Library Collections: Document: Full Text

It is true that the genius of this natural language of signs is most favorable to the presentation of truth by the gradual, inductive process, and admits scarcely at all of exhibiting it in its forms of abstraction and generalization. But so much the better, for the purpose for which it is used: the instruction and moral training of minds that need to have abstract and general truths analyzed, reduced to their simple elements, and thus made clear to their intellect and effective on their heart.

As the deaf-mute advances in knowledge, and in his acquaintance with written and printed language, it is, doubtless, important to employ terms of abstraction and generalization in his moral training, and to make less use of the natural language of signs; but even this should be done with care, while this very language, for the most part, furnishes the best means of explaining these terms. Simplicity and perspicuity of conception, even when compelled to express itself in particulars and in the language of childhood and of unlettered minds, is of vastly more value than the half-formed and vague notions which, clothed in elevated and imposing terms, sometimes, indeed, chime on the ear and excite admiration by their pompous swell, but effect nothing in the way of making men wiser and better.

That the natural language of signs has these characteristics and capabilities; that it is the very language which the deaf-mute continually needs for the purposes of private and social devotion, and for the reception, certainly in all the earlier stages of his education, of moral and religious truth; and that it is indispensable in the government and discipline of persons in his condition, the experience of a long course of years in the Asylum at Hartford for their benefit most abundantly testifies.

In conclusion, the writer would urge upon the parents and friends of the deaf and dumb, in view of the remarks which he has made, to encourage the child who suffers such a privation to make his thoughts and feelings known, as early and as fully as possible, through the medium of natural signs, -- and to acquire themselves, with the other members of the family, the use of this language, that the intercommunication between them and the child may be an intelligible and pleasant one. It will certainly be so to the deaf-mute, and it will become more and more so to those who are thus learning it from him, as they perceive from day to day its power, its beauty and its practical uses. Instead of throwing obstacles in the way of the future progress of his education at the institution to which he may be sent, it will prove, as we have seen, highly auxiliary to this progress; while, whether at home or at the school, it is an indispensable means of his moral training and his judicious government and discipline.

The instructors, too, of the deaf and dumb, if the principles and views that have been advanced are correct, should appreciate the great importance of being masters of the natural language of signs, -- of excelling in this language; of being able to make delineating and descriptive signs with graphical and picture-like accuracy; of acquiring the power to have the inmost workings of their souls, -- their various thoughts and feelings, with their fainter and stronger shades of distinctive character, -- beam out through the eye, countenance, attitude, movement and gesture; and of doing all this with spirit, grace and fluency, and for the love of doing it.

The labor is not small, indeed, that must be undergone, in order to possess these indispensable qualifications of an accomplished instructor of the deaf and dumb. To acquire them, the new and inexperienced teacher must consent, carefully and perseveringly, to take lesson after lesson of the older teacher who is a proficient in this language; while the older teacher must have the patience to give these lessons. For the language of natural signs is not to be learned from books. It cannot be delineated in pictures or printed on paper. It must be learned, in a great degree, from the living, looking, acting model. Some of the finest models for such a purpose are found among the originators of this language, the deaf and dumb. The peculiarities of their mind and character, and the genius of that singularly beautiful and impressive language which nature has taught them, should be the constant study of those whose beneficent calling it is to elevate them in the scale of intellectual, social and moral existence; to fit them for usefulness and respectability in this life and for happiness in that which is to come.