It is only necessary to reflect, however, that this sys tem of signs was entirely peculiar to De l'Ep6e, to see, that it must have been altogether useless to his pupils as soon as they passed from school into society; and that it was an absurd and inexcusable waste of time to teach them a complicated artificial language, which was per fectly unintelligible to the whole of the rest of the world. It is true, indeed, that while the Abbe instructed his scholars in these Methodical Signs, he professes also to have taught them the meaning of the words which they were intended to represent. But whatever may have been his wishes or his professions on this subject, the fact is, that the stock of words which they actually understood, seems to have been small. De appears to have established in their minds, merely an association between .lanual Signs and Written Characters; ne glecting or failing to accomplish a connection of infinite ly more importance, that between Written Characters and Things. They appear not to have been trained to any original exertion of intellect ;—the composition of a sentence even of moderate length in French, was a task of which they were incapable ;—in all those public trials before kings, and princes, and philosophers, of which Europe has heard so much, the pupils had ques tion and answer alike dictated to them by their teacher, without their knowing in general the real meaning either of the one or the otlicr;—and those parents who fondly flattered themselves, that when their children returned from the instructions of De l'Epee, they would be enabled to enjoy the interchange of ideas with them through the medium of writing, were mortified to find that they knew not how to ask a single question themselt CF, and that tt all those that were addressed to them, they could Gills an et er by a yes or a sta.
These imperfections in the Abl.e's system do not seem to have entirely escaped the notice of those who visited his public lessons, or the lessons of NV h0 had been taught under him. Ms method was impugned by Pere ire and Nicolai ; and although an attack 'wade on it hr 1 I cinich, a teacher of the Deaf and Dumb at Leipsic, called forth a decision of the Academy of Zurick in fa vour of the Abbe, yet we do not think that that learned body acquired much reputation by their defence.
Two documents have been preserved by Sicard (who, certainly, has not been over regardful of the reputation of his master, in presenting them to the public), which shay, in a very unequivocal manner, how very limited De ]'Epee's notions as to the extent to which the education of Deaf and Dumb persons might he carried ; and clearly devclope the real object (we had almost said the whole trkk) of that system, according to which so many were taught, and by which so few profited.
Sicard, in conducting the education of a Deaf and Dumb pupil at Bordeaux, had communicated to the Abbe an account of his progress, and of some devia tions which he had ventured upon from the Abbe's me thod. De ]'Epee replied in a letter, from which we translate the following extract.
" I applaud sincerely your success, my dear colleague, (I set you the example, I wish no more to be called mas ter), but I fear much that you arc becoming the dupe of an ambition to make your pupils metaphysicians. Don't imagine that they will ever be able to express their ideas in writing. Our language is not theirs ; theirs is the language of signs. Content yourself that they know how to turn ours into theirs, just as we ourselves trans late foreign languages, without knowing or caring how to express ourselves in them. Is it not enough for your glory, to be destined to partake of mine ? And what more is necessary to secure this, than that your pupils, like mine, should merely know how to write, to the dic tation of signs?" Another letter, written a few weeks afterwards, is still more explicit. The following is a translation of
it.— " What, my dear colleague, your pupils not yet know how to write short sentences, to the dictation of signs! What are you doing? What are you trifling about? You wish absolutely to make writers, when our method is in fact capable only of making copyists. • You have assisted at all my public lessons; have you ever seen that the spectators required of my pupils what you expect of yours ? If questions have been occasionally proposed to them to answer, these have been short familiar interro gations, which are always the same ; and yet you have seen that the greatest personages of the court and the city, and even foreign princes, have asked no more. Take my advice, my dear colleague; renounce your pretensions, which smack a little of the Garonne; and satisfy yourself contentedly with the portion of glory which you see me enjoy. Teach your pupils, without delay, declension and conjugation; teach them the signs of my dictionary of verbs; teach them to construct parts of sentences, according to the table of which you have a copy, without flattering yourself that your scholars will ever express themselves in French, more tnan I can express myself in Italian, although I can translate that language very well." (p. 484 of Work quoted at p.
have done with the Abbe de l'Epee. That he was industrious, and ingenious, and singularly benevolent, is beyond all question; but it seems to us equally clear, that, as a teacher of the Deaf and Dumb, he was greatly inferior to most of his predecessors, in the soundness of his principles and the utility of his practice. We think too, that we are fully justified in adding, that, in order to secure that glory which he loved, he seems occasion ally to have indulged in an empiricism which it became him to despise.
There is an essay on the "Method of teaching the Deaf and Dumb to Speak," by Dr William Thornton, in the third volume of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society (4to, Philad. 1793, p. 310); but it contains nothing that may not be found in the works of preceding authors. The treatise to which it is appended, on the Elements of Written Language, contains obser vations which have a much better claim to originality.
The latest work on the Deaf and Dumb, is that of the Abbe Sicard. Sicard, after having been for some time the assistant of De PEW, first employed himself as a teacher at Bordeaux. But on the death of his mas ter at Paris, he was appointed to fill his place, and he now conducts a very numerous seminary in that city. Although he still continues to trammel his pupils with the system of Methodical Signs, he has so far improved upon the method of his predecessor, that he instructs them fully and correctly in the meaning of words, and teaches them to compose for themselves. Many of them, we have understood, are extremely intelligent; but why he does not teach them Speech, we know not. If, how ever, the method which he pursued in instructing Mas sieu at Bordeaux, and the detail of which constitutes his work, be that which he adopts in general towards all his pupils, we must say, that his system is one of the most tedious, intricate, and metaphysical, that it is possible to conceive. They who have profited by the simplicity and good sense of Wallis and Watson, will not be readily prevailed on to wade through many pages of the decla mation and useless subtlety of Sicard. (G. J.)