Remarks upon the education of deaf mutes : in defence of the doctrines of the second annual report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities and in reply to the charges of the Rev. Collins Stone.

  • Howe, S. G. (Samuel Gridley), 1801-1876.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks upon the education of deaf mutes : in defence of the doctrines of the second annual report of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities and in reply to the charges of the Rev. Collins Stone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    While earnest and enthusiastic men like Blan- chet, in France, plead for the immediate modifica- tion of the old Central Institutions, such as those of Paris, London, and Hartford, and for teaching mutes in common schools; and while eminent and experienced, but conservative men, like the Abbe Carton, in Belgium, admit that the modification of the old system is only a question of time,—we of of Massachusetts hold on to a system borrowed from the old world, nearly fifty years ago, by a legislative body not known to have been partic- ularly enlightened upon the subject of deaf mute education. This ought not to be; and our neglect of the matter is not creditable to the Commonwealth. The slightest examination would show that we have not only failed to improve materially our method of treating mutes, but have also failed to introduce into it the system and order which characterize other departments of the public service. It would be a great mistake to say that the present method of selecting the beneficiaries of the State is a good one, for there is no real method about itj and even the existing loose and imperfect practice is left to oflicials who have not the time nor the : means to conduct it properly. See how it works. A mother has a child who» cannot hear, and when he becomes eight or tsBi years old she concludes, sadly, that he never Avill!