy of
mind comes in aid of the delusion. From fearing that the deaf and dumb
had hardly any capacities, too many of their friends have come to
believe them a sort of sacred, favoured class, gifted with a keener
apprehension, a more subtile reason, and a purer spirituality than
others, and shut out from little but what would defile and harden their
minds. Such a belief may not be expressed in propositions or allowed on
a full statement; but much of the conversation on the condition of the
class proceeds on such an idea; and, in my own opinion, the education of
deaf-mutes is and will be materially impaired by it. Not only does it
give rise to mistakes in their treatment, but there is reason to fear
bad effects from the disappointment which must sooner or later be
occasioned. If this disappointment should act as a damper upon the
exertions made in behalf of the deaf and dumb, it will be sad, for only
a very small number are yet educated at all in any country, and they are
far more numerous than is generally supposed. In 1830, the total number
of deaf and dumb of all ages in the United States was 6106. Of a
teachable age the number was 2000, of whom 466 were in course of
education. The number of deaf-mutes in Europe at the same time was
140,000. It is of great importance that the case of so large a class of
society should be completely understood, and rescued from one extreme of
exaggeration as it has been from the other.
When at New-York I paid a visit one morning, in company with a
clergyman, to the mother of a young lady who was deaf and dumb, and for
whose education whatever advantages were obtainable by money and pains
had been procured. My clerical friend shared, I believe, the popular
notions about the privileged condition of the class the young lady
belonged to. Occasion arose for my protesting against these notions, and
declaring what I had reason to think the utmost that could be done for
deaf-mutes in the present state of our knowledge. The clergyman looked
amazed at my speaking thus in the presence of the mother; but I knew
that experience had taught her to agree with me, and that her tenderness
made her desire that her daughter's situation should be fully
understood, that she might receive due allowance and assistance from
those who surrounded her. The mother laid her hand on mine, and thanked
me for pleading the cause of the depressed against those who expected
too much from them. She said that, after all that could be done, the
knowledge of deaf-mutes was generally confined and superficial; their
tastes frivolous; their tempers wilful and hasty; their whole mental
state puerile; and she added that, as long as all this was not allowed,
they would be placed in positions to which they were unequal, and which
they did not understand, and would not be so amply provided as they
might be with enjoyments suited to their condition.
This is not the place in which to enter upon the interesting inquiry
into the principles of the education of the deaf and dumb; a deep and
wide subject, involving matters important to multitudes besides the
class under notice. Degerando observed that the art of instructing
deaf-mutes, if traced back to its principles, terminates in the sciences
of psychology and general grammar. A very superficial view of the case
of the class shows something of what the privation really is, and,
consequently, furnishes hints as to the treatment by which it may be in
part supplied. Many kindhearted people in America, and not a few in
Europe, cry out, "They are only deprived of one sense and one means of
expression. They have the infinite human spirit within them, active and
irrepressible, with infinite objects in its view. They lose the
pleasures of the ear; they lose one great opportunity of spiritual
action, both on the world of matter and on human minds; but this is
compensated for by the activity of the soul in other regions of thought
and emotion; and their contemplation of their own objects is
undisturbed, in comparison with what it would be if they were subject to
the vulgar associations with which we have to contend."
It is true that the deaf from birth are deficient in one sense only,
while they are possessed of four; but the one in which they are
deficient is, beyond all estimate, the most valuable in the formation of
mind. The eye conveys, perhaps, more immediate and vivid pleasures of
sense, and is more requisite to external and independent activity; so
that, in the case of the loss of a sense after the period of education,
the privation of sight is a severer misfortune, generally speaking,
than the loss of hearing. But, in the case of deficiency from birth, the
deaf are far more unfortunate than the blind, from the important power
of abstraction being in them very feeble in its exercise, and sadly
restricted in the material on which it has to work. The primary
abstractions of the blind from birth will be less perfect than those of
other children, the great class of elements from visual objects being
deficient; but when they come to the second and more important class of
abstractions; when from general qualities of material objects they pass
on to the ideas compounded from these, their disadvantages disappear at
each remove; till, when intellectual and moral subjects open before
them, they may be considered almost on equal terms with the generality
of mankind. These intellectual and moral ideas, formed gradually out of
lower abstractions, are continually corrected, modified, and enlarged by
intercourse with the common run of minds, alternating with
self-communion. This intercourse is peculiarly prized by the blind, from
their being precluded from solitary employments and amusements; and the
same preclusion impels them to an unusual degree of self-communion; so
that the blind from birth are found to be, when well educated, disposed
to be abstract in their modes of thought, literal in their methods of
expression, and earnest and industrious in the pursuit of their objects.
