Tenth annual report of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, for the year ending June 30, 1867.

  • Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb (Washington, D.C.)
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Tenth annual report of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, for the year ending June 30, 1867. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    ■stnr is entliusiastic in liis work—is young and apparently blessed with a patient spirit and even temper. lie informed me that on Sundays he repeated the sermon of the officiating priest to his pupils with his lips, uttering no sound and using some signs. He said he could make his pupils understand everything. I am inclined to question, from the exhibitions I saw in the school-room, whether he succeeds in this exercise, unless by the considerable use of signs. He expressed decidedly the opinion that the power of lip-reading, developed even to the highest possible degree, would never suffice to enable its possessor to follow understandingly public discourses. He also thought that not more than one-half of his pupils would ever learn to speak withyZwewcy, so as to be easily understood by strangers. THE INSTITUTION AT ZURICH, SWITZERLAND. The number of pupils'here is thirty-eight, for the instruction of whom I found five teachers employed, giving an average of only eight pupils to each class, an arrangement peculiarly conducive to success in articulation. I conversed with several of the most advanced pupils, and was understood by them with but little difficulty. Their reading was also distinct and less spasmodic than in some schools I have visited. At my request, Mr. Schibel, the director, read to the most advanced class, consisting of three boys (one born deaf) a page of my selection from a book of Scripture lessons. He made no long pauses and no repetitions; used no signs and no unusual contortions of the mouth. When he had entirely finished, the pupils were requested to give in writing what he had just repeated orally. Without asking for the repetition of a word, they wrote rapidly, each filling nearly two sides of a large hand-slate, what iMr. Schibel had said. The boy born deaf transcribed the dictated page with the greatest accuracy, the others, however, accomplishing their task in a most com- mendable manner. I then required each boy to read aloud what he had written. The utterance of the one born deaf I should not have been able to follow uuder- standingly had I not previously read what he was saying. The others pi’o- nounced their words with a good degree of clearness, and would, in the main, I think, have been understood by one who had no previous information of what they were reading. My attention was directed to an exercise in arrithmetic, in which a class of five years’ standing was being drilled. The teacher had written on the black- board rows of figures arranged thus : 20 + 15 = ? 30 -f 25 = ? 14 + 10 = 1 One pupil after another was called upon to read aloud two numbers required to be added, and to state the sum of them. An exercise of this simple nature, at so advanced a point in the course of study, would seem to indicate a low degree : of mathematical proficiency on the part of the pupils. 1 witnessed an exercise with a class of three years’ standing, where the teacher, holding in his hand the picture of an eagle eating a hare, asked many questions with regard to what the eagle was and Avas not doing, could or could not do, &c. The answers of the pupils were generally in single words; and 1 noticed that the teacher, besides exaggerating the positions he caused his vocal organs to assume, made constant use of signs to assist the pupil in comprehend- ; ing what he was saying. , . | In a long conversation 1 held with Mr. Schibel on matters pertaining to our ^ j A