pupil to etymology and grammar before he has acquired a sufficient stock of words or ideas. But the disadvantage was not so great in the former case as in the latter, and for this reason, that he had to deal with those in whom the absence of some faculties had increased the power of those which remained. This must never be forgotten in judging of a system for the instruction of the deaf and dumb. It has been remarked that two such children who are introduced to one another, each with his own self-acquired little cabinet of signs, have a singular facility of mutual intercourse, and soon throw their separate stocks into one common reservoir, the contents of which increase much quicker than either could have done had the possessor been separated from others labouring under the same privation. The Abbé de l'Epée endeavoured to arrange the system of signs by classifying words in families, all derived from some common primitive. The article with him marked the presence of a thing, the infinitive mood that of an action, and each of these had its appropriate sign. These signs and others modified the radical sign in the same manner as in common language. Thus the act of looking at an object, with the right hand on the mouth and the left on the heart, followed by what we may call the infinitive sign, represented the word aimer. The radical sign, with that of the article and an apostrophe traced in the air by the finger, represented l'amitié. The same signs more energetically made stood for l'amour. The idea contained in ami was expressed by the radical sign, accompanied by pointing to the two persons between whom the relation so expressed was supposed to exist that in amateur by the same, and by showing the objects to which the word related, and so on. In this system, how excellent soever as a first step, there is evidently much which is purely artificial. Still more so was the method of deriving compound words from the meanings of their several parts, when the whole does not signify exactly what would be inferred from the two parts together, such as satisfait, from the Latin satis and facit. It must not, however, be supposed that this species of instruction was the only one which the Abbé employed. By a manual alphabet, joined with the letters, which were written before the eyes of the pupil, the combinations which represent the words corresponding to the signs were engraven on his memory. He learnt, almost at the outset, various short sentences, such as are contained in the different moods and tenses of a verb joined with a substantive. The instructor seems to have disliked the method of teaching words alone, preferring to choose sen

;

tences, as he expresses it, 'propres à faire sortir les mots de leurs cases, pour venir tour à tour à leur destination naturelle.' This part of the method has been much improved by our countryman Mr. Watson, who commences by connecting the written word with its picture, as in the method of Sicard, of which we shall presently speak, taking care, however, to introduce short and easy dialogues as soon as the pupil can possibly understand them.

We will give one instance of the manner in which the Abbé de l'Epée introduced the notion of abstract ideas-a part of education in which he appears to have been eminently successful. Having given an idea of the spirit or seat of thought, and of the heart as that of the affections, he indicates that each of these assent, as well as the mouth, though the subject in question is not before the eyes. He thus reduces the words I believe,' from the combination of the following simple propositions :

I believe

I say yes with the mind. I think yes.

say yes with the heart. I love to think yes.
say yes with the mouth.

I do not see it with the eyes.

We have not space for more of this method, but the reader, who is interested in the subject, may consult the translation of the second part of the work of De l'Epée, entitled, Institutions des Sourds et Muets,' &c., by Mr. Arrowsmith*, whose own observations in the preliminary portion are well worthy of attention. Before quitting this part of our subject, we must, however, notice a most material part of it, in which little success was attained. We have observed the similarity of the Abbé's system of signs to the defective method which prevails in our grammar schools. The same causes always produce the same effects, and accordingly we find that one of De l'Epée's pupils, though he could understand all that was written for him, possessed but little power of expressing himself in his newly acquired language, not being able to write French with much more fluency than a boy just from school writes Latin or Greek. With the deaf and dumb the matter has been mended, since, by the exertions of successive teachers, they are now taught to write as well as if they had had a mother-tongue. It is high time that those who are born with the use of their ears should be as well educated as others who have not the same advantage. The Abbé himself was sensible of this defect, and imagined that it could not be removed. In a letter to Sicard, he warns the latter

The Art of Instructing the Infant Deaf and Dumb, by John Pauncefort Arrowsmith. London: Taylor and Hessey, 1819.'

JAN. APRIL, 1832.

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not to flatter himself that his pupils would ever write French with correctness. He says, Our language is not theirs; they have the language of signs. Be contented when they know how to translate ours into theirs, as we translate foreign languages into our own, without being able to think or express ourselves in them.' It is amusing to be able, by experience, to condemn two errors together, one of which was, half a century ago, produced as authority for the other. Luckily for the cause, the Abbé Sicard did not cease his exertions when his old preceptor recommended him to stop. He, too, made use of signs, but only as a basis for future instruction. With him, therefore, they are longer, and more minutely descriptive than with the Abbé de l'Epée. They have been objected to, but, as appears to us, by those who have not well considered what part they were of the system. Had they been ultimate signs, intended for daily use, it would have been well that some prominent and easily represented peculiarity of the object signified should have been fixed on to denote it; they were, however, intended as detailed explanations, as reductions of the complex idea into its more simple component ones, no more intended to be for ever after coupled with the word than the familiar stories by which a mother explains to her child the meaning of an unknown term. Those which continually occur were reduced to a state of greater simplicity, but it does not appear that they were considered in any other light than that which we have just stated. They had, as necessarily must have been the case, all the defects of the circumlocution by which unusual or abstract terms are explained to a child, that of failing to distinguish between nearly synonimous words; the only remedy being, in both cases, continued observation of their actual use.

