All this had been done and written, before the name of De L'Epee was known. But chance now directed the attention of this reverend person to the education of the Deaf and Dumb; and he had soon the good fortune, not only to acquire a much more general reputation throughout Europe, than ever had been enjoyed by his predecessors or cotemporaries; but even to be look ed on with admiration by many, as the first philosopher who had discovered the possibility of illuminating the minds of this unfortunate class of persons. The Abbe happening to go into the house of a lady in Paris, who had two daughters that were born Deaf and Dumb, found her disconsolate for the death of their preceptor Father Vanin. He was touched with pity for their con dition, and went home reflecting how he could best sup ply the place of their teacher. Soon after, he returned ; put some of his reflections to the test of experiment; was satisfied ; and resolved to become their preceptor himself. Thus began his philanthropical exertions as an instructor of the Deaf and Dumb, and thus commenced his fame.
The English translator of his Method informs us, (Pref. p. that the Abbe instituted a seminary, in which he received as many of the Deaf and Dumb, as he could superintend, and formed preceptors to teach those in distant parts. The number of his scholars," says he, " grew to upwards of sixty ; and, as the fame of his operations extended, persons from Germany, from Switzerland, from Spain, and from Holland, came to Paris to be initiated in the method he practised, and transfer it to their several countries." "The expellees," this author observes afterwards, " attending the seminary which he established, were wholly defrayed by himself. He inherited an income, as M. de Bouilly informs us, amounting to about 14,000 livres, (nearly 6001. sterling,) of which he allowed 2000 for his own person, and considered the residue as the patrimony of the Deaf and Dumb, to whose use it was faithfully applied. So strictly he adhered to this appro. pri:,tion, that in the rigorous winter of 1788, when in his 65th year, and suffering under the infirmities of age, he denied himself fuel rather than intrench upon the fund he had destined them. His housekeeper having observ ed his rigid restriction, and, doubtless, imputing it to its real motive, led into his apartment forty of his pupils, who besought him, with tears, to preserve himself for their sakes. Having been thus prevailed on to exceed his ordinary expenditure about 300 livres, he would af terwards say, in playing with his scholars, (g I have wrooged my children out of a hundred crowns."
In 1776, he published a work in French, entitled Instruction of the Deaf and Dunzb by the way of Me thodical Signs; and, in 1784, a new edition of this, much altered. appeared under tie title of, La -veritable mani?re d'instruire les sourds et muets, confirmie par line longue experience. It is Clis last work which he introduc into the Encyclopedie Mithodique, under the article Muets et Sourds, (part referred to at p. 6.) and which was translated into English, anonymously, at London, in 1801.
He continued to teach at Paris, with unremitting per. severance, until 1790, when he died, aged 67.
After the great and almost universal celebrity which the Abbe seems to have acquired, we shall hardly be listened to w hen we affirm, that the system which he taught se ss utterly t seless. Yet that this was the case, is hat (1)% krin, Rini, the wInch he himself has pus, e I —from the criticisms made on his method in the work esti' of his and successor Sward,—and from his own confidential letters respecting it, is huh Sward has prescnte I, along with these CIiticowrs, to the When he first berm his career as an instructor of the Deaf and Dumb, he seems to hat e been entirely igno rant that Berme ss s then tear and had taught, for several years at Paris; or that this species of education had et er been the su'sject, either of site( illation or prac tice, at any former time, or in any other country; and he confesses that it net r occurred to him to be practica ble to teach his pupils to speak. But the works of Bon net and Amman soon became know n to him; and, guided by their direction, he seems to have succeeded in be stowing the gift of Speech on several of his scholars. Latterly, how et er, he appeals to have neglected this branch very much; st Nether from a mistaken idea of its inutility, or really (as he professes) from his inability to undergo the labour of teaching a number of pupils at once, is very doubtful. In the part of his book which relates to this subject, he pretends to no more, than to have added a few reflections of his own, to what he had found in Bonnet and Anunan.
But the peculiarity of his method of education, and the object to which es cry other seems to have been sacri ficed, was his system of "Methodical Signs." This was an extremely complicated Language of the Iland, re presenting. not single letters as in the common Manual Alphabet, but whole words; and the sole occupation of the pupil seems to have been, acquiring this language, and converting Methodical Signs into Writing, or Writ ing into Methodical Signs, according to the dictation of the master.