DEAF AND DIINIB. Persons who are born deaf, or who lose their hearing at a very early age, are dumb also; hence the compound term deaf-and-dumb. But the primary defect is deafness; dumbness is only the consequence of it. Children ordinarily hear sounds, and then learn to imitate them; that is, they learn to repeat what 'they hear other persons say. It is thus that every one of us has learned to speak. But the deaf child hears nothing; cannot therefore imitate, and remains dumb.
Persons who lose their hearing later in life are not to be classed among the deaf and dumb. Having learned to speak before their hearing was lost, they can readily com municate with others, though deaf themselves; and if they are educated, there are still open to them all the stores of knowledge contained in books, from which the juvenile deaf and dumb, ignorant of all written and spoken language, are utterly excluded. It is this latter class alone which we have to deal with in our statistics, which is con templated in our census enumerations, and for which our institutions for the education of the deaf and dumb are specially designed.
The term "deaf and dumb" is somewhat unfortunate, as embodying and repeating the error that the affliction is twofold. It affects two organs, certainly, but only, as above described, in the way of cause and effect. The organ or hearing is wanting, but the organs of speech are present; they merely lack the means of exercise. The ear is the guide and directress of the tongue; and when she is doomed to perpetual silence, the tongue is included in the ban; though, if we could by any means give to the ear the faculty of hearing, the tonome would soon learn for itself to fulfill its proper office. To correct the error involved in this apparent misnomer, some authorities use the terms and The latter seems to be a customary expression in America, as in France it is In the Holy Scriptures, the same original word is trans lated "deaf" in some places (as in St. Mark vii. 32), and "dumb" or "speechless" in
others. (See Matt. ix. 33, and Luke i. 22.).
This affliction is very much more common than, for a long. time, and up to a recent period, it was supposed to be. Happily, however, along with the knowledge of its extensive prevalence, have conic the means of alleviating it, by education. It was only when the schools now in existence began their usual work, and caused inquiries to be made, that the actual numbers of the deaf and dumb began to appear. In every place where It was proposed to establish a school—in Paris, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Yorkshire, and in New York—the objection was immediately started, that children could not be found in sufficient numbers to require such schools. Their promoters, however, knew better than this, and persisted in their design. They soon had the satisfaction of converting the objectors into their warmest supporters; and the institu Lions thus established, in the localities just named, are now the largest, the most useful, and the most prosperous in the world.
The facts thus ascertained, and the calculations based upon them, continued to be the only statistics upon the subject of deaf-dumbness in Great Britain and Ireland until the census of 1851: then, for the first time in this country, the number and ages of the deaf and dumb formed a part of the inquiry. In Ireland, further investigations were subsequently made, which resulted in the collection of a mass of valuable information upon the causes of deafness, the social condition of the deaf-mute, and other kindred subjects, winch were published in Reports on the Status of Disease in that country. There, each inquiry was conducted under a special commission; in Great Britain, it was directed by the registrar-general, and its first purpose was to ascertain the number and ages of the deaf and dumb of each sex. It would have been well if it had been limited to this, for the educational statistics were grossly incorrect and deceptive.