We proceed to give an account of Sicard's Cours d'Instruction d'un Sourd Muet;' in our opinion, one of the best books an instructor can read, be his particular department what it may. It is a work which possesses a striking interest, as not being an account of the method in all the dry generalization of precepts, but a faithful recital of what actually took place during the education of one particular pupil. This was M. Massieu, who, we believe, accompanied Sicard in his visit to England, and whose name has acquired celebrity from its connexion with the success of his master's method. He was frequently examined, both by the auditors of the lectures given by Sicard at the Ecole Normale and others; but though his answers on these occasions exhibited remarkable readiness and penetration, we prefer to cite the following instance, in which the impossibility of previous

preparation is more manifest. When eighteen years of age, after having been about four years under the care of Sicard, he was robbed in the streets of Paris. The thief was secured and brought before the civil power. The following is the statement of Massieu, as written on the spot :

'Je suis sourd-muet: j'étais regardant le soleil du Saint-Sacrement, dans une grande rue, avec tous les autres sourds-muets. Cet homme m'a vu; il a vu un petit porte-feuille dans la poche droite de mon habit: il s'approche doucement de moi; il prend ce porte-feuille. Mon hanche m'avertit; je me tourne vivement vers cet homme qui a peur. Il jette le porte-feuille sur la jambe d'un autre homme qui le ramasse et me le rend. Je prends l'homme voleur par sa veste; je le retiens fortement: il devient pale, blême et tremblant. Je fais signe à un soldat de venir: je montre le portefeuille au soldat, en lui faisant signe que cet homme a volé mon porte-feuille. Le soldat prend l'homme voleur, et le mène ici: je l'ai suivi. Je vous demande de nous juger. Je jure Dieu qu'il m'a volé ce porte-feuille; lui, n'osera pas jurer Dieu. Je vous prie de ne pas ordonner de le décapiter, il n'a pas tué; mais seulement dites, qu'on le fasse ramer.'

We give this instance, because, as some of the methods here to be described may not appear such as would be understood by the pupil, it is desirable to be able to appeal to their success. Massieu, before he came under the care of Sicard, possessed no ideas but such as he had acquired in taking care of a flock of sheep, to which animals he had no conception that he was in any degree superior.

Sicard began by teaching the letters of the alphabet, after the method of De l'Epée. His pupil had learnt all the letters before he reflected on the unphilosophical method which he was pursuing. Correcting his error, he placed before the learner various familiar objects, drawing them at the same time before his eyes on a board. These are his first, and were only prevented by their prolixity, from being his only words. He is then taught to point to the object on being shown the picture. He now tries his own skill in drawing, and is delighted to find that he also is understood by others. When the relation between the actual object and its picture has been well established, the letters of the alphabet are written in a corner of the board, and the pupil is desired to take notice of them. The name of the object is then written round its picture. This is a great mystery to the pupil, and his astonishment is increased when the instructor rubs out the picture, leaving only the letters. While the pupil is wondering what this may mean, the instructor shows the letters to a third person, who immediately selects the corresponding object from among a number.

This process is repeated, and the student himself is allowed to find, that when he draws the same uncouth characters, he is equally successful in directing the attention of a third person to the object, and this also when he places the letters in one horizontal line. He is then made to find out that this effect will not be produced, if the order of the letters be deranged. This discourages him, but not for any long period, since his memory of impressions produced by the eye is unusually keen, owing to his peculiar situation. The pictures are now dropped, and the name of every new object is given to him in ordinary characters, not that he has any notion what connexion the component parts of his new symbols have with the sounds which occur in spoken language; he has no idea of sound, or at least of articulation, and he looks at a word, such as table, as a whole, conventionally used to represent a certain piece of furniture. Our reader, if he really can read, as the epitaph says, does the same thing. He also reads by words, not by syllables or letters, for at one glance, and without being conscious of recalling any one particular letter, he passes from word to word, and, in simple sentences, almost from paragraph to paragraph. The only difference between the child who is deaf and dumb, and any other who is not, is, that the latter is already familiar with a sound which stands between the object and its written symbol. The picture supplies the place of the sound to the deaf and dumb, and this is his disadvantage, that the parts of which the written symbol is composed have not that relation to the parts of the picture which they have to those of the sound. If all the forms which exist in nature could be reduced to few elements, the difficulty might be nearly removed, since by combinations of a simple alphabet of pictures they might be represented to the eye. The notation used by ballet-masters is an example. The very few different positions which occur in dancing are represented by symbols, which are modified, as in music, by the time they are meant to continue; and the written language thus obtained is only inferior in certainty and simplicity to that of music, which we hold to be the most perfect yet invented.

To return to our subject. The pupil is thus enabled to learn the written names of every thing which can be placed before his eyes, and also to combine with the name of the whole, that of each separate part. After this there is no difficulty in making him comprehend even such a distinction as that between a being and a thing (être and chose), and many others equally abstract. The adjective or quality of an object remained to be taught. To accomplish this Sicard