Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 3).djvu/247

The late Mr. Kinsey.Mrs. Kinsey. a systematic education, and only in the latter half of the eighteenth century did two great men arise who started it on the lines on which it has since been developed. Heinicke in Germany opened a school to teach speech and lip reading, and the Abbé de l'Epée, moved by the want of provision for the deaf and dumb in France, founded the National Institute for teaching by signs, and won for himself the name of Father of the Deaf Mutes. About the same time a man named Braidwood introduced the oral system into England; but it utterly failed to take root.

The oral system to-day is to be seen at its best at the Ealing Training College for Teachers of the Deaf, now superintended by Mrs. Kinsey, whose late husband and Mr. B. St. J. Ackers, the chief founder of the College, were among the most active spirits in England twenty years since in showing how much there is in the German method. As I made my way to Ealing one day I tried hard to form some idea of what deafness is like. The truth, however, is, that no man with ears and eyes can realise what either deafness or blindness is. To the teacher the difficulty presented by the former is greater than that presented by the latter. A child born blind has the main channel of communication with the brain open, and, so far as speech and hearing, which prepare the way to the education and enlightenment of the mind, go, is on a level of equality with its more fortunate fellows. The deaf, on the contrary, are little removed in this respect from the brute creation, and, except that they have a human brain, would be worse off than the majority of brutes, which, if they cannot talk, at least have ears. How. then, can a child who has never heard a sound be taught consciously to utter a sound? It is with a view to finding out the secret that we are about to visit Ealing College. At this institution, it should be said, signs are absolutely forbidden, and the children have to learn to express their wishes by speech, and to understand what others say by following the motions of the lips. The child is first of all taught sixty sounds, on the phonetic principle. Miss Hewett, the mistress of the School, breathes or blows on the pupil's hand, and makes the pupil repeat the process. Say the letters "sh" are being taught. The pupil watches the teacher's lips, feels the breath on the back of the hand, and in a very little while can emit the compound herself. Other sounds are secured by placing the child’s hand at the teacher's throat. The teacher pronounces the letter or word, and the child, placing its hand to its own throat, does its best to repeat the sensation just experienced at the teacher's. The whole thing can only be done by the sense of sight and touch, the latter being the sole
"Other sounds are secured by placing the child's hand at the teacher's throat."