With the sign language for practical use goes the manual alphabet, or "finger-spelling," by which the several letters of the alphabet are represented on the hand, the two together really constituting the language.[546] The order of signs itself forms to an extent a universal language. It consists of gestures, bodily movements, mimic actions, pantomime, postures—and to carry a close shade of meaning, even the shrugging of shoulders, the raising of eyebrows and the expression of the face—all appealing graphically to the accustomed eye. The signs of which it is made up are partly natural, and partly arbitrary or conventional; and the whole system as now practiced has been codified, as it were, for experienced users. By the deaf it can be employed rapidly and with ease, and is readily and clearly understood. Many of them become such masters of this silent tongue that it may be used with grace, warmth and expressiveness.[547]
Rise and Growth of the Oral Movement
This system of signs, however, has not been looked upon with favor by all parties. The "sign language" is said to be a foreign language, known and understood by only a very small part of the population, standing as a great barrier to the acquisition of language used by people generally, and tending to make the deaf of a class apart or "clannish." In its place in the schools would be substituted what is known as the "oral method," and speech and lip-reading would be used as the means of instruction. It has been sought thus to give all the schools over to the oral method, and summarily to drive out the sign language.[548]
Though the system of signs has been used in America as the prevailing method from the beginning, it cannot be said that speech-teaching had not been employed at all in the early days. Several schools had started out as oral schools,[549] and in others speech had been employed to a greater or less extent.[550] But in none of the schools had the oral method been retained to the exclusion of all others.
In time, however, attempts were made to secure the adoption of a pure oral system. Attention was called especially to Germany, which had long been known as the home of this method, and it was sought to introduce it into America.[551] In 1843 Horace Mann and Dr. Samuel G. Howe visited that country, and on their return reported in favor of the oral method, though no change was then brought about.[552]
A few years later the matter was further agitated, and in 1864 an effort was made to have an oral school incorporated in Massachusetts, but without success. A small oral school was then started at Chelmesford in 1866, which after a short time was removed to Northampton, having been very liberally endowed, and becoming known as the Clarke School. In 1867 the legislature decided to incorporate this, and to allow some of the state pupils to be sent to it.
In the meantime—in fact, seven months prior to the actual establishment of the Clarke School—a school which had resulted from a private class had been started in New York City, known as the New York Institution for the Improved Instruction of Deaf-Mutes. This was under a former Austrian teacher, and its stated purpose was to use the oral method as in Germany. Two years later the school board of Boston, having made a canvass of the deaf children of the city, resolved to establish a day school, which was to be a pure oral one, and which not long after was called the Horace Mann School. These three schools were thus the pioneers in the present oral movement.[553]
The oral method has gained ground steadily since these times. It is now used exclusively in twelve of the institutions, while it has always remained the prevailing method in the day schools.[554] A great extension is also found in the institutions employing what is called the "combined system," and in them more and more attention is given to the teaching of speech.
The growth in the number of speech-taught pupils may be indicated in the following table, showing the number and percentage of those taught speech in different years from 1884, the year we first have record; of those taught wholly or chiefly by the oral method since 1892; and also of those taught wholly or chiefly by the auricular method since 1893.[555]