P,a't tusk( , t t los %%ugh, ,seta %cry well adapt c t 1• Ink t • t k • ow r. t t'.er the intelligent ter 1 p,ttd tl cm iutr is 111:1111.121%• IS 1 t I. 11 ( to tit a teed stage, it WI I be found, that o atit. 11 11 1 lie emit ely either from • tst,t paA S. 01 the language of natural Signs. Dr ‘1' Nu tingly inculcates the propriety of the •c I et 's I am r. this natural language front the Deaf at. I Dom', emsclves; and the application which he al tent at& dm1 cts saould be made of it to the purposes of the •r ot? n instruction. seems to us rm. eedingly judicious. " I-tery one," sav s he, who would undertake the ardu ous t N; tit SlICcc,sfully teaching the Deaf and Dumb, should dose') tutu his attention to the study of that lun • gc tcrIneti 'it:turd. where it consists of and lecture, in order to enable hint to comprehend, as far as possible, the signs of his scholars. Of how much im portance it is to .t teacher of the Deaf and Dumb to un derstand tack signs, will readily he apprehended, if any one %%ill attempt either to teach or to learn a language, without having another, common to master and scholar. As if, for instance, an Englishman, understanding no language but his own, should attempt to teach it to a German, or vice vrrsa. But r. vet' let any thing so chi merical be thought of, as an ;ate .ort to turn master to the Deaf and Dumb, in the all of signing. Whatever others may say. I own, I always found it best to come, 111 SOIlle measure, a It–ti•er, instead of teacher. of this mode of expression.•—" How much more landfill and useless," he afterwards remarks, (having just sup posed a European emit., your ing to new-model the scanty NOCalmlary of a South Sea how much more fanciful and useless, is an attempt to methodize signs for the instruction of the Deaf and Mind, ! Would it not be a mole natural and rational mode of procedure for the teacher to begin. by watching. the objects and occasions to which his scholar applied the words of his barbarous speech; that by knowing these he might gra dually substitute the words of the language to be taught, t•siii • the foster only as an introduction to the latter ? Th s is the sort of use I make of signs, their rude in teaching the Deaf." Page 81.
In the illustration of all those ten ins which express Ow Nations forms of human action, it is obvious, that the gt eatest advantage might be derived, from the aid of some h.telligent assistant no: affected with Deafness. If we may judge from the silence of those who have written on the education of the Deaf and Dumb, as to this im •urt.nt help, it does not seem to have been sttfficiently mployed.
In all that remains, we are inclined to follow Dr Wat sin implicitly. We perfectly agree with him, that it is altogethe r injudicious to load the memory of the pupil, at the outset, with those vague and subtle distinctions among words, with which grammarians occupy them se Ives so much and so unprofitably, and about which they ate still so mu:h at variance with each other. It is quite enough, in the lust instance, that they ate taught, Ly examples continually diversified and repeated, to use words accurately, and as others use them. The meta
physic of grammar is a fitter study for riper years. If we be correct in this opinion, it may be doubtful whether the education of those who are not Deaf, might not bor row some improvements from the mode of instructing those who are ;—whether the young scholar's earlier years might not be more usefully employed in acquiring, by varied reading, writing, and conversation, greater co piousness, precision, and case of expression, than in parsing meagre sentences, Without the slightest regard to their spirit oe meaning ;—whethe• a few of those pre cious hours, which are sometimes wasted over the unpro fitable pages of some modern Hermes, had not better be devoted to the nobler task of seeking out the strength of our language, and the best array of thought, in the pages of Shakspeare, and Milton, and Addison, and I I tune.
After the pupil has proceeded thus far, Dr Watson recommends that he should go over his vocabulary again, With a view to learn the mode of d;firring words, that is, of telling the meaning of one word by another, or by others. Ile m cscribes this employment, not because he thinks he will better understand the words in his vocabu lary, by being taught to define them, but because it affords an opportunity of enlarging it, by the introduction of synonymous words, and words that are derived in some way from those we are defining-.
The scholar is now sufficiently far advanced to endea vour to acquire both amusement and instruction by read ing; and having arrived at this point, Dr Watson im poses on him a new and most important task. To dis cover the progress he is making, and to assist him in the composition of sentences, he is required every day to furnish a certain number of lines, according to his capa city, from his own ideas. He is at liberty to choose his subject. Ile may relate what he has seen in his walk, or in his play _ground; he may unfold the stores of his me mory, relative to more distant places and periods; he may ask questions, Ste. Ills rude essays at expression arc often curious, and require some skill in the language of pantomime to discover their meaning by' his own ex planations. This attained, it is put into correct, but easy language; he c.ommits it to his memory thus corrected, and goes to work again, at his leisure hour in the evening, for next day., generally profiting considerably by the alterations it was necessary to make in his preceding essay.
This is an exercise which has been prescribed with the utmost success to the pupils or the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, by their teacher, Mr Kinniburgh. He directs his scholars to address him in the form of letter ; and in reading a considerable collec tion of these juvenile epistles with which 3Ir Kinniburgh has favoured tis, we own that we have often been exceed ingly delighted with the simplicity and minuteness of the narrative. Mr Kinniburgh, with the same liberality with which he has permitted us to be spectators of his lessons at the Institution, has enabled us to present our readers with the following specimens.