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A short time will suffice for the establishment of a common language, sufficiently extensive for the first exigencies of the teacher's task. But this extent will soon be found too restricted. Yet it can hardly be enlarged, except as the circle of ideas, common to the teacher and the pupil, expands itself. For, beside identity of signs, a second condition is essential to intelligent intercourse, viz. identity of ideas.

When two natives of different countries meet, each unacquainted with the language of the other, they find themselves possessed of a vast multitude of ideas in common, while the audible or written signs, representing those ideas, differ, for the two, as widely as caprice can make them. These two individuals fulfil the second condition, but not the first, -- they possess identity of ideas without identity of signs. Between them, the establishment of a common language resolves itself into a series of conventions.

Vastly different is the case with the deaf and dumb, and their instructors; where the number of common ideas is small, and even those not presenting themselves always under the same aspect to the minds of both. Between the ignorant and the learned in any country, there certainly exists a wide difference, as respects their habits of reflection, and the extent of their information; and consequently as respects the number of well-defined ideas which they possess. But this difference is not greater, than that which divides uneducated deaf and dumb persons even from the inferior order of those who speak.

So far as there is an actual community of ideas between the deaf and dumb and their instructors, the value of words may be communicated by the simple process of translation. But this limit must soon be passed, and we must then enter upon that labor, which constitutes, whatever be the particular system pursued, the real peculiarity, and, it may be added, the real difficulty of the art, viz. that of leading the pupil, by judicious methods, to the formation of a system of ideas, corresponding with the words of spoken language. Here, indeed, is a task of no trifling magnitude. But the learner, though not yet possessed of the ideas themselves, possesses, nevertheless, the materials of which they are to be formed. The whole circle of ideas, which make up the sum of human knowledge, pertain, of necessity, to the world of matter, or to that of mind. The one lies open before the deaf and dumb, -- it is our part only to teach him system in conducting his observations. For the other, he possesses the same faculties as we, and it is only necessary to bring them into operation.

We should remember, that it is no creative power, which we are called upon to exercise. We neither fabricate minds, nor the material on which they are to be employed. We cannot even be said to impart ideas, according to the vulgar notion of such a process. What is more common than the remark, that while there seems to be nothing wonderful or mysterious in the fact that the deaf and dumb may be taught the nomenclature of visible objects, it is impossible to conceive how notions, purely abstract, can, for the first time, be communicated to them? The difficulty, however, is in a great degree created by the manner of considering it. It is, indeed, hard to imagine, how, by means of any a priori description, such an idea as that to which we apply the name justice, could be conveyed to an intelligence, to which it should be new. It is not by such means that it is conveyed. Nor has it been by such means, that we ourselves have learned to associate this and similar words with their corresponding ideas. The deaf and dumb are not to be placed on the pinnacle of the temple of science in a day. They cannot plant their feet upon the last step of the ascent, but by passing the intermediate points. There is no great gulf fixed between the extremes of simplicity and difficulty in language, which it is necessary with one mighty effort to overleap, or to abandon in despair the hope of those advantages, which artificial nomenclatures afford to mankind. From the highest to the lowest point, the chain of association is unbroken, and, if strictly followed, will lead, through every maze, into the clear light of day.

From the remarks just made, result the four propositions (with the exception of the last of which the reason is obvious,) which follow; and which may be regarded as fundamental in the instruction of the deaf and dumb.

I. Instruction should commence, with borrowing from the deaf and dumb themselves their own natural language of pantomime, in its full extent.

II. The instructor should carefully ascertain how far the ideas of his pupils extend before instruction, and how far they are just: he should know the extent, that he may build upon it, and the limit, that he may not exceed it.

III. He should avail himself of those materials, possessed by the deaf and dumb in common with us, to aid in the formation of a system of ideas, corresponding to that represented by the words of our language.