In the United States, within the same period, the number of persons under instruction increased from 1162 to 3,836, and altogether the work of education is advancing with very rapid strides. In this country. 12,000 or 13,000 pupils have been educated since the first public institution was opened—and at least an equal number in the United States since 1817. Add to these the pupils of the various continental institutions since 1760, when De l'Ep6e collected his little group of children in the environs of Paris and Thomas Braidwood opened his school in Edinburgh, and we shall then see that the fruits of these men's labors have not been meager, but great and marvelous. Some isolated attempts had previously been made, by different men, in different countries, and at long intervals, to give instruction to one or two deaf and dumb persons and their endeavors had been attended with various degrees of success. These several cases excited some attention at the time; but after the wonder at their novelty had subsided. they seem to have been almost forgotten, even in the countries where' the experiments were made. Bede speaks of a dumb youth being taught by one of the early English bishops, known in history as St. John of Beverley, to repeat after him letters and sylla bles, and then some words and sentences. The fact was regarded as a miracle. and was classed with others alleged to have been wrought by the same hand. From this time, eight centuries elapsed before any record of an instructed deaf•mute occurs, Rodolphus Agricola, a native of GriMingen, born in 1442, mentions as within his knowledge the fact that a deaf-mute had been taught to write, and to note down his thoughts Fifty years afterwards this statement was controverted, and the alleged fact pronounced to be impossible, on the ground that no instruction could be conveyed to the mind of any one who could not hear words addressed to the car. But the discovery winch was to give the key to this long-concealed mystery was now at hand. In 1501, was born at Pavia, Jerome Cardan (q.v.), a man of great but ill-regulated talents, who, among he numerous speculations to which his restless mind prompted him, certainly discovered the theoretical principle upon which the instruction of the deaf and dumb is founded. He says: " Writing is associated with speech, and speech with thought; but written characters and ideas may be connected together without the intervention of sounds," and he argues that, on this principle, " the instruction of the deaf and dumb is difficult, but it is possible." All this, which to us is obvious and familiar, was a novel speculation in the 16th century. With us it is a common thing for a man to teach himself to read a language though he cannot pronounce it. There are, for instance, hundreds of persons who can read French who do not and cannot speak it. Now, it is evident in this case that written or printed words do impart ideas independently of sounds, yet this was a discovery which the world owes to Jerome Cardan; and it was for want of seeing this truth, which to us is so familiar, that the education of the deaf and dumb was never attempted, but was considered for so many centuries to be a thing impossible. It was in Spain that these principles were first put into practice by Pedro Ponce, a Benedictine monk, born at Valladolid in 1590, and again a century afterwards by another monk of the same order, Juan Paulo Bonet, who also published a work upon the subject, which was the first step towards making the education of the deaf and dumb permanent, by recording the experience of one teacher for the instruction of others. This book, pub lished in 1620, was of service to De l'Epee 150 years later; and it contains, besides much valuable information, a manual alphabet identical in the main with that one-handed alphabet which is now in common use in the schools on the continent and in America. From this time there was a general awakening of the attention of intellectual men, not only to the importance of the subject, but to the practicability of instructing the deaf mute. One of Bonet's pupils was seen by Charles I., when yrince of Wales; and the case is described by sir Kenelm Digby, who was in attendance upon the prince, on his memorable matrimonial journey into Spain. When the art died away in that country, it was taken up by Englishmen, and began forthwith to assume an entirely new aspect. Dr. John Bulwer published, in 1648, his Philoe,ophus, or the Deafe and Dumbe Man's Friend; Dr. William Holder published his Elements of Speech, with an Appendix con cerning Persons Deaf and Dumb, in 1669; and Dr. John Wallis, Savilian professor of mathematics in the university of Oxford, both taught the deaf and dumb with great success. and wrote copiously upon the subject. In 1662, one of the most proficient of his pupils was exhibited before the royal society, and in the presence of the king. The Philosophical Transactions of 1670 contain a description of his mode of instruction, which was destined to bear ample fruits long after his death.