Their deficiencies are in general activity, in cheerfulness, and in
individual attachments.
The case of the deaf from birth is as precisely opposite as can be
imagined, and much less favourable. They labour under an equal privation
of elementary experience; and, in addition, under an almost total
absence of the means of forming correct abstractions of the most
important kinds. Children in general learn far less of the most
essential things by express teaching than by what comes to them in the
course of daily life. Their wrong ideas are corrected, their partial
abstractions are rectified and enriched by the incessant unconscious
action of other minds upon theirs. Of this kind of discipline the
deaf-mute is deprived, and the privation seems to be fatal to a healthy
intellectual and moral growth. He is taught expressly what he knows of
intellectual and moral growth. He is taught expressly what he knows of
intellectual and moral affairs; of memory, imagination, science, and
sagacity; of justice, fortitude, emotion, and conscience. And this
through imperfect means of expression. Children, in general, learn these
things unconsciously better than they learn anything by the most
complete express teaching. So that we find that the deaf-mute is ready
at defining what he little understands, while the ordinary child
feelingly understands what he cannot define. This power of definition
comes of express teaching, but by no means implies full understanding.
Its ample use by the deaf and dumb has led to much of the error which
exists respecting their degree of enlightenment. They are naturally
imitative, from everything being conveyed to them by action passing
before the eye; and those who observe them can scarcely avoid the
deception of concluding that the imitative action, when spontaneous,
arises from the same state of mind which prompted the original action.
It is surprising how long this delusion may continue. The most watchful
person may live in the same house with a deaf-mute for weeks and months,
conversing on a plain subject from time to time, with every conviction
of understanding and being understood, and find at length a blank
ignorance, or an astounding amount of mistake existing in the mind of
his dumb companion, while the language had been fluent and correct, and
every appearance of doubt and hesitation excluded. There need be no
conceit and no hypocrisy all this time in the mind of the deaf-mute. He
believes himself in the same state of mind with those who say the same
thing, and has no comprehension that that which is to him literal is to
them a symbol. While nothing can be easier than to conduct the religious
education of the blind, since all the attributes of Deity are exercised
towards them, in inferior degrees, by human invisible beings, it is
difficult to ascertain what is gained by deaf-mutes under a process of
instruction in religion. No instance has been known, I understand, of a
deaf-mute having an idea of God prior to instruction. For a long time,
at least, the conception is low, the idea pictorial; and, if it ceases
to be so, the teacher cannot confidently pronounce upon it; the common
language of religion being as easily accommodated by superficial minds
to their own conceptions, as adopted by minds which mean by it something
far higher and deeper. A pupil at Paris, who was considered to have been
effectually instructed in the first principles of religion, was
discovered, after a lapse of years, to have understood that God was a
venerable old man living in the clouds; that the Holy Spirit was a dove
surrounded with light; and that the devil was a monster dwelling in a
deep place. Life, with its truths conveyed under appearances, is to them
what German and other allegorical stories are to little children. They
perceive and talk glibly about the pictorial part, innocently supposing
it the whole; while they are as innocently supposed, by unpractised
observers, to perceive the philosophical truth conveyed in the picture.
It is often said that, if the blind have the advantage of communication
with other minds by conversation, the deaf have it by books. This is
true; but, alas! to books must be brought the power of understanding
them. The grand disadvantage of the deaf is sustained antecedently to
the use of books; and, though they gain much knowledge of facts and
other advantages by reading, books have no power to remedy the original
faulty generalization by which the minds of deaf-mutes are kept narrow
and superficial. If a remedy be ever found, it seems as if it must be by
rendering their intercourse by the finger-alphabet and writing much more
early than it is, and as nearly as possible general. If it could be
general, and take place as early as speech usually does, they would
still be deprived, not only of all inarticulate sounds and the
instruction which they bring, but of the immense amount of teaching
which comes through the niceties of spoken language, and of all that is
obtained by hearing conversation between others; but, still, the change
from almost total exclusion, or from intercourse with no minds but those
suffering under the same privation, and those of three or four teachers,
to communion with a variety of the common run of persons, would be so
beneficial that it is scarcely possible to anticipate its results. But
the finger-alphabet is not yet practised, or likely to be practised
beyond the sufferers themselves and their teachers and families; and
before a deaf and dumb child can be taught reading and writing, the
mischief to his mind is done.
As for the general intellectual and moral characteristics of deaf-mutes,
they are precisely what good reasoners would anticipate. The wisest of
the class have some originality of thought, and most have much
originality of combination. They are active, ingenious, ardent,
impressible, and strongly affectionate towards individuals; but they are
superficial, capricious, passionate, selfish, and vain. They are like a
coterie of children, somewhat spoiled by self-importance, and
prejudiced and jealous with regard to the world in whose intercourses
they do not share. So far from their feeling ashamed of their
singularity, generally speaking, they look down upon people who are not
of their coterie. It is well known that deaf and dumb parents sometimes
show sorrow that their children can hear and speak, not so much from a
selfish fear of alienation, as from an idea that they themselves are
somehow a privileged class. The delight of mutes in a school is to
establish a sign-language which their teachers cannot understand, and
they keep up a strong _esprit de corps_. This is maintained, among other
means, by a copious indulgence in ridicule. Their very designations of
individuals are derived from personal peculiarities, the remembrance of
which is never lost. If any visiter folds his arms, sneezes, wears a
wig, has lost a tooth, or, as in the case of Spurzheim, puts his hand up
for a moment to shade his eyes from the sun, the mark becomes his
designation for ever.
Much has been said and written about whether people always think in
words. Travellers in a foreign country are surprised to find how soon
and constantly they detect themselves thinking in the language of that
country. Degerando took pains to ascertain how deaf-mutes think. The
uninstructed can, of course, know nothing of words. It seems that their
thoughts are few, and that they consist of the images of visual objects
passing merely in the order of memory, _i. e._, in the order in which
they are presented. As soon as the pupils become acquainted with
language, and with manual signs of abstract ideas, they use these signs
as we do words. Degerando clearly ascertained that they use
gesticulation in their private meditations; a remarkable fact.
The first efforts towards erecting an institution for the education of
the deaf and dumb in America were made in 1815, at Hartford,
Connecticut. This institution, called the American Asylum, from its
having been aided by the general government, has always enjoyed a high
reputation. I lament that I was prevented seeing it by being kept from
Hartford by bad weather. The Pennsylvania Institution followed in 1821;
and the New-York Asylum, opened in 1818, began to answer the hopes of
its founders only in 1830. These two I visited. There are two or three
smaller schools in different parts of the Union, and there must yet be
many more before the benevolent solicitude of society will be
satisfied.
The number of deaf-mutes in Pennsylvania was, at the period of the last
census, seven hundred and thirty; six hundred and ninety-four being
whites, and thirty-six persons of colour. As usual, it is discovered on
inquiry that, in a large majority of cases, the hearing was lost in
childhood, and not deficient from birth; so that it is to the medical
profession that we must look for a diminution of this class of
unfortunates. The number of pupils in the Institution in 1833 was
seventy-four, thirty-seven of each sex; and of deaf-mute assistants six.
The buildings, gardens, and arrangements are admirable, and the pupils
look lively and healthy.
They went through some of their school exercises in the ordinary manner
for our benefit. Many of them were unintelligible to us, of course; but
when they turned to their large slates, we could understand what they
were about. A teacher told a class of them, by signs, a story of a
Chinese who had fish in his pond, and who summoned the fish by ringing a
bell, and then fed them by scattering rice. All told it differently as
regarded the minor particulars, and it was evident that they did not
understand the connexion of the bell with the story. One wrote that the
fishes came at the _trembling_ of the bell; but the main circumstances
were otherwise correct. They all understood that the fishes got the
rice. When they were called upon to write what _smooth_ meant, and to
describe what things were smooth, they instanced marble, the sky, the
ocean, and _eloquence_. This was not satisfactory; the generalization
was imperfect, and the word eloquence meaningless to them. Nor did they
succeed much better in introducing certain phrases, such as "on account
of," "at the head of," into sentences; but one showed that he knew that
the president was at the head of the United States. Then the word
"glorious" was given, and their bits of chalk began to work with great
rapidity. One youth thought that a woman governing the United States
would be glorious; and others declared Lord Brougham to be glorious. The
word "cow" was given; and out of a great number of exercises, there was
not one which mentioned milk. Milk seemed almost the only idea which a
cow did not call up. The ideas appeared so arbitrarily connected as to
put all our associations at fault. One exercise was very copious. The
writer imagined a cow amid woods and a river, and a barn, whence the
thought, by some imperceptible link, fastened upon Queen Elizabeth's
dress, which was glorious, as was her wisdom; and this, of course,
brought in Lord Brougham again. He is the favourite hero of this
institution. Prior to our visit, a youth of sixteen, who had been under
instruction less than four years, was desired to prepare a composition,
when he presented the following
FABLE.