Retrospect of Western Travel, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Harriet Martineau

A pretty little girl told the pupils a humorous story by signs; and her action was so eloquent that, with little help from the teacher, we were able to make it all out. It was a story of a sailor and his bargain of caps; and the child showed a knowledge of what goes on on board a ship which we should scarcely have expected from her. Her imitation of heaving the lead, of climbing the rigging, and of exchanging jokes upon deck, was capital. It was an interesting thing to see the eyes of all her companions fixed on her, and the bursts of laughter with which they greeted the points of the story.

The apparatus-room is full of pretty things, and the diversity of the appeals to the eye is wonderful. A paper sail is enclosed in the receiver, from which the air is exhausted in the view of the pupils. As they cannot hear the air rushing back, the fluttering of this paper sail is made use of to convey the fact to them. The natural sciences afford a fine field of study for them, as far as they occasion the recognition of particular facts. The present limited power of generalization of the learners, of course, prevents their climbing to the heights of any science; but an immense range of facts is laid open to them by studies of this nature, in which they usually show a strong interest. The Philadelphia pupils are lectured to by a deaf and dumb teacher, who passes a happy life in the apparatus-room. He showed us several mechanical contrivances of his own; among the rest, a beautiful little locomotive engine, which ran on a tiny railroad round two large rooms. The maker testified infinite glee at the wonder and interest of a child who was with us, who raced after the engine, round and round the rooms, with a grave countenance, for as long as we could stay.

In the girls' workroom there were rows of knitters, straw-platters, and needle-women. The ingenuity they put into their work is great. The nicety of the platting of dolls' straw-bonnets cannot be surpassed; and I am in possession of a pair of worsted gloves, double knitted, of the size of my thumb-nail, of which every finger is perfect in its proportions. Perhaps this may be the class of American society destined to carry on the ingenuity of handiworks to perfection, as the Shakers seem to be appointed to show how far neatness can go. One little girl who was knitting in the workroom is distinguished from the rest by being able to speak. So the poor little thing understands the case. She can speak two words, "George" and "brother," having become deaf when she had learned this much of language. She likes being asked to speak, and gives the two words in a plaintive tone, much like the inarticulate cry of a young animal.

I visited the New-York Institution in company with several ladies, two of whom were deaf and dumb, and had been pupils in the school. One of these had married a teacher, and had been left a widow, with three children, the year before. She was a most vivacious personage, and evidently a favourite among the pupils. The asylum is a large building, standing on high ground, and with great advantages of space about it. It contains 140 out of the 1066 deaf-mutes existing in the State of New-York. The pupils are received up to the age of 25 years; and there was one of 27 from North Carolina, who was making great progress. The girls' dormitory, containing 80 beds, was light, airy, and beautifully neat; the small philosophical apparatus, museum, and library were in fine order, and a general air of cheerfulness pervaded the institution.

I had had frequent doubts whether nearly all the pupils in these asylums were perfectly deaf: on this occasion I caused my trumpet to be tried on several, and found that some could hear, and some imitate the sounds conveyed through it. The teachers rather discouraged the trial, and put away all suggestions about the use of these means of getting at the minds of their pupils. They were quite sure that the manual methods of teaching were the only ones by which their charge can profit. It is natural that, wedded as they are to the methods which to a certain extent succeed in the asylum, they should not like any interference with these; but surely the guardians of these institutions should see that, while so few out of the large number of deaf-mutes can be provided with education, those few should be of a class to whom no other means are open. The totally deaf should be first served, in all reason and humanity; and those who have any hearing at all should have the full advantage of the remains of the sense. The most meager instruction by oral language is worth far more than the fullest that can be given by signs and the finger alphabet. In their case the two should be united where it is possible; but especially the ear should be made use of as long as there are any instruments by which it may be reached. My own belief is that there are, in these institutions and out of them, many who have been condemned to the condition of mutes who have hearing enough to furnish them with speech, imperfect to the listener, perhaps, but inestimable as an instrument of communication, and of accuracy and enlargement of thought. I would strongly urge upon the benevolent under whose notice the cases of deaf young children may come, that they should try experiments with every eartrumpet that has been invented before they conclude that the children are perfectly deaf, and must, therefore, be dumb.

I may mention here that I some time ago discovered, by the merest accident, that I could perfectly hear the softest notes of a musical snuffbox by putting it on my head. The effect was tremendous, at first intolerably delicious. It immediately struck me that this might be a resource in the case of deaf-mutes. If the deafness of any was of a kind which would admit of the establishment of means of hearing anything, there was no saying how far the discovery might be improved. The causes and kinds of deafness vary almost as the subjects; and there might be no few who could hear as I did, and with whom some kind of audible communication might be established. I wrote to New-York, and begged two of my friends to go out to the asylum with musical boxes, and try the effect. Their report was that they believed none of the pupils could hear at all by this method. But I am not yet fully satisfied. So few of them have the slightest idea of what hearing is, they show that their notion is so wide of the mark, and they are so inexpert at giving an account of their feelings, that I have not given up the matter yet. At any rate, no harm can be done by offering the suggestion to any who may be disposed to take it up. We went to the New-York asylum without notice, and walked immediately into one of the classrooms, where the pupils were at a historical lesson, each standing before a slate as tall as himself. In a minute, while the five ladies of our party were taking their seats, an archlooking lad wrote down in the middle of his lesson about Richard I. and John, that I was there, describing me as the one next the lady in green, and giving a short account of me for the edification of his companions. It was almost instantly rubbed out, before it was supposed we had seen it. We could not make out by what means he knew me.

The lessons here were no more satisfactory than elsewhere as to any enlargement or accuracy of thought in the pupils. I doubt whether the means of reaching their wants have yet been discovered, for nothing can exceed the diligence and zeal with which the means in use are applied. Their repetition of what they had been taught was so far superior to what they could bring out of their own minds, as to convince us that the reproduction was little more than an act of memory. They told us the history of Richard I. and John with tolerable accuracy; but they gave us the strangest accounts of the seasons of the year that ever were seen. A just idea occurred, however, here and there. A boy mentioned swimming as a seasonable pleasure; and others fruits; and one girl instanced "convenience of studying" as an advantage of cool weather. In geography, but little if any progress had been made; and the arithmetic was not much more promising. Everything that can be done is zealously done, but that all is very little. The teachers declare that the greatest difficulty is with the tempers of their pupils. They are suspicious and jealous; and when they once get a wrong idea, and go into a passion upon it, there is no removing it; no possibility of explanation remains. They are strongly affectionate, however, towards individuals, and, as we could bear witness, very sudden in their attachments. We doubtless owed much to having two deaf and dumb ladies in our party; but, when we went away, they crowded round us to shake hands again and again, and waved their hats and kissed their hands from the windows and doors as long as we remained in sight.

Among the exercises in composition which are selected for the annual report of this institution, there is one which is no mere recollection of something read or told, but an actual account of a piece of personal experience; and so far superior to what one usually sees from the pens of deaf-mutes, that I am tempted to give a portion of it. It is an account, by a lad of fifteen, of a journey to Niagara Falls.

"And soon we went into the steamboat. The steamboat stayed on the shore for a long time. Soon the boat left it and sailed away over the Lake Ontario. We were happy to view the lake, and we stayed in the boat all night. The next morning we arrived at Lewistown, and after breakfast we entered one of the stages for Niagara Falls. About 12 o'clock we arrived at Niagara Falls and entered Mr. B.'s uncle's house. I was soon introduced to Mr. B.'s uncle, aunt, and cousins by himself. After dinner we left the house of his uncle for the purpose of visiting the falls, which belong to his uncles, Judge and General Porter, and we crossed the rapids; but we stopped at a part of the bridge and viewed the rapids with a feeling of interest and curiosity. The rapids appeared to us beautiful, and violent, and quarrelsome. Soon we left it, and went to one of the islands to see the falls. When we arrived in a portion situated near the falls, we felt admiration and interest, and went near the river and saw the falls. We felt much wonder. The falls seemed to us angry and beautiful. We stayed in the part near the falls for a long time, and felt amazement. We went into the staircase and descended, and we were very tired of descending in it, and we went to the rock to view the falls. The falls are about one hundred and sixty feet in height. We saw the beautiful rainbow of red, green, blue, and yellow colours. One day we went to the river and crossed it by means of a ferryboat, and left it. We went to the Canada side, and arrived at Table Rock. Mr. B. dressed himself in some old coarse clothes, and then he descended and went under the sheet of the falls. I felt earnest and anxious to go into it. In a few minutes he returned to me, and soon we went back to the river, and crossed the river, and came home, and soon sat down and dined. We went to the island and found some plant whose name I did not know. I had never seen it. When we were on the United States side we could see Canada. One day we again went to the ferry to cross the river, and went to Table Rock. We dressed ourselves in some old clothes, and entered under the falls with curiosity and wonder. We stayed at Niagara Falls a week. I wonder how the water of the Niagara River never is exhausted."

That so much power of expression as this can be attained is, to those who reflect what grammar is, and what a variety of operations is required in putting it to use at all, a great encouragement to persevere in investigating the minds of the deaf and dumb, and in teaching them, in the hope that means may at length be found of so enlarging their intercourses at an early age as to create more to be expressed, as well as to improve the mode of expression. Those who may aid in such a conquest over difficulty will be great benefactors to mankind. Greater still will be the physicians who shall succeed in guarding the organ of hearing from early accident and decay. It should not be forgotten by physicians or parents that, in the great majority of cases, the infirmity of deaf-mutes is not from birth.