Before the close of the 17th c., many works of considerable merit appeared, the chief of which are the Surdus Loquens (the Speaking Deaf Man) of John Conrad Amman, a physician of Haarlem; and the Didaseolocophus, or Deaf and Dumb Man's Tutor, of George Dalgarno. This treatise, published in 1680, and reprinted some years ago by the Maitland Club, is eminently sound and practical, which is the more remarkable, as the author speaks of it as being, for aught he knows, the first that had been written on the subject. He is the first English writer who gives a manual alphabet. The one
described by him, and of which lie was the inventor, is, most probably, the one from which our present two-handed alphabet is derived. Dalgarno was by birth a Scotch man, but was long resident at Oxford. He died in 1687, and Dr. Wallis in 1703. From that time until 1760, nothing more was done in this country—though the subject was beginning to excite some attention in France—to resume the work which had been thus far prosecuted and helped on by the writings and labors of these eminent men. In 1760, when the abbe De l'Epee was opening school in Paris, the first school in the British dominions was also established in Edinburgh, by Thomas Braidwood. He commenced with one pupil, the son of a merchant in Leith, who had strongly urged him to carry into effect the plan of .instruction followed by Dr. Wallis, and described in the Philosophical Transactions 90 years before. This school, the parent and model of the earlier British institutions, was visited and spoken of by many of the influential men of that day, and its history and associations are imperishable. Its local name of Dumbiedikes suggested to sir Walter Scott a designation for one of his most popular characters in the Heart of Midlothian. A visit paid to it in 1773, by Dr. Johnson and his biographer Boswell. supplies one of the most suggestive and characteristic passages in the Journey to the Western Islands. In the year 1783, Mr. Braidwood removed to Hackney, near London, and the presence of his establishment so near to the metropolis undoubtedly led to the foundation of the London Asylum in 1792. Dr. Watson, its first principal, was a nephew, and had been an assistant, of Mr. Braidwood; and he states that. some 10 or 15 years previously, the necessity for the establishment of a public institution had been plainly seen, and some few but insufficient steps taken towards the accomplishment of such a design. From its foundation in 1792 until 1829, it was directed with great ability by Dr. Joseph Watson, in whose work on the instruc tion of the Deaf and Dumb this statement is given. On his decease, he was succeeded by his son, Mr. Thomas James Watson, of Clare Hall, Cambridge, and he again was followed in 1857 by his eldest son, the Rev. James H. Watson, of Pembroke college, Cambridge.
The following table shows, in the most concise manner, the position and date of the various institutions in Great and Ireland, and the number of inmates in 1871: These details are based upon the census returns of 1871, to which, however, many additions are here made, from personal inquiry and knowledge. There were, and are, several educational establishments in active and successful working; as, for instance. the Jews' school in London, the Roman Catholic school near Sheffield, the Llandaff institution named above, some private seminaries, and one or two day-schools, which are not included iu the census returns at all. On the other hand, the Strabane institu tion is now united to the one at Claremont, near Dublin.
If we add the numbers thus omitted, we shall raise the English total to more than 1200, and as the numbers in Scotland and Ireland were 301 and 478 respectively, it is evident that at least 2,000 deaf-mute children must have been under instruction in the United Kingdom in 1871. That number is certainly exceeded now. And, let it be remembered that it is to the present century that the honorable distinction belongs of having done so much for the deaf and dumb. This has not been by inventing the art of teaching, or by raising up the earliest laborers in this field of usefulness, but by founding and supporting public institutions for this purpose. De l'Ep6e, when he opened his school in 1760, hind no foreknowledge of the work he was commencing. As his labors increased, he invited others to his assistance, and they were thus enabled to carry the light of instruction elsewhere, and to keep it alive when he was no more. Ilis death took place in 1789, and his assistant, Slcard, succeeded him. Four years after wards, this school was adopted by the French government, and now exists as the Insti tution Nationale of Paris. A pupil of this institution, M. Laurent Clerc, on being applied to in 1816, consented to go the United States with the founder and first principal of the American asylum, and he became, like De l'Ep6e, to pct v des sourds-meets (the father of the deaf and dumb) in the new world. From these small beginnings or Braidwood and De l'Ep6e, of Ileinicke in Germany, and Gallaudet in America, have arisen, within about a century, more than 200 schools for the deaf and dumb. In Great Britain and Ireland there are 25 institutions, 39 in the United States, 4 in British America, and 2 in our Australian colonies. Among the English-speaking races, the increase of energy in this direction is very striking. The figures for foreign countries are not of so recent date, hut it is believed that there are about 60 institutions in Aus tria, Prussia, and the smaller kingdoms and states of Germany, 50 in France, 20 in Italy and in Switzerland, 10 in Holland and Belgium, 2 in Russia, with one or two others in the less populous and enterprising of the European nations.