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The Abbé Deschamps published, in 1779, a work on the instruction of the deaf and dumb. To this branch of education; he devoted, in practice, his fortune and his life. Acknowledging the practicability of instructing by means of signs, he still accorded the preference to articulation and the labial alphabet. He refused, therefore, though solicited, to unite himself with the Abbé de l'Epée. Shortly after the publication of his work, he was assailed by the deaf and dumb Desloges, who very earnestly vindicated the methods of De l'Epée, and spoke, in the most enthusiastic terms, of the language of action.

In glancing at the second period of this history, we have to regret that our notice of it must be but a glance. The Abbé de l'Epée commenced the labor, to which his entire life, and the whole of his pecuniary means were afterwards consecrated, with completing the education of two twin sisters, who had been pupils of Father Vanin. The grand feature of his system we have already noticed. It consisted in giving to the language of action the highest degree of expansion, and rendering it, by means of methodical signs, parallel to that of speech. He attempted also the task of teaching articulation; and, as we have seen, was the author of a treatise on this branch of the art. The actual success of the Abbé de l'Epée was far from being equal to that of his successors, or even his contemporaries. In a letter to Sicard, written in 1783, he says, 'Do not hope that your pupils can ever express their ideas by writing. Let it suffice that they translate our language into theirs, as we ourselves translate foreign languages, without being able to think or to express ourselves in those languages.' He has more to the same purpose. With the evidence of Pereiré's success, in the case of Fontenay, under his eyes, these views are certainly remarkable. De l'Epée commenced the preparation of a dictionary of signs, which was never published. He felt himself, from time to time, called upon to defend his views. He seems,' voluntarily, to have thrown down the gauntlet to Pereiré. With Heinicke he held a controversial correspondence of some length, in which that instructer seems to have exhibited very little courtesy. A third time he came into collision with Nicolaï, an academician of Berlin. The Abbé Storck, a disciple of De l'Epée, had established a school in the latter city; and it was from the exercises of a public exhibition, held by the former, that Nicolaï took occasion to attack the system of instruction. The details of these controversies, though interesting, are too extensive to be exhibited here.

A few years after the death of De l'Epée, was established the Royal Institution of Paris, to the direction of which Sicard was summoned. It was the endeavor of this instructer, whose title to our veneration is beyond dispute, to perfect the views of his immediate predecessor and master; and to carry out fully in practice the theory, which makes the instruction of the deaf and dumb a process of translation. Of Sicard's success, we have living evidence in our own country, in the case of M. Clerc at Hartford; whose acquaintance at once with the French and the English languages leaves nothing to be desired. Massieu, also, whose education forms the subject of an entire work from the pen of his master, is an astonishing instance of the extent to which the intellectual faculties of deaf and dumb persons may be cultivated. We cannot refrain, in this place, from noticing a few of the answers of these pupils to questions, of the nature of which they could have had no previous intimation.

When Clerc was asked if he loved the Abbé Sicard, he replied in the following words. 'Deprived at birth of the sense of hearing, and, by a necessary consequence, of speech, the deaf and dumb were condemned to a most melancholy vegetation; the Abbé de l'Epée and the Abbé Sicard were born, and these unfortunate persons, confided to their regenerating care, passed from the class of brutes to that of men: whence you may judge how much I must love the Abbé Sicard.'

Massieu, being once asked the difference between God and nature, replied, 'God is the first Framer, the Creator of all things. The first beings all sprang from his divine bosom. He said to the first, 'you shall produce the second;' his wishes are laws, -- these laws are nature.'

'Eternity,' he said, 'is a day without yesterday or tomorrow.'

'Hope is the flower of happiness.'

'Gratitude is the memory of the heart.'

In this second period of the history, it is impossible that we should proceed further, with any thing like particularity. Germany affords us the names of Neumann, Eschke, Cassar, Petschke, Venus, Wolke, Daniel, Stephani, Ernsdorffer, Scherr, Neumaler, Gseger, Siemon, Grasshoff, and a multitude of others; Switzerland those of Ulrich and Naëf; Holland of Peerlkamp and the Messrs. Guyot; England of Watson, Arrowsmith, and Roget; Scotland of Braidwood and Kinniburgh; Spain of D'Alea and Hernandez, and Italy of Scagliotti. France also presents us with many names, among which we notice those of Bebian, Piroux, Périer Jamet, Dudesert, Gondelin, Ordinaire, Valade, and Morel; to the last, we understand, was intrusted, at the Royal Institution, the preparation of the second and third circulars. It would afford us pleasure, here, to examine, specifically, such of the productions of these individuals as have reached us; but our own country exacts of us the space which yet remains.