that the deaf and dumb have not and already made up their minds to regard their visitors in the light of the stupid party. Many years ago Dr. Stainer recollects coming upon two deaf and dumb boys at the Old Kent-road, watching some hearing boys playing in the street. One of the former said to the other: "What stupid boys they are. They do not know how to talk to each other as we do; they can only make signs with their lips." The deaf and dumb are very much of the view of the tribe of North American Indians, who, though in possession of all their faculties, were reputed to seldom open their lips. They regarded signs as the natural means of communication. In one respect the deaf and dumb have an advantage over the hearing world. From whatever cause, they show, in most cases, an extraordinary indifference to pain. The matron at the Margate Asylum, in response to my inquiry on this point, assured me that where one would have the difficulty in getting an ordinary child to have a tooth out, the deaf and dumb will have three or four out, with not so much as a protest. To pull three or four, or even five out at a sitting was indeed a constant practice, until mere humanity compelled her to forbid it.
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Wonderful as are the results which have been achieved in the education of the deaf and dumb on both the oral and the sign systems, I cannot conclude this account of how it is done without some reference to an achievement more wonderful than either. It is a work difficult enough in all conscience to educate the blind or the deaf and dumb; but, unless one actually knows of a case where a child, practically born deaf, dumb, and blind, has been educated, it is simply incredible that beings so absolutely isolated can be made to know the meaning of things both material and spiritual. Yet it has been done in America and England several times. Readers of Dickens's "American Notes" will remember the beautiful account he gives of Laura Bridgman; how, having a fever shortly after birth, she was left deprived of eyes, ears, and almost smell, and in consequence was doomed to dumbness; how she was taken in hand by Dr. Howe, and how, after years of care, she was taught to know more than many a fairly educated seeing and hearing being knows. What Dr. Howe did in America, Mr. Andrew Patterson, the late devoted head master of the Manchester Institution, did in England. He came across a little girl who had been abandoned in a dark and damp cellar when some two or three years of age. The news of Dr. Howe's success induced Mr. Patterson to try his hand with Mary Bradley. Removing her from the school where, poor helpless mortal, she was driven nearly mad by the teasing and cruelty of the other children, Mr. Patterson put her in a room alone to see what she would do. She immediately occupied herself in finding out with her hands where she was. When he started to teach her, he took some object, a pen, say, and then made the signs for "pen" on her fingers. By repeating this day after day, with a variety of things he hoped to make the imprisoned brain realise that there was some connection between the signs and the object. But no apparent success attended his efforts. One week, two weeks, three weeks, four went by, and Mary Bradley's mind seemed as blank as at the hour they started, when suddenly, one day, her face brightened. She understood at last! A breach had been made in the wall which hedged her. "She